What Lingoda does not want you to know
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Since August, I have taken classes with Lingoda, which is an online language school based in Germany. I actually took French, Spanish, and German with them (I needed to make three separate accounts because their technology is ridiculous - more on that later).
I felt like I was learning a lot of vocabulary and I was able to speak pretty well for A1, so overall I was happy with the experience.
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| Thanks to Reddit |
And then... their customer service team turned me off so hard that I am so ready to quit and I am super frustrated with them and was curious about other people's experiences.
The way they originally got me was with their Sprint promotion. Truthfully, the Sprint should not really be that hard, but a lot of people fail not because they don't have the drive to participate, but because Lingoda has lots of technical limitations that work against, basically, anyone and everyone. These limitations also occur after the sprint period finishes and also includes you having the potential to lose a lot of money.
Some of these limitations and frustrations are (and keep in mind these limitations exist outside of the Spring program as well):
Classes can only be cancelled over a seven day period. Yes, you read correctly. Seven days. They boast flexibility, when really they are the opposite.
Classes cannot be rescheduled. If something comes up (for example, you get sick, or you need to take a flight, or something urgent happened at work, you got in a car crash, whatever), you aren't able to log into the app and reschedule. They claim this is to protect the teachers, but that is complete bullshit. Since you don't get your credit back in any way and lose the money regardless, there is zero incentive to cancel the class, and therefore the teacher ends up with fewer students than what is in the system. This has happened countless times in my experience.
Class sizes are small, so the above is also a problem if someone wants to take a class and it's already taken by someone who may not be able to attend but isn't motivated to cancel. I also find myself not cancelling because of the slim chance I might be able to make it, in which case I might as well wait to see because otherwise I would be out of my $12. (This is of course NOT during the Sprint campaign - otherwise you lose, well, all your money).
Because class sizes are small, you kind of are left with no choice but to schedule a class ahead of time because it will probably fill up to the max (5). So you have to schedule ahead of time, but if you can't make it, well, too bad. You are probably losing the credit and that money.
If you show up to class after 10 minutes, you are still marked absent. Even if it is in the 11th minute. Many teachers are flexible about this, and some are not. Those who aren't are, for lack of a better word, assholes and dipshits. Like I'm sorry. I took the time to show up. Something clearly was happening that caused me to be late. Otherwise, I wouldn't be late. I'm here. I am participating. Count me as present. Jeez.
Related to the above, if you reach out to customer service regarding "missing a class" when you actually attended, then good luck. They are utterly useless and will claim that it is not possible to do so. They'll state technology limitations, teacher discredition, whatever. I'm sorry, but last I checked, that was my money I spent and I also showed up. I am not emailing you because I straight up missed a class (although I have my gripe about that - they're still stealing money due to the "over 7 day cancellation period," but I digress). I am literally emailing you because I attended a class and my boss called, causing me to be slightly late. When I arrived, I participated. It wasn't like I was in the background doing nothing. Sometimes students contribute bare minimum, but still get counted because they made "all 60 minutes," while a student who shows up late (again, due to an actual reason, not because they're being an inconsiderate shit) doesn't get credit despite participating. It is truly insane.
After my crappy experience with their customer service, I tried pausing my account, but was told I can't until my credits are used up for the classes I am scheduled to take, but the issue is that my subscription renews the day of my last class, which means I'll be paying yet again for another month. Their technology limitations are so ridiculous that they won't allow me to "pause" a subscription if I am taking classes. So basically I can only pause it if the credits I previously paid for are sitting there unused, aka, they get more money.
There is no sense of community. I cannot email teachers and they cannot email me. Students cannot talk to each other freely.
I am going to save the presentations and practice them separately. Maybe in six months I'll come back to Lingoda but for now they have royally pissed me off. Their materials are good, and their teachers are sweet (for the most part, minus the person who marked me absent), but I don't like the idea of contributing my hard-earned money to a company who truly doesn't give a shit about me (because they don't). I have spent a couple THOUSAND dollars with this company (I failed the Sprint, again not because I didn't care or was unmotivated, but because I have a life and I wasn't able to reschedule to accommodate), and I still paid for months after the Sprint ended anyway because I liked their classes. There were days I was taking three hours of Lingoda classes. After THOUSANDS of dollars, they won't honor marking me as present for a class I attended and paid for. It really is a shame but I'll be looking elsewhere for conversation practice. If anyone has a recommendation, I am happy to hear it!
User: dzFrench
I quit Lingoda too because you have to cancel 7 days in advance, but the teachers can cancel any time. So I carefully chose the teachers, all the best, and then they cancelled on me within 7 days. Guess who are still available to fill in those spots? Bad teachers. And then I was stuck with them. They didn't even notify me. When I showed up at the class, it was a different teacher, one I really didn't want to have classes with. So not quite good quality.It happened so often that I believed Lingoda might have planned it. Made the best teachers available for many spots and then cancel within 7 days so their real teachers can take over. So I was fine with strict, but what they did there was not fair, and I felt scammed.
User: MCBig99
I just paused my French subscription (but I had 38 unused credits). I was under the impression that if I paused my subscription, I would still be able to use my prepaid credits. After all, they were prepaid. The subscription model just means I wouldn't be charged for the next month for another 20 classes. The moment that I paused it, all my credits went away. WOW. That was $400. The only way I can use the credits is if I stay under the monthly subscription and keep getting charged. OMG. I am LIVID RIGHT NOW.
User: Lulubutz
What I learned is that you will more than likely fail the sprint even if you are completely dedicated. The way they sell it is to take a class daily. You might, as a motivated learner, say "that is definitely possible - I'll make time out of my day to do the classes." But where they get you is their seven-day class cancellation policy and the fact that they rely on students to start the class creation process (aka teachers just pick up what a student requested) - so if students don't request for a class ahead of time, then there will be fewer classes overall. This means that pressuring us to schedule ahead of time combined with an inflexible seven-day cancellation period is a recipe for disaster. If life happens and it's now better for you to take an evening class on Thursday instead of a morning class and it's Monday, then too bad. You're stuck, and if you miss it, you lose the sprint even if you would have been motivated to take that class at 7pm, hence adhering to your daily quota.
This is a link to the source of this article: Reddit comments about Lingoda experience.
