The amount of hits this blog has received over the last few months has been remarkable. In January alone we had 5,500 views- a very high number for a blog focused on a single issue: corruption in Indonesia’s TEFL industry. For the first time, most of these “hits” have not been from searches about TBI but another rogue operator, Rumah Bahasa. Our decision to re-blog information about Rumah Bahasa, originally posted on Dave’s ESL Cafe, has generated a spike in traffic to this blog.

We have not actively pursued this story yet a trickle of former employees from Rumah Bahasa have approached us and confirmed that the school is, indeed, an TEFL scoundrel. Here are their main sins:

1) They employ Native Speaker teachers on tourist visas.

2) The owner, Frendy Horas, reneges on promises about pay and conditions.

3) The school is chaotically run with staff coming and going constantly.

4) Schedules are changed without rhyme or reason, resulting in needless confusion.

5) The teachers are inadequately qualified, making the school “a complete con”.

We welcome anyone who has more information about this school and its operations to contact us at tbimafiavictims@gmail.com. In the meantime, Rumah Bahasa has made one pitiful attempt to defend their name.

About a month ago they sent 3 different comments on the same day, each one using a different email address. It was a VERY cack-handed attempt to convince us to desist in our expose of the school’s lying ways. Each comment from a supposed Rumah Bahasa customer heaped praise on the wonders of this new school. Each one was written in Indonesian. And all three of them arrived in the in-box within the space of 2 hours. What an incredible coincidence that 3 different customers all decided to contact us simultaneously with the exact same message, all of them written in Indonesian! We didn’t bother publishing them, as they were a very amateurish and transparent fraud. But for your amusement, here is Rumah Bahasa’s fake positive review:

	joni jhoni123@gmail.com 68.171.236.44	Submitted on 2013/12/14 at 2:25 am Tidak juga anak saya 2 orang setahun disana sudah menguasai 2 bahasa asing jerman dan belanda.. Padahalaa saat saya daftarkan, masih tidak bisa sama sekali. Terima kasih Rumah Bahasa.. I Love U

I Love You Rumah Bahasa! My children can now speak fluent Dutch and German after studying there for just 1 year. Our master language instructors can achieve miracles by making kids fluent in European languages within a year. Most people take years to master 1 language but my kids speak German like any Hamburger within 12 months! You wouldn’t read about it!

In fact, such is the fluency of German and Dutch (Belanda) in this brilliant family that they write their entire email in second-rate Indonesian with no punctuation to speak of. Their one feat of foreign language mastery is “I Love You”, which is clear proof of German fluency if ever I heard it! Well, it gave us a chuckle anyway.

Clearly, avoid this dump like the plague.