Undesirable Sales Practice of Tutorial Centres - CHOICE # 421

Parents and students are alerted to watch out for the misleading sales practices of some unscrupulous private tutorial centres.

The Consumer Council received 57 consumer complaints on tutorial centres last year, about 40% (23 cases) of them involved sales practices. In the first ten months of this year, the number of complaints reached 29 and 10 of them involved sales practices.

In the November issue of CHOICE, consumer complaint cases were highlighted to demonstrate different undesirable sales practices consumers might encounter when choosing tutorial services.

In one case, the complainant was visited by a man claimed to be the counselor of the school her son was attending. The complainant was led to believe that the man was from the school as he seemed to know a lot about her son, including his name and his study difficulties in certain subjects. She therefore agreed to join the telephone tutorial service recommended by the man and paid a quarterly fee of HK$900 on spot.

The complainant later found out her son had not received any tutorial service as promised. She then noticed a remark on the receipt stating that the service was not related to the school. When she approached the school she was told that the school had nothing to do with the tutorial service.

The complainant sought help from the Council requesting for a refund from the tutorial centre. The tutorial centre denied that their staff had mentioned its association with the school, and revealed that all the information they collected was from a previous questionnaire conducted with the complainant's son.

Consumers are reminded that schools rarely recommend tutorial centres to parents. If tutorial service is really needed, parents should compare fee, terms and conditions and payment method carefully before making any commitment.