takelessons.com

takelessons.com Online Lessons? San Diego, California

22nd of Nov, 2010 by User803508

They charge you $69 / hour for instruction. They pay the poor teachers around $20 / hour. Any reputable teacher in an area will have a following and will usually charge in the $50 - $60 / hour range, and it all goes to that teacher. Most of the teachers I have encountered are HS grads, some with college degrees, most do not. I mean if you are a professional music teacher are you going to work for $20 / hour? And their lesson centers in Best Buy? They are all about the "upsell" - buy an instrument, only buy books from them, etc, etc... So, here's the real deal: Your child wants to take lessons? What is your first reaction... it should be ask their teachers, friends, neighbors, but go to a website and put a teacher in a "shopping cart" and check out. They claim to have "certified" teachers. Well, they interview that teacher for not very long, do an on-line "training" which is all about selling and marketing and has nothing to do with educational values. I actually asked a rep from Takelessons and asked if they follow the guidelines set forth by the MENC standards and rubrics for music instruction and they said that they dont follow any "other schools" program. Even when that "other school" is the Department of Education that has a very detailed list of what private lessons should be consistant of Are they a scam, you decide, are they trying to rip you off, you bet. And yes, their website is flashy, but like any prostitute, sex sells

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4863 days ago by Anonymous

Everyword of Takelessons claims are lies. They are not exagerations. They are not just "bending the truth." It is isn't just "puffing" or "great salesmanship"as they like to put it. It is FRAUD. Customers are lied to about the quality of TL's "qualifications" and the fake "certifications" and the numbers of instructors they have and the numberof students they have.

It is very difficult to keep your story straight when you lie as much as they do but they take care of it by providing a script and then just repeating the same lies over and over until they seem like the truth. THIS IS THE VERY HEART OF WHO THEY ARE HOW DAMAGING THEY WILL BE TO YOUR TRAINING.

They get away with it because music lessons and training can appear to be abstract and hard to judge WHICH IS ALL THE MORE REASON THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS DISTRUST ANYONE WHO MAKES IT APPEAR THAT THEY CAN MASS PRODUCE PRIVATE LESSONS OR ANY COMPANY THAT TRIES TO SELL YOU THE ILLUSION THAT ALL TEACHERS ARE INTERCHANGEBLE AND THAT THEY CAN MATCH YOU WITH "YOUR BEST INSTRUCTOR." THE BEST INSTRUCTORS WOULD NEVER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS PLACE...NEVER!

To take it out of the abstract, let me make some equivalents. Takelessons.com is like...:

1.) A medical facility who has interns performing major surgery

2.) A music retailer who tries to sell you cheapy used Epiphone guitars as if they are vintage Gibsons

3.) A contractor that drives a pickup truck around border towns for illegal cheap labor and claims they are "certified" contractors because they certify them and charge you more than a real contractor pays you

4.) A car dealer that picks up used cars at auction, details them and then "certifies" them as new and charges you more than retaill.

5.) Someone selling you fake jewelry by "certifying" it as reall

6.) Someone selling you familiar fast-food as gormet

7.) Someone selling you fake pharmaceuticals but "certifying" them as real.

The difference is that these other examples are illlegal but it isn't illlegal to be this devious with music lessons. Attempts to "cerify" music lessons would make it impossible to avoid sleazeslike Takelessons or Taylor Robinson etc.

You would be much better off never taking ANY lessons than taking lessons from a Takelessons instructor.

The ONLY way you can avoid being ripped off by these typesof 3rd party tellemarketer scammers or salesman if scamfacilities it to ALWAYS insist on talking DIRECTLY to your potential instructor BEFORE you set up ANY lessons.

REAL instructors want to talk to you. SCAMMERS try to sign you up right now before you have a chance to find out what a real instructors is like. That's the REAL reason they use their FAKE guarantee: to pressure you into signing up before you talk to their low quality, inexperiencedinstructors who are only "certified" because they are cheap and agree to agree with Takelessons.com's dishonest claims.