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?

Anyway I just received a phone call from another tutor in our area (who knows me and our other tutor) who knows what has happened last night (I didn’t tell her) and has requested me to take the review down as this banging on the door tutor has lots of mental health issues and this could significantly affect her.
I guess I have to take it down; I don’t want anyone getting seriously ill or anything drastic to happen.

you said you would take it down op, dont get carried away by this thread.
this is someone's health at issue
what is the point, there is no point. you are just being vindictive. find something else to worry about

You are free to say when a business is not up to expectation, but if you review it in such a way that a business employing 9 people is destroyed, the business owner will be saddled with debt and the implications for decades, people will lose their livelihoods- so you are not free to think that will definitely have no implications for your life.
You are acting in such a way as people will want to hurt you- that is not sensible if you want to live a normal life.

Why do you think a balanced and accurate review of services received is vindictive? It’s not OP’s responsibility to manage the tutors mental health, or reaction. If she’s so unstable she can’t handle feedback, perhaps she needs a break from spending time with young people, on whom no doubt she has great influence.

You’re assuming that the business is /will be destroyed.

it is pretty obvious the tutor's mental health has been affected by her behaviour
dont add fuel to the fire

But you have no idea that this is the case? How do you know that a business employing 9 people has been destroyed off the back of her review? Apart from anything else, it only happened a couple of days ago! How would the tutor even know by now if there were any wider implications to her business?

I totally agree with leaving negattive review. Dont take it down.
So many tutoring companies relying on parents to pay pay pay - and they provide medicore service.
They should be flagged and taken down.
Kids and parents are making a lot of effort to pay and attend the tutoring so the service should be great.
If its not- take them down. Hate those tutoring companies that take advantage of people and are just money machines with zero regards to children.
My daughter attened one, i never left the review. I didnt have guts to do it. So we lost money, time and so did many other parents.
Dont worry about health issues of the buisness owner- thats her problem. She shouldnt be running tutoring anyway if she is so unstable.

One review would not 'destroy' a business.
We have people on here who won't read them because they think leaving reviews is only done by power-hungry maniacs. So those people won't be influenced to change their behaviour.

We have people on here who, as most people do, see an OTT terrible review among normal ones and think the reviewer's gone off on one, so won't be influenced to change their behaviour.

We have people here who see a reasonably written review and look at the business's response to it. So it's the response that would influence the behaviour more than the review.

And if the negative review seems justified (eg ten people saying a cafe took an hour to bring the food, and the cafe saying sorry but they'd had to cut staff numbers) then that's because of the business itself.

I can't think of any review I've read that, in itself, would 'destroy' a business. It's a combination of things in context.

You have to update your review because of her behaviour. Other parents need to be aware. Make the police aware and make sure you have a ring doorbell. My feeling is she will not be back.

Did you deliberately give a rough location in your initial OP so people could try and look up the tutor? Feels like a weird detail to have added tbh.

Bad behaviour from tutor, but I’m doubting your behaviour tbh, and wondering if there’s more to this which resulted in her behaviour…

Negative reviews don’t destroy a business. The business’ response can.

This woman harangued the OP and her husband by messages and phone and turned up at her door in the evening wailing and banging on the door. Mental illness? Yet she apparently left a measured and sensible defence online. She seems to be able to rein it in when she wishes…

Sorry, @Booyou123 , I really cannot believe I'm reading this:

'I have kept the review up, but my husband is putting CCTV and changing our front door (it has lots of glass and we are going to get something more solid) and sealing our letter box. Not saying she is a serial killer but we are as a family quite scared at the reaction.'

Quite honestly, your behaviour is starting to look as extreme as the tutor's; it definitely confirms there are two sides to this.
You are seriously spending a lot of money to change your front door and add CCTV?
Your son is scared ?
WTF??
What are you doing to your DC?? 😳
There is definitely more to this than meets the eye!

I would update the review OP and put in about the behaviour and having to call the police and what they advised. Just factual information that can be proven. As little emotion as possible, would write about your kids being frightened. Charging so much with more that one child unprepared is not good enough. She's probably worried you will open the flood gates for more bad reviews.

Wishing your DS luck with the exam. There is no shame with struggling with it. I am a middle aged professional that has found some of the sample questions hard.

Things that are irrelevant to the OP’s question:
the OP being a teacher
the cost of the tutoring
the academic ability of her son
the problems with tutoring for grammar

The issue is pf a professional reacting like this to a review. It would be awful if was a cake-baker or electrician. But a tutor of young kids makes it even more worrying.

Those defending her must live in an ‘Eastenders’ world where thuggish behaviour and aggressive confrontations are the norm. The tutor behaved appallingly. That’s there in black and white.

'I have kept the review up, but my husband is putting CCTV and changing our front door (it has lots of glass and we are going to get something more solid) and sealing our letter box. Not saying she is a serial killer but we are as a family quite scared at the reaction.'

This is ridiculous overkill, and you responding this way will freak your child out. Sealing up your letter box? That's just nuts.

I get that it was a scary situation, but jumping from her knocking at your windows to her firebombing your house is OTT. She's already assured you that it won't happen again.

Well done OP 👏🏼 she sounds totally nuts!

I had something similar with a completely batshit crazy livery yard owner. When I left them a very honest and detailed review of our experience there, the owner went totally crazy and started calling us and everyone we knew to badmouth us and shouting at us at shows. I still kept my review up 🤷‍♀️

Half of MN hides behind the sofa when there’s a knock on the door.

Repeated banging on doors and windows, while shouting at nearly 10 o’clock at night, would unsettle anyone, especially a child. Particularly when it comes out of the blue, from someone who you trusted and should know better.

Unhinged behaviour can unsettle people . Stop the presses!

There is always one or two disgruntled customers leaving reviews, sometimes I look at other reviews by the same person and if I find they're ALL negative, I discount their contributions.

If she has complicated psychiatric condition that makes her aggressive she has no business tutoring children or working with children. I personally would not want that person near my child. She can find employment in another area.
your response is unbelievable

What I find even more interesting is the absolute lather of panic and dread and anxiety OP was in, over what the other parents would think of her party not being up to scratch. Just a few examples:

I feel like I’fe let myself down and I’m worried about being judged by the parents.
It’s just an awful feeling. I have ADHD, so maybe I am over sensitive.
I know my reaction is a bit OTT (i.e my own personal feelings) I suppose I just feel a bit overwhelmed
RSD is real, horrible thing and it can make your mind tired for hours and hours on end overthinking. Even though we recognise it, doesn’t make it go away.
I know I was/am spiralling

This was all over fear of some parents judging her party organisation skills as inadeqaute due to the letdown from the hire company. Yet she has seemingly no empathy for the panicked, frantic, spiralling tutor, who was trying to save both her reputation and her livelihood.

I would want to know this about a tutor, I wouldn't want them in my home or near my kids. Its a massive violation.

I find it odd that the OP has two threads within 2 days both about leaving negative reviews and asking if she ought to remove them. It does raise some questions.

I don't understand why on her other thread about the party, she contacted the CAB about the issues rather than trading standards. Or asks about removing the review when the company bent over backwards to rectify matters.

The fact she keeps saying she is/ was (take your pick) a primary school teacher is also concerning.

She is not being vindictive. The point of reviews is that they honestly describe experience so that other people can take them into the account. They are for OTHER customers. They are not a default compliment to business. In this case it is valuable information for others

Because the only way to contact trading standards is via CAB.

https://www.gov.uk/find-local-trading-standards-office