Nova is sued.. again.

[Rogue_7]

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060131p2a00m0na011000c.html

oops! I have to say though that is a pretty underhanded trick they tried to pull on her. glad to see the courts pulled them up on it.

[MNJetter]

Yeah, but from what it looks like to me, she signed a contract that says that the only reason she got the cheaper price was because she paid for 150 points in bulk. If it remains at the cheaper price when she only uses 36 of the points and then quits, that sounds like an excuse to take advantage of the system where if you buy more stuff, you get them for a slightly discounted price.

When I worked in retail in the States, if there was a two-for-the-price-of-one deal, you couldn't buy two things and then go to the returns counter to return one of them for a full refund.

I'm sure there were smaller contracts at Nova that she could have taken without needing to pay for 150 hours. The only reason she did was to get the cheap price, and then she copped out early, expecting to keep the cheap price. Nova might have a whole lot of faults, but in this case it sounds like the woman took advantage of the bulk buying system to get a few lessons for less money than she should.

[Rogue_7]

I don't think so. What if she just couldn't keep going? She hated the system, or she was busy, or whatever? She shouldn't have to be screwed out of the extra money she paid for services. Your analogy is rather flawed in that if you return half of a two for one deal and want ALL your money back, you are getting something for free. But in her case, she was willing to pay for the lessons she got at the price per lesson agreed. She just wanted the rest of her money back.

[Kyoushu]

Personally, I think this isn't Nova's fault. She *signed a contract* to pay a discounted price for *150* points, and then quit after *36* points. She shouldn't get all of her unused money back, because then she would have cheated the system.

[MNJetter]

That's the thing, though. She didn't really pay x number of yen per lesson. She paid x number of yen for a hundred and fifty lessons. In a bulk-discount contract like that, the price isn't really considered to be for individual lessons. If she doesn't use all of them and she wants some money back, the discount doesn't really apply any more because she won't have paid for a hundred and fifty lessons, whether she uses them or not. So with a new total payment of thirty-six lessons, the hundred-and-fifty lesson discount can't really apply anymore.

Maybe it would be better to understand where I'm coming from in being suspicious of this woman.

In the retail place I used to work for, we had a rebate program, where if you bought a certain item, you could get anywhere from 50 cents to the entirety of the item's retail value in the form of a gift certificate to our store. We had one woman who, until the police caught up with her, used to go to different stores, buy the maximum number allowed of every rebate item possible, mail in for the rebates, and then return the items to various other branches of the store without returning the rebates. This is basically just stealing money from the store. Now the store has a computer program in place that doesn't allow rebate items to be returned after the rebate has been claimed, but Nova, selling a service and not material goods, doesn't have that luxury.

That woman might have been unable to continue through Nova. But we don't know the reason for sure, and she did sign a contract to pay that amount of money. If she ended up not liking the program, tough beans, you don't gain the right to renege on a signed contract just because it didn't suit your tastes.

I think that Nova was being pretty reasonable offering her any sort of refund at all. Though I fully admit that I don't know the whole story, and there might be situations in which I could say that she deserved the money she got back. But judging just from the information on the article put forth on this link, I'd say she didn't.

EDIT: Sorry, Kyoushu, I didn't mean to rehash what you just said. I started writing this post before you posted.

[Rogue_7]

Aye, thats a good point. I hadn't thought about it. I suppose theres the rub, we just don't know what the facts of the matter are. Is she a devious manipuating bitch? Or an honest woman who just wants a full refund? I suppose we will never know for sure.

[Pierrot le Fou]

Nova has a long history of fleecing customers. If I recall properly, they have a habit of signing people up for things they don't want making claims that it's a better deal and that they can get out of it if they want (even if that's a total and complete lie).

[RoxFontaine]

Why do people even bother with these schools? Do they not notice the pattern?

[PopCulturePooka]

NOVA lies to its customers.

Tells potential students that refunds are easy to get. They aren't.

That teachers are highly trained in their home country. They aren't.

That students can interact socially with teachers outside of Nova. They can't and teachers can get fired if they can.

The Nova points system has been taken to court before as well...

Lemme see what I can dig up.

[hanacker]

Why do people even bother with these schools? Do they not notice the pattern?

How else are they gonna learn English?

[羽之助]

They could learn English by making friends, going abroad, studying on their own ... lots of ways that don't involve paying an eikaiwa. For the adults anyway.

You know, I may know this woman. A few years ago I was an email penpal with a deaf Japanese woman in Tokyo. She told me that she was going to go to Nova for practice. I counseled her against it, but she went anyway and bought a whole bunch of prepaid lessons. After a few lessons she stopped going because she was basically ignored in the group lesson, for obvious reasons. Nova wouldn't refund her money, and I suggested she think about litigation. Last I heard from her she was talking to a lawyer friend ...

One in a million chance but still. If Nova would sign up a deaf woman for English conversation classes, how scrupulous do you think they can be?

[hanacker]

They could learn English by making friends, going abroad, studying on their own ... lots of ways that don't involve paying an eikaiwa. For the adults anyway.


None of those are as easy or convenient as eikaiwa. It's not the best option for everyone, but it is for some people.

[BlackLiger]

*sigh* 3 cheers for NOVA. Even before I'd heard of JET, I'd heard of NOVA because of their bad press.... so congrats nova :P