Scams!
TEFL/TESOL scams are on the rise, and there is a new scam on the block.
This new scam involves Unaccredited/Unregulated TEFL/TESOL certification programs waging online smear campaigns on their business competition in the hope that you, the Customer, will take their subpar and unrecognized course(s) instead of a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course program.
TEFL Online Pro is Fully Accredited, and we are accountable to the ACTEFLC accreditation body’s strict Codes of Practice.
The TEFL/TESOL certification programs that willy-nilly write what they will online – all 100% misinformation – have no official accreditation body to answer to, and they can smear-campaign any TEFL/TESOL certification program they see as an existential threat to their business model and without repercussions.
After winning the Teachers’ Choice Award for the first time in 2019, TEFL Online Pro veered onto the radar of these rogue TEFL/TESOL certification programs, and the online attacks have only intensified over the years as TEFL Online Pro has grown in popularity and won more awards.
We have decided that enough is enough, and are now publishing this SCAMS! page to demonstrate to you, the Customer, just how low the moral bar is for a few of our business competitors.
Incidentally, we are not the only Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification program to have experienced this barrage of abuse in the past few years.
Other reputable Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs have also been the target of similar smear-campaign attacks.
What follows is a collection of screenshots from USA Google Search for the ‘TEFL Online Pro’ and ‘TEFL Online Pro reviews’ keywords.
In the spirit of transparency, we have outlined each one, together with a note about its legitimacy.
We have also included authentic TEFL Online Pro company Google Search results.
Complaints Board claims to be headquartered in Riga, Latvia, but this is only where they registered their website in the EU. The website is really run by Dmitiri – a Russian national who lives in the Moscow area. To become a “Verified Customer” and write whatever you feel like writing, all you need to do is verify your email address. There are no further verification steps and no attempt to verify whether a person writing a review is a real customer. Complaints Board has a terrible reputation – search online for reviews of this website and you will see allegations of extortion and malevolence.
Whenever you ask a TEFL-related question on Reddit, or on other public forums, you are extremely likely to receive back a response from a TEFL/TESOL program; using one of their many aliases. The vast majority (if not all) TEFL-related Reddit communities are run clandestinely by TEFL/TESOL certification programs. English teachers are far too busy to be monitoring Reddit discussions day and night just so they can recommend or not recommend certain TEFL/TESOL certification programs.
This is the official Facebook Page for the TEFL Online Pro program. To date, we have a perfect 5/5 Customer review score:
Trusted TEFL Reviews is one of the very few TEFL/TESOL review websites that is independent. This means that they verify every review, and that they have a zero-tolerance policy toward fake reviews. TEFL Online Pro is currently the top-rated TEFL/TESOL certification program on this independently-run reviews website:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-teachers-choice-award-winner-2023/
This is another complaints website with limited verification processes. Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider created this “complaint” and it has been SEO-promoted by our business competitors. Ian has been banned from Facebook for spreading misinformation, as well as having some of his YouTube videos deleted for the same reasons.
This is the Reviews page on the official website of the TEFL Online Pro Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course program website. We highlight reviews that have been written by our Customers:
Ian Patrick Leahy – owner of the ESLinsider TEFL/TESOL certification course program – has been banned from Facebook (since 2017) for spreading misinformation. This is an example of Ian’s sorry attempt at using the misinformation tool to misinform the public about us and to promote his program. It was Ian who first spread the false information that TEFL Online Pro owns Trusted TEFL Reviews, and our business competitors simply regurgitated this nonsense. In our rebuttal, we prove that this isn’t the case:
https://teflonlinepro.com/refutation-of-allegations-made-by-our-business-competitors/
Ian (ESLinsider) also has a YouTube channel, where he creates conspiracy-theory videos (such as this one) as well as (more recently) trying to promote snowboarding equipment. Ian is currently traveling across the USA in his newly-acquired postal van – working part-time jobs on the Montana ski slopes –Â because his ESLinsider TEFL/TESOL course has no Customers.
This is one of eleven TEFL Online Pro Customer reviews published on the TEFL Online Pro official YouTube channel. Three graduates have recorded a post-course and teaching English job(s) video to demonstrate the effectiveness of having the TEFL Online Pro TEFL/TESOL international teaching certificate. The TEFL Online Pro YouTube channel:
This copy-cat website – plagiarizing ESLinsider’s misinformation – was created by a business competitor that is notorious for creating smear campaigns against its business competitors.
Neville David Thomas has been involved in TEFL training for over 20 years and has written articles for Oxford University Press. This website is simply a misinformation character assassination of someone who is highly regarded within the TEFL/TESOL industry.
We originally created the website https://tefl-online-pro-reviews.com/ to dispel the misinformation first peddled online by Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider. We have also added some useful TEFL and Travel articles to the website as a courtesy to our Customers.
PRLog Press Release – confirming that TEFL Online Pro has won the Teachers’ Choice Award for the second year in a row. TEFL Online Pro has since won this prestigious award three more times; making it five awards in five consecutive years.
https://www.prlog.org/12877334-tefl-online-pro-reviews-teachers-choice-award.html
As a conclusion to this article, we would like to reiterate that TEFL Online Pro consistently receives excellent Customer feedback.
Our course graduates teach English online and in-person – in all countries in the world where there is a demand for English teachers.
These counties include China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, where TEFL/TESOL certificates must be legalized and notarized for job visa purposes.
The only negative feedback has been written by our business competitors.
Yes (sigh) this is where we find ourselves with regard to business competitor drama, and this is why we have decided to make it clear to all of our Customers that they should be aware of the smear campaign.
TEFL Online Pro has written a must-read, full-length rebuttal to the smear-campaign misinformation:
https://teflonlinepro.com/refutation-of-allegations-made-by-our-business-competitors/
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