Congratulations to Brandon Fike! His relentless posting the truth about Tefl International, the dishonest C.E.O. Bruce Veldhuisen and staff Michael Sean Fitzgerald has resulted in money refunded.
In Brandon’s own words:
“I spent $500 on the course and am only getting half back, so I still come up short.
Basically, my goals from the start of the dispute (1) Get an apology from TI
(2) Get TI to admit my course was flawed (3) Get a refund (I'm willing to settle for half now)”
Many of us, cheated and slandered by Bruce and his staff will never settle for less than full monetary reimbursement. Beyond that we will not rest until Bruce Veldhuisen is jailed.
The damage caused by his scams and much more hurtful the slander, can never be made up by a half refund or a half apology.
Brandon has however set a good example proving the blogs are an effective way for those with little means to take on the powerful corrupt Tefl International.
6 comments:
The entire Tefl International Video (teaching English TESOL) course is posted here:http://thepiratebay.org/user/davethenave
Made in Thailand, it was never copyrighted. Originally in DVD format all files were converted to MP4. Each video is now small enough to fit a single CD and easily played on Ipod.
To download these files you will need a file share program such as Emule or uTorrent (utorrent.com)
Note: a TESOL/TEFL certificate is NOT required for teaching in Thailand.
Latest requirements: http://blog.esldaily.org/2008/03/17/new-regulations-thailand.aspx
The Thai Ministry of Education has declared that all foreign teachers must have a Teacher Profession Certificate in order to legally teach in the country.
1) Foreign teachers who have a right to hold the Teacher Profession Certificate (must have been working in school before June 12, 2003) and want to extend their certification in 2009.
2) Hold a bachelor degree or higher in Education and has experience in teaching at least 1 year.
3) Hold the other fields of a bachelor degree or higher and already hold the Teacher Profession Certificate from abroad
4) Hold the other fields of a bachelor degree or higher and already has experience in teaching at least 2 year. Hold an educational certificate that takes at least 1 year of study.
The Tefl International “Thai special project” where you work in Thailand while taking that course does NOT meet above requirements.
If you are arrested, jailed or deported Tefl International will not be of assistance, you are on your own.
My first language is not English and I do not have a degree.
Tefl international advertised on it's site that no degree was required to teach in Thailand.
Now I know that was a lie.
The first day of the course I asked Mike Fitzgerald for help to understand the questions for an assignment.
He said he was going out to eat and would come back at 7PM.
I waited until 11PM working alone.
After this Mike started telling students and the course director Dave Hopkins that I was lazy and worse.
Two weeks into the course Mike told me "you have no chance in hell to get your certificate"
I talked to Dave Hopkins but he was no help.
There seemed no choice except to quit.
My loss was $1600 plus expenses.
Later my friends received emails saying I was forced to quit because I was on some pedophile list.
The vicious rumor started from Dave Hopkins passed to Pam to John and John Stanton passed along this rumor via email.
Michael Flynn,
Thank you for the comment.
Please clean it up and I will gladly post.
What is/was your relationship to mike and Tefl International? Can you offer details?
How/why did you come to the conclusions you mentioned?
Interesting note: Tefl International CEO and top staff are all Mormons. What a disgrace they bring to that religion.
The Mormon church must be aware of this operation yet they remain silent and have no influence.
How ironic, I can honestly say that the only Mormons I know are criminals.
Everyone should be careful dealing with Bruce Veldhuisen and TEFL International... get a CELTA or Trinity and don't waste your time and money!!!
The websites I am speaking of are: http://www.bestteflcourse.com http://www.teflinternational.com/guaranteed_jobs.html http://www.teflcoursethailand.com http://www.teflintl.com
Please see my BBB dispute post on Dave's ESL: http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=725523#725523
And on Thai VISA:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Bbb-Dispute-Tefl-International-B-t237687.html
Thank you.
Sorry QueenMac,
Your link to thaivisa was deleted probably less than 5 minutes after you posted.
You can't say anything negative about TEFL international on Thaivisa.com.
Daves ESL... I don't even need to check. Bet you that one is gone too.
Of all the people scammed by TEFL International, I only know of one who got any sort of refund.
He is talked about in this blog.
Only reason he got HALF his money back he withdrew the truth he had posted.
What a wimp!
I had the misfortune of knowing Michael S. FitzGerald personally as a so called friend and who is currently involved or working in Tefl International. I would not thrust him as far as I could throw him.
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