TEFL Online Pro review: Fake Reviews and Terrible Accommodation 23

I would like to chime in because this thread has been hijacked by ESLinsider and The TEFL Academy (TTA).

I ran ITTP for ten years and in that time ITTP graduated hundreds of TEFL students.

ITTP was not a scam.

Every on-site TEFL program has one or two really bad groups, and, unfortunately, ITTP had one or two really bad groups toward the end of its operating.

Yes, TEFL students were charged more than the going long-term rate for accommodation.

ITTP was a business and accommodation was an additional revenue stream for ITTP.

However, the accommodation was short-term and located bang in the centre of Prague.

Given its location and short-term aspect, it still represented good value for money.

Anyway, that was over ten years ago now so I'm not going to get into another dialogue about how many people shared a toilet in 2011.

What I would like to address is how this thread has been hijacked by ESLinsider and The TEFL Academy (TTA).

Both TEFL programs have dragged my name through the mud in a precise attempt at character assassination.

ESLinsider and The TEFL Academy have used ridiculous usernames in this thread to post defamatory content.

I have never run a TEFL reviews website.

ITTP was not a scam.

I would advise Rhyan O'Sullivan and Thomas Gibbons, the business owner and operations manager, to prepare for a Cease and Desist letter from my lawyer, followed by a Pre-Court Notice.

You can't character-assassinate someone and expect there to be no consequences.

Regarding Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider, he lives in New Hampshire and is protected by aggressive free-speech laws.

As legal action against him would likely bear no fruit, please allow me to fill you in on his details:

Ian Patrick Leahy runs the ESLinsider TEFL program. It is an unaccredited TEFL program and Ian has been accused of defrauding his customers.

Trusted TEFL Reviews (which I do not own or run) exposed Ian for defrauding his customers and Ian gradually lost business because of it.

This resulted in Ian having to leave Japan, where he was living, and move back in with his mum in New Hampshire.

How has Ian earned a living since?

He still runs the ESLinsider TEFL program; hoping that once in a while he will have someone sign up and pay.

He spent a few years trying to carve a new identity online by reviewing snowboarding equipment, which was convenient because he has been working manual jobs on ski slopes for the past two years.

Currently, Ian is in Oregon where he is completing his summer work on the slopes.

I tracked down his unofficial Reddit profiles and noticed that he was asking about illegal job (visa-free) opportunities in Chile and New Zealand.

I took it upon myself to contact the authorities of both countries to let them know.

Thank you for your time.

Neville David Thomas

Thank you for providing us with the opportunity of explaining our side to the story. Our official response to Mr Kyle Joseph Britto's online comments can be viewed here:

https://medium.com/@ITTPTEFLOnline/is-ittp-tefl-online-a-scam-3bb5c826c253

Anyone with any questions or comments should please feel free to contact me directly, using the email address listed below.

Thank you for your time.

Neville David Thomas
Online Managing Director

ITTP: International Tefl Tesol Program
web: http://www.tefl-tesol-online.com
Email: web@tefl-tesol-online.com
Skype: ITTPrague

So many anonymous reviewers, all stating the same complaint and in the same writing style LOL.
ittp don't run residential courses anymore so i guess your poor attempt at trying to defame this school has backfired.
i completely agree with Casey's review, as a ittp tefl online graduate myself.
I'll be happy to set the record straight too if anyone is interested in learning the truth from a real graduate of the ittp program.
seeemilyplay1982@gmail.com
(also available on skype. email me for my skype id).
emily.

I try not to sign up for boards like this, but my experience at ITTP was so aggressively negative that I took the time for this. I did, at the time I looked into the course, check the review sites to confirm that ITTP was legitimate. I didn't find any negative reviews of the company anywhere, and only one positive review that, in hindsight, was probably Neville, considering what seems to be his style of writing ridiculously long response posts. As you can see him doing in the comment section above (and no doubt below) this post, under various aliases.

I should have known better, but you live and you learn.

As Burngirl stated above, the instructors in the courses are quite friendly and effective. They provided me with a very solid review of my English grammar skills, and even some insight on in-class teaching. I imagine there is no risk to taking the online course, for this reason. (although the person above who is still waiting for their certifications two months later may disagree)

However, it is the on site course with "accommodations" where you run the risk. To state it flatly, the accommodations are a scam. Flat out, no nuance, scam, run directly by Neville. You will be heavily overcharged for your room, and then when you leave, he will hit you with a "cleaning" charge that will blow you out of the water. If you do not pay this charge, he will keep the money you already paid him for the course and the housing, and hold your certification hostage until you give in. Being young, and a foreigner in the country, you will have very little legal recourse, and he knows it.

Avoid this company. Prague is a beautiful city with lots of other options for getting your certification. Find a better one than this. Companies prefer CELTA certifications these days anyway. I have yet to meet an employer who didn't ask me to explain what a TEFL Certification was, and when I did, they invariably said "Oh, it's like a CELTA." Just get the CELTA.

I won't be coming back to check on this review or responding to whatever comment Neville or his aliases post here, ITTP is far in the rear view in my life, and my career long ago left behind the need for a TEFL certificate, but for those of you just starting out, I hope you get a chance to read this and you heed the warnings you've been given here. Best of luck in your future pursuits, teachers!

I just completed the ITTP TEFL Online 100 hour Integrative Online course and I never experienced any of the issues outlined in the above thread. To be quite honest I laughed out loud to myself when I read them because they are obviously fabricated by someone who has it in for the company. Anyone considering ITTP for their online TEFL course can feel free to contact me via email if you want to hear from someone who actually paid and took their course:

Casey.Packwood@outlook.com
I will be happy to set the record straight.

For the record, here is my ITTP course review which I recently submitted:

I just completed the ITTP TEFL Online 100 hour Integrative Online course and here is my feedback.

I do just want to add that I took the course on the back of a friend who took the course previously, so ITTP for me wasn?t a complete blind experience.

Positives: The application procedure went very smoothly. I felt the application form questions were relevant and it only took a few days between submitting the application form online and being accepted to the course, with plenty of communication from the ITTP admin in between. There was a slight hiccup making my payment, but this was the fault of my bank and not ITTP (I didn?t know that my bank has in place an automatic block when I try and make an overseas payment). Very reassuring was that within 24 hours of my payment made I received my welcome email package from ITTP, together with my login password for the course. Communication was always prompt and professional. The course itself was very good and much more in depth than I had initially expected and made me realize all the complexities of teaching English to someone who had little or no English language skills. Logically thought out and very easy to follow (for someone like me especially who doesn?t have a lot of online study experience). My online tutor (Joe) was very attentive and helped me through any difficult sections of the course with helpful prompts. Received my certificate at the end of the course and this was a satisfactory certificate for my employer where I now teach English full-time. I thought it might be useful to ask ITTP for a reference letter in the case that I might change jobs in future and this wasn?t an issue for the ITTP admin.

Negatives: It transpires that I paid more for the course than my friend, because Matt applied and paid when they were running a course discount. I knew nothing of this and felt a little gutted that my course cost $100 more than his did (both receiving exactly the same course and services). Also, I felt that at times the course relied too much on intuitive knowledge and in particular in Module 5 I had to ask my tutor many times for his help and support to get through the module. Admittedly I did only come across this wall in the 5th module. I found this module very difficult and I breathed a huge lug of air when I completed it and progressed to Module 6. My tutor was a star, but communication at the weekends was a bit hit and miss.

Overall I can definitely recommend the ITTP TEFL Online course and the certificate has served me well. I know I can contact ITTP at any time for further support and this for me is worth its weight in gold. Just watch out for that 5th Module! :)

Casey P.

I have done an online TEFL course with ITTP based on the good reviews I read on http://tefl-reviews.com/, and the site doesn't even exist anymore.
I completed my short track course April 25th and transferred my certificate issue fee, and they got back to me saying they will issue my certificate with the next batch. However, as of right now, June 16th, it still hasn't arrived. The contact person keeps saying in reply to my emails "Yes, sometimes the certificates can take a bit of time. ", although it's hard to call almost two months a bit! It took me twice as little to do the course! And it's not even going to be a paper certificate, just an electronic copy. How can it possibly take 2 months to create a pdf document for 1 person?
If ITTP is so proud of their customer service, they could take a bit of an effort.
Anastasia K.

I’m wondering whether this is a joke because I paid and took my ITTP
Online course and very recently received my certificate and without any
of the issues described above.
I did take their combined online course, not their residential onsite course.
To be quite frank I am a very satisfied customer of ITTP.
Is it possible the above posters are somehow connected with a competitive school? Or maybe you have school names mixed up?
ITTP.
Not ITTT or ITTO.
ITTP are awesome.
Take care, Lukas

i couldn't help add my 2 cents worth because i read these posts when i was choosing my tesl course and i found that all this negative bombing of tesl schools helps absolutely nobody in the process. for what it is worth, i enjoyed my ittp tesl course experience. i wouldn't rate it a 10, but a 7 or 8 out of 10 would feel at about the right level for me, and i am not a walk-over type of person. for me it was just a course and an opportunity to experience Prague and meet a group of awesome classmates and it did this for me. i ended up teaching in Thailand on a cliche section of beach so i can attest that the certification offered by ittp is worth it's weight and i genuinely was impressed with their post course job assistance program. hey, it helped me get my slightly higher than moderately paid cliche English teaching job by the sea! overall i'd definitely recommend the investment in this course, but my advice is just don't travel to Prague and think ittp will do absolutely everything for you. They take care of you, but somethings you gotta do yourself [naturally].
i'm happy to answer any questions prospective students might have
cathy.brooke@home.in.th
Catherine.

Thank you teflonlinereviews.com for bringing this to the attention of readers. I likewise wish you all the best with your new reviews website.
I'm so sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with the course Brody Stevens. I checked our database and couldn't find any student listed with your name - in fact I checked all the names who posted on this website and couldn't locate theirs either as having taken one of our courses. If you would like to discuss your experience further then I am here to listen: veronika@tefl-prague.com
It is correct information that ITTP is no longer Institutional Member of the College Of Teachers. This took effect in Spring 2013 and certificates have been issued since and graduates have been using their certificate since globally and because of website programming issues we have been unable to remove the COT logo from our sites - this will be changed shortly. The College Of Teachers is an organization which accepts an annual fee in return for having their logo planted on a school's website.
However, this has absolutely no bearing on the certificates which are awarded upon successful completion of our courses.
What does matter is that ITTP have been running internationally recognized TEFL/TESOL courses for over 10 years and this fact is the reason why our school name is one of the leading names on the TEFL market today.
I am a senior online tutor at ITTP and I have been working with this school now for the past 5 years and in this time I have received such great feedback of the ITTP program and the reviews on teflonlinereviews.com reflects this trend.
Actually, this year has been one of our busiest and we have our strongest next year bookings since the company began 11 years ago.
Wishing you all a lovely day!
Veronika
Senior Online Tutor

I think this tops it up about here.
http://www.collegeofteachers.ac.uk/content/ittp-prague-no-longer-institutional-member
Authentic review sites or not, ITTP TEFL pissed so many students off (me included) that they have been banned from the College of Teachers. Their certificate is worthless. They also shutdown their Facebook page after REAL students complained. Good luck with the new review site!

I'm adding a recent (moderated) review which we received at http://www.teflonlinereviews.com (an ONLINE TEFL Course reviews website, NOT on-site !) and which has gone live on our site. The reason for this is that in the past week we have been receiving many negative reviews of the ITTP TEFL Prague program and all from the same ip address. My interest was piqued so this morning I ran a quick google search and came across similar "reviews" and I thought I'd do the opposite and commit a random act of kindness. The following is the 1 review from 12 received this week at teflonlinereviews.com. The only one which passed moderation and which was deemed suitable to be published, based on authenticity - the fact that the identity of the poster was confirmed as real and that it was deemed a genuine review:

_______________________________________________________________
This is a great program. I am a 47 year old missionary that wanted to get my certification where we could add teaching English to our ministry program. The course was great, and I learned a lot. A special note of thanks to Veronika my online tutor who was also great and very thorough with explaining any questions I had. I graduated with flying colors and this was partly because of my wonderful tutor, because of my sheer determination, because of the well-structured course content and user friendly interface. It's also internationally recognized and I've had zero issues using my certification since in job applications. My only negative point would be that during the course I sometimes felt that more emphasis could have been spent on the grammar component, but I guess that being older it was a bit more difficult for me because it's been so long since I studied grammar and anyway this wasn't a major concern as grammar was covered. I though could have done with a bit more explanation of some of the more difficult grammar rules. If I had to mark this program out of 10 then I'd give it an awesome 9.
____________________________________________________________________

A final message from teflonlinereviews.com is please stop trying to add fake ITTP on-site TEFL reviews and comments to my site! I run tefl ONLINE reviews. NOT tefl on-site reviews! Thank you! :D

http://www.teflonlinereviews.com

I am inclined to agree with the original post. I wanted to start a course with ITTP in Nov 2013, before it was cancelled. The service advertised was not provided and I am having issues getting my money back, which I feel I am entitled to. At this stage, I am having to deal with what I feel is an unprofessional attitude from Nev & ITTP, as well as 'dirty tactics' as they were described. I have been threatened with legal action for voicing my opinion against the way that ITTP conduct business, and it is apparent to me that they tactically threaten legal action to silence anyone with an opinion of them they disagree with. No respect for people's opinions, and bullying is resorted to in such cases. I think that the more people I have spoken about the issue (as in those experiencing similar things) and the clearer it becomes that ITTP potentially writes its own reviews, or has unbalanced and unfair practices in such regard. The course itself may be good but in my experiences the business practices have been unethical and ITTP's attitude has been selfish and unhelpful.
MP

Firstly i don't work for ittp.
i can see these blog posts began in around april of last year so if i did work for ittp why wait until now to respond like this. i just want to get that out of the way.
i DO though study on the ittp online course and began doing so on friday last week and i came across this webpage researching my online course options and i must write that pages like this one actually clinched the deal for me because i was sure that the posts were written by either 1 person or a few and the amount of energy spent on this assured me that the school existed so i wasn't going to sign up and pay and find out it was an online school scam. so i began the course with ittp on friday and so far very satisfied with all aspects of the package. i feel they deserve a plug here so here is their website:
www.tefl-tesol-online.com
I don't know anything about threatening site administrators, fake reviews or any of the other crazy half-baked claims on this page but I think that one should validate this as fact rather than just equivalent to the brown slime which seeps from the rear end of the male version of the cow species. Lets take into account all of the info on this page which also appears on a blog also set up by the same person obviously which in its .com domain version lists as: Ittp-tefl-reviews.blogspot.com.
SHOCKING isn't it!
why, all the same claims are listed on that blog too!
but, I did some sniffing around and noticed that the .co.uk version of the blog site (that's Ittp-tefl-reviews.blogspot.co.uk folks btw) has been censored by Google. They have taken off the written claims which appear on the generic .com version of the blog and on this site. why was the .co.uk version of this site deemed unpublishable by Google? I don't think they close blogs just for giggles as they take free speech seriously so why would they take off the .co.uk version of this blog, citing legal reasons, if everything written on this blog were based on fact? Mmmm :-D
Ittp-tefl-reviews.blogspot.co.uk
... because if it is deemed unsuitable for Google to publish it then you know it's essentially a load of man cow seeping goo :-)

I stumbled upon this link
http://ittp-tefl-prague-tesol.blogspot.com/2013/06/to-online-tefl-or-not-to-online-tefl.html
Does anyone have any comments as I am wanting to do a tefl course online and trying to wade through all the conflicting info i've found on forums such as this one.
Thanking you for your feedback
tonyparsonsproject@yahoo.com

Well, thank you very much for your feedback; although it feels more like a prolonged and targeted witch hunt than an off the cuff choice decision to provide feedback of our program. Still, we thankfully live in the free world and whether it is welcomed and based on fact or not there is complete free speech and it is everyone's right to voice their opinion - no matter how heneious or distorted that opinion may seem to a percentage of readers who in turn are free to access information at will in this free land of ours. I sincerely mean this btw, I am an advocate for free speech. However, misleading opinions and comments (and those persons who make such comments) should be questioned and with a virtual bright light should they (opinions and comments) be clearly intended to distort the truth or further perhaps a personal grudge against an individual.

Let me begin by openly explaining to the discerning reader that I have personally been the object of a semi-organized, persistent and stressful online attack this past year which has labelled my character as 'dishonest', 'uneducated', 'manipulative', 'callous'. Whilst I am sure that this small group might concur that I have only listed just now my positive character traits, or my redeeming qualities ( :-) ) I do just need to clarify that my role within ITTP as co-owner (not sole owner) is to manage the day to day nitty gritty financials and management. I have never in my professional capacity at ITTP ever suggested otherwise or more so and I have for example, never boasted about having left the small English seaside resort when I was 18 to train it up to Oxford for my university education; neither have I uber eagerly or with overt loudness of person waved the literal flags of my achievements post-university, of which colors have won recognition of praise within the field of English language as a second language publication materials. Well, that first one was a little misleading on my part because my first year and a half at Oxford were spent mostly between the Gloucester Arms and the JCR and upon the unceremonious, but completely justified booting out of Westminster College (now Oxford Brookes) I then proceeded to spend hardly any of my time in the JCR and instead held an almost continuous vigil at the Arms. I was young, I chose the wrong course to study and when the last 20 Pound note was no more from the fat wad which had originally materialized as my sponsorship and student loan funds I chose to begin and successfully maintain a temporary career move on the South Coast where I spent my days walking the beach and my nights with friends reading literature, playing guitar and (unsuccessfully) mastering the art of chess. I write this because even though I am a 41 year old fully grown man now with a family, business and responsibilities I was once and for quite a chunk of time bohemian like you :-) Well, you can take the person out of Bohemia but taking the Bohemian out of the person is frankly always a tall order and I retain a sense of 'hip' even as I career into my 9 years to go until I am 50 stage in life.
Lets now address the points raised here.
Oh, and I do need to divulge that ITTP will not be running Onsite international TEFL/TESOL courses from January 1st 2014. The reason for this is purely financial and a concise, planned effort to focus instead on other areas of business which very recently have provided compelling reasons to focus instead on more time effective forms of business and more financially lucrative. I know, I can almost hear the screams of "capitalist pig" trembling and groaning from your pert lips but what you must understand is that I arrived on Prague's shoreless shores with a pittance in my pocket and over the years I have worked long hours and short nights to make something of this seaside town boy who had a dream too, like you, but who saw this dream dilute and transform into what at first seemed a tragic crash to earth from those cathedral spires. In the past few years I have mad ethe mistake to somewhat rest on my laurels and to the newcomer who hasn't the encyclopedia Nev it would appear at first glance perhaps that I was the fat on top whilst the teachers and students were the chaff. Not so. Simply a meeting of people at different stages of their professional lives and when you yourselves create your own family you will likewise be expected to work like you have never worked before in order to fulfill your dream and provide for your family and you will also have the misfortune I am certain of meeting yourselves 20 years younger and feeling the existential heat of that meeting. Besides, just because I love money doesn't mean I don't also relish almost as much an evening spent sat on trams whilst feverishly devouring Kerouac, Kesey or Heller for example.

Yes, it is true that in the past I haven't always been forthcoming with accommodation option offers. This wasn't a calculative path but rather a knee jerk reaction to the often very unpredictable nature of both accommodation options and a student's ability to announce a change of plan last minute and decide not to come for that July course and therefore setting off the vacant accommodation domino effect. However, I always clearly offered options and students were never bottlenecked into being forced into any particular accommodation option. I have found over the years in this business that information clearly set out in a likewise clearly labelled email doesn't necessarily meet a reader on the other end who demonstrates the mirrored ability to fully read and understand that same information. Accommodation offers for TEFL students was always more than what a longer term expatriate living in Prague would expect to pay and the main reasons for this were a reflection of financial greed on my behalf (A.K.A. a basic appreciation of the rudimentary mechanics of capitalism), the fact that apartments available for foreign students on a short term basis are not exactly favored by apartment owners and of course again the element of school accommodation options being short term and so experiencing a significantly increased ratio of wear and tear if compared to apartments under longer term occupancy; which in turn drives up the rental figure as damages and even loss would need to be accounted for in cc 75% of annual onsite courses. And here I can make specific mention of Miss Burngirl who left her stay in the apartment with a broken bed and subsequent cries of "unfair" when a very small proportion of her accommodation deposit was deducted, the majority being returned within a week of vacating the apartment, and whom carelessly boasted on her personal blog of cartwheeling over the beds when returning inebriated from the pub. It is true that I read sections of this client's blog - it is my business to scan the online marketplace from time to time - and upon being extremely unimpressed with a clearly untrue claim on her blog about our accommodation option and upon politely contacting this client and politely requesting that it might be taken off the blog as it was a completely misleading statement, 'Burngirl' immediately took the comment off her blog and then proceeded to 'go professional' in her rants and it was clear that occasional Sunday brunch times were her time slots of favor for her anonymous ITTP-related online slander Sunday worship.

I write this response so frankly because I feel that online slander and bullying should be treated as such likewise. We have 'Burngirl' who has a consistent record over these past 4 years of taking the time to go online and post her comments and opinion and this amounts to a prolonged attack, intended to promote maximum damage to ITTP and (rather worryingly) to myself. You see 'Burngirl' if you had decided instead 4 years ago to go online and voice your opinion and provide your feedback then we could have taken that feedback and learned from it I hope and acted upon your complaint(s) if they merited attention - we do listen to all complaints and also praise (of which we do receive far more of) and it's important for any company to listen to the feedback of their clients if they wish to learn where they are going wrong and where they are steering correctly.

Regarding Harry Blendon's shameful behavior I will only comment that anyone who has devoted so much of their personal time to such dribble can feel free to continue as there is wisdom in the quote by Mr Wilde that there is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about. We would also like to take this opportunity to confirm that we now know exactly who you are and for someone who never actually lodged in the ITTP accommodation option I think you have a ruddy cheek to claim otherwise. Some of your claims do hold gravitas but most I'm afraid is poorly written and would serve as an example of how not to present grammar, in a 1st grade UK comprehensive school. You have your 15 minutes of fame and unsurprisingly to me you have chosen not to take advantage of this precious commodity to further yourself, but instead have chosen to rake up a poor semi-legible attempt at very amateur investigative journalism.

I would like to end my own rant by offering a sincere apology to the vast majority of our school graduates who have taken the productive steps of completing their application form, traveling to Prague to take the course, graduated successfully from the course and then proceeded to teach and lend professionalism to the role that is to be a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language. I apologize because you are constantly being undermined by the 1 or 2 who come with their suitcases full of moans, their white picket fenced accommodation expectations and an envy of a former drifter who they feel has 'inherited' the position as co-owner and lover of business trips abroad as simply and automatically as they themselves often tend to 'inherit' the funds for their parents in the first place to be able to afford the time and expense of finances to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity which a holder of a passport from an English-speaking world can afford oneself in this day and age.

So, on that note I sincerely wish all of you a very successful remaining 2013 - yes, both the angels and the complacent moaners - and for those moaners and slanderers and online bullies who I have no doubt will further clog up the internet with their monotone and predictable toddler wet nappy crying 'literature' i won't be rude and wish you something such as to live in interesting times. I won't even waste another word of Oscar's on this forum of idiocy. I will simply wish you a beautiful satori moment when the day arrives and you finally develop into fully grown men and women, I wish you success in your personal and professional lives and lastly, but not least, I wish you had taken a different course with a different school and saved my time now writing this response (of which believe me there will be no more), when instead I could be focussing on our current students who are 95% lovely :-) In the everlasting wise words of Douglas Adams: 'So long and thanks for all the fish'! :-)

I also tried to post a comment on http://teflpraguereviews.wordpress.com/, and after two months the comment is still "awaiting moderation". It does, indeed, seem as though ITTP is the moderator. So here the message is:

I don't know who HBlendon is. In the interest of balancing viewpoints, I feel I should mention that when I did the course 4 years ago, most of my classmates shared what seems to be a similarly opinion to HBlendon’s. I should say though that our teachers were great, and the in-class experience was a good one! But in terms of the problems several of us experienced with the owner (which led us to feel that he was rather dishonest and even intimidating) and the lack of customer service we experienced with ITTP, that seems to be a recurring theme. And with our collective experience, we wondered where did these “positive” reviews on the ITTP website come from? Were they just luckier than us? Perhaps they weren’t real at all? These thoughts did occur to us. We are still in touch, these classmates and I, and occasionally these topics still pop up.

I hope this helps to give more of a balanced review. If I had to do it again, I would have spent the extra money and went with a reputable CELTA. But I definitely want to clarify that our teachers were wonderful and they were the redeeming factor in the whole ITTP experience

Ok, anyone considering taking the comments of HBlendon seriously, please please read this first.

HBlendon wrote:
'I am a former ITTP TEFL Prague student and I am writing this complaints to provide a place where people can review ITTP TEFL Prague without fear of their reviews being removed. It is also to alert other potential TEFL clients to a major review scam currently being run by Neville Thomas and ITTP TEFL Prague. What his company did to myself and my classmates was really poor, however that is not my problem now. My problem is his attitude and dirty games towards our complaints and subsequent online reviews which has made me really angry. '

That's not really true, is it HBlendon. Yes, ITTP has attracted some negative reviews, but no more than any other onsite or online TEFL course. Spend a bit of time looking and you'll see that all well-known onsite and online courses attract a fair balance of positive and negative reviews. That's normal.

What's not normal though is this:

Since about April 23 of last year we see a flood of extremely similar forum posts and reviews. All of them have similar titles, similar content, have something to do with a supposed scam ITTP Prague, or ramblings on about lousy accommodation at ITTP Prague. Whole "blogs" have even been created with the sole intention of writing one post - a negative review about ITTP.

All this since April 23.

Anyone with half a brain can see that all of these forum posts / reviews / one-post blogs were created by the same person or small group of people with some personal issue against ITTP or someone who works for them - clearly Neville, the joint owner of ITTP and widely respected in the Prague Education community as far as I and my colleagues are aware. Oh, and unlike you I have lived in Prague for 13 years so I think I can write with a bit more unbiased clarity ;)

Just look at the language used in the posts - there's not even any attempt to use different writing styles to make it look like they were written by different people. Have a look at the comments in the review that HBlendon quotes on his blog, for example - the language is so unbelievably unnatural for a genuine reply to a forum thread, it's laughable - they are such obviously staged replies, written by the same person that wrote the original post.

HBlendon (or whatever the person's real name is) quite obviously has some personal issue with ITTP and has decided to devote a large amount of time and energy into trying to discredit them.

My advice to anyone reading this - treat anything negative you read about ITTP written on or after April 23 with a very large pinch of salt.

P.S. No, before you ask, HBlendon, I don't work for ITTP.

Hi :-)

My attention was recently brought to this online dialogue and I would like to begin by writing that no ITTP member of staff has responded to the above comments to date, meaning that the assumed comments posted by ITTP were posted unknowingly by someone else seemingly on behalf of ITTP. We don't respond in such a way to negative comments, although we can see that the original poster clearly wishes to damage the established reputation of our company name.

Firstly, we would like to apologize unreservedly to HBlendon if he or she did in fact take one of our courses and experienced such appalling service. HBlendon, could you please contact me directly to just confirm for me that you are a Client of the program so that we can then take a look at your complaint and see how we can compensate you. We have been running courses now for over 10 years and we really care about the reputation of our company and school product and whilst the vast majority of Clients are satisfied we do understand that not everyone can be and we always encourage both negative and positive feedback so that we can identify where we are going right and where perhaps more work needs to be done to further improve our service.

Secondly, regarding tefl review websites:
I would be extremely wary of some of the TEFL review websites out there which claim to be independent, especially those which run TEFL school advertising on their sites. We had a very unpleasant experience with a couple of these sites last year after receiving some unusual negative reviews (the timing of which coincided with the negative review published here) and the behavior of the owners demonstrated to us that perhaps their insistence of being independent and unbiased wasn't exactly reflected in real terms.
We recommend http://www.tefl-courses-reviews.com (previously tefl-reviews.com) because they don't promote any TEFL school advertising and experience has shown to us that they really evaluate each and every review which is published on their site.

In addition, we also run a company blog which lists (among other things) student feedback and company partner information:
http://ittp-tefl-prague-tesol.blogspot.com
We have recently partnered up with Lufthansa airlines and UNICEF. Regarding UNICEF, a percentage of the fee from every new student who signs up for one of our courses goes directly to UNICEF. UNICEF help children in need around the world and we are proud to be charity partner with them.
We have also featured in the international press:
http://tefl-prague.com/ITTP-TEFL-PRAGUE-REVIEWS.jpg

With over 10 years company experience in international TEFL/TESOL and with over a thousand Graduates to date, we really have no need to fake reviews. It is true that our accommodation option a few years ago was not the best but since March 2012 we have had new accommodation which seems to be bringing us excellent feedback through the verified reviews received on tefl-courses-reviews.com.

Once again HBlendon, we do apologize if you had a bad experience with us and if you could please get in touch with me and I will make sure that your complaint is heard and acted upon. Please feel free to email me directly:
neville@tefl-prague.com
Thank you.

Hezky den!/Lovely day!

Neville :-)

ITTP - International Tefl Tesol Program
www.tefl-prague.com
www.tefl-tesol-online.com

We know exactly who you are "Joan Deek". Has it perhaps anything to do with the poor reviews which you have here: http://teflpraguereviews.wordpress.com/
We suggest that you focus on your own course instead of spreading these false accusations about our company and please check your moral compass. Have a nice day.

Nevilles scam has backfired as Google have blacklisted him. You are a rogue and you and ITTP PRAGUE deserve to sink Neville Thomas

Dear Readers.
The individual using the alias 'Harry Blendon' has been flooding the net with this type of written text for the past few months now.
The blog which he refers to was started under a UK domain and the original content was deemed unsuitable by Google and removed ( http://ittp-tefl-reviews.blogspot.co.uk ).
The reason why we are the top rated school on tefl-reviews.com is because we actively promote the site to our graduates.
the reason why we actively promote the site to our graduates is because this site actually bothers to verify reviews, as opposed to being a free for all regardless of whether a person took the course or not.
We do understand that a company cannot be 100% right all the time and Harry IS correct in writing that the accommodation was sub standard. However, his insistence that there were 9 clients in the apartment is incorrect as there were 7. We do though apologize for any complaints regarding the accommodation and since March 2012 we have moved from that apartment and we have new accommodation options which hold a max of 3 clients per apartment. As you can see from our recent verified reviews on tefl-reviews.com the general feedback is overall very positive.
Thank you for your time.
The ITTP Team