the Price of Violin Lessons

We paid for 6 months of weekly violin lessons for our 12 year old daughter. They were each one hour long.

This was a huge ripoff. We sent her to a few lessons at $25 a piece. She really enjoyed the violin and her teacher. Her teacher taught classes out of her home. The teacher said that if we wanted to pre-pay for 6 months of classes we could pay $20 per class. We decided this was a good idea and were confident that our daughter was going to see the lessons through. Everything was fine for about the first month. Then the instructor became really flaky. She would call 20 minutes before the scheduled lesson and cancel. She would reschedule and then end up rescheduling the appointment she'd rescheduled. Eventually she stopped returning our calls at all. Because we did not think ahead and get anything in writing we did not have any recourse to get our money back. We eventually stopped calling her and just took the loss. The worst part is that we could not afford to pay for additional lessons for our daughter and she had to give up the violin.

Do not give anyone any money without getting something in writing. I don't think, after this experience, that it's a good idea to pre-pay someone who works from their own home. Pay as you go.