Parents suing over 'rubbish' children's tuition courses

Parents are suing a former director of a children's tuition company that they say provided outdated and "rubbish" videos and misled them into expensive loan agreements.

The group said they had been left "thousands of pounds out of pocket" by Exemplar Education, a national provider of online maths and English tuition courses.

More than 400,000 children in the UK were understood to have been registered with the firm, which claimed in 2020 to be the UK's largest home learning company.

Exemplar Education was dissolved in 2022 and its former director has not responded to requests for comment. It previously denied misleading customers.

Cristian Taune is leading the group bringing the civil claim against the firm's former director Anthony Lee and finance company 3J Finance Limited.

He said he signed up his four-year-old daughter in 2017 after she came home with an Exemplar Education leaflet in her schoolbag.

"The fact the leaflet came via the school gave the product credibility and I thought it must be good," Taune said.

Taune agreed a £4,575 loan over four years with 3J Finance to pay for a lifetime's access to Exemplar Education's tuition videos.

But he said the videos did not reflect the UK curriculum, were outdated, confusing and designed for a market in the southern hemisphere.

"The lessons were rubbish - they were teaching my child that summer was in December and using dollars and cents instead of pounds," he said.

The parents have brought the case, due to be heard at Canterbury County Court on Tuesday, seeking compensation for what they say is misrepresentation.

In January this year 3J Finance went into liquidation. Lee was a director of Exemplar before its dissolution and still listed as a director of 3J Finance.

The current legal claim includes families from Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Sussex and Bedfordshire and totals about £25,000.

Taune said he suspected there were thousands more families out there who had been trapped into paying "millions" in loans for a "substandard educational product".

Angie Othen, from Waterlooville in Hampshire, signed all three of her children up for Exemplar Education's online tuition.

"It was horrendous. The leaflet was put in my daughter's bag by the school so we assumed they were endorsing it. It was a completely substandard product," she said.

She said she was told she could cancel at any time and took out a £7,500 loan agreement with 3J Finance for the course fees, paying £124 per month between 2018 and 2024.

Othen, who is also part of the legal claim, said: "I couldn't cancel the contract so I paid the full amount, as I was worried my credit file would be affected."

Other parents signed up to Exemplar Education after seeing social media adverts or searching online for extra tuition.

Helen MacLennan, from Bedfordshire, is also part of the court claim.

She said she was "rushed" into signing paperwork for a £4,500 loan with 3J Finance over five years, which she though she could cancel at any time.

Within two weeks she noticed mistakes with the programme, but said she was told "to persevere with it".

Then in 2019, when she was undergoing chemotherapy, she asked Exemplar Education again if she could cancel, but was told she could not.

She continued paying £75 per month to 3J Finance until April 2022 when she eventually cancelled her direct debit.

MacLennan said she had now received an email and text from a debt collection agency, trying to recover what the company said was an outstanding £1,831 loan for a product she said she was "duped into signing up to" and that "wasn't fit for purpose".

Kimberley Ryle, from Torbay in Devon, also said she was being chased by a debt collection agency after signing up for her three sons in 2019.

After her first payment she tried to cancel and stopped her direct debit after three months.

Now, almost seven years later, she said she was shocked to receive a letter saying she owes £7,068 to 3J Finance.

Exemplar Education previously told the BBC, in 2020, it was incredibly proud of its product offering and firmly denied misleading customers.

The BBC has made multiple recent attempts to contact Lee and Exemplar Education but has not had a response.

Liquidators for 3J Finance said they would not be commenting.

In 2020 Lee said the documentation was not misleading and had been "specifically designed to make the contract entirely clear and customers sign no less than 15 statements to confirm their understanding and agreement to the loan".