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 suspect the tutor is panicking because you're the first to brave leaving a review covering their failings and now other families may come forward and leave bad reviews too.

Either way, you're entitled to leave an honest review and shouldn't be told to take it down, that completely defeats the purpose of review platforms.

If she really is mentally unwell I would have to report it personally, this is outrageous behaviour and she is not stable

The reason she went batshit crazy was because she doesn’t want to lose easy money and lots of it by the sound of it. Do not take the review down.

Leave it up, that sounds so dodgy.

@Dogmum74 the exams haven’t taken place yet they are in September October. It is actually shocking how many people have not read this thread completely.

She sounded so unhinged yesterday, and in the voice notes she left me. What if she gets seriously ill or does something worse?

You look very silly for not reading the OP’s comments where she has repeatedly clarified this.

Her mental health is not your responsibility. You were factual in your review. She needs to learn to manage negative feedback.

She sounds psychotic ?

15 missed calls to your personal phone, calling your husband AND your sister to discuss the review and then showing up unnaounced screaming and begging ???

We all have a right to leave a review, the service provider has absolutely no right to harass and intimidate you to get you to change it. Responses would 100% be different if a man had done this to you, and no one would be blaming it on a supposed relationship breakdown (how fucking misogynistic!!!)

I'm sorry but it's best you leave the review up, and maybe even write another about what happened. Her turning up to your house late at night and the insane amount of calls and texts, she really needs help and could be dangerous if she has already done those things.

Don't want her doing those crazy things to anyone else

@Booyou123 The tutor was out of order clearly. I'd suggest you leave the whole thing and avoid further contact.

Your review is very long-winded and you could have said the same thing more succinctly IMO.

But is your son having 1:1 in a centre with other children being taught at the same time, in the same venue by the other tutors, or is he seeing the tutor at her home, or in your home?

I am not saying you did something wrong, but it appears that feedback is quite remote if you only had feedback 3 times a year.
Many parents get weekly feedback after a lesson, when they see the tutor face to face.

This doesn't excuse what the tutor did but going forwards if you want a tutor it's maybe better to do 1:1 at home so you can get feedback at each lesson.

I’m still suspicious. She’s not willing to share the review that sparked all this. She has a history on mumsnet of writing threads about online complaints, so she has form for this sort of behaviour.

In my experience as a Mum most tutors gain business through word of mouth recommendations and will learn who to avoid by chatting to other Mums. It’s not normal to find one online, but I can see this review would destroy the livelihoods of 9 tutors. The 11+ isn’t rocket science. I took it add a child and marked it many years ago when I got my first teaching job (which happened to be in a grammar school). We moved long ago, but I gather the tests haven’t changed. Most parents could prepare their children for them, so it’s hard to imagine what a tutor could do so wrong in maybe a weekly one hour lesson that it could warrant a bad review. Tutoring is usually a top-up in the time available, not a complete course with responsibility for oversight of every aspect of exam preparedness.

She’s nuttier than squirrel shit.

I think that the "what came to light" is that the OP was asked to pay for extras that bumped the cost up to over £1000 pounds per month, and on asking around others have been told the same.

I suspect that its this part of the review which sent the women OTT. Especially when backed by not being taught oall of the curriculum before.

Although concentrating on exam technique is a fairly normal thing to do.

Be honest OP what did you really want to achieve by giving this tutor a bad review? Did you want to ruin her business? Did you want other parents to see the review and not send their child for tutoring, thus ruining her business.
Tutoring is a very insecure profession because parents tend to equate, like you have, what has been taught and what has been learnt. In maths in particular if a child has not taken in what has been taught then it is no good continuing with new material as the child will not have the foundations to understand it. Children learn at different rates.
If you have stayed with her for so long it indicates that you were satisfied with what she was teaching for some of the time.
I’m not condoning her behaviour which frankly does sound nuts but I think you could have been kinder with your review.

I’m still suspicious. She’s not willing to share the review that sparked all this. She has a history on mumsnet of writing threads about online complaints, so she has form for this sort of behaviour.

she did post the review about an hour ago.

I agree I would edit your review with the harassment you’ve experienced since you posted it. Particularly the fact that she turned up at your door three hours later after multiple phone calls. (Also is this inappropriate use of personal data - not sure it’s actually reportable in terms of gdpr but it’s worrying all the same) I’d also mention that you were then contacted by a mutual acquaintance asking for the review to be removed. It will give other prospective customers an idea that actually other people may also have had negative experiences and were pressured to remove their reviews. The fact that she herself mentioned getting a review removed before is also suspicious. I would be wondering how many other people have had issues with her company but have removed reviews? Has she been getting away with the lack of transparency and extra charges for ages because no one calls her out and future clients are unaware she does this?

It’s a shame if this woman suffers with her mental health but that’s not your responsibility - it’s her own. As someone else in the thread says if she can’t handle one negative review then maybe running a business is not for her. It’s extremely concerning she thought it was appropriate to turn up at your house at night and bang on your door. That’s not at all normal! It’s also obviously extremely unprofessional, as is getting someone not connected to the issue to contact you about it. This second person should not be getting involved in what is essentially a professional/customer-client disagreement that doesn’t involve her directly. It would make me think of her poorly too since she knows the tutor turned up at your home! How does she think that’s okay to the extent she’s agreed to ask you to remove the review?! She should’ve said actually tutor no I will not message on your behalf and your behaviour is inappropriate to say the least. The fact that the tutor is getting other people to contact you on her behalf is concerning and I’d be making a note of it and saving the message somewhere.

Please OP even if you don’t edit the review to add in the harassment, do not remove it. She has frightened your children and could think it’s okay to do something like this again in future if it works. If you remove it then essentially your children have been scared for nothing. I hope they’re okay now and the memory will fade quickly for them. And good luck to your son!

I would be grateful to be warned about this tutor.

I've only read your posts, OP, given the amount of time you've had to repeat yourself won't waste my time with the rest.

Leave the review up.

Of course, any normal business owner would have replied to your comment there and the fact that she's had some other tutor ring you to ask you to take it down is a huge red flag.

And yes, in retrospect referencing the negative comments that 'soon get taken down' in a parents evening is dodg.

Suddently trying to ramp up the costs by £800 p/m (with others reporting the same) and this crazy outburst makes me think the business is in some sort of financial crisis.

Can you look at her accounts and see what is going on?

None of this is your problem though.

I think if there is any more contact I'd go to the police again with the harassment concern.

I do agree with your concern about her teaching other families/children but not sure where you could go with that aprt from the police.

Why does it matter what motive drove the review as long it was fair ? OP has said the review was mixed - good points and her overall negative experience. Its not illegal to share a bad experience from a service provider and what would be the point in reviews if they were all positive for every single thing youd have no authenticity about anything!

I was concerned about the lack of topic coverage in Maths from December 2025, but I was reassured things would pick up after solidifying the basics ie decimals etc. I continued to work with my son at home. In May we were told, he needed intensive tuition at a cost of 800 pounds a month to really get him to the next level and push those scores to 90 percent. Mutiple parents were give this exact same message. After checking my son’s books, I found it was just cramming content that should have been covered in existing lessons. We had 3 parents evenings throughout the year and were reassured his was doing the right number of lessons and his progress was on track. This is not transparent. We should have been told that the number of maths lessons he was doing was not sufficient to cover the content, and now he’s behind. Whereas most tutors are focusing on exam technique this lady is charging extra (to the point we are paying over a grand a month) to teach him what should have already been taught. I also have spoken this morning to a few of my other mum friends at the tuition centre (not about the crazy behaviour, just generally how their kids are getting on) and they are also drowning in last minute fees and have their children behind in content coverage and are now panicking.

I don't understand some of this.
If you were looking at his work each weekk, could you not see that it was or wasn't covering what is needed for the 11+ exam?

You are a teacher supposedly so it should have been easy to see the gap- books and exam papers are available- and not wait another 5 months before discussing it.

What would £800 of tutoring cover?
If it's £40 an hour how would he be able to have 20 lessons on top of his normal school week?

The other point is that if he attends a centre, are all the tutors are teaching the same thing at the same time or is his lesson prepared just for him?

The tutor was crazy and inappropriate but you should not have written the review. Just stop using her!

£800 a month is a lot. How many hours is this? 20 a month / 5 a week? That’s ludicrous. If 1 or 2 sessions of an hour maximum is not sufficient then your son should not be taking 11+. Remember that children are not robots. They do not always profess at the same place. Maybe, despite you paying a lot, despite his best efforts and despite his teacher trying, he is not making the progress needed.

What is the difference between these sessions and ‘existing lessons’? Tutoring does usually involve repeating content learnt in school to make sure it is solid.

This sounds like the maths franchise I see in my local Sainsbury’s superstore building I think?

so potentially a franchise owner to complain to about this?

I’ve just ended up feeling sorry for the child. The impossible is expected of him.

Same.