Dobleve

There are essentially two ways to enroll in a Spanish class/school in Granada – either directly with a school, or through a broker. I have enrolled in Spanish classes in both ways and I strongly recommend not only enrolling directly with a school or program but even more strongly that you do not ever use the broker organization “UniSpain”. My experience with them is among the worst I have ever had as a consumer.

I enrolled in an intensive, 4-10 student, month-long Spanish course through UniSpain’s online form, at the University of Granada. It is not clear to me how I might have otherwise enrolled at UGR as I tried several ways before being directed to UniSpain’s website. I followed the webform on the site, registered, then received an email with very little info about the course, (just its name), directing me how to wire money directly to pay for the course. I then received documents confirming my matriculation in the intensive Spanish course, but again with little other information – solely the date on which I should come for a proficiency exam (presumably the rest of the information about the course would be given to me then such as what hours of each day the class would take place, where, and how many students.) The problem arose when I attended the first day of class and there were 16 students – by the second day 2 more had been added.

Sparing any reader the absolutely mind numbing details of what it says where on the UniSpain website about intensive Spanish courses, the real problem was that when I contacted them telling them the course was not what I had registered or paid for they could not have been less interested in helping me. The course and its fees were over 600€. When I asked for a refund because the class was not as advertised in many places on their website, not only did they refuse to give any sort of refund, they did not offer any other classes or solutions. Instead they wrote me that I should have read the student complaints section on their website, said they were too busy to read my emails (when I finally was able to contact them by phone), and essentially told me there would be no further discussion of any sort, end of story.

It is my strong belief that if this company is not downright defrauding people they are exploiting their non-Spanish customer base. To make an official complaint about any business practices or argue for a refund in Spain you must follow a set procedure that involves going in person to the business about which you are making a complaint and filling out forms (in Spanish). In UniSpain’s case although you can enroll for courses all over Spain, you must travel to Malaga to make any complaint about the courses, no matter where you enrolled. (We had to rent a car and drive 1.5 hours to file our complaint.) Students that are only in Spain for a month likely do not know about this procedure let alone how to follow it.

When we went to the UniSpain office in Malaga we waited outside their security door trying to figure out which office number to ring. A man approached and was entering the building. We asked him if he knew which office was UniSpain and he reached out and pushed the correct button then went inside the building as the door shut in our faces. Moments later when we got someone else to buzz us in we met him again because he worked there but hadn’t let us in! Then, we asked the first person we encountered (they would not give us their names) if we could try to work it out again before filing an official complaint. We met with the boss (we think, again they would not tell us their names or be friendly in any way). He was rude and confrontational and again, could have cared less that we were so unhappy with the class, the information and advertising we relied upon to register, and the fact that although we had received absolutely no services (or they argued, the service they provided by doing my paperwork to enroll) they were keeping all of our money. They made absolutely zero attempt to reach some compromise (a new or different class would have been reasonable and agreeable to us, for example.) Finally, when we arrived home I opened an email that had been sent while we were at the UniSpain office writing our complaint. It was from UniSpain. It said:

I hope you had a nice stay in Spain.

In order to help us to improve our service, we would like your opinion about UniSpain, your school and your accommodation (if we provided it).

It will take you only a few minutes to fill it out, and your feedback will be very valuable for the students coming in the future.
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If you decide to use a broker to enroll in a language class, I recommend ANY other broker – do not use UniSpain.

On the flip side, we have had an amazingly positive experience with the language school I.D.E.A. in Granada. When we first enrolled there the professor/part owner asked us many questions about what we were looking for in a language class. We attended there for over a year (and will start a new program in preparation for the DELE) and were extremely happy with the school and its teachers. They are very responsive and will adjust everything from curriculum to homework to schedule depending on what you might need as a student. This will always be dependent on the class as a whole but the classes ranged from 4-8 our entire time there. In addition we have become friends with every teacher and all of the long term students that attend there. Finally, the students are very diverse and come from all over the world, all professions and all ages (as opposed to the class of 85% American, 24-30 year old students in the UGR course).