Driving school Mustangs has taken no steps to improve its reputation or raise its standards — for the third year in a row it has retained 1st place in the anti-TOP.
During the contract analysis it was discovered that the school not only refused to provide the contract for individual review regardless of the reason, offering to view a sample only on site, but the “sample” contract available for inspection was actually a signed contract containing the personal data of another student of the driving school. A complaint regarding this has been submitted to the Consumer Rights Protection Centre.
The school’s marketing activities also continue along the same path, with gift cards still being actively offered. We remind that this type of gift card promotes the culture of free lessons: for every client brought in, the school takes a portion of the instructor’s income from the first driving lessons. This “loss” in the instructor’s income is then compensated by prolonging the training process.
Often the instructor offers the remaining lessons at a “better price” if they are paid directly to the instructor rather than through the school, as required by law. As a result of such practices, the school loses control over the quality and outcome of the training process. At the same time, this is the number one complaint from students in driving schools — one that Mustangs clearly refuses to address.
Overall, it must be said that nothing has changed in the activities of Driving school Gross for three monitoring years:
- Every day Gross offers a special training price, which raises doubts about the real value of the service;
- The Latvian language in both their advertisements and website content is clearly secondary, and serious grammatical mistakes are regularly made;
- The school continuously exaggerates its achievements, claiming to have the best CSDD statistics — yet its average results over the last six months have been 40.96% in the practical exam (below the industry average: 42%) and 89.42% in the theory exam, mostly not even ranking in the TOP5 of Latvia’s largest driving schools.
The administration of Driving school Gross refused to provide the contract for individual review, and the “sample” available for inspection on site contained personal data of another student. The contract analysis revealed that it is draconian — with the “special offer” the student is bound to the school, not allowing them to freely choose an instructor from another driving school for practical training, and imposing disproportionate penalties for not following the training process.
This year also passed without changes in the activities of Driving school Fortūna. Its theory training still remains at the industry’s average level, however its driving training is noticeably below the industry average (only 36.95% of students pass the B category exam on the first attempt). Seeing the regularly offered coupons and discounts, we conclude that this is done at the expense of instructors’ compensation, which is directly reflected in the results.
Fortūna refused to provide the driving school contract for individual review.
The habits of Driving school CredoAutoprieks in attracting new students with promotions have not changed — in our Facebook monitoring we regularly noticed offers of free theory training accompanied by the slogan “Pay only for driving lessons”. We would like to point out that this statement is deliberately misleading, because the cost of any training also includes obtaining a medical certificate, first aid courses, CSDD fees and other related services.
The analysis of the CredoAutoprieks contract revealed several clauses that bind the student to the driving school — both in the case of contract termination and when choosing an instructor from another driving school (which is legally the student’s right). If these clauses are not followed, significant financial penalties are applied. Overall, it must be said that the contract does not demonstrate fair practice.
Driving school Lemurs is a new school established only in 2017. It presents itself as “one of the best modern driving schools in Latvia”, whose team consists of “experienced professionals”. However, CSDD statistics from the second half of 2017 show the opposite — only 78.18% of students passed the theory exam on the first attempt, which is well below the average statistical result (during the same period: 87.56% success rate). A small number of students took the B category driving exam during this period, which prevents an objective evaluation of the school’s performance in practical training.
We draw attention to the fact that on the website the price for one driving lesson per academic hour is listed starting from 10 EUR, however this price applies only if one of the school’s instructors is chosen. We encourage students to carefully review the school’s contract terms and whether this price effectively binds the student to the school.
Lemurs, similar to the already established approach of Mustangs, also offers gift cards (the reason why this practice is a clear “red flag” is explained above).
Evaluating the school’s activities, we can add that the school is a direct example of how the words “professional” and “high-quality” have lost their real meaning — they are used in slogans and in the school description, yet in practice they are not reflected.