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 know I’ve had so much helpful advice; so there’s no point in me asking the same question.

A BIT extreme? That’s a bit if a daft comment.

She will probably burn her house then. That woman is not sane.

That’s so wonderful. Aren’t you so considerate of the businessmen providing bad service. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that you have enough money to pay for the same thing twice.

Not everyone can afford it. So then ANOTHER family man with less resources may use that plumber on the basis of good reviews and will have to pay twice and his family may go without. Why are you protecting people who provide bad service and not their customers?

Thats the reason why quality of service in the UK is quite poor

But it's the fact, leaving it as it is, is she sane enough to work with children??? DBS is there for a reason.

Tutors can be very good or quite odd. We had a so-so Maths tutor for my son who left us very much in the lurch just before exams. He used to get all upset over tiny things and would call me for long breathless conversations about why he was so hurt and depressed. Some tutors are actual teachers who tutor in their spare time, but some are not (as this man was), and may lack the basic common sense a classroom teacher would hopefully have. I'm a little wary of the latter (and am a teacher and occasional tutor myself).

As a former teacher in a number of grammar schools (boys, girls & co-educational ones), I think I have a pretty good idea about the system.

For what it's worth I would not encourage parents to pay for Tutors (with one exception, which I'll add below); too often it sounds like a scam (as here) or snake oil being sold to parents over worried by the fear that their children will fail the 11+.

As a parent I bought the books of specimen papers sold, then, at WHSmiths (cost - less than £10), as recommended by the school, and allowed my son to do them in the summer holiday before the 11+, and then marked them and gave (brief) feedback. That was all. FWIW he passed.

The only situation(s) where I think tutoring might (stress, might) be worthwhile is if the pupil has missed a significant amount of work in Maths due to ill-health absence, or if there were to be a significant amount of school closure due to industrial action, natural disasters, bad weather, Covid etc.

Read your posts and OP, I’m genuinely shocked at this woman’s behaviour. This does sound like it’s a bit of a racket that she’s had going on, charging to tutor kids and then weaponising parental anxiety to scalp extra padded bonus fees towards the end of the exam cycle. No wonder she was upset at your review.

Reviews are not there to blow smoke up the arse of a company or tradesperson, they exist to give consumers the knowledge they need to make an informed decision on who to give their money to. Especially when children are involved.

She sounds absolutely unhinged and I would be furious and scared if anyone tracked me down to our home late at night and started banging on the windows. I’m glad you got your son out tbh. Fingers crossed your next tutor is stable and good at their job and your son does well in the exams!

Wow talk about an over reaction. I’d leave it now unless she turns up again.

I would just leave it, the tutor has replied to the bad review now so she obviously realises she overstepped. As for being emotionally blackmailed to take it down by another tutor, that is also totally out of order. If other parents want to pay ludicrous amounts of money for bad tutoring that's up to them. I feel sorry for your son having to do all this extra work. The local tutoring pool sounds quite incestuous and controlling, maybe save your money for something better and your son can always do recommended extra lessons online.

Did your child pass the 11+

I would report her to whichever organisation registers teachers, it's completely unacceptable. I have just looked and it's the teaching regulation agency. I would also pay a solicitor to write a warning letter to her to never approach you or your family again

Are you serious

Read the thread! Cancel the cheque!

There’s this really handy feature on MN where you can just read all of the OP’s posts, so you have all the relevant information before you comment.

He did. He also got admitted into Oxbridge early.

Agree. Even if her business tanked because of the review, this is never ok and unhinged behaviour. I cannot believe people are trying to justify it.

The only ‘other side’ would be a question of a just or unjust review, and even with that said that’s not really relevant here. There is inevitably nuance to any ‘side’ or explanation of a situation as people are individuals and experience situations differently. For examples, witness statements (if true) will have natural variation reflective of the fact that people are recalling their own experience of an event. The crucial factor here however is the tutor reading said review, going round to this home at night time with children in the house, and banging on windows and doors, pleading for the review to be removed. To call into question the review itself and focus on that is a non starter. The issue here is the response of the tutor to the review, whatever it said.

If there is, legit, another side the business owner can bring libel charges against the OP. First step would be to respond, in a professional fashion, to the initial allegations raised on the site.

Business owner is entirely off the rails and the additional relevant info seems much more likely to be that she's tried to intimidate people before.

Your reply was helpful without resorting to getting nasty.

All I have to say is, it's so sad that all this tutoring appears to be necessary now. It was not the case with any of my family or those of my friends, whether it was an exam for a grammar school or a fee paying school.
I hope the OP's son passes the 11+ after all the work put in, but I would also hope that he doesn't feel pressurised to "do well". If he isn't the academic type, there are other options and he should not be seen as a failure.

Agree with this response to that sanctimonious waffle.

The tutor’s actions were totally unacceptable so YANBU but it sounds as if she has realised that, hence the apology and promise to stay away. She is clearly suffering some kind of, probably stress-related, breakdown.
As long as she keeps her promise to leave you alone I think it would be best to be compassionate and let the matter go.

Would a warning letter from a Solicitor help?
Don't know whether this could be done or is possible as the Police didn't seem to want to know. But it may help.

I would still.be really scared for myself and my family. You just don't know what she will do in the future.

So. Stay Safe.

Under the circumstances why not delete it and agree she can't come near you or you will call the police. I think if you are worried it's best to make this - ie her - go away in order to protect your family

Do NOT be intimidated. How many others has she done this to. How much has she scammed from other parents!

It’s a possibility she has absolutely NO MH issues. She flew into a rage and later ran scared and got one of her colleagues to phone you to say it was MH.!She’s an absolute conwoman.

Report to the police and her workplace. This woman should not be around minors at all.