World TESOL Academy review (https://www.worldtesolacademy.com/) submitted by Dave.

My experience with World TESOL Academy was deeply disappointing and felt more like being caught in a marketing funnel than participating in a legitimate TEFL training program.

I initially enrolled because the course was extremely cheap, and at first, that seemed like a great deal. But very quickly, I realized that everything beyond the bare minimum came with extra fees. Need to retake a module? That’ll cost you. Want your certificate? That might cost you too — unless, of course, you’re willing to appear in a promotional video holding your certificate for their social media accounts. I found this extremely unprofessional and coercive.

In my case, I was told I failed a module, even though I was confident I had passed. There was no transparency, no detailed feedback, and no appeal process — just an invoice if I wanted to try again. It began to feel less like an educational program and more like a money trap.

When I finally finished the course — which, frankly, took just a few hours to complete, not days — I expected to receive my certificate. Instead, I was offered a “free” certificate if I agreed to pose for promotional materials. I declined, and I’m still waiting for what I already earned. That should never be the case with a legitimate course provider.

Adding to the discomfort is the referral model they promote: you get “perks” or faster service if you bring others into the program. It started to resemble a pyramid or Ponzi-style scheme, where the real focus is on growing their reach rather than offering quality education.

To be clear, the actual course content was extremely basic and superficial. There was no real challenge, no meaningful tutor interaction, and very little that would actually prepare someone to teach English professionally.

World TESOL Academy markets itself as affordable, but the hidden costs, manipulative tactics, and lack of educational value make it a poor choice for anyone serious about teaching. Spend a little more and go with a reputable, accredited provider that won’t put marketing gimmicks above student learning.

Read more World TESOL Academy reviews: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/

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

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The article begins under the two following advertising banners.

Banner #1 is for a limited-time discount from TEFL Online Pro – winner of the 2025 Teachers’ Choice Award. The winner of the Teachers’ Choice award may, at their discretion, advertise for free on Trusted TEFL Reviews for as long as they are the holder of this prestigious award.

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Both banners represent top-rated online TEFL and TESOL certification course programs.

Online TEFL TESOL course review scams in 2026.

(Updated: December 21, 2025)

This is a must-read article if you are choosing which TEFL course to take and are confused by which ones are legitimate and which ones are scams.

The scams are becoming more and more sophisticated.

To prevent your TEFL dream turning into a TEFL nightmare, we strongly recommend that you read this article in full.

Online TEFL TESOL Scam TEFL programs.

Currently, the more notable scam TEFL companies are ESLinsider, ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training, MyTEFL, The TEFL Academy, and World TESOL Academy.

1. ESLinsider

ESLinsider (Ian Patrick Leahy) portrays himself as a TEFL whistleblower and he trashes almost every TEFL program online for seemingly altruistic motives, but his endgame is to sell you one TEFL course – his TEFL course. Among a long list of criminal activity, he was recommending TEFL students without college degrees to buy fake ones online. Some people followed his advice and (in China) were arrested, fined, deported. Ian is currently wanted by the Chinese authorities and is essentially on the lamb, living a transient life in the United States. Ian was banned from Facebook for spreading misinformation and disinformation way back in 2017. https://www.eslinsider.com/

2. ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training

ITTT International TEFL and TESOL Training operates under more than 20 different websites. Each one looks similar, but is different just enough so that you would be forgiven into believing that one website is a different company from another website. This company has a bogus accreditation from a website that spells it as “Accredidation”. Affiliate marketing is their lean and they have one favorite who will say and write anything to get you to make the purchase: Linda Dunsmore. ITTT will take your money, give you access to a subpar course, fail to respond to online tutor requests, and ghost you when it comes time for the advertised “free” job-finding help – unless you pay through the nose for their job placement services, which you are recommended to avoid like the plague.

3. MyTEFL

MyTEFL used to be accredited by OTTSA (a website they created) and are now accredited by a bogus company: International TEFL Accreditation Council (ITEFLAC). Folks, official accreditation company website’s don’t have stock images of business people in office boardrooms. MyTEFL offer affordable TEFL courses, but they make their real money from paid job placement services. Do not pay for this service. If you do, when you receive your weekly or monthly teaching pay, without realizing it at first, MyTEFL will be skimming up to 25% off. And what can you do about it when you have locked yourself into a job contract with a language school through MyTEFL? https://mytefl.com/

4. The TEFL Academy (TTA)

The TEFL Academy (TTA) is a truly corrupt corporate company. They claim to be the “Worlds #1 TEFL Course Provider!” They are not. And, despite their many claims, they are not accredited. The TEFL Academy claims to be accredited by AQC, DEAC, QUALIFI, and even by Ofqual. It is only regulated by Ofqual and QUALIFI, and it also appears that QUALIFI might have been created by the good folks at The TEFL Academy. AQC is a sister website of DEAC, and you can see that The TEFL Academy is not accredited by DEAC because DEAC has a search feature that shows all the companies that it accredits – The TEFL Academy is not listed. As with ITTT, The TEFL Academy pays affiliate marketers to promote its courses. More about this below. https://www.theteflacademy.com/

5. World TESOL Academy

World TESOL Academy is likewise shady as hell. They offer TEFL courses for $38 and this appears to lure in a lot of unsuspecting folk. After you pay, you get bombarded with requests to become one of their affiliate marketers. Students rate the course as “terrible” and a bit like flying with Ryanair, with a smorgasbord of hidden fees and additional costs. World TESOL Academy is accredited by Accreditat and CPD that are pay-for-accreditation companies that are not recognized by any reputable language schools. Another red flag is that they have the Reviews tab disabled on their Facebook page. https://www.worldtesolacademy.com/

How TEFL companies scam you.

Besides the above mentioned scams, there are some complex ways in which some TEFL companies will scam you.

And the sophistication of the scams is intensifying.

TEFL Review Website Bedfellows

Go Abroad, Go Overseas and TEFL Course Review are the three biggest TEFL review websites. They each make their money from charging TEFL companies for a listing on their site – the TEFL companies are their customers – and it is in their best financial interests to have positive reviews about (fill in the blank) TEFL company than to have bad reviews published. This is why a company like The TEFL Academy has a high review score on all three websites – they make certain that negative reviews of them are minimized and they are free to have fake positive reviews appear on all three sites, and on the other review sites where they have a listing. Incidentally, The TEFL Academy has a lot of money at their disposal and frequently sue individuals and companies if they dare to publish something negative about them. Trusted TEFL Reviews published a few negative student reviews of The TEFL Academy and we were warned that if they were not taken down, they would sue us. We simply responded that the reviews will remain published because they were written by students of their program.

Affiliate Marketing

If you see an individual excessively promoting a TEFL program – with or without a coupon code for a discount – it will certainly be an affiliate marketer. Caitriona McTiernan and Megan Broccoli are the two main ones for The TEFL Academy and Linda Dunsmore heads the ITTT affiliate marketing side of the business. A large majority of TEFL programs belong to affiliate marketing companies, paying people who have never taken their courses to promote them online and earn money for themselves in the process. They will say and write absolutely anything (“the course was AMAZING!”) to make the sell, such as promises of earning $100 per hour for teaching English online. No one earns anywhere near to $100 teaching English online.

Trashing A Business Competitor

In the Wild West of online TEFL, anything goes. It’s very common for TEFL companies to trash each other online. They create fake profiles and then write fake complaints and fake reviews – misinformation and disinformation – on complaints websites and Reddit. And TEFL programs with deep pockets, such as The TEFL Academy, have now started to pay people to take a competitor’s course and then slam it online. This is cruel and clever because the person can show that they have a certificate from the TEFL company and can write exactly what the company tells them to write. A recent case involved one of the affiliate marketers from The TEFL Academy – Megan Broccoli – who purchased a TEFL Online Pro course, completed it, claimed after an hour of course completion that she couldn’t use the certificate, and began spreading her message on Reddit and elsewhere that the company is a scam. Something similar also happened to OISE University of Toronto TEFL and CIEE TEFL. CIEE TEFL, OISE University of Toronto TEFL and TEFL Online Pro are among the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses.

Reddit

When Online TEFL/TESOL courses were gaining traction about 15 years ago, in response to the established in-person TEFL/TESOL course industry, a few of them set up Reddit communities – communities that they used and continue to use to push their agenda. This tends to focus on trashing their competitors and clandestinely promoting their courses. We recommend avoiding Reddit for Online TEFL/TESOL course information because of this, and because of the vast number of TEFL shills active on the site.

Niche subreddits, such as online course communities, are often run by people with a vested interest in promoting certain courses—for which they receive a financial kickback. This often leads them to delete positive comments about any business competitors of the courses from which they receive kickbacks.

The r/TEFL subreddit is well known for this type of behavior—they allow positive comments for their favored TEFL companies but prevent students of some other TEFL programs from posting honest reviews of their course experiences. They even have a Reddit Wiki page that clearly demonstrates the quid pro quo partnership they maintain with certain programs.

Trashing Trusted TEFL Reviews

It must be so frustrating for the many TEFL programs that don’t have the kind of power over Trusted TEFL Reviews that they lord over other TEFL review websites. So what do they do? They spread misinformation and disinformation about me and Trusted TEFL Reviews because they just can’t handle having even one or two negative reviews published online about them. By trying to discredit this website, they hope that people won’t believe the reviews of their program. All TEFL programs listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews have a free listing and all TEFL programs are free to respond to reviews and to add comments.

The TEFL Wall of Shame.

Important Clarifying Information.

Several points need addressing, and I will write about each one separately:

The Teachers’ Choice Award

Several Online TEFL companies are claiming that the Teachers’ Choice Award is fake. It isn’t. We created the Teachers’ Choice Award back in 2019, after noticing that other mainstream TEFL review websites had also created their awards. The fundamental difference between our award and the awards of other mainstream TEFL review websites is that the winner of the Teachers’ Choice Award is based on merit alone – voted for by language schools, universities, TEFL students, and TEFL graduates. If a company has won an award from a mainstream TEFL review website, it means they have likely paid for the privilege of “winning” that award.

TEFL Online Pro

TEFL Online Pro (https://teflonlinepro.com/) has won the Teachers’ Choice Award for seven consecutive years – they are the highest-rated in 2026. They have won the award every year because they were the Online TEFL/TESOL program that received the most votes. Trusted TEFL Reviews does not own TEFL Online Pro, just as it doesn’t own the other four Online TEFL/TESOL programs that currently hold the place of being one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL programs. Trusted TEFL Reviews is an independent Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website. We are not affiliated with any TEFL/TESOL program listed on the Trusted TEFL Reviews website.

Trusted TEFL Reviews is a not-for-profit website

Contrary to what some Online TEFL programs claim, it doesn’t cost anything to list your Online TEFL/TESOL program on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Also, we don’t allow any paid advertising because we feel that it could present a conflict of interest. The only advertising allowed is granted to the TEFL program winner of the annual Teachers’ Choice Award. TEFL Online Pro (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-reviews-in-2025/) is the winner of this year’s award, so they have been allowed to promote any TEFL course discounts that they may run during the year. This additional exposure on Trusted TEFL Reviews is without charge for the TEFL program currently enjoying Teachers’ Choice Award winner status.

I am not a man

I identify as a woman because I am a woman, living and teaching English in Vienna, Austria. Contrary to what some Online TEFL/TESOL companies have written about me online, I am not a “man”, I am not a “dyke”, and I am not a “b!tch”. I am a mother. I co-own Trusted TEFL Reviews with my partner and we run Trusted TEFL Reviews together, from our apartment in Vienna. We also have a small office within the city limits that we visit mostly during the summer months when the air-con in the office is a welcome respite. We also run the Teachers’ Choice Award from this office. It is no Online TEFL/TESOL program’s beeswax what our addresses are and we both feel safer not disclosing our addresses. I have received threats in the past simply because I wouldn’t delete a negative review written about one of the TEFL programs listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

We never delete reviews from Trusted TEFL Reviews, unless the review is later found to be fake

Online TEFL/TESOL course programs are the customers of the mainstream Online TEFL/TESOL review websites. The programs pay a yearly fee to be listed on the review website, and this is how those review websites generate the majority of their commercial income. Those review websites have a strong financial incentive to hide negative reviews and hold almost no verification process for publishing positive reviews – the vast majority of which are written by the TEFL company. Trusted TEFL Reviews has a strong verification process in place and we only publish reviews that have been proven to have been written by a real TEFL student. This has infuriated a few Online TEFL/TESOL companies – companies that are used to chalking up fake 5-star reviews on those mainstream TEFL review platforms.

We allow all of the TEFL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews to respond to reviews

All Online TEFL/TESOL companies listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews are free to respond to any review published about their program. The vast majority of programs choose not to, but some do. The most prolific company to respond to reviews – responding to every review they receive – is TEFL Online Pro. This company is proactive and recognizes the importance of thanking customers for writing positive reviews and addressing any issues presented by negative reviews. If an Online TEFL company writes that they tried responding to a review but were unsuccessful in doing so, it is a flat-out lie.

Russian review websites

A few months ago, an Online TEFL/TESOL company reached out to me – a company not listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews – complaining that their business wasn’t doing so well. They blamed their dwindling revenue on the many cheap Online TEFL/TESOL programs undercutting them with lower prices. They suggested that they would “handle the Google Ads campaigns” of those programs through a process known as click fraud. They also suggested that I should write some damning reviews about those programs on complaintsboard.com. I refused the offer and told the individual to focus on improving their course offerings and customer services. complaintsboard.com, dirtyscam.com, and ripoffreport.com are all Russian-owned websites. They may claim otherwise, but they operate outside of countries where they can be held accountable for the defamatory material that they allow to be published on their websites. I read one recent “complaint” that TEFL Online Pro is offering courses illegally and not paying their taxes. This, of course, is just fiction. I also read another “complaint” where someone had written that OISE University of Toronto TEFL is a scam and their certificates are not valid internationally. Also, fictitious. The rogue Online TEFL/TESOL companies use these websites to badmouth their business competitors because all you need to do to have your review published is to verify your email address – using any name to create an account. Those Russian websites feel protected from legal repercussions and they are the go-to websites for the dregs of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification course world.

TEFL companies that want to take over the world

The TEFL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/the-tefl-academy/) is the perfect example of a company that wants it all, and they are willing to break all the better business rules to achieve their objective. We began listing this program on Trusted TEFL Reviews a few years ago. Within a couple of days, we received an avalanche of 5-star reviews for them, but not one of the reviewers was willing to prove course participation in The TEFL Academy program. They were fake reviews. We also have it on good word that this company reaches out to its graduates and offers them a free mini TEFL course if they write a positive review. This is why there is such a disconnect between their reviews on Trusted TEFL Reviews and their reviews on Facebook, Trustpilot, etc. World TESOL Academy (https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/) is also guilty of this shameless and flagrant middle finger to the better business rules. They claim to be the “Worlds #1 TEFL Course Provider.” This obviously isn’t true, as are many other claims on their website.

Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL companies

Interact with your customers! If you receive a positive review, thank the customer for spending their time to review your program. If you receive a negative review, apologize and try to right a wrong. Don’t write false sh*t about me or Trusted TEFL Reviews just because you got some negative feedback.

Our advice for Online TEFL/TESOL students

The Online TEFL/TESOL industry is unregulated and highly competitive. Some companies will swear blind to you that you need to take their course because it has more hours or because it has won so many awards. The Teachers’ Choice Award is the only Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program award that cannot be bought. The industry standard is a 120-hour TEFL/TESOL certification course (140 hours if it includes 20 teaching practice hours). You don’t need more training hours because those extra hours are meaningless for TEFL employers. If you pay less than US$100 for a 120-hour Online TEFL/TESOL certification course, you WILL regret it.

Accreditation

To prevent you from becoming a victim of a TEFL scam, we recommend that you choose a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.

The most well-known accreditation companies – offering Full Accreditation:

ACCET – Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training.

ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses.

OISE – University of the Toronto Faculty of Education.

TESL Canada

University of Cambridge’s English Language Assessment

If you read anything negative about these organizations online, it has been written by an Online TEFL/TESOL program – a program that likely has no accreditation itself or one that simply pays a dodgy accreditation company an annual fee.

You can see which companies are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized by looking through the program listings in the TEFL Course Directory:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

The top-rated schools in the directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.

The low-rated schools in the directory are low-rated for a legitimate reason.

Be smart. Don’t fall for the disinformation and misinformation.

Trusted TEFL Reviews

If and when we are notified of shady practices or even outright scams, we will post details of them in the Online TEFL Course Scams section of this website.

This ‘Online TEFL Course Reviews Scams’ article was originally written and published by Mia Williams, co-owner of Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) | Best Featured TEFL Articles

Related articles:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/6-tefl-red-flags/

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/common-tefl-scams/

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

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World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Craig.

I was always told that if something is too good to be true it is too good to be true. In other words, it won’t live up to your expectations. World TESOL Academy has adverts showing around the clock its Facebook feed and the reviews for the program were good. So was the price. I think I paid $30 for the course. The promise was that with this certificate, you could teach online or overseas and that it was accepted everywhere. I went ahead and enrolled and so began the World TESOL Academy farce. The course can be completed in a few hours. Each module is a few paragraphs of test followed by a multiple-choice test. After every module (and I mean EVERY module) there is a reminder that you can become an affiliate for the company and make money by selling the course to other people. I even received phone calls reminding me about this. At the end of the day (the same day I enrolled) I printed off my TEFL certificate and that was the end of my World TESOL Academy experience. Or, so I thought. The emails just kept coming, as did the phone calls, reminding me that I could earn big money by selling the course to other people. This explains all the 5-star reviews on World TESOL Academy’s Facebook page feed. People write about how wonderful the course is because they just want to sell it to other people. this isn’t a TEFL program. It’s a Ponzi scheme. I did apply to a few schools with the certificate but I was laughed out of the building. It appears that the word is now out that this program does very little in the way of preparing you to teach English. I’m now going to take a TEFL course that is reasonably priced, which is internationally recognized, and doesn’t treat me like some kind of extension to its marketing department. World TESOL Academy is too good to be true and I should have known better.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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

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World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Annette.

I was foolish to choose this TEFL program based on the program’s very low cost and also based on so many photos of their graduates, posing with their World TESOL Academy certificate, and claiming it was the best learning experience of their lives.

I decided to take their 120-hour TEFL course as this is the standard amount of hours required by schools when you want to start teaching English.

It took me an afternoon to complete the course!

No substance in the course content at all. Just a few paragraphs of text, a multiple choice quiz, and then onto the next module.

What really peeved me was the constant requests to become an affiliate member for the company.

They even reached out to me after completing the course to offer me a free mini course if I were to take a photo of myself with the TEFL certificate and send it to them. In the email, it even highlighted that I must be smiling in the photo.

I didn’t learn anything about TEFL taking this course.

What I did learn, though, was all about the shady world of affiliate marketing.

The course is cheap for a reason and comes with a lot of strings attached.

If you are reading this and if you are looking for a TEFL qualification to get you started teaching English, please avoid this company.

You might as well buy a book instead because at least then you will learn about TEFL.

I’m giving World TESOL Academy the lowest possible score of one star for my World TESOL Academy review.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and World TESOL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

By choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Certification Course Programs, you are guaranteed not to be scammed.

Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

Read more World TESOL Academy 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 “World TESOL Academy review” appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

World TESOL Academy Certificate.

World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Deborah.

It has to be a one-star review from me, I’m afraid.

As I imagine so many others before me did, I also didn’t take my father’s advice that if something looks good to be true then it usually is.

The TEFL course with World TESOL Academy cost just $38 (US) and I naively thought all courses cost around this price. Of course, I later learned that you need to pay a few $$$ if you want a certificate that is going to get you into the right places.

From the outset, the course was a joke. This is when I realized what I’d gotten myself into.

After each module, there is a reminder that you can earn commission fees by selling the course to other people. These reminders continue to this day, despite my having stopped the course last year.

The 120-hour course was over in a day, so it took considerably less time than 120 hours.

Before you ask, no, I am not a TEFL Einstein.

When the World TESOL Academy certificate finally arrived, it looked poorly designed and not something that I would accept if I were the manager of an English school.

The one good thing, I suppose, is at least they spelled my name correctly on the certificate.

I did try applying for jobs with the certificate. I never got a ring back or an email response from anyone that I contacted.

It’s now back to the drawing board and I shall search for a 120-hour TEFL course which is in the $$$ range.

I wish I could write that I learned something from the course with World TESOL Academy, but I learned very little.

The one thing I did learn, is how to try to effectively get your customers to market your TEFL course to other people. This must be the only reason why this program has so many 5-star reviews on the internet because the people who wrote the reviews are hoping you buy the course through them.

If anyone gave this course five stars, they would either be an affiliate or be so tone-deaf to quality online study.

Anyway, I digress.

Yes, you should avoid this TEFL program.

The World TESOL Academy certificate won’t help you in the least.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and World TESOL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

By choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Certification Course Programs, you are guaranteed not to be scammed.

Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

Read more World TESOL Academy 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 World TESOL Academy Certificate appeared first on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

World TESOL Academy Scam.

World TESOL Academy Scam | Trusted TEFL Reviews feels it necessary to (again) point out that you won’t be doing yourself any favors by purchasing a 120-Hour TEFL/TESOL certification course for under US$100.

One such course is the one offered by World TESOL Academy.

It offers TEFL courses for US$38 and it is a scam.

Why is it a scam?

1. It has the Reviews tab on its Facebook account disabled. This is a strong signal that it wishes to control which reviews people can access. Disabling Facebook reviews is a red flag. https://www.facebook.com/worldTESOLacademy
2. It claims to be accredited by Accreditat and CPD. Both of these websites charge companies an annual fee in return for “accreditation” status. The accreditation that they offer is not always recognized by employers and government bodies; meaning that you have a likely chance of being turned down for a job or a job visa. This is why we strongly recommend that you choose a TEFL/TESOL certification course that is Fully Accredited: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-accreditation-guide/
3. It claims that its verified customer reviews listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews are fake. All World TESOL Academy reviews that are published on Trusted TEFL Reviews have been verified as having been written by a World TESOL Academy graduate: https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/world-tesol-academy/ A few TEFL companies try to spread the false narrative that Trusted TEFL Reviews is owned by this and that company. We are a non-profit, independent TEFL reviews website and we are, therefore, not in the pockets of any TEFL certification program. When a TEFL company claims that its reviews on Trusted TEFL Reviews are fake, it means that it wants to muddy the waters and convince its potential customers to look elsewhere for “real” reviews.
4. It hustles its TEFL students to be referral minions for it. Soon after you purchase the course, you will be inundated with requests to become a part of its referral program. What this means is that you can earn money by referring other people to the program. What this also means is that you can’t believe any positive reviews of the program because they will almost certainly have been written by someone hoping to score a referral fee from you.
5. It claims that it is government regulated in the UK. It isn’t.
6. Its courses take under 24 hours to complete and you won’t learn anything of value. As a result, you will perform poorly in job interviews and no reputable school will take your certification seriously. A certificate from World TESOL Academy will handicap your resume.
7. It claims to be a UK-registered company. It has forked out a small pocket of change to set up a UK-limited company. However, anyone can do this. In actual fact, World TESOL Academy is run in India. We absolutely love India and have had many positive travel experiences in the country. We are also aware of the sheer number of scams operating in the country. World TESOL Academy is one of them.
8. It wants people to read its reviews on gooverseas.com. gooverseas.com earns its money from the TEFL companies that it lists on its website and is known for deleting negative reviews and publishing fake positive reviews. It is in its financial interests to do so because it earns a referral fee from people who purchase a TEFL course through its website. People complain that their negative reviews of the program have been deleted by gooverseas.com and this is when they have proven that they took the course.

We could go on, but we are getting a bit tired of trying to warn people about these types of bad companies.

If you want to be taken seriously as a teacher, we recommend taking a TEFL/TESOL online certification course that will train you properly and that will be recognized worldwide:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/01/07/best-online-tefl-courses-tesol-2020/

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and World TESOL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

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Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

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How to avoid the most common TEFL TESOL certification course scams.

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

Common TEFL Scams come in various forms and from various sources. When people think of ‘TEFL Scam’ they usually think first of the scenario where they pay for a TEFL course and receive nothing in return. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence. You are, however, much more likely to fall victim to a TEFL scam unwittingly- one that you may not discover a victim of until a few months or even a few years later.

This article will look at the most common TEFL Scams and will demonstrate how to avoid these easy-to-miss pitfalls. We will also be highlighting the Online TEFL certification course programs that are well-known in the TEFL industry for their shady business practices. i.e., TEFL programs to avoid.

At the end of this article, we list the Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs that we recommend taking if you are having a hard time deciding on which course to take.

1. Common TEFL Scams – Fake Reviews.

Fake customer reviews are a huge issue across the board for most industries and the world of TEFL is no different. The fakers have been getting more and more sophisticated and it can now be very difficult to distinguish real reviews from fake reviews.

Let’s take a look at one of the worst fake reviews offenders: The TEFL Academy.

The TEFL Academy (TTA) used to be a well-respected Online TEFL TESOL course provider, before 2021, until they brought in a new CEO: Thomas Gibbons. Since Thomas’s appointment, Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) has witnessed a substantial overnight increase in “customer reviews” for TTA.

One only needs to look at TTA’s customer reviews on Reviews.io, Trust Pilot, and Hello Peter, to ascertain that something isn’t quite right with the sheer number of 5-star glowing reviews being received all at once for this program, as well as on its Facebook (Meta) page.

How can we be certain that TTA is publishing fake reviews?

Soon after Thomas’s new appointment as CEO at TTA, TTR suddenly began receiving a lot of reviews all at once for TTA’s listing. In one day, if my memory serves me correctly, we received just over 20 reviews for the TEFL Academy program.

Out of those 20 reviews, only four were found to possibly come from a real reviewer. Out of those four, no one returned our email when we requested proof of course enrollment.

It was then that we suddenly stopped receiving so many reviews for this program- until March of this year that is.

In March of 2021, TTR received yet another suspicious TTA review, stuffed with a lot of marketing keywords. The review was submitted by one of their Brand Ambassadors, masquerading as a recently-graduated TTA TEFL student – Caitriona McTiernan.

What does a TEFL Academy Brand Ambassador do? As far as we can gather, it is their job to promote TTA’s courses. In return for their hard work and diligence, they earn a 20% affiliate commission on every TEFL Academy course that is purchased via their recommendation.

TTA’s Brand Ambassadors have demonstrated that they are capable of seriously stretching the truth and can write absolutely anything, without accountability, to earn a juicy 20% affiliate commission fee on every TTA course referral.

And Caitriona earns a ton of money by promoting The TEFL Academy – a UK/Ireland-based TEFL school that rips its customers off through false advertising and likewise false claims.

But, hey, it pays for her trips abroad and I guess she somehow inner justifies the whole shebang. Somehow. I, for one, couldn’t. And neither, I’m assuming, could you.

More about affiliate commissions is in section 2 of this article.

We consider the blatant faking of customer reviews to be a serious red flag.

Whenever we come across examples of this, we always expose the company or individuals behind the fake reviews- as we have done so regarding The TEFL Academy:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/03/25/the-tefl-academy-certification-review/

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2022/05/19/tta-the-tefl-academy/

Incidentally, the path of least resistance for these fake review scammers, when their review is denied publication, is sometimes to claim that Trusted TEFL Reviews is biased. Invariably, the found-out fake reviewer will claim that TTR is owned by such and such a TEFL program- a claim designed to reduce the credibility of TTR and reduce the credibility of them having been exposed as a fake reviewer.

If the TEFL program that they are reviewing tends to receive poor reviews, as The TEFL Academy does, the fake reviewer will also be trying to reduce the credibility of those verified customers’ poor reviews.

Claims made that Trusted TEFL Reviews is a biased reviews website, owned and run by any of the TEFL reviews websites listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews, is a clear sign that the person or company making the claims is trying to cover something up.

Such claims always lead back to an individual representing a TEFL company, or a TEFL company acting in its self-interests. In both cases, the hidden agenda behind such claims stems from a TEFL program with a poor reputation- a poor reputation that they are trying to cover up and conceal from future paying customers.

Trusted TEFL Reviews is an independently run Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website. We are not affiliated, in any way, with any of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs listed on this site.

Only the winner of the Teachers’ Choice Award is granted the ability to publish the award on their school website, and they also enjoy a whole year’s free exposure on Trusted TEFL Reviews, where they may post, for example, any current course discounts or promotions on the Trusted TEFL Reviews website.

Tefl Online Pro won this prestigious award in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-reviews-in-2025

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification program has a high rating on Trusted TEFL Reviews, it means that they are doing something right when it comes to the product it offers and how it treats its customers.

If an Online TEFL/TESOL certification program has a low rating on Trusted TEFL Reviews, it means that they are doing something wrong when it comes to the product it offers and how it treats its customers.

Other programs that have also followed this path of least resistance line of attack, just as The TEFL Academy has done so, are Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider TEFL, Henry Harvin Education, ITTT TEFL, MyTEFL, TEFL Fullcircle, and World TESOL Academy.

What else do these fake-review Online TEFL/TESOL programs have in common?

They all offer unaccredited courses, despite almost all of them claiming to be “accredited” and “international”.

Where is a good source for real TEFL student reviews?

Facebook tends to be a very good source because it has at least some moderation systems put in place, whereby they are able, over time, to delete suspect reviews.

trustedteflreviews.com remains one of the most trusted sources for customer reviews because we are an independent reviews website- meaning that we don’t have a horse in the race and we are free to publish any customer reviews that have been verified as coming from a reliable source.

The verification process for the publication of reviews on TTR includes requesting proof of course enrollment.

All 52 Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs currently listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

2. Common TEFL Scams – Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is another major spanner in the works when it comes to the perpetuation of common TEFL scams.

The TEFL course affiliates marketing scam works like this:

Person ‘A’ wants to earn money online. They realize that they can earn money online by recommending a TEFL program and earning a commission on every course purchase that they initiate. The commission rate is usually around 20% of the total course purchase price. Person ‘A’, who has never taken the TEFL course, begins blogging about that TEFL course- claiming that they purchased and took the course, that it was amazing, and that others should also purchase and take the course.

The internet is rife with travel blogs that are signed up to TEFL course affiliate programs.

You can usually recognize them because they have unique names, such as ‘Goats On The Road’, ‘Roaming Vegans’, ‘Two Monkeys Travel Group’, etc.

Some TEFL programs, such as The TEFL Academy, have gone a step further by employing their own ‘brand ambassadors’ to affiliate market their courses for them. In some cases, the brand ambassador will be a graduate of the program, but in other cases, the brand ambassador will have no first-hand knowledge of the course.

Either way, when you are being paid to write only positive things about a product/service because you get to gain from your content, it is highly unlikely that you will be objective in your coverage of the product/service for which you are writing.

Not all TEFL programs have an affiliate marketing program, but the ones that do tend to be programs that you would do best to avoid. MyTEFL and The TEFL Academy are two unaccredited Online TEFL TESOL certification programs that rely heavily on their affiliates’ minions for new paying customers.

Of further concern is that some of the most well-known TEFL course reviews websites, travel abroad/overseas websites, and work abroad/overseas websites are knee-deep in the affiliate’s marketing model- earning an affiliate’s marketing income from TEFL course sales of the programs that they have listed, and which they accept reviews of on their sites.

Affiliate marketing is one of the common TEFL scams. You should most certainly take anything written by an affiliate marketer with extreme skepticism because they often, if not always, have a hidden agenda behind the content that they have written.

3. Common TEFL Scams – Accreditation.

TEFL accreditation is another area in which there lurk Common TEFL Scams.

Because there is not one central accreditation body for Online TEFL TESOL certification courses, there are, instead, a handful of accreditation bodies that fully accredited Online TEFL TESOL certification course programs.

The accreditation bodies authorized to provide Fully Accredited status to Online TEFL TESOL certification course programs:

ACCET – Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training | https://accet.org/

ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses | https://www.acteflc.com/

OISE – University of the Toronto Faculty of Education | https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/

TESL Canada | https://tesl.ca/

University of Cambridge’s English Language Assessment | https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/

Online TEFL courses that are directly accredited by the Ministry of Education also enjoy Fully Accredited status.

There are, of course, other “accreditation awarding institutions” out there, such as Accreditat, OTTSA, and ITEFLAC, but they are fake accreditation websites.

Trusted TEFL Reviews ran an article on the OTTSA accreditation scam a while back:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/02/18/warning-the-ottsa-accrediting-professionals-scam/

MyTEFL started with OTTSA accreditation. As has ITTT TEFL.

About six months after we ran the OTTSA accreditation scam article, MyTEFL also magically gained “accreditation” from ITEFLAC – a website that suspiciously appears to have been created by MyTEFL. MyTEFL is now also “accredited” by the International Council for Online Educational Standards (ICOES). ICOES also accredits such bastions of international education including, but not limited to, ‘Permanent Jewelry Bestie’ and ‘spray tan class’.

MyTEFL and ITTT TEFL issue their course certificates out of Thailand. OTTSA was created by a newbie English teacher, Simon Godwin, who lives in Thailand.

OTTSA is a creation of MyTEFL and ITTT TEFL.

ITEFLAC is so obviously a scam. You only have to look at the website to see that it is a fake accreditation website. Could ITEFLAC also have been created by MyTEFL? Possibly. We definitely wouldn’t put it past them.

The TEFL Academy also lies about its accreditation claims.

On the TTA website, it is claimed that The TEFL Academy is accredited by Ofqual, QUALIFI, DEAC, and AQC.

These are external bodies authorized to regulate education programs, not accredit them.

The TEFL Academy (TTA) is, therefore, heavily regulated, but is not accredited at all.

The lesson to be learned here is that when choosing which Online TEFL TESOL certification course to take, choose a course that is fully accredited by one of the (top) above-mentioned reputable international accreditation bodies.

4. Common TEFL Scams – The ‘That TEFL Course is a scam or fraud’ scam.

When I traveled in India, one of the stand-out annoyances was how whenever I would arrive in a new place, with my mind made up on where I was going to sleep for the night, I was always told by random strangers on the train or bus stations that the place where I had chosen to stay was “bad”, “no longer in business”, or “a scam”.

This would then follow with a recommendation of their own, for a far better place where I should sleep instead.

In 100% of these run-ins with “helpful” strangers, not once was my intended accommodation as was described by them.

This is also a Common TEFL Scam.

Some Online TEFL TESOL programs spend vast amounts of their time spreading fake information online about their competitors, to try and convince people to take their course program instead.

A clear winner in this category is Ian Patrick Leahy, from ESLinsider TEFL.

Ian has carved out a specific niche for himself, whereby he churns out pages and pages of misdirected online content- all with the sole intention of selling more of his unaccredited ESLinsider TEFL /TEKA courses.

In other words, Ian Patrick Leahy is a serial online spammer.

Ian and his ESLinsider TEFL course have been banned from Facebook for this excessive spamming and excessive spreading of false information.

Pick and choose any Online TEFL/TESOL certification program – Ian will have written some trash online about it at some time, on his school blog or YouTube channel.

The major irony is that Ian Leahy from ESLinsider TEFL has been directly linked with the imprisonment of English teachers in China.

Just Google ‘ESLinsider Scams Asia’ and you discover a treasure trove of complaints and warnings.

Ian was not only selling his unaccredited TEFL/TEKA course to unsuspecting people. He was also selling fake college diplomas. The Chinese authorities found out and arrested and then deported anyone they found to have bought a fake college diploma from Ian Leahy/ESLinsider.

There are now warnings issued by various reputable sources – all advising people not to take one of Ian’s ESLinsider TEFL/TEKA courses because if they do, they won’t be eligible for a work visa and might be detained due to association with Ian’s TEFL course.

In addition to this bombshell, it has recently come to light that Ian Leahy has been accused, by his verified customers, of having withdrawn money from their debit and credit cards without prior authorization and for purchases not related to TEFL.

Ian Patrick Leahy claims to be a ‘TEFL expert’, an ‘ESL insider’, but has little knowledge of TEFL – demonstrated in one of his YouTube videos, where a user comments on him not knowing the first thing about teaching Phonetics.

The Ian Patrick Leahy ESLinsider scam has been covered in detail on Trusted TEFL Reviews, using Ian’s own published content against him: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/02/03/eslinsider-reviews-scam/

We often receive emails, asking whether so and so’s Online TEFL course program is legit or not, and citing concerns about something they have read online that points to the opposite conclusion.

Our advice is always the same.

Place importance on verified customer feedback. Don’t place importance on content that is not from a verified customer source.

5. Common TEFL Scams – Dirt-cheap TEFL courses.

If you pay peanuts then you get monkeys, and if you buy an Online TEFL TESOL certification course for peanuts then you will be setting yourself up for immediate failure and for becoming victim to the dirt-cheap Common TEFL Scams.

We do understand that money can be tight for some people, but there are some purchases in life that you don’t want to save on and compromise quality on.

A TEFL course is something you don’t want to make a huge saving on because there is always a reason behind that huge saving.

If you purchase a 120-hour Online TEFL TESOL certification course for under US$100, you can expect that course to be unaccredited and full of grammar and spelling errors. You can also expect that you will learn very little on the course and that your course certificate will look like a 5-year-old created it.

The dirt-cheap Online TEFL TESOL certification courses are also almost always not accepted by online/international employers, and you will likely discover down the path that your certificate won’t be accepted as a document for the work visa that will be essential for your teaching purposes.

Do yourself a favor and invest a little bit more and earn an internationally recognized TEFL TESOL certificate that will properly train you to teach English, and that will be accepted worldwide.

The Online TEFL TESOL certification courses that Trusted TEFL Reviews recommends you take.

TTR is an unbiased Online TEFL/TESOL reviews website, so we are completely impartial when it comes to which TEFL course you should take.

However, based on the verified reviews submitted over the years by Online TEFL/TESOL course customers, we would recommend, if you are having a hard time deciding on which course to take, the following (listed in order of customer review ratings) Fully Accredited Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs:

TEFL Online Pro | Verified customer reviews | https://teflonlinepro.com/

TEFL/TESOL online programs receive an additional program reviews category when they win the Teachers’ Choice Award and are granted the ability to promote their course discounts or promotions on Trusted TEFL Reviews.

OISE University of Toronto TEFL | Verified customer reviews | https://www.teachaway.com/

CIEE TEFL | Verified customer reviews | https://www.ciee.org/

Maximo Nivel TEFL | Verified customer reviews | https://maximonivel.com/

CIEE TEFL, Maximo Nivel, OISE Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro certificates are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized.

Read more: The 5 best Online TEFL TESOL courses to take in 2026

TEFL Online Pro has won the Teachers’ Choice Award in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2024/10/19/the-teachers-international-online-tefl-tesol-certification-course-choice-award-winner/

Stay safe out there!

This ‘Common TEFL Scams | What To Watch Out For’ article was written by Mia Williams, co-owner of Trusted TEFL Reviews (TTR) | Best Featured TEFL Articles

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

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World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Vincent.

First of all: what do you expect from a $30 course? It took me 2.5 hours to complete and pass the entire “120-hour course”. All quizzes are multiple-choice, and the final exam reuses quiz questions. Can’t relate to those overly positive “OMG, this course changed my life”-reviews I’ve read on review sites like Trustpilot.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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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Cheapest TEFL Course World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Vanessa.

Cheapest TEFL Course.

This course is beyond a joke. It’s billed as a 120-hour course and I effortlessly managed to complete it in two hours. I learned diddly squat so it was a complete waste of my time and money. I shudder thinking how I would have performed in a job interview if I had relied on this course, never mind how I would have ever been able to teach anything with what little was taught in the course. I see why people want to save money on a TEFL course. I did too. but you get what you pay for and if you purchase this course, no one will want to employ you because you won’t know enough about teaching to a) pass an interview, and b) be able to teach students. I read that WTA was established last year in lockdown and it follows that it was set up by someone who wants to make a quick buck off unsuspecting wannabe teachers. You will learn very little and by now I’m sure the word is out that anyone holding a certificate from this company is someone who schools won’t want to employ, for lack of standard knowledge. Do yourselves a favor pay a little more and invest in yourself.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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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World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Scott.

I would not recommend taking the TEFL course online with World Tesol Academy. Yes, it is a very cheap course. I think it cost me something like $35 for the course fee. But, the course comes with major strings attached.

1. As soon as you pay for the course, you start getting bombarded with offers of “free money” if you can also get others to sign up for the course. I really wasn’t expecting my first bit of communication with World Tesol Academy to be like this. I was, instead, naturally expecting that I would be able to get started immediately with the course.
2. The course is not really a course. It is a collection of pdf docs you read and then answer ridiculously easy tests on. They claim that the course is 120 hours. I completed everything in 5. 5 hours to complete a supposed 120-hour course.
3. There are requests for money along the way. They wanted something like $100 for the certificate. Plus, the offers of referral fee money (if I got friends or family to sign up) got way too intense.

The only way I think I could ever recommend taking the TEFL with this company would be if you have taught for years, are just wanting the certificate, and can ignore the hidden costs and relentless email spam. I literally learned nothing by taking the TEFL with World Tesol Academy.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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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World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Isabelle.

It wasn’t what I expected. I saw the World Tesol Academy course offer on Facebook and decided to give it a go, based on the low price and the positive reviews I read on trustpilot.com. In the adverts they show someone who is supposed to have taken one of their courses, proudly showing off her World Tesol Academy certificate. I want to make it clear to anyone considering the course that this won’t be the certificate you receive. The one I received didn’t look half as good and was without the seal that the one shown in the Facebook ads has. It’s a classic bait-and-switch scam. The course is worth the $34 World Tesol Academy charges. The course content is poor, there were errors in the information presented, and there is never anyone around when you have a question or need help. The course hardly taught me anything at all and I would feel unprepared for a job interview. Bearing all this in mind, I would recommend giving World Tesol Academy a wide miss. I won’t be recommending them to anyone.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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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Cheap TEFL Certification World TESOL Academy review, submitted by Sam.

Cheap TEFL certification.

This happens when you only pay 34 dollars for an “international” TEFL course.

There will be many promises. I was promised many things. I was promised that 34 dollars would be the total price of the course and all other services combined. I was promised the course was on “the highest level”. I was promised that I would be able to get a well-paid teaching job with the certification. I was promised I would receive help with finding a well-paid teaching job.

The reality proved very different.

The course really is 34 dollars. When you log in to start, you immediately see why it is only 34 dollars. Not one page was without spelling mistakes or grammar errors. The reading texts were mainly just full of fillers with a couple of semi-meaningful paragraphs pertaining to teaching English. I was able to complete the course in 1 day. Yep, you read right. 1 day. When you finish you are provided with a link to download your TEFL certificate PDF. The PDF version didn’t look good so I asked for a hard copy. When World TESOL Academy asked for more money for the hard copy version I politely declined their offer.

There was no help in any form with finding work. When I did start interviewing for jobs, I was told my World TESOL Academy TEFL certificate wouldn’t be accepted. I guess the word has got out about this program and employers are wise to what can only be described as an outright scam.

World TESOL Academy market itself online A LOT. Mainly on Facebook as far as I can see. They also gather A LOT of top-rated reviews. If you look more closely at those reviews though you can see that most of them are either fake or written by students from India and The Philippines. There are very few reviews written by native English speakers and this is probably because this certificate is only good if you are prepared to work for 5 dollars (or less) an hour. Sorry, but it’s true.

When I realized I wouldn’t be able to use the certification I requested a refund. I never heard back from World TESOL Academy. They took 34 dollars from me and all I received were false promises. Avoid this program if you want to teach English.

Read more World TESOL Academy 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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Is World TESOL Academy Legit?

No. World TESOL Academy cannot be described as being a legitimate Online TEFL/TESOL certification course provider.

World TESOL Academy is not a Fully Accredited TEFL course provider.

It is accredited by Accreditat, which is not a reputable accreditation provider.

Think about it. Would you employ someone who spent $30 on a TEFL certificate that was issued by a dodgy accreditation body?

Trusted TEFL Reviews’ advice is to invest a little bit more and obtain a Fully Accredited TEFL/TESOL certificate.

Essential TEFL Tip!

Are you worried about being scammed? TEFL course scams are becoming more sophisticated, and World TESOL Academy has been proven to be a scam!

Protect yourself from TEFL scams.

We strongly recommend choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs in 2026:

The 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Courses in 2026

By choosing from one of the 5 Best Online TEFL/TESOL Certification Course Programs, you are guaranteed not to be scammed.

Choose a fully accredited and internationally recognized online TEFL/TESOL certification course that you can use for all online and abroad teaching English jobs.

Mia Williams – Trusted TEFL Reviews

One World TESOL Academy customer wrote: “It’s a scam company with fake reviews! If you look on their Facebook page they have turned off their reviews so they are hiding something.”

Another World TESOL Academy customer wrote: “Yes it’s a scam! I took their course and my employer wouldn’t accept the certificate. I asked World TESOL Academy for a refund and they never replied to my many emails. They don’t have a phone number on their website so I can’t even call them.”

World TESOL Academy offers dirt-cheap TEFL courses with questionable accreditation – it is not Fully Accredited.

The schools and companies offering the best-paid teaching jobs won’t even consider you when presenting a World TESOL Academy TEFL certificate at job interviews.

If something sounds too good to be true, it is.

View World TESOL Academy with extreme skepticism, and view any bloggers promoting the course online equally with a healthy dose of suspicion.

Trusted TEFL Reviews recommends avoiding World TESOL Academy.

Instead, we recommend taking a Fully Accredited Online TEFL/TESOL course that will be recognized for all online and in-person (worldwide) teaching English jobs:

The best-rated schools in the TEFL Course Directory are top-rated for a legitimate reason.

The main reasons for this Buyer Beware Warning:

1. World TESOL Academy claims to be accredited by Accreditat. Accreditat is not an internationally recognized TEFL/TESOL accreditation awarding body. It is, instead, an internally validated website and not externally validated – operated by an anonymous owner, with links to the casino business. Online and overseas teaching companies likely won’t recognize your Accreditat World TESOL Academy certificate.
2. World TESOL Academy employees have attempted, on numerous occasions, to write their company reviews and tried to get them published on Trusted TEFL Reviews. Trusted TEFL Reviews has a zero-tolerance policy toward fake reviews.
3. It might seem like an attractive proposition to save money by purchasing a dirt-cheap Online TEFL/TESOL certification course, but you will be wasting both your money and time by doing so.
4. A common complaint made by verified customers of this program is that they have easily completed the whole “120-Hour” course within one day, and have further complained that they learned very little during the course.

Instead, we recommend choosing to take your international TEFL/TESOL certification course with a program offering a fully accredited course that is far more recognized internationally than the World TESOL Academy’s.

The four highest-rated World TESOL Academy fully accredited alternative course options, listed in order of customer review ratings:

1. TEFL Online Pro – https://teflonlinepro.com/
2. OISE Toronto TEFL – https://teflonline.teachaway.com/
3. CIEE TEFL – https://www.ciee.org/
4. Maximo Nivel TEFL – https://maximonivel.com/

CIEE TEFL, Maximo Nivel, OISE Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro are Level 5 and CELTA-equivalent Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs.

TEFL Online Pro verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/tefl-online-pro-reviews-in-2025

OISE Toronto TEFL verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/oise-university-of-toronto-tefl/

CIEE TEFL verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/ciee-tefl/

Maximo Nivel verified customer reviews:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/category/maximo-nivel-tefl/

CIEE TEFL, Maximo Nivel, OISE Toronto TEFL, and TEFL Online Pro certificates are Fully Accredited and internationally recognized. World TESOL Academy certificates are not fully accredited and are not internationally recognized.

TEFL Online Pro won the Teachers’ Choice Award in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025:

All 57 Online TEFL/TESOL certification course programs currently listed on Trusted TEFL Reviews, ranked in order of customer satisfaction: https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-course-directory/

Is World TESOL Academy Legit?

There are three levels of accreditation: Unaccredited / Accredited / Fully Accredited.

‘Fully Accredited‘ status is the highest level of accreditation.

World TESOL Academy is an ‘Accredited’ Online TEFL/TESOL certification program.

This means that the World TESOL Academy certificate is regionally recognized but not necessarily internationally recognized.

Read more about the different levels of accreditation:

https://trustedteflreviews.com/tefl-accreditation-guide/

https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/28/tefl-tesol-accreditation-101/

(scroll down to the bottom of this page, to the comments section, where recent customers have left their verified World TESOL Academy program feedback)

From what we can gather so far about World TESOL Academy:

1. The course has always been on offer for USD 34.
2. They started offering their TEFL courses at the start of 2020.
3. At the start of 2020, they were accrediting their courses through an accreditation website that they created themselves: ETQC.
4. They have since started to be accredited by ACCREDITAT; making us wonder just how exhaustive ACCREDITAT’s due diligence is when handing out their accreditation stamp of approval, and leading us to question the legitimacy of ACCREDITAT.
5. When students sign up for their $34 TEFL course, World TESOL Academy begins by pressurizing them to sign up friends and family to the program. This continues throughout the course, and weeks and months after you thought your time with them was complete.
6. The hundreds of 5-star reviews they have on certain review websites are on certain review websites that earn money via TEFL/TESOL programs through affiliate marketing. i.e., it is in the interests of those websites to promote positive reviews and hide the negative ones.
7. You complete the whole 120-hour TEFL course within one day.
8. The certificate that you receive looks very different from the one promised on the World TESOL Academy website.
9. Any requests for a refund are either categorically denied or simply ignored.
10. You will likely fail any TEFL job interview with this certification because the course doesn’t teach you anything and you won’t be able to answer even the basic interview questions asked; let alone able to teach a satisfactory demo lesson.

The above has been demonstrated in the following verified customer email, in the verified customer comments below, and in other Trusted TEFL Reviews World TESOL Academy verified reviews.

In light of all of the above information – information submitted to the Trusted TEFL Reviews platform, in the form of verified customer comments and reviews – we are adding a blacklisted warning to this post.

We recently received an email message from a World TESOL Academy recent customer:

“I just wanted to make you aware of this company called world tesol academy because I see you have no reviews about them https://www.worldtesolacademy.com/ . I have tried to submit reviews on other platforms, but because they are paid platforms, such as Go Overseas, the bad reviews don’t get shown and because I didn’t complete the course, they don’t believe me that I took their course. The truth is that I paid for the course $34 and it was so bad that I thought I would try to get a refund and when I ask for a refund they ignored me. I sent them some very upsetting emails and they still ignored me and then denied me access to the course. This company has totally scammed me. I should have listened to my friends about taking a cheap course but I didn’t have much money. I will now start all over again and find a new course provider.”

World TESOL Academy’s introductory, zero-review rating does mean that they will need to begin (alphabetically) at the bottom of the Trusted TEFL Reviews ranking table.

So, is World TESOL Academy legit? We would like to hear from any graduates who have taken one of their courses.

Mia Williams

Related article: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2021/03/30/6-tefl-red-flags/

Read more World TESOL Academy reviews

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

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