Verbling

There are a lot of businesses that con people out of their money and Verbling is one of them. I am interested in learning European Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese. I took a free half hour class with a lovely woman who was their "featured" instructor. I had challenges logging on with my phone the app, but eventually got through on my computer. So, I had a 15 minute free lesson. Like I said, she was great. I paid for 10 classes and when I tried to schedule my classes with her I learned she only had two free time slots over the next two weeks at 3 AM. I communicated with her by text thru the site about the problem I was having signing up and she seemed surprised by her schedule. Really? You don't know your schedule? Then I learned that money paid for classes is non-refundable. They have very few other European Portuguese instructors and the ones they have charge significantly more. I tried calling the offices in San Francisco and their phone number isn't set up to receive messages. I have emailed them about requesting a refund. No response. I filed a dispute with Paypal. Am hoping that gets me my money back. But I doubt it. What a drag. Bate and Switch. Also known as fraud.

I paid for a lesson where the teacher cancelled. When I went to use my credit there was a new minimum of 5 lessons so I couldn't use my credit without spending more money. I didn't want to spend more money because the two teachers I used were constantly cancelling the day of the lesson I work and there is a time difference so it was hard to match times and do the lessons. I don't want to be forced to buy a pack of 5 lessons until I know if I like the teacher. I did a half hour lesson and then tried to book an hour lesson but I couldn't because now I had to book a pack of 5. I wrote to customer service and they were useless. The platform is very marginal it could be so much better and more robust. You are definitely better off just doing a class with you tube or some other type of online class. The customer service sucks and some of the teachers are completely unreliable.

I have a tutor that was so flaky she would cancel or reschedule the last minute she would show up late and not give me extra time I paid for a month she seemed good the first but she was always canceling and reschedule she did this constantly and she was asking me to many personal questions verblng is after your money I had a very young tutor previously he was kind of boring I thought this tutor would be better because she was older but she was a real flake I am satisfied with ver long plus it kept freezing on me I kept on losing connection I joined another app and I'm much happier very disappointed in verblong

I have booked lessons o this website, but they get my money and the teacher did not give me the lessons. They stole my money and no body of this SUPPORT TEAM of that VERBLING responded me. Be careful of this website.

I did great with my teacher, until I get problem with app, that is not working, many complains against it, but Milena, that is only support always answering all emails, constantly tried to blame us, users, because app only can work if: battery constantly 100%, Internet speed min 10Mbps, a lot of memory and ALL other apps closed. I never saw app that need so many requirement especially 100% battery. I said this in my email: '

'Good day,

I closed all apps, I have 28GB free memory on my phone, internet speed approx 6Mbps and your app doesn't work!

Option one fix it send to your development pictures I'm sending now.
Second remove your nonfunctional app
Best regards,
Jelena

This was response from support name Milena (there is only her, no one else, when I wanted to complain against her she replayed on my mails, apparently company has only one employee):

Hi Jelena,

Thank you for contacting Verbling support!

Please note that the minimum requirement for internet speed is 10Mbps. Your device also must be fully charged. We recommend having lessons from the computer, if possible, for better connection.

I also would like to remind you that at Verbling we keep our community healthy and happy. This includes communication between students, teachers, and Verbling employees. Here in support, we're always at your disposal for any help and assistance. And we expect polite communication from your side too.

Please let me know if I can help with anything else.
Sincerely,

Milena
Customer Satisfaction Support''

I don't know what that means: 'we keep our community healthy and happy'! Does this sound professional and appropriate answer when you struggle to use app that you really need. They never apologies for bad app. When they refund they took money for class I didn't do, they canceled it, plus they kept fee they are charging. They didn't do any support, and not even saying something like 'Sorry for experiencing trouble with app, we are constantly working to improve. NO, just arrogant behavior, blaming users - you are costumer you are paying their salary but you can't tell them product is not working, you have to have all of this to work. What kind of app needs 100% battery to work? How they are not embarrassing to say that? Does anyone know is this joke.

I never spoke with such an unprofessional person who was telling me about happiness and health of community (what community?) instead of fixing app problem.

I now regret for not checking all this bad review about them. This kind of company should get serious fines for scams and lying about having app. I knew I will be busy and payed second 10 lessons in order to use them on my phone. I didn't received support, I was insulted by saying I wasn't polite, and then they said on Google store they blocked me for insulting community. One person, Milena, made all the problem for everyone, company refund, me losing teacher, teacher losing money. Such said thing, how one unprofessional entitled person can make so much damages.

I have been with Verbling scince 2016 and cannot fault the platform from a tutors point of view, so much so that I have chosen to work exclusively with Verbling and not aquire further students via other platforms as is common practice.

However...

The support has been good previously, BUT I am writing this review as a very unhappy client of their support services which up to this point right now have been for all intense purposes non-existent.
No way to contact them other than the chat function - where you are curtly told to use the email address.
The email address returns an automated response, and now... still waiting! (over a week)

A financial service provider who is used by us has also expressed dismay at not being able to get a response and their business is significantly larger than mine with Verbling.

I do not normally write reviews and usually they are of the positive kind, unfortunately it seems the support services which have been praised on this site are in my case no where to be found.

Whats going on? This is supposed to be a cutting edge tech startup!?!