Ian Leahy ESLinsider review, submitted by Caitlin.

My ESLinsider TEFL certificate wasn’t accepted for my work permit.

I got scammed by Ian Leahy from ESLinsider, and looking back, I really should have noticed all of the obvious red flags.

I first got to hear of Ian Leahy’s TEFL program from one of his posts in Quora. He came over as being very knowledgeable, and I liked how he was prepared to go out of his way to shine a light on some of the dodgy TEFL courses out there. After a couple of emails back and forth, I enrolled in his TEFL (TEKA) course. The course payment was arranged by wiring the money to his bank account. Ok, a little strange, but this was a reliable person, who seemed completely legit.

The course was OK. It wasn’t worth the 300 bucks I paid, but it did cover a lot of the basics for teaching kids. Despite the not-that-great video quality, and having to manually email Ian my course assignments, I managed to see the course through to the end and I received my TEFL certificate.

I must write that Ian was helpful throughout the course and came over as being professional.

The problems began when I started applying for jobs.

Despite assuring me that he would help me find a job, Ian stopped returning my emails as soon as my course was complete. So the first lie was that he provides job support. He doesn’t.

I eventually landed a job with a school based in Shanghai, China. Because of the COVID restrictions on traveling at the time, all my paperwork went through the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. The plan was to get all my ducks in a row before the new year, and then I would travel over to China to begin teaching after the Chinese New Year.

It shook me when I received the news that my application had been declined.

I went through all my paperwork. Everything was in order.

When I checked with the embassy, they informed me that my work permit was declined because my ESLinsider TEFL certificate wasn’t accepted.

So now I am back to square 1 and need to take another TEFL course, but this time one that WILL be recognized. I decided on the TEFL Online Pro program and checked with the embassy and my school if this one would be recognized, they gave it the thumbs up, and now I’m back on course for an early March start to begin my teaching job. So far, the TEFL Online Pro program is excellent.

I wrote to Ian Leahy, asking for a partial refund of my money, but he didn’t respond.

ESLinsider’s TEFL online is a course that you should avoid at all costs. There is no reason for taking it if you can’t use the certificate.

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Is ESLinsider legit?

Is ESLinsider Legit? ESLinsider review, submitted by Todd.

Is ESLinsider legit? The course contains very poor video quality.

I kind of feel bad writing this review, because I think ESLinsider are trying to build up its TEFL course online presence and I don’t want to be someone who comes in the way of that. But, this is a TEFL course review and I need to be objective here.

At first, I had my eye on the ITTT TEFL certification online course (which I later took, btw, and which I was satisfied with). Their website looked professional and there were a lot of good things written about the program. But then, my attention was drawn to eslinsider.com and an article written by its founder, Ian Leahy. In the article, he argues the point that ITTT TEFL shouldn’t be trusted. The reasoning behind this, according to Ian Leahy, is because of their affiliate marketing strategy and because they also clandestinely run xxxxxxxxxx.xxx. Ian Leahy claims that because ITTT TEFL secretly run xxxxxxxxx.xxx, they were able to award themselves a TEFL course award.

How was I to know any better? I just took Ian Leahy for his word and enrolled in his course instead.

I thought, at the time, that I had dodged a bullet.

One of the first things which should have been a red flag was the need to pay the ESLinsider course fee via Western Union. Ian Leahy convinced me that this was how all TEFL schools arrange their course payments. He was very convincing, so I paid and waited, and waited, and waited. After a week of waiting, I got a reply to confirm that the payment went through. All I now had to do was create an account on his school website (https://www.course.eslinsider.com/) and I was good to go.

I followed the instructions and created an account. I was pretty excited by this point to start the course that Ian Leahy had claimed was the “creme de la creme of Online TEFL courses” (his own words, not mine.)

It was then that I realized the huge goof I had made.

The course didn’t have any structure to it. It consisted mainly of random pages of video tutorials, with Ian Leahy taking center stage. The course contains very poor video quality. Two of the videos were actually inaudible, due to the sounds of the children shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs.

No grammar was explained. Nothing like that. It was just a mashed-up series of videos in which Ian Leahy is teaching lessons to children. Below each video, there is a list of questions that you need to answer before you can gain access to the next low-quality TEFL video.

When I wrote to ESLinsider to complain (I was polite about it) they replied that a refund “isn’t applicable” because I started the course. Had I paid via credit card, I would have been able to contact my bank for a chargeback claim.

I decided that it wasn’t worth my while pursuing it anymore after I had complained on Quora and when Ian Leahy incredulously replied to my post that I had never taken his course and that I was an angry competitor. I have spent time reading his school blog and can see why competitors would be angry with him. His school blog is full of attacks on his competition. I can now see that this is probably ESLinsider’s way of winning new business.

Oh, and btw, I did check to see whether ITTT TEFL run xxxxxxxxxx.xxx and I never did find any truth to that accusation.

ESLinsider is probably best avoided. I’m awarding it 2 stars because I did learn something. It just didn’t cut it for me though and I lost a few hundred bucks in the process. The whole experience was just bizarre.

Essential Tip!

We (Trusted TEFL Reviews) have had enough of the few rogue Online TEFL/TESOL companies that have been coordinating a sustained smear campaign against trustedteflreviews.com and managing to scam students by presenting themselves in a more professional light than they are.

You can read all about this scam in the following article:

Online TEFL/TESOL Course Review Scams in 2024

If you are concerned about becoming a victim of an Online TEFL/TESOL course scam, we strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2024:

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Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

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New! Click here for the online TEFL/TESOL international certification course Teachers’ Choice Award winner. International Online TEFL/TESOL course certification at its best.

Verified Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction: TEFL Course Directory

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