Bad Experience at ESF English classes

be_careful

I am creating this new thread to share with you my bad experience at ESF English classes. If you are interested in, you can move on to read the following email exchanges with the Head of Language Department at ESF Education Services. For privacy, the names have been hiden.

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First email sent on March 14, 2008.
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Mr. xxx
Head of Language Department
ESF

March 14, 2008.

Dear Mr. xxx,

We are parents of students xxx, who have enrolled your exta-curriculum English classes at Kowloon Junior Shool every Saturday afternoon from 2:00-5:00pm.

They are supposed to take their last session tomorrow afternoon. But this morning we got phone calls from your staff that the last session will be cancelled without make up or refund. The quoted reason is the announcement from the education department on suspension of regular school classes due to the recent flu.

We found this arrangement total irresponsible and unacceptable. First, our childen's classes are not REGULAR school classes. The suspension of regular school classes also does not mean the shut down of the physical school campus/classrooms. Your staff mentioned no classroom to use is another big excuse. And even if the campus is really closed, we believe it is your responsibility to find another venue or reschedule the class to another time slot. Otherwise, you should give us an immediate refund. Indeed, your staff even mentioned to us that your teachers are now taking holidays and thus not possible to have classes tomorrow. Such an excuse is even more unacceptable. It is hard to think a respectable education unit like ESF would do things like this.

In fact, our kids are having multiple extra-curriculum classes at various institutes, none of them have made such an irresponsible arrangement like ESF. Go and ask around if you don't believe.

Also, you staff mentioned that we could be compensated by having some "credits" in future enrolment in other classes from ESF within a year. Again, I must tell you this is ridiculous. After this event, we have totally lost our confidence in ESF. ESF just treats our kids's extra-curriculum classes as a "money-hungry" business. If you were us, would you be lured such "credits" to throw in another several thousand dollars for another unpleasant experience?

Here, we demand you for an immediate review on your current arrangement and an immediate refund on a pro-rata basis. We hope to get a quick response from you before bringing this to another level.

Upset parents of
xxxx

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Second email sent on March 17
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Further to our email below, let us bring your attention to the announcement from EBD below:

"In order to prevent the spread of influenza in school campus, the Education Bureau announced that all kindergartens, kindergartens cum child care centres, primary schools and special schools will begin the Easter holiday starting from March 13 up to 28. During the non-prearranged period of school holiday, these school campus will remain open. Students could go to school as usual, if necessary."  http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=2&langno=1
We would wait for your reply until the end of this week. Or, we would be forced to step up the action.

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First email received from ESF on March 17
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Dear xxx,

Thank you for your email regarding the decision taken to close Term 2 early. I am sorry to hear that you are upset by this decision and we apologise for the inconvenience of the late notice you received. I would like to address the points that you raise and I trust that the clarification below will assuage your concerns.

We can assure you that the decision to cancel the final lesson was not taken lightly and is due entirely to our first priority being the health and safety of our students and staff. Since the EDB has deemed it necessary to close all Primary schools early for the Easter holiday in light of the high levels of influenza, it is our moral responsibility to follow this action. Although, as you rightly point out, we are not obliged to close our classes, we would not take any action that could potentially worsen the current health issues in Hong Kong.

Regarding your comment that “ESF just treats our kids's extra-curriculum classes as a "money-hungry" business”, it may be worth pointing out that, on the contrary, the early closure has significant costs for the organization. I am not able to comment on other companies’ decision to bring groups of children together during a period in which the government has closed schools to prevent this. I can simply reiterate that we consider that the most responsible action was to close our programme early in the interest of the health and safety of our students and staff.

To clarify another point that you raise, it seems that a member of the administration staff has given you incorrect information regarding the arrangements. All of our contracted teachers worked a full day on Saturday and did not take an early holiday.

Our standard arrangement in this case is to offer a pro-rata credit note to compensate you for the missing lesson which you may use to enroll your children in any future course, such as the upcoming Term Three or the Summer Camp. I am sure that our Kowloon Junior School Site Coordinator, xxx, and her teaching team will be delighted to welcome back xxxx next term. I trust that the further explanation outlined here will reassure you of our best intentions.

Regards

xxx

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Third email sent on March 18
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Dear Mr. xxx,

Let me re-iterate the points made a moment ago with you over the phone.
(1) I agree that SUSPENDING of classes due to the recent flu is acceptable, provided that there will be a make up session, or refund on a pro-rata basis. That is to say, cancellation without make-up or refund is NOT acceptable.
(2) You mentioned that you have done everything possible to solve the problem, BUT the two most obvious solutions, arranging make-up classes and refund are IMPOSSIBLE.
(3) You mentioned giving "credits" to future class is the ONLY feasible solution, despite that I keep on telling you that we are not going to do so. (Then you hinted nothing you can do.)

In your email reply below, I further noticed that you have denied the information conveyed to us by your adminstrative staff last Friday.

I feel disappointed wth our phone conversation as well as the reply below. It seems that we can only sort this problem out by raising it to another level.

Regards,
xxx

janet695

有refund至奇啊

be_careful

By the way, the guys' response was upon receiving the following email from another parent.

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Mr. xxxx,



Thank you for your explanation, but sorry to say I find it highly unacceptable.



You can quote health reason to suspend class, but you can not quote health as reason for not to refund. I see only one word behind this no refund decision, i.e. profit!



Your offer of credit notes can only base on mutually acceptance, and is only meaningful to us if we are willing to take future classes. We do not accept this offer as we are not feeling likely to take any ESF class again as we will be worrying about whatever unreasonable arrangement you may be making in future.   



So, please let us know clearly that your decision of cancelling class without refund and make up. I will then consult legal advice for how to proceed, and meanwhile I will contact consumer council and try to make this a headline in local media. I think it worth us all the troubles to create our kids, and all Hong Kong kids a fair tuition environment.  




Regards,

xxxx

原文章由 be_careful 於 08-3-18 17:24 發表
I am "amused" to see that this guy is now scared. In his newest reply (below), he doubles his "credit note" from "HK$480" per kid to "HK$960". But he failed to mention that their new course charges HK ...

be_careful

I am "amused" to see that this guy is now scared. In his newest reply (below), he doubles his "credit note" from "HK$480" per kid to "HK$960". But he failed to mention that their new course charges HK$6240 per kid (for 13 sessions), instead of the previous $4320 (for 9 sessions). Those guys are really business-minded! Shame on ESF!

They still do not get the point, thinking that by increasing the credit note can solve the problem. Am I too naive to insist on refunding in cash? Or, is this guy too naive to think that we could be "bought"?

If you were me, what would you do?

Another observation: their class enrolment in the next semester is really in trouble.

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Dear xxxx

Thank you for your emails. As already stated, the lesson on 15 March did not take place for health and safety reasons. Since the EDB’s initial announcement was to close all Primary schools early for the Easter holiday in light of the high levels of influenza, we considered that the most responsible action was to close our programme early in the interest of the health and safety of our students and staff.

We understand that your children have been progressing well in their language classes and, as you allude in your final sentence below, the children should come first and be able to continue their language learning progress. We strongly believe that our classes provide an excellent opportunity for this. I know that our Site Coordinator and her team at KJS are looking forward to welcoming your children back in April.

We are offering parents of students attending our programme a pro-rata credit note for one lesson which may be used towards any future course.
In light of your children’s long-standing attendance on our programmes and your dissatisfaction with the current arrangements, we are pleased to be able to offer you an additional gesture of goodwill: we will prepare credit notes for each of the four children at the value of 960HKD per student. This is the equivalent of two full 3-hour lessons for each child.

Your credit notes will be prepared shortly and issued by post.

Regards

Head of Language

[ 本文章最後由 be_careful 於 08-3-18 17:41 編輯 ]

be_careful

What really pissed me off is their attitude towards my complaint. When talked to this guy, so-called head of language department, he mentioned that they have tried ALL possible means to solve the problem. Much to my surprise, the outcome is their "standard arrangement" of issuing credit note. (For those are interested in their classes, I believe their so-called new term will begin soon. I felt that they are in some trouble of getting enough students. So they were very hard-sell in luring our kids to join their courses even before this incident. Well, issuing credit note could be one of their tactics.)

The guy even told me that I was the only one making the complaint, strongly hinted that I am the trouble maker. Jesus, what kind of human being he is? They are doing the injustice to parents, and still expecting us to keep silence?

Originally I thought ESF was good due to its history. Well, if you enrol their courses, be warned that it is handled by ESF Education Services Ltd. I am not sure its relationship with ESF. As comparing with other institutes/companies offering extra-curriculum classes, one lessson I definitely learned is that ESF (Education services?) is much greedier! You might want to know that each session costs $480 for one kid. Indeed, it is not a small lump sum and they cannot just walk away like this.

鳳梨

I agree with your statement. It is reasonable to ask for the refund and I will not accept any credit note.  

Same case as last year, when I enrolled my son to a summer class in a community centre, unfortunately all classes being cancelled due to staff are on strike.  We receive full amount of refund.

原文章由 be_careful 於 08-3-18 13:19 發表
I am creating this new thread to share with you my bad experience at ESF English classes. If you are interested in, you can move on to read the following email exchanges with the Head of Language Depa ...