Please forgiver a newcome barging in with a topic that's probably been visited many times before, but am I alone in receiving all kinds of apparently ridiculous enquiries via the internet, from people who claim that they are looking for tuition for their young? They seem to be divided into: (a) Genuine enquiries ( apparently/possibly genuine enquiries and © obviously spurious ones. It's the 'b's that concern me most, because I don't want to seem impolite - or miss a pupil!

Looking forward to being part of the group ...

Teknikus.

You're right - there are plenty of scams operating under the guise of asking about lessons, but you don't want to miss the genuine ones.

A typical scam - student is not in UK at the moment and will be coming to stay in the future (although at least one forum member has had a genuine student arrive this way). Asks how much for a 2 or 3 month course. In my experience they also usually state student is keen and will learn quickly.

English often suspect. Number of lessons in a relatively short space of time usually suspect. Anyone asking your bank details I'd steer clear of. Vague reference to country or "your state" !

Genuine ones often make it clear they are in your locality.

There was a thread on this a while ago, and if someone else doesn't post a link to it I'll try to find it later for you. It can be quite tricky to give clear guidelines in a few words - will return later (genuine student due!)

Welcome to the forums by the way !

Past discussions on this topic can be found here and here.

If you do a search on 'scam' in the teacher's forum you will find other related topics.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you maggiemay and shboa. That's great. And thanks for your welcome, too.