Complaint Review: Andrews Osborne Academy - Willoughby Ohio

I would like to request your assistant in investigating the unethical business practices of an SEVIS approved school Andrews Osborne Academy in Ohio. CLE214F00443000.

They took my tuition and forged my parents signature on the enrollment contract.  Here are the details. 

Andrews Osborne Academy unethical business practices

This letter is being written to inform anyone doing business or form part of the staff or pupils about the unethical business practices

that the Andrews Osborne Academy located at 38588 Mentor Ave, Willoughby, OH 44094 USA carries out on a daily basis.

We came to this “highly rated” academy to enroll our sophomore son from China to learn and assimilate the language and culture of the

beautiful USA.

They made us pay up front a full year of tuition amounting to $48,143.04, soon after while still in China our son felt very ill and

had to be hospitalized, after several days of being in hospital and there not being any positive prognosis or alleviation of our son’s

aliment, we realized that the admission date was soon approaching and my son wouldn’t be able to attend Andrews Osborne Academy afterall, or

travelling to the USA at all.

We contacted the school administrator Larry Goodman PhD, to see if it would be possible to have the tuition fee refunded, to which he said

that my son’s illness is not severe enough, and that it wouldn’t be possible to get a full refund.  After providing hospital records and

medical records attesting to the poor health of my son, he refunded half of the said tuition, but kept $24,071.52. Stating that my son’s

illness is not severe enough to justify not coming to school, that is thousands of miles away. They are not medical professionals and I

doubt how they could assess my son’s illness without even diagnosing him.  For them to keep half of the tuition is a totally unjust

enrichment.

In addition, I asked for the enrollment contract and the signature on the contract was not signed by my parents, in fact, the school staff member signed it online themselves. My parents never signed the contract, they forged their consent. 

The main purpose of this letter is to state that we wanted our son to attend Andrews Osborne Academy and he was ultimately unable to attend

due to an unforeseen illness, not due to his or our consciousness or sudden change of heart. We still feel that a “full” refund was due and

we did not obtain.

Unfortunately, illnesses are generally unforeseen and we had full intent to have our son attend the school.

No consideration was given because we are from a foreign country and we are unfamiliar with this school method of operation. We were in the

understanding that, if you sell a product or provide a service, you would need to be compensated for that.  But in this case, no service

will ever be provided, and a full refund should be due.

Beware that if you ever find yourself in this situation if for some sort of reason, you need to withdraw your child’s enrollment to do it

immediately or you may find yourself in a similar problematic predicament.

It seems that Andrews Osborne Academy main goal is to make money and the well-being and best interest of their students are secondarily.

Their actions of refusing to refund tuition is tantamount to highway robbery.