ESLinsider and Ian Leahy Blacklisted Warning!

TEFL/TESOL in Japan scam ESLinsider / ESLinsider review, submitted by Trusted TEFL Reviews.

TEFL/TESOL in Japan scam – Ian Leahy.

We don’t find any pleasure in blacklisting an Online TEFL/TESOL certification school, but ESLinsider/Ian Leahy has now reached that threshold.

ESLinsider is owned and run by Ian Leahy.

Ian Leahy is a US citizen, currently living in Fukuoka, Japan, and he is also currently being investigated by the Chinese authorities for fraud.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated!

Protect yourself by reading about the latest TEFL scams in this article:

Online TEFL/TESOL Course Review Scams in 2026

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 2025:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

A snippet from the (documented) accusation:

‘After some deliberation, we have decided to warn all the foreigners now teaching in China that if you sent an email to eslinsider.com or even visited their website more than once over the last 6 months, you will soon be investigated by the Chinese PSB as we recently found out in an unexpected interview we obtained with a veteran Captain who has worked more than 8 years with the PSB in a Tier 1 city of China.’

Further information can be read here:

ESLinsider/Ian Leahy TEFL/TESOL scam

Since earlier this year, ESLinsider has consistently tried to undermine the credibility of trustedteflreviews.com by posting misleading materials, on various online platforms.

Such platforms include the ESLinsider.com school website, Ian Leahy’s YouTube/Vimeo channel, Reddit.com, and Quora.com.

For the past 6 months, Ian Leahy has made claims that trustedteflreviews.com is owned and run by the following Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs:

CIEE TEFL
ICAL TEFL
Maximo Nivel TEFL
OISE University of Toronto TEFL
TEFL Online Pro

What do all 5 of these Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs have in common?

They have all featured in the top 5 ranked Online TEFL/TESOL certification schools list since the start of this year.

Online TEFL TESOL Courses Reviews

trustedteflreviews.com is an independently run Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program reviews website. We are not affiliated with any Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program(s).

trustedteflreviews.com was started by myself and a bunch of other English teachers, who were fed up with the amount of Online TEFL/TESOL misinformation published online.

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program is ranked high in the list of certification programs, this means that they have received overwhelmingly positive (verified) customer feedback.

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program is ranked low in the list of certification programs, this means that they have received overwhelmingly negative (verified) customer feedback.

ESLinsider is currently ranked bottom of the list and has featured in the bottom 5 for the past 9 months.

Instead of being focused on improving the course experience for his customers, Ian Leahy has chosen to lash out at trustedteflreviews.com with a barrage of misleading materials that he has published online.

Ian Leahy might sound convincing, he might even appear credible, but he is driven by one desire: the desire to work as little as possible whilst earning as much money as he possibly can to fuel his lifestyle.

He has been called out on this behavior before – type ESLinsider Asia Scam or Ian Leahy Asia Scam into Google.

Taking into account all of the above information, ESLinsider will now be listed on trustedteflreviews.com with a blacklisted warning. This will go into effect from today.

Mia Williams

Read more ESLinsider reviews

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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The post ESLinsider / Ian Leahy Blacklisted Warning! appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

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:

The 5 Best Online TEFL TESOL Courses in 2024

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

Read more ESLinsider reviews

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

TEFL Accreditation Guide | 6 TEFL Red Flags | TTR Home | TEFL Course Special Offers

The post “The course contains very poor video quality” appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.