The greed and lack of professional courtesy of Becky a music teacher in Nampa, Idaho needs to be reported to help prevent others from making the same mistakes I made. My son wanted guitar lessons so we went to our local Music Shoppe and got a flyer off of the bulletin board. I called the teacher and set up a time for lessons. The only times she had available were 8 or 8:30 pm. We agreed on $60/mo. She called at 2:45 the day of the lesson to ask if I could bring him at 3:30 instead that day because she had a cancellation. She was all business. My gut feeling was if I had a schedule conflict, I would have to foreit the time and money, but since she wanted the change, it was expected. It took 30 minutes to get to her house so I was late(of which she reminded as though it was my fault). We spent the first 1/2 hour lesson going over her administrative paper work, instead of actually receiving a lesson. She took 20 minutes to run over me like a freight train with her agenda. The contractor doesn't get paid for giving a bid. She handed me a sheet with costs I would need to incur. A registration fee of $45 was on it. I was shocked because she had not informed me of it on the phone and because she worked out of her home. She told me this would be for copies of sheets needed and recital locations. The recitals are optional but we still had to pay the registration fee whether we participated or not. And she proceeded to tell me to make 20 copies of something even though copies were supposed to be part of the registration fee. I was fine with the cost of the music lessons and the expense of books, etc. Afterward, when I got to thinking about it, it seemed like unusual business policy. I signed the contract she gave me. I thought about it and got an increased foreboding as the next ""lesson"" approached. I decided we needed to cancel. My son and I did not like her pushy and self serving business practices. I called her and asked her for a refund before May's lessons got started. She said no it was nonrefundable, that she had set aside those spots for my son. There was no offer for compromise for a refund or room for questions or concerns of mine. She also said she had felt a 'weird' 'very weird' feeling from me when she mentioned the registration fee. I said no kidding it was a shock and she should have told me of this expense when we set up the time on the phone for the first meeting. She again used Christian Ease to dominate the confrontation by saying she felt 'so' much judgement from me. She said she didn't feel she needed to justify herself. At that point I told her I would report her to the BBB and I hung up. There was no way I could reason with her. A week later I received a letter from her in the mail offering to honor the remaining prepaid lesson times. Incredible! Why would we want to subject ourselves to further manipulation?
It has been my experience in the past with other music teachers that there is an introductory period to make sure the student and teacher will be compatible. Unbelievably, there was no allowance for this.
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