Introduction.
TEFL Online Pro has issued a refutation to the allegations made by our business competitors, on the teflonlinepro.com school website:
TEFL Online Pro (https://teflonlinepro.com/) established this tefl-online-pro-reviews.com blog so as to have a platform where we would be able to respond to attacks made by online competitors.
TEFL Online Pro is a legitimate company, providing award-winning and fully accredited Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses training.
We receive consistently positive (verified) customer feedback, and this is in part because of our commitment to maintaining a high level of customer services.
Our course graduates teach English online and teach English overseas, in every country worldwide where English is taught as a second or foreign language, and typically start their teaching jobs within four weeks of course completion.
As of July 24th 2021, 100% of our graduates that have taken one of our courses and that have then wanted to teach (online or overseas) have been successful in their job-search objectives.
All three of the international certification courses provided by our company come with lifetime job support services, included in the price of the course.
In addition to all of the above, TEFL Online Pro is a verified business member with Paypal and has been since 2019.
TEFL Online Pro has many competitors within the Online TEFL/TESOL training marketplace.
The majority of our competitors are similarly held accountable through their accreditation affiliations, but a few of our competitors are not bound by the Codes Of Practice associated with Fully Accredited status – i.e., some of our business competitors offer unaccredited TEFL courses and can operate without any oversight from an external moderation board.
This article has been written as an official rebuttal to the defamatory, malicious, and untrue statements published online about TEFL Online Pro – statements published by three of our business competitors: Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan/The TEFL Academy, Ian Patrick Leahy/ESLinsider, and MyTEFL.
ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy provide Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses, and all three of these providers are business competitors of TEFL Online Pro.
All three of these providers offer unaccredited courses. They are not, therefore, accountable to an external accreditation body – meaning that they can act with impunity with regards to how they treat their customers and how they treat their business competition.
TEFL Online Pro is fully accredited by ACTEFLC – Accreditation Council for Teaching English as a Foreign Language Courses.
teflonlinepro.com, as a provider of international Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses, has many competitors within the marketplace, but ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy can be singled out from the crowd for their disreputable business practices.
This article looks at the Google Search results for ‘TEFL Online Pro reviews’ and identifies the real TEFL Online Pro reviews versus the online attacks carried out by ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy.
We would also like to point out at this stage in the article that TEFL Online Pro is in no way a unique case when it comes to the online attacks instigated by the above mentioned TEFL programs.
TEFL Online Pro first became the focus of malicious online defamation soon after we won the prestigious Teachers’ Choice Award for the first time, in 2019.
The online defamation against TEFL Online Pro began with online attacks instigated by Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider TEFL, followed by online attacks perpetuated by MyTEFL. More recently, the misinformation campaign has been furthered by The TEFL Academy, via one of their ‘Brand ambassadors’ – Caitriona Maria McTiernan.
At TEFL Online Pro we place significant importance on transparency – we have nothing to hide – and we will now look at the (USA) Google Search results for ‘TEFL Online Pro reviews’.
‘TEFL Online Pro reviews’ Google Search results.
Currently, as of 20th July 2021, these are the ‘TEFL Online Pro reviews’ USA first-page Google Search results:
Analysis of the above ten search results.
Out of the ten search results listed above, only five are authentic TEFL Online Pro listings.
These are:
The TEFL Online Pro Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/teflonlinepro/ | https://www.facebook.com/teflonlinepro/reviews/
The teflonlinepro.com school Reviews page, where we include examples of verified customer reviews: https://teflonlinepro.com/tefl-online-pro-reviews/
The TEFL Online Pro Facebook channel, where there are currently ten video testimonials uploaded from our certification course alumni: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClXwokXQobRwONVOEVqsEBA
A review published on the independent Online TEFL/TESOL certification course reviews website – Trusted TEFL Reviews. In this review, one of our customers has answered the question as to whether TEFL Online Pro is Legit: https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/05/07/is-tefl-online-pro-legit/
tefl-online-pro-reviews.com is a website that we created in order to have a space online where we could defend ourselves against such baseless online competitor attacks: https://tefl-online-pro-reviews.com
The remaining five Google Search results have been created and marketed by our business competitors – ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy.
All three programs are notorious within the TEFL industry for launching attacks on their business competitors.
We are now going to strip down to the bone these competitors’ search results, beginning with The TEFL Academy, and then proceeding with the malicious attacks made by ESLinsider and then MyTEFL.
The TEFL Academy / Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan.
The TPR Teaching website – operated by the individual who goes by the alias ‘Caitriona Maria’ – is a proxy website for The TEFL Academy.
Caitriona Maria’s real name is Caitriona McTiernan.
Caitriona is a graduate of The TEFL Academy – currently living on the (McTiernan) family dairy farm in Longford, Ireland – and she is a ‘Brand Ambassador’ for The TEFL Academy.
The TPR Teaching website was only established in March 2020, and yet it shows up high in the Google Search results for many TEFL-related web searches.
The reason behind this inflated online importance of her newly-created website is that The TEFL Academy has created strong backlinks to Caitriona’s TPR Teaching website.
The TEFL Academy is using Caitriona’s website as a proxy website, whereby they can publish defamatory content on their business competition, and whereby they can clandestinely market The TEFL Academy Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses.
It must be noted here that Caitriona fancies herself as a bit of a TEFL expert, but has only been teaching English online for one year. Prior to this, Caitriona taught at just two 4-week English summer camps, in Spain and in the UK.
Despite this inexperience, Caitriona has decided that she is going to review Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs – i.e., the business competitors of The TEFL Academy – without having a solid overview of the TEFL industry and without having first-hand knowledge of any of the Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs that she has chosen to “review”.
As ‘Brand Ambassador’ for The TEFL Academy, Caitriona earns a whopping 20% affiliates fee reward for each person who purchases a The TEFL Academy course via her TPR Teaching website. Caitriona’s motivation for publishing material on her website is simply one thing: money.
We have also noticed how Caitriona writes 5-star reviews of Online TEFL/TESOL programs whom she has since further developed an affiliates marketing agreement with, and how she writes negative reviews of programs that she has not developed an affiliates marketing agreement with.
Caitriona approached TEFL Online Pro, asking whether we would like to join her affiliates marketing program, but we flat-out refused. Caitriona’s response was to create a negative reviews page on her website, where she has targeted TEFL Online Pro with untrue, malicious, and misleading content.
It has been demonstrated that Caitriona will write absolutely anything in order to convince her readers to either purchase a The TEFL Academy course (her employer) or a course offered by one of the other Online TEFL/TESOL companies that she earns a commission from, and she has been called out for exaggerated claims on her website.
Three examples:
- Caitriona made a bold claim that TEFL teachers can earn $100 per hour teaching English online, despite Caitriona only earning between $20 – $25 per hour teaching English online herself. It appears that she has since deleted this claim from her website.
- Caitriona has presented misleading information with regards to the qualifications requirements for teaching English in various countries – such as the claim that TEFL teachers are not required to have a college degree if wanting to teach English in South Korea. It is NOT possible to legally teaching English in South Korea without a college degree.
- Caitriona claims that The TEFL Academy’s certificates are the same as the CELTA qualification, only a lot cheaper. It really is difficult to imagine how a TEFL Program offering unaccredited TEFL courses can view themselves as being equivalent to the Cambridge CELTA teaching program.
When you can earn a 20% commission on all TEFL course sales, it must be tempting to create a rosier picture of the TEFL courses that you are marketing.
It was obviously also tempting for Caitriona to create a negative picture of the business competition of those TEFL providers that she isn’t earning a passive income from because the TEFL Online Pro post that she has published shows up high in the search results and on that page she recommends that people take The TEFL Academy course instead.
Caitriona makes money from writing positive and negative reviews of Online TEFL/TESOL certification programs, and her posts are propped up by The TEFL Academy.
We are now going to transparently look at the claims made by Caitriona McTiernan (aka The TEFL Academy) against TEFL Online Pro.
The claims made by (Caitriona Maria McTiernan) The TEFL Academy.
Before we look at these claims, it is important to note that the online defamation story began with posts first published online by Ian Patrick Leahy (ESLinsider).
Pick any Online TEFL/TESOL certification course program – Ian will have written some trash about it on his “school” blog at some time in his “illustrious” career.
We noticed the posts popping up just after winning the Teachers’ Choice Award for the first time, in 2019.
Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan has simply regurgitated the misinformation first spread online by Ian Leahy.
These are the main claims made by The TEFL Academy’s Caitriona Maria McTiernan:
- TEFL Online Pro runs Trusted TEFL Reviews.
- TEFL Online Pro is unaccredited.
- TEFL Online Pro is a “scam”.
The only connection between TEFL Online Pro and Trusted TEFL Reviews is that TEFL Online Pro has verified customer reviews published on Trusted TEFL Reviews.
A simply Facebook-page search will show that the Trusted TEFL Reviews Facebook page was set up a whole year after the TEFL Online Pro Facebook page was established.
Caitriona, using Ian Leahy’s false logic, claims that TEFL Online Pro owns Trusted TEFL Reviews because both websites share the same ip addresses, telephone numbers, and postal addresses.
All WordPress sites share the same centrally registered ip addresses. TEFL Online Pro and Trusted TEFL Reviews are both WordPress.com websites. How many websites share the same ip addresses? There are approx. 455 million WordPress.com websites – all sharing the same centrally registered ip addresses.
Many websites, including the websites operated by TPR Teaching, ESLinsider, and MyTEFL choose to conceal the personal details of the registrars. Trusted TEFL Reviews and TEFL Online Pro have also chosen to conceal the personal details of the registrars – just have the websites of TPR Teaching, ESLinsider, and MyTEFL, and most other Online TEFL/TESOL school programs.
It is purely coincidental that the Trusted TEFL Reviews and TEFL Online Pro domains are registered with the same domain provider (NameCheap) and, therefore, we share the same WhoIs generic addresses and telephone numbers.
How many website domains in the world share the same addresses and telephone numbers? There are approx. 50 million website domains that share the same WhoIs addresses and telephone numbers.
TEFL Online Pro is ACTEFLC fully accredited.
Caitriona’s claim that TEFL Online Pro runs the ACTEFLC accreditation website is just as ridiculous and purposefully misleading as the claim she makes that TEFL Online Pro runs Trusted TEFL Reviews.
It is as ridiculous as if she claimed that TEFL Online Pro runs Facebook because we have only 5-star reviews published on our company Facebook page.
And regarding the defamatory claim that TEFL Online Pro is a “scam”…
…if TEFL Online Pro were a scam, we would have been shut down a loooong time ago.
If our company were a scam, Paypal would not continue to provide our school’s website with a payment gateway, we would not receive consistently positive student feedback, and our graduates would not be able to use their TEFL Online Pro certification to teach English online and abroad/overseas.
In other words, if TEFL Online Pro were a scam then you would have heard about it from graduates who were unable to use our certificates either online or abroad/overseas.
Calling out TEFL Online Pro as being a scam is simply The TEFL Academy projecting it’s own seriously inept operational issues on TEFL Online Pro.
It has been well documented that The TEFL Academy falsely claims that it is an accredited school, but in reality The TEFL Academy is only regulated by the external bodies that it claims accredits them:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2019/03/25/the-tefl-academy-certification-review/
In conclusion to this section of this article, we surmise that Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan is both perpetuating a scam and is an unknowing messenger of the Dunning-Kruger effect – that Caitriona has knowingly and purposefully spread misleading content online about TEFL Online Pro with the specific intention of selling The TEFL Academy courses, and that Caitriona is absolutely out of her depth regarding the complex subject of Online TEFL/TESOL training.
Everyone should enjoy the opportunity to make money online, but Caitriona is going about it completely the wrong way – using deceptive practices to increase the amount in her personal bank account.
Legal action.
We did try to reach out to Caitriona McTiernan, to see why she was defaming our company online.
When we received no response, we promptly issued a cease and desist notice.
Caitriona’s response to this cease and desist notice was to write back that she has no money and that there is, therefore, nothing that we can do about it. i.e, an admission of guilt.
TEFL Online Pro is proceeding with defamation litigation proceedings against both Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan and The TEFL Academy.
We have also tried leaving a comment on the TPR Teaching website, but Caitriona has failed to publish our comment.
A few of our course graduates also felt strongly enough about Caitriona’s fictitious postings and let us know that they also tried posting a comment on her blog, but were equally unsuccessful in having their comments published.
She has, however, published a comment submitted by Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider, and she has also published subsequent comments from anonymous users – users who are likely either our competitors, or comments created and published by Caitriona herself.
ESLinsider / Ian Patrick Leahy.
We have written extensively about Ian Patrick Leahy already on this website:
https://tefl-online-pro-reviews.com/tag/eslinsider-reviews/
Therefore, we don’t wish to repeat what we have already stated with regards to Ian Patrick Leahy, his documented crimes, his documented defamation, his unaccredited TEFL/TEKA certification course, and how Ian Leahy has pretty much written trash online about all of his business competitors.
Trusted TEFL Reviews has also exposed this individual for what he really represents:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/02/03/eslinsider-reviews-scam/
What we are going to do, though, is simply show you the individual behind ESLinsider:
Ian Patrick Leahy represents everything wrong with the Online TEFL/TESOL industry.
ESLinsider is a one man show, unaccredited, operated by an individual with far too much free time on his hands, who spams the internet with misleading information about his business competition in the hopes that he can convince some people to instead take his TEFL/TEKA course.
A few years ago, Ian was giving out the poor advice that people could teach English in China without the need for having a college degree. Ian actually recommended that instead, people could just buy a fake degree online and use that. As a result, some people took his TEFL/TEKA course, and his advice about using a fake college degree, and were promptly arrested and then deported by the Chinese authorities.
As a result, the ESLinsider TEFL/TEKA certificate is worthless in the largest ESL teacher’s market in the world.
We are 100% certain that Ian Leahy will continue to market his ESLinsider TEFL/TEKA course to unsuspecting newbies, and that he will continue to publish defamatory material online about his business competition.
This is the individual whom Caitriona (Maria) McTiernan and The TEFL Academy have aligned themselves with.
Legal action against Ian Patrick Leahy from ESLinsider.
We began by issuing a Cease and Desist formal notice to Ian (via our company email address) and a copy of this was published as a private message to Ian, on his YouTube channel. When Ian responded as though he could write whatever he wanted to, without accountability, we contacted YouTube and requested that the video be blocked in Japan – Ian’s current home country at the time, before he moved back home to Monroe, New Hampshire.
It is very difficult to proceed with legal action against Ian Patrick Leahy because he resides in Monroe, New Hampshire. New Hampshire has the most liberal free-speech laws in the United States – meaning that Ian has a carte blanche to write and publish absolutely anything online that he feels the urge to.
Another obstacle to this process is that ESLinsider is not a registered company. ESLinsider is just a website that Ian Patrick Leahy established.
We are, however, in talks with other Online TEFL/TESOL course providers that have also fallen victim to Ian’s online defamatory attacks and we are all currently pooling our resources together in order to follow a litigation path, whereby we can try to prevent Ian Patrick Leahy from continuing with his Online TEFL/TEKA course scam.
Our research has also shown that Ian Patrick Leahy has likely not paid any taxes to the IRS on any of the revenue earned from his ESLinsider TEFL/TEKA business activities.
MyTEFL.
MyTEFL is another unaccredited TEFL course provider that has a poor online reputation.
MyTEFL claims to be accredited by OTTSA and ITEFLAC.
We fully believe that they believe that they are “accredited” by both of those websites.
The only issue is that both of those accreditation websites are fake.
OTTSA was created by a former building contractor from the UK, Simon Godwin, who is an English teacher in Thailand, and who is allegedly employed by MyTEFL: https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/560086.tourists-urged-to-return/
And it doesn’t take half a brain to realise that the ITEFLAC website was hastily put together by someone who has little interest in “quality assurance”. The website looks totally fake.
MyTEFL is known for creating attack websites on their business competition – just as they have done so against TEFL Online Pro – and they have been accused of lying about their charity project contributions in order to win new clients.
Trusted TEFL Reviews has also exposed MyTEFL for their bad business practices:
https://trustedteflreviews.com/2020/01/24/the-mytefl-com-scam/
If you are reading this article, after having purchased a MyTEFL course, our advice for you is to avoid their job placement services.
There are many complaints online about MyTEFL placing teachers in jobs (mainly in Thailand) where the teachers are provided with poor housing conditions and where they are expected to teach 40+ hour per week and all for a pittance of a monthly salary. MyTEFL cream off 40-50% of that monthly salary for themselves.
Ian Patrick Leahy (ESLinsider) and the TEFL Academy have also been accused of perpetrating this extremely poor business practice – the extortion of their TEFL graduates, via creaming off a percentage of their teachers’ salaries.
Legal action against MyTEFL.
Whilst MyTEFL claims to be based out of Vancouver, Canada, their company is actually based in Thailand – where OTTSA is also coincidentally based. It is very difficult to proceed with defamation litigation proceedings against this company.
We have, however, issued a complaint to the Better Business Bureau in Canada, where MyTEFL claims to be a registered business.
Incidentally, ITTT TEFL / ITTT TEFL (yes, they operate under multiple websites) also operates out of Thailand and is also “accredited” by OTTSA.
TEFL Online Pro award-winning and internationally recognised Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses with lifetime job support.
teflonlinepro.com runs three award-winning, internationally recognised Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses:
60-Hour Fast-Track – the perfect solution for people with TEFL experience.
120-Hour Professional – the perfect solution for people with little or no TEFL experience.
140-Hour Hybrid – the perfect solution for people with little or no TEFL experience who are wanting in-class teaching practice.
All three certification courses come with 24-Hour Online Tutor support, and with lifetime international job support services provided without charge.
TEFL Online Pro Online TEFL/TESOL certification courses are equivalent to the Level 5 and CELTA qualifications.
With a TEFL Online Pro TEFL/TESOL certificate, you can teach English online or anywhere in the world where it is possible to Teach English as a Foreign/Second Language.
Secure your course place, via our safe and secure payment gateway, and begin your teaching English adventure! https://teflonlinepro.com/enroll/
Conclusion.
ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy have chosen to attack TEFL Online Pro because we offer a better-rated product, better-rated customer services, and as a result, students have been choosing our Online TEFL/TESOL certification program as an alternative to the poorly-rated programs offered by ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy.
When wanting to search out real TEFL Online Pro student feedback, we definitely recommend taking the content published by our business competitors with a healthy pinch of salt.
If we were looking to purchase a product or service, we would place ultimate important and gravitas on the verified feedback of the customers of that product/service.
Not all Online TEFL/TESOL course providers are disreputable, but ESLinsider, MyTEFL, and The TEFL Academy are most certainly the worst of the unaccredited bunch and should be avoided at all costs.
Related Articles.
TEFL Online Pro press release: https://www.prlog.org/12877334-tefl-online-pro-reviews-teachers-choice-award.html
TEFL Online Pro Google Site: https://sites.google.com/teflonlinepro.com/tefl-online-pro-reviews/
TEFL Academy | Caitriona McTiernan | Defamation Scam: https://www.behance.net/gallery/123581631/TEFL-Academy-Caitriona-McTiernan-Defamation-Scam
TEFL Online Pro Reviews Google Search – TESOL Course Competitor Scam Warning! https://teflonlineproreviews.blogspot.com/2021/07/tefl-online-pro-reviews-google-search.html
TEFL Online Pro (Reviews) Google Search results hijacked by competing TEFL/TESOL programs: https://www.reddit.com/r/TEFL_Online_Pro/comments/omkx6b/tefl_online_pro_reviews_google_search_results/
Is TEFL Online Pro legit? https://teflonlinepro.com/is-tefl-online-pro-legit/
Is TEFL Online Pro accredited? https://teflonlinepro.com/accreditation/
Customer TESOL Certification Course Video Testimonials: https://tefl-online-pro-reviews.com/2021/02/09/customer-tesol-certification-course-video-testimonials/
ESLinsider reviews and tefl online pro reviews online defamation: https://tefl-online-pro-reviews.com/2020/07/27/eslinsider-reviews-and-tefl-online-pro-reviews-online-defamation/
Some words from one of our recent graduates.
One of our August 2020 graduates – Noor – recently recorded a follow-up video testimonial review, where she shares how her TEFL Online Pro certificate was instrumental in securing online teaching English work, and how her certification has been one of the essential documents required for successfully being accepted for a teaching position in South Korea – a teaching position within the prestigious South Korean university ESL system.
Here is Noor’s TEFL Online Pro video review:
Thank you for reading this ‘TEFL Online Pro versus ESLinsider, MyTEFL and The TEFL Academy’ article.
Kind regards,
Paul Murphy | Operations Manager
info@teflonlinepro.com | www.teflonlinepro.com
Teachers’ Choice Award winner, 2019 | 2020
Shortlisted for the Teachers’ Choice Award, 2021
www.acteflc.com Fully Accredited TEFL Course Provider
TEFL Online Pro Reviews | Best Online TEFL TESOL 2022 