r/iTalki•
chezal

In a bad spot - Need package cancellation advice for teacher no show

In a bad situation as a new student where I excitedly bought a package for 5 packages without a trial lesson. Packages where supposed to be one hour but during the first lesson teacher said during the lesson that class was only 30 minutes. Another problem is that the teacher had late night time slots available but we agreed through messages to have the meeting right away since they were available. When it came time for the scheduled meeting time on Italki, I just marked the lesson as completed. The teacher apologized later right after I marked it as completed and offered to have the half hour added onto next meeting. I'm thinking no big deal and reassure them because they are highly rated and they said it was a mixup with another student.

So we schedule our next lesson (through messages) in the morning since the teacher says that they are available while the scheduled meeting is tonight. Today, I sent them a message around half an hour before saying I was looking forward to the meeting and am excited over reviewing the material. There is no response and the teacher doesn't show up to the meeting. So now I might be down one lesson and a half. I am hoping this is some kind of misunderstanding. I would be willing to just eat the loss even though the price is at the somewhat high end and mark the second course as completed. My mistake was not booking a trial lesson or asking them if they accept beginners (they listed A1-C1, I am around A 0.8). The first lesson was somewhat rough and I had the feeling they were not completely enthused but I was really prepared for this second lesson hoping and gave them an optional lesson plan with sample sentences I could respond to (they did not prepare one after my first lesson so I wanted to reassure them).

TLDR: Have two 1 hour lessons, only got half a lesson, scheduled night lessons with agreed upon morning lessons on Google Meets, teacher doesn't show up to second morning meeting

My question is how to proceed. I cannot cancel this second scheduled lesson since it is today and past the 24 hour cancellation. If I mark this second scheduled lesson as incompleted/no show will they be inclined to decline package refund? There is a part of me that is hoping maybe they just had a emergency but there is this feeling of dread that they might be taking advantage of me so I do not want to continue. I just want to get out of this situation that I have dug myself into as soon as possible and am willing to give them a good rating on the second lesson - money is not the issue, sometimes you gamble and it doesn't work out like in my case. It is just really discouraging and I want to learn languages, not to deal with issues like this :(

Posted Sep 14, 2025, 12:42 AM UTC

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