Online TEFL/TESOL Course Reviews Scams.
December 13th, 2023 UPDATE:
We have decided to resurrect this article because we have begun noticing a growing targeted smear campaign against trustedteflreviews.com – instigated by a few Online TEFL/TESOL certification course companies that have decided to team up together.
Their behavior has been abusive, bullying, at times threatening, and an overall attempt to discredit trustedteflreviews.com through the spreading of false information about our independently run and not-for-profit Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website.
Over the next few days, we will be adding more information to this article and explaining why and how these rogue Online TEFL/TESOL companies are working behind the scenes in a coordinated attack against us.
The one thing that they all have in common is that they have received many poor (verified) customer reviews on trustedteflreviews.com and they don’t seem to be able to handle constructive criticism from their customers and likely feel untouchable because they have financial agreements with the for-profit Online TEFL/TESOL reviews websites that hide negative reviews for them.
Thank you for reading this message and please expect updates to this page by the end of this week.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
December 15th, 2023 UPDATE:
Several points need addressing, and I will write about each one separately:
The Teachers’ Choice Award
Several Online TEFL companies are claiming that the Teachers’ Choice Award is fake. It isn’t. We created the Teachers’ Choice Award back in 2019, after noticing that other mainstream TEFL review websites had also created their awards. The fundamental difference between our award and the awards of other mainstream TEFL review websites is that the winner of the Teachers’ Choice Award is based on merit alone – voted for by language schools, universities, TEFL students, and TEFL graduates. If a company has won an award from a mainstream TEFL review website, it means they have paid for the privilege of “winning” that award.
TEFL Online Pro
TEFL Online Pro (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-teachers-choice-award-winner-2023/) has won the Teachers’ Choice Award for 5 consecutive years. They have won the award every year because they were the Online TEFL/TESOL program that received the most votes. Trusted TEFL Reviews does not own TEFL Online Pro, just as it doesn’t own the other 4 Online TEFL/TESOL programs that currently hold the place of being one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL programs. Trusted TEFL Reviews is an independent Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website. We are not affiliated with any TEFL/TESOL program listed on the Trusted TEFL Reviews website.
Trusted TEFL Reviews is a not-for-profit website
Contrary to what some Online TEFL programs claim, it doesn’t cost anything to list your Online TEFL/TESOL program on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Also, we don’t allow any paid advertising because we feel that it could present a conflict of interest. The only advertising permitted on Trusted TEFL Reviews is when an Online TEFL/TESOL program wins the Teacher’s Choice Award. Winners are granted the ability to promote any course offers and discounts that they are running – only for the period when they are the winner of the award.
I am not a man
I identify as a woman because I am a woman, living and teaching English in Vienna, Austria. Contrary to what some Online TEFL/TESOL companies have written about me online, I am not a “man”, I am not a “dyke”, and I am not a “b!tch”. I am a mother. I co-own Trusted TEFL Reviews with my partner and we run Trusted TEFL Reviews together, from our apartment in Vienna. We also have a small office within the city limits, which we visit mostly during the summer months when the aircon in the office is desirable. We also run the Teachers’ Choice Award from this office. It is no Online TEFL/TESOL program’s beeswax what our addresses are and we both feel safer not disclosing our addresses. I have received threats in the past simply because I wouldn’t delete a negative review written about one of the TEFL programs listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews.
We never delete reviews from Trusted TEFL Reviews, unless the review is later found to be fake
Online TEFL/TESOL course programs are the customers of the mainstream Online TEFL/TESOL review websites. The programs pay a yearly fee to be listed on the review website, and this is how those review websites generate the majority of their commercial income. Those review websites have a strong financial incentive to hide negative reviews and almost no verification process for publishing positive reviews – the vast majority of which are written by the TEFL company. Trusted TEFL Reviews has a strong verification process in place and we only publish reviews that have been proven to have been written by a real TEFL student. This has infuriated a few Online TEFL/TESOL companies – companies that are used to chalking up fake 5-star reviews on those mainstream TEFL review platforms.
We allow all of the TEFL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews to respond to reviews
All Online TEFL/TESOL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews are free to respond to any review published about their program. the vast majority of programs choose not to, but some do. The most prolific company to respond to reviews – responding to every review they receive – is TEFL Online Pro. This company is proactive and recognizes the importance of thanking customers for writing positive reviews and addressing any issues presented by negative reviews. If an Online TEFL company writes that they tried responding to a review but were unsuccessful in doing so, it is a flat-out lie.
Russian review websites
A few months ago, an Online TEFL/TESOL company reached out to me – a company not listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews – complaining that their business wasn’t doing so well. They blamed their dwindling revenue on the many cheap Online TEFL/TESOL programs undercutting them with lower prices. They suggested that they would “handle the Google Ads campaigns” of those programs through a process known as click fraud. They also suggested that I should write some damning reviews about those programs on complaintsboard.com. I refused the offer and told the individual to focus on improving their course offerings and customer services. complaintsboard.com, dirtyscam.com, and ripoffreport.com are all Russian-owned websites. They may claim otherwise, but they operate outside of countries where they can be held accountable for the defamatory material that they allow to be published on their websites. I read one recent “complaint” that TEFL Online Pro is offering courses illegally and not paying their taxes. This, of course, is just fiction. I also read another “complaint” where someone had written that OISE University of Toronto TEFL is a scam and their certificates are not valid internationally. Also, fictitious. The rogue Online TEFL/TESOL companies use these websites to badmouth their business competitors because all you need to do to have your review published is to verify your email address – using any name to create an account. Those Russian websites feel protected from legal repercussions and they are the go-to websites for the dregs of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification course world.
When Online TEFL/TESOL courses were gaining traction about ten years ago, in response to the established in-person TEFL/TESOL course industry, a few of them set up Reddit communities – communities that they used and continue to use to push their agenda. This tends to focus on trashing their competitors and clandestinely promoting their courses. We recommend avoiding Reddit for Online TEFL/TESOL course information because of this, and because of the vast number of TEFL shills active on the site.
TEFL companies that want to take over the world
The TEFL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/) is the perfect example of a company that wants it all, and they are willing to break all the better business rules to achieve its objective. We began listing this program on Trusted TEFL Reviews a few years ago. Within a couple of days, we received an avalanche of 5-star reviews for them, but not one of the reviewers was willing to prove course participation in the TEFL Academy program. They were fake reviews. We also have it on good word that this company reaches out to its graduates and offers them a free mini TEFL course if they write a positive review. This is why there is such a disconnect between their reviews on Trusted TEFL Reviews and their reviews on Facebook, Trustpilot, etc. World TESOL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/) is also guilty of this shameless and flagrant middle finger to the better business rules.
ESLinsider
ESLinsider (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/eslinsider-tefl/) is another example of an Online TEFL/TESOL company that has threatened me because I wouldn’t delete a negative review of his program. Since then, he has spent hundreds of hours online, spreading misinformation about my family and I. the program is owned and operated by Ian Patrick Leahy, and he is the Alex Jones of the TEFL world. Ian was banned from Facebook for spreading misinformation way back in 2017. He runs his school website and another personal website where he goes down the rabbit hole of the TEFL conspiracy. He is all over the internet and spends the majority of his time putting out fires that he started. Ian is also banned from entering China – if he does, he will be arrested – because he advised his customers to purchase fake college degrees if they didn’t have real ones, and then he sent them over to China where many of those young people were placed in detention and then deported.
Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL companies
Interact with your customers! If you receive a positive review, thank the customer for spending their time to review your program. If you receive a negative review, apologize and try to right a wrong. Don’t write false sh*t about me or Trusted TEFL Reviews just because you got some negative feedback.
Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL students
The Online TEFL/TESOL industry is unregulated and highly competitive. Some companies will swear blind to you that you need to take their course because it has more hours or because it has won so many awards. The Teachers’ Choice Award is the only Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program award that cannot be bought. The industry standard is a 120-hour TEFL/TESOL certification course (140 hours if it includes 20 teaching practice hours). You don’t need more training hours because those extra hours are meaningless for TEFL employers. If you pay less than US$100 for a 120-hour Online TEFL/TESOL certification course, you WILL regret it.
Accreditation
The most well-known accreditation companies – offering Full Accreditation:
ACCET – Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.
ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses.
OISE – University of the Toronto Faculty of Education.
University of Cambridge’s English Language Assessment.
If you read anything negative about these organizations online, it has been written by an Online TEFL/TESOL program – a program that likely has no accreditation itself or one that simply pays a dodgy accreditation company an annual fee.
Be smart. Don’t fall for the misinformation.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
1st June 2023. Scams update.
Scams are, unfortunately, on the rise.
To prevent you from becoming a victim of a TEFL scam, we recommend that you choose a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.
You can see which companies are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized by looking through the program listings in the TEFL Course Directory:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/
The top-rated schools in the directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.
The TEFL Course Directory was last updated on December 1, 2023.
We don’t allow TEFL companies to manipulate their reviews on Trusted TEFL Reviews and we don’t charge TEFL companies anything for listing their programs on trustedteflreviews.com.
We are an independently run, not-for-profit website.
The only advertising allowed is granted to the TEFL program winner of the annual Teachers’ Choice Award. TEFL Online Pro is the winner of this year’s award, so they have been allowed to promote any TEFL course discounts that they may run during the year. This additional exposure on Trusted TEFL Reviews is without charge for the TEFL program currently enjoying Teachers’ Choice Award winner status.
Recently, our attention was directed towards some rather hastily written “material” published online, outright defaming trustedteflreviews.com. The creator(s) of this fiction spent money and time in a concerted effort to try and undermine the (verified) published reviews on trustedteflreviews.com – resulting in a quick response from our side to (accurately) try and work out who could be behind these unfounded and completely false allegations.
But who would spend so much of their free time trying to discredit Trusted TEFL Reviews? And, just as importantly, why?
Unfortunately, this is a case of an online TEFL company throwing its toys out of the pram.
The online TEFL industry is fiercely competitive. And to maintain a leading edge on the market, some TEFL companies spend a considerable amount of their time carefully crafting their portfolio of (mostly) fake reviews and precision-polished online presence/reputation – often attacking the competition, and anyone they consider a threat to their money-making enterprise, through proxy accounts/identities.
But again, why attack Trusted TEFL Reviews? I mean, we ensure that each review we receive has been verified before being published, and we allow schools to respond to reviews. Surely this is progressive in the eyes of every single online TEFL school?
Here is where it all gets a lot more murky and dishonest…
The simple truth is that some online TEFL schools want to have 100% control over their customer reviews, and this is why they invariably recommend review websites that allow them to delete negative reviews and write fake reviews with impunity.
Take Trust Pilot, as an example.
It may come as a surprise to you, but – after an initial free period – companies pay a monthly fee to maintain their listing on Trust Pilot. It has also been strongly suggested that companies can solicit reviews only from customers whom they choose and that they can pay for negative reviews to be deleted from the site. There are strong indications of this type of appalling behavior on some of the most popular TEFL course review websites – especially in cases where a company pays for advertising on said site.
They can’t do this on trustedteflreviews.com.
And this is the reason for the attempt to discredit Trusted TEFL Reviews online…
Certain online TEFL schools are so used to having their way, so used to having their fake reviews published and negative reviews deleted, that when a client writes a negative review of their company and it’s published on trustedteflreviews.com, they don’t know how to behave professionally. What they should do is listen to the (verified) feedback from their clients and address the issues directly. Instead, they choose to create/write forum and website posts, flood Reddit (which, let’s face it, is a laughable source of information at the best of times), and add their online comments – all trying to discredit us to deflect belief and credibility in the negative reviews they have received.
We must add now that this depressing behavior is not the case in the majority of online TEFL schools. We see clear evidence that most TEFL/TESOL companies listed on trustedteflreviews.com don’t react in such dramatic fashion to their reviews. There are, however, some online TEFL programs that obviously don’t listen to the feedback from their clients, and instead try to silence any negative criticism. And there is currently one of these (or perhaps more) trying to discredit Trusted TEFL Reviews, by writing absolute rubbish about us online.
trustedteflreviews.com is an unbiased online TEFL course review website.
We are not affiliated, in any way, with any of the online TEFL programs that we list on our site.
If an online TEFL school receives more positive reviews than negative reviews, it means they are doing something right. If an online TEFL school receives more negative reviews than positive reviews, it means they are doing something wrong and they should focus on improving their product and services.
We welcome any comments in the reply section below.
If and when we are notified of shady practices or even outright scams, we will post details of them in the Online TEFL Course Scams section of this website.
This ‘Online TEFL Course Reviews Scams’ article was written by Mia Williams, co-owner of Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) | Best Featured TEFL Articles
Related articles:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/6-tefl-red-flags/
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/common-tefl-scams/
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Breaking News:
As of this morning, we have the identity of the “group” that has been spreading these false allegations online about trustedteflreviews.com.
More information will follow shortly, regarding this case.
Mia Williams.
That’s disgusting someone would do this. I’m planning my trip abroad for later in the year and this website has been incredibly helpful. Kudos to you!
Thanks Alina.
Here are the culprits:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/01/24/the-mytefl-com-scam/
Mia Williams.
And, of course, Ian Leahy – ESLinsider:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/eslinsider-tefl/
This was absolutely no surprise to me.
Ian Leahy painstakingly tries to project an image of a TEFL expert, but he is actually just trying to sell his (unrecognized) TEKA (TEFL) course.
Mia Williams
I just wanted to make you aware of this company called world tesol academy because I see you have no reviews about them https://www.worldtesolacademy.com/ . I have tried to submit reviews on other platforms, but because they are paid platforms, such as Go Overseas, the bad reviews don’t get shown and because I didn’t complete the course, they don’t believe me that I took their course. The truth is that I paid for the course $34 and it was so bad that I thought I would try to get a refund and when I ask for a refund they ignored me. I sent them some very upsetting emails and they still ignored me and then denied me access to the course. This company has totally scammed me. I should have listened to my friends about taking a cheap course but I didn’t have much money. I will now start all over again and find a new course provider.
Kind regards
Thank you, Laura Allen. I almost applied the world tesol academy but now, i think it’s time to reconsider about another course…
Scams are, unfortunately, on the rise.
To prevent you from becoming a victim of a TEFL scam, we recommend that you choose a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.
You can see which companies are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized by looking through the program listings in the TEFL Course Directory:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/
The top-rated schools in the directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.
The TEFL Course Directory was last updated on December 1, 2023.
Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews
I wanted to echo Alina’s comment because I too was helped immensely by trustedteflreviews.com when I was choosing which TEFL course to commit to. I don’t see any other TEFL review websites out there that are as open and honest as this one. I also noticed the affiliate marketing that goes on on other TEFL review websites and, for me, that is just such a disgusting business model. GoAbroad springs immediately to mind, where you can just tell that most of the reviews on the site are fake. The haters are going to hate. Keep going Mia and keep publishing verified content because without this website, I don’t think there are any other trustful sources for TEFL course reviews.