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?

I'd not take it down. Its an accurate account of your experience with the company. If her mental health is that poor, she needs to step down.

Sorry OP my burnt saucepan has absolutely nothing to do with your post. My phone’s crashing & no idea how I ended up in this thread! Nothing to see here 🫣

Ha ha! Could have been worse.

All I'm taking from OP's latest update is that if her DS needs £1k a month of tutoring to sit his 11+, then maybe he's just not academic enough to pass it, and that hot-housing him when he's so young could be doing more damage than good.

Don’t take it down!

For the several reasons already outlined in the comments

She should not be anywhere near other people’s children on her own. As a parent, I’d want to know. We all have to take a leap of faith on occasions when it comes to things like this. Nurseries, tutors, extra curricular activities. You HAVE to be able to trust people in child facing professions.

Tbh it is strange you let her tutor for a year and then dropped her like a hot potato!, Im sure theres a reason but obviously something has been taken to be really damaging and shes losing work. Not sure whyy the school head was involved either

Possibly because her English language skills are not of a high enough standard to pass to grammar school. Some of the posts on here do make me question the standard of teaching in our state schools!

I find the whole issue questionable and the OP's lack of coherence is not helping her cause. The tutor does sound unstable but I believe there must be a lot more to this than has been explained here.

Don’t take it down. Tell her or the messenger to leave you alone now. If she contacts you again, you will have to update re the events of the night before.

I can only assume that your review had lost her a lot of income and had a massive impact on her sense of self. She’s behaved inappropriately, but so have you. If you had a problem, you needed to raise it with her so she can correct it or stop the lessons and find another tutor. By all means tell friends, but defaming someone online is extremely cruel.

I cannot believe people think you should take this down.
She is screwing people for huge sums.

Now the threat of her mental health....

This is a woman working with children.

I think you should talk to the police, ask their advice.

If she is so unwell, then she shouldn't be working with children.

Still well enough to extract huge sums from parents.

I think you are being played and manipulated.

In good conscience I couldn't let another family walk into this set up.

Perhaps @Booyou123 rather than taking down , have a think on how you should rephrase it so it doesn’t give out absolutely every detail of your experience but it does make potential parents prepare on how to approach that business and what questions they should be asking before enrolling their kids

we massively rely on reviews, so it d be good to know that tutor could do a bit better, but how you phrase it makes a massive difference

She did raise it and was dismissed by her.
Read her clearly written posts.

Educate yourself as to what 'defame" is.
She most certainly did not defame anyone🙄

Oh gosh this is awful and so scary. You were well within your right to add your review, it’s exactly that - your review. There’s a reason why you can rate businesses 1 to 5 stars.

As others have said I’d be tempted to update and remove everything else and literally write - I’m removing my original review because I was bombarded with voice notes, messages and an in person unexpected house visit at 9:45pm about my review. I understand why you would be scared to add anything else though.

Absolutely do NOT take that review down.

I would add an ETA section, detailing the level of harassment and emotional manipulation you've since received, including the banging on your door at 9.45pm in the evening.

As long as everything is truthful from your own experience, you absolutely should state it in the review. Other parents need to be warned of this psychotic charlatan.

How did the other tutor have your number? Has this woman also breached GDPR by giving it to her in order for her to emotionally manipulate you on her behalf? If so, I'd report her to the ICO.

I'd also go back to the police to report all of this further behaviour. The lady sounds unfit to work with children if this is how she behaves towards the parents. She also sounds like a fucking con artist. No doubt this extra £800 per month is her MO.

If you haven’t got a ring doorbell, it might be worth getting one now. She sounds mentally unstable.

People are nuts about reviews these days. Anything less than a glowing 5-star review is seen as abusive and wrong and 'won't you think about how you could impact someone else's livelihood?' What's the point of a review if you can't be honest? Insanity.

I did whizz through her comments and other contributors. She appears to be a serial online complainer, so I don’t trust her testimony. There’s a difference between a serious complaint and a preference. Maybe there are communication issue, but, regardless, you don’t vent online to damage a person’s livelihood.

She should not be around children in a professional capacity if she behaves like this .

I doubt she'd have lost any income within the 3hours or so between the OP posting her review, and the woman turning up banging on her door over it.

Lots of people complain, but turning up at someone's house causing a scene is seriously deranged, or it is to me.

Never heard of it.

I would be horrified to know that someone whom i was paying to tutor my child in my home had done this previously to another family.

Really horrified.
Do not normalise such behavior and excuse it.

There is no excuse.

“Let's hope she needs an emergency plumber in the middle of winter and suddenly finds she's been blacklisted”

What a genuinely unhinged thing to write. Get help.

I wouldn’t believe this other person who called you.

Keep the review up and update with what’s happened. This woman shouldn’t be allowed near children.

Maybe the OP’s review is a nasty inaccurate diatribe that threatens to fold her business, leaving 9 tutors without income. Maybe the stress has caused a normally reasonable person to have a mental breakdown. It certainly sounds like extreme stress to the point of breakdown.

Wagering son failed the exam so she left a bad review

Or maybe you read the facts again?