I had my suspicions that
philcolman, the thread creator, was not sincerely seeking information about this online course but was really just advertising the course to get more people to his/her website.
I also did some searching on the web and noticed that this same post appears in many other forums on the web:
- http://online.degree.net/online-degree-chat/t-online-tefl-course-3222.html
- http://www.aacircle.com.au/forums/f49/online-tefl-course-20332/
- http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&p=5325
- http://forums.galbijim.com/viewtopic.php?p=18029
- http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:GDTPaB1H7TMJ:www.seasonworkers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp%3FTID%3D5738+%22I+am+planning+to+g o+abroad+to+work+as+an+English+teacher+but+before+ I+go+I+would+like+to+get+some+basic+TEFL+training% 22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=ca&client=firefox-a
But of course, when researching a course, you want to ask around and get as much info as you can. So I let it slide
But looking at
tonymorris's account, I noticed that he/she registered at eslHQ and posted immediately. But this still could be normal behavior.
So far so good.
But what is not so good is that the
IP address of
philcolman and
tonymorris is the same. This means that either out of some very strange coincidence
philcolman and
tonymorris live within a few city blocks of each other or they are the same person. I'm going to guess the latter.
If I am wrong, I apologize. But I do not think I am wrong about this.
So, why am I bringing this to attention?
1. Because
philcolman was not asking a sincere question. He/she was simply trying to promote his/her website. This reflects badly on eslHQ and leads to false information about a course for eslHQ's members.
2. To alert users who are actually looking for an online course (ie. spending a lot of money) that the information that
tonymorris posted should be disregarded because it is most likely the same person asking about the course.
3. Finally, this is a common spamming technique. Spam includes posting in forums under the guise of a legitimate user seeking information about a product or website and posting a link to said product or website.
Just FYI...
Eric