Tutor turned up at my house at 9.45pm over a negative Google review – what would you do?

[Booyou123]

Hi everyone

I’m still quite shaken up by this and would appreciate some thoughts and perspectives.

My son attended a private tutor for about a year at the start of Year 5 for the 11 plus exam. After we stopped using her services, I left an honest Google review based on our experience. It wasn’t abusive or offensive, just a negative review.

The tutor was extremely upset by it. She repeatedly called me and my husband, sent so many emotional voice notes and messages, and even contacted my sister-in-law (who also has used her tutoring services) multiple times because she knows her. She told my sister in law that if I don’t take the review down, she’s calling the police as I am violating her business.

The part that has really terrified and shocked me is that she then turned up unannounced at my house at around 9.45pm. She was banging on the door and windows, demanding to speak to me about the review. She was absolutely hysterical, crying and sending me messages begging me to take the review down.

My children were in the house and ran upstairs because they were scared. My son was crying and very frightened, and asked why his teacher was there banging on the door.

I called the police afterwards and was advised to document everything. They couldn’t deploy anyone as they had some major incident in Woolwich, London. They told me that if there were further incidents, the behaviour could potentially amount to harassment.

Since then, she has sent a message apologising for coming to my house, saying she will never do it again and won’t contact me further.

What is bothering me most is that she only knew where we lived because of her professional relationship with our family. I can’t get past the feeling that using a client’s address to turn up at their home over a Google review is a huge breach of professional boundaries, maybe even DBS and goodness knows what else.

Part of me thinks I should just accept the apology and move on. Another part of me feels this was so inappropriate that I should take it further. She’s a woman who runs a professional tutoring company, and she was completely unhinged.

What would you do in my position?

She massively over reacted and crossed boundaries.

why did you use her for a year and then leave a negative review? Surely if you weren’t happy with her services you should have either told her or stopped using her?!

I’d leave another review detailing her bonkers behaviour and mention that you had to seek police involvement.

Yes, this. It doesn’t make much sense. If you didn’t think she was good, why keep her on for a whole year?

Certain things have come to light which I did not not about before and so we left. I emailed and had a phone call sharing me concerns which were not addressed satisfactorily. I wrote the google review, because amongst her positive ones, parents deserve the whole picture before investing and making a commitment financially and time wise.

Time for a fresh review. She has no business being near anyone's dc alone...

Come on people, way to miss the point. OP stopped using her services so presumably told her they were stopping rather than relying on telepathy. It’s not relevant whether she gave feedback or ‘complained’ before stopping. It might have been great for nine months and then gone downhill. She then left a review (perfectly normal behaviour).

What is not normal is the tutor or any service provider descending on the client’s home and raging.

OP I would leave it there. The police won’t do anything, they’ve already told you that. Good that it’s documented in case it happens again, but doesn’t sound like it will.

I am petty so would be tempted to add her unhinged behaviour to my review, but wouldn’t want to fan her flames and risk her coming back!

Why did you leave a negative review if your son stayed with her for a year?
Am guessing the review has damaged her reputation and MH .What did you write on the review? Obviously she shouldn’t have come to your house but people behave out of character when stressed .

i’d probably just leave it now.
you've left a review.

the woman is unhinged. we dont know why, perhaos her husband left akd shes struggling to put food on the table for her kids, or her mum died, or shes just crazy, who knows.

the fact is that sadly there police cannot always come when they are needed. she could turn up again with a knife or target dc on their way home from school or whatever.

so i’d suggest even though it’s not ideal, just leave it just now and do nothing further. your original negative review should do its job. parents have been warned.

It’s not ‘missing the point’ at all. The OP’s update now suggests she wrote a mixed review rather than a wholly negative one, which makes far more sense.

If it was a male tutor, I suspect no one would be blaming his behaviour on a separation or parent dying.

Okay if this statement isn’t true then I am with you ‘we used this tutor for my son for a year for his 11+. He failed so we left a bad review’.

She would have been better off flagging the review as 'hate speech' to get it removed.

I don’t think it does - OP says she left the review ‘among the positive ones’ from other reviewers. She said hers was negative.

If the tutor came banging the door for a mixed review she’d be even more batshit!

Did you give the whole picture? For example, I was happy with her services for 9 months, however XYZ meant that I was no longer happy. We discussed it but I felt XYZ wasn’t resolved to my satisfaction so we stopped using services at that point.

or was it just pure negativity?

I don’t condone her behaviour but you said it was negative so it doesn’t sound like you were fair.

That could make OP’s review unreasonable. But it wouldn’t make the tutor showing up at her house at 10pm hysterically banging on windows any less unreasonable.

Totally right. The tutor reaction wasn’t acceptable. But if a kid fails and the parent takes it out on the tutor and ruins their business and livelihood then a reaction from the tutor would be expected. The OP said the tutor rang and messaged and she didn’t respond - the tutor wasn’t able to discuss and completely took things overboard.

Cause and effect.

Accept the apology saying that you will take action if you hear from her again.

The 11 plus exams haven’t happened yet. We’ve moved my son to a different tutor for his prep, and we will review in August if he is ready for the exam.

I wrote an honest, factual review of my experience. Before doing this I emailed and spoke to the head regarding my concerns and they were effectively dismissed. I don’t want anyone’s child to effectively experience what we have, and therefore I wrote my review. I wrote the parts that were positive and the parts that were negative.

As someone who has received a service, I feel
like I should be able to write an honest review without this chaos happening!

Absolutely bonkers behaviour. The only reason I’d not write a further review highlighting that she appeared at your house at night was the concern that she might do it again.
She was obviously advised to stop this behaviour and hopefully she will.
I agree with you, people have a right to know.
(Even if you’ve written that your child failed the entry exam, other people need to be aware make their decision on whether it was the tutor’s fault or your child’s abilities etc.)

I would love to know how bad your review was to cause that reaction in a tutor. There are ways of writing a negative review which don’t have to destroy someone. I wonder which you did, OP.

My guess you have caused her business to tank. She now is in financial difficulty, can't get clients and is at her wits end. Maybe the bailiffs were at her door and she came round after to you.
Was she that bad?
We need more context on exactly what your issues were with her tutoring?

The tutor sounds like she's having a breakdown.

'Unhinged' is a bit cruel. I think distraught sounds more accurate. Of course she shouldn't have come to your home but she clearly is in a bad place. I think you should leave it. I think the world of reviewing everything is just getting ridiculous. It's quite sanctimonious to say she had good reviews so you thought you'd better warn others with a bad one.

I will be in the minority here but bad reviews can ruin people's livelihoods. How bad was she that you'd had her work for a year?

Just leave her alone now unless anything else happens which it won't.

What were the concerns? It sounds from your posts that you heard some gossip about her, raised it directly with her and didn't get an answer you wanted so then spread the gossip further publicly on the google review. It doesn't sound as if you had direct experience of whatever the negative review was about. Unless she is an absolute total fruit loop it sounds like you made some serious allegations in the review - what were they? Of course her behaviour is off the charts unacceptable but it feels like we are hearing a very one sided version of events.

Why are you insisting on blaming the OP and completely ignoring the tutor’s wildly inappropriate behaviour?!

It sounds like the point has been made re warning other parents of your experience with her as a tutor, without adding the utterly batshit turning up at your door. I would leave it for the sake of your stress levels and hope you never hear from her again.