FirstTutors

Found physics tutor via this website clearly advertised as offering GCSE physics. Paid £24.99 finders fee. After several lessons tutor told us he did not cover GCSE curriculum, only Nat 5 level which is a different syllabus and exam. I therefore contacted First Tutors for a refund as this is false advertising and in breech of consumer protection rights. They refused to give me my money back. Dishonest and unscrupulous treatment, and this tutor is STILL being advertised as offering GCSE on their website.

I was told to leave a review on their website to get my money back so I did, which they then turned against me because I had said he was a great tutor but NOT as advertised, as I did not want to be rude about the person.

I wanted to get additional support for my sons A levels. Local tutor I found was completely incompetent. First tutors charged me £25 for introduction services which was an absolute waste of money as one session costed £60 in total with an immature incompetent tutor. They asked me to find another tutor and said they will provide details free of charge but I only have 5 tutors in the area and non are any better. Just a scale for vulnerable parents and students. Please don't use this site ideally go through school or local recommendations

Absolutely awful website, much better webites out there where you can meet the tutor online before agreeing to use them as a tutor. They demand a finders fee when you have not made a decision on your tutor and block communication with them if you do not pay. Total waste of time. Stay clear of these guys.

Raised a complaint which they didn't even respond to. Pitiful customer service How can they sleep at night? Owed refund and not even responded for over two months

I am a professor and having tested the academic knowledge of 15 tutors at this organisation I was shocked and warn all hard working parents to not waste your money!

As a tutor First Tutors has become increasingly unfair to tutors. The only way a parent can see you is by typing the exact price you are charging, which is basically cutting you off from being seen by hundreds of potential clients. As an online tutor you do not stand a chance to be seen.

This website says
We have spoken with M and our understanding is that he is unable to teach because the request was for XX, but it has become apparent that the request should have been for improving skills of academic English as a foreign language - a subject that Matthew does not teach.

My tutor says
I can see that I was incorrect to state that you hired me on the the basis that I would teach you XX. I apologise. I'm looking back over our original messages: you approached on the basis that I would teach you English, then stated that it was reading comprehension. I understand now that for you this meant you wanted teaching about reading. I think I misinterpreted this as you saying you wouldn't help understanding the specific texts you were studying, i. E. that I would help you understand XX. I think this is a case of misunderstanding. I believe you should get a refund.

I have emailed this website but they are VERY UNETHICAL and don't help. I paid for different tutors for different learning purposes but now they are messing up all my payments. This tutor cannot help me but now the website refuses to either provide replacement or refund my fee.

My partner (a tutor) just told me that this plea for positive feedback was sent to all their tutors by the company. I'm very uncomfortable that this sort of thing should be happening: shame on you First Tutors.
Better to try to listen more carefully to your customers and address the issues that have been flagged by them.________

Dear ##tutor_name##,
It has recently come to our attention that an external review site Site Jabber, is displaying some concerning reviews in relation to the First Tutors business.
Our understanding is that this website does not have any form of verification process to ensure reviews are genuine and we believe the majority of these ratings are not in relation to an actual buying or customer service experience with the First Tutors platform.
If you have had a positive experience with First Tutors, we would greatly appreciate your feedback on Site Jabber. This should help give our customers and your potential leads a true reflection of how First Tutors operates.
You can leave a review by clicking the link below:
https://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/firsttutors.com
Many thanks for your support of First Tutors
Kind regards,
First Tutors

65 pounds for nothing! I purchased special offer 25 pounds, tutor arrived and requested another 40! Inc 5 for travel! Disgusting did not learn anything! Avoid!

I gave them my number thinking I could find a tutor but they weren't what I was looking for. I told them that, yet EVERYDAY i get spammed with calls and voicemails saying that I requested for their service and to call them back. I've never had a company call as much as them-- well either than those spam/fraud calls. That's a big tell when it comes to companies. Please stop calling!

I am having a lot of problems with First Tutors as a tutor.
1. They are more interested in being paid the tutoring student's fee before the session than help tutors.
2. In two occasions i had 2 payment's issues with 2 students. The last one owes me £200. I contacted First Tutors by email and they said they can't do anything with it! They asked me to make a claim at court and who is gonna pay the extra charges?
So, tutors are not protected against any unexpected issue, so be ready for it!
3. One of my students provided a feedback without starting her sessions because at the end, she changed her mind!
I asked first tutors to delete this feedback and they said they trust in student's feedback integrity... and what happens with tutors?
Without tutors this company wouldn't exist so pls, be aware, take care of tutors and treat them how they deserve to be treated!
4. I feel really disappointed and angry at this lack of professional behaviour and empathy with tutors.
I have been with First Tutors for 10 years now, so i feel that they are taking advantage of tutors and students in some way and they are more interested in money than in providing a competitive/ excellent service.
Excellent tutors there are few, (i consider one of them because all my students get the best marks in their exams), so if they don't take care of their tutors, the level of tutoring will get down and students won't trust in them.
I feel familiar with other reviews on this forum, i have also had to work sometimes for "free" to please students, charging a little rate to make them happy, being with them 1-2 years, (most of my students are with me long time), and after, i ask these students to write a good review for me and some of them they don't do it after being successful and get the highest marks in their exams.
So, all this hard work for nothing!
And then, there is a TOP tutors list in wich you need to upgrade and pay £30 to be listed at the top of the list.
If not, students won't see your profile, (even as in my case, i am fully qualified with 15 years of experience).
So, i advice First Tutors to create a new policy to protect tutors against difficult students and make some obligatory rules:
1. Make payment before every session.
2. Provide feedback.(Before publishing, tutors can check this profile and if they don't agree with it, they can proof the issue with it and be hide or deleted), without being shown any bad review with red colour on profiles.

So, happy tutors become happy students and not on the contrary.
It needs to be balance and equal the level of service for students and tutors.

As a tutor I've used many sites to advertise my services so I can say honestly that FirstTutors is just a big scam. Their business model is manipulative, censoring communication between student and tutor until the student's paid £20 to the company for the privilege of finding out a phone number. Perhaps as a result of the fairly substantial initial cost I've never found business through FirstTutors. The site doesn't even really add value, any google searches return gumtree as the leading result, which operates under a much more ethical business model of charging a one-off fee from the tutor to host their ad.

In short, FirstTutors is unethical for students and pointless for tutors.

The last three tutees who contacted me via the messaging online, asked when I was available. I gave detailed times of spaces which were immediately deleted by an automated 'red' bold message on the site. Therefore I had a further message from the potential tutees to say they were confused by the deleted information.
When I emailed the company i was informed that all contact numbers ie phone numbers, emails and addresses were spontaneously deleted from messages as the site can't differentiate between lesson times and any other numbers. However, they did say that this is reversed as soon as the company accesses the messages but I had no way of knowing if my original available details had been reinstated.
None of the last three tutees replied so I can only assume that they didn't in fact see my original message. This is a ridiculous situation for a company who manages the liaisons between tutors and tutees and they need to alter the software to recognise the difference between telephone numbers etc and available times and days available. Alternatively, a notification could be sent to the applicant to inform them that the message had been updated.
I'm extremely disappointed with the system and don't agree that a professional company would allow this to happen.

Cannot believe it! Was told via email a tutor was fully experienced in teaching A level maths - my daughter had to correct her a number of times for the incorrect answer! Disgusting - asked for my money back from first tutors but they refused.
Very disappointing.

I had been in correspondence with an A level tutor called for a week and we agreed today that he was able to come to my house every Tuesday to tutor my daughter for one hour at the rate of £25 ph. Once we had agreed this I bought his details from First Tutors for £19.99. Within a couple of hours of buying the tutors details, he emailed me saying that he would rather do a 2 hour session@ £25 per hour and if I wasn't willing to do a 2 hour session would I pay for his petrol money?! I find this EXTREMLY unprofessional and have emailed him back to say "no" to both his suggestions. I then wrote to you to First Tutors explaining what had happened and asked for a refund of £19.99! First Tuturs were quick to respond saying that according to he Terms and Conditions I had to give the tutor feedback and await his feedback Becker a decision could be made on my refund! Now I not only have to spend time corresponding with another tutor and having wasted time emailing back and forwards for a week, I now have to spend time trying to get my money refunded!
I feel like I have been conned. Terrible experience with this company. Would never use them again.

Do these tutors actually exist?! Like other reviews on here, I paid my fee of £19.99, got tutors details and got in touch with her. Couldn't get the first meeting underway because she had an unexpected emergency to go away and deal with. Agreed to meet upon her return a few weeks later. This time it was cancelled due to change in personal circumstances. Tutor said she was ever so sorry and would have loved to have helped my son but didn't think it was fair to start and then have to stop suddenly due to the changes going on in her life. She sounded so lovely and genuine and I felt really sorry for her. Tried another tutor and couldn't get her on the phone - number not valid. A few emails later we arranged to meet. Surprise, surprise, she too had an unexpected family emergency and had to be away for a period of time. Couldn't expected me to wait and would understand if I sought another tutor.

Trying to get a refund from First Tutors and getting the run around. Have contacted my bank to raise a dispute and get refund for goods not received. AVOID!

Please avoid firsttutors. As an academic now working as a private tutor I can honestly say that I have never dealt with such a shoddy company. Absolutely appalling service and they treat tutors, many of us have PhDs, as though we are dirt. When I experienced a serious problem with a "student" they refused to assist. This company should be closed down, that is all I can recommend. Just avoid them.

Right, so I'm a cellist (played with BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic on four continents). First they suggest that I'd be happy to travel TWO hours each way in order to teach ONE cello pupil (hint to First Tutors: I did say I only teach from home!) Then they refuse to accept my passport scan, scanned as it was to their EMAIL rather than to their SITE. I mean, nobody appreciates security more than I do, but this is ludicrous! What they're after is their own good, not the good of the tutors or of the pupils they tutor. Don't fall for these people, is my advice. Give them a miss altogether. As teachers, we need this grasping attitude like a hole in the head. I strongly don't recommend this site, from which I have resigned.

Wouldn't even give it a star to start with. I registered about 3 months ago and it still hasn't finished yet, too much crap to deal with. Complicated. Save your time, find another one!

I understand it might be a good reason for some to choose Firsttutor to find their tutors for it takes so much hassle and effort to register as a tutor there so for some this might mean the registered ones are good. But for this same reason I think Firsttutor failed to include me into this selection. I just had to give up for all the unnecessary hurdles set in the registration. Or maybe I am just not as good (?) But I am a native Mandarin speaker, with a master degree completed, and am currently a research student pursuing a PhD and I have a violin RM8.

Sick of your unprofessional people treatment.

September 2013 - Tried to register with this company through their website. No success despite several attempts. Tried to phone. No number listed for the address given. Phoned their 'registered office'. Man there said this was only a marketing agency and their address must have got on to their customer's site by mistake. No, he had no contact details for First Tutors. Seems to be a pretty website with nothing behind it any more.

I feel that this company provides a service biased towards their student clients with no commitment towards their tutors. I feel that this company should publish reviews from ethical and truthful clients only.

I agreed a discounted price for 2HRS lessons. Only after the first class, the client asked me to provide them 3HRS of my time at the price of 2HRS as this is how it is done in HONGKONG (the client recently immigrated from HongKong). I suggested that it will cost them extra (as we only agreed a price for 2hrs class & not 3 hrs) and hence I got a review saying that I care more about the money than the welfare of the student!

I explained the situation to the customer services and requested them to remove the FALSE feedback provided by this client. The customer team said that they cannot remove the review as it is NOT A QUESTION OF WHO IS RIGHT AND WHO IS WRONG, but clients opinion and that they do not have a right to remove this opinion (eg it is not rude, racist or untrue). I was shocked as the staff FAILED to see this as an UNTRUE review! The client provided incomplete information (which was not untrue) and it was accepted by the company. I provide the company with complete information of the situation which proved that the clients' review was UNTRUE. For that reason I felt that the clients review should have been removed from my profile.

Further, the staff ignored the fact that this client made an attempt to obtain my contact details without purchasing it which is against the rules of the website. They ignored the fact that I gave a 50% discount on the introductory lesson and agreed for more discount on further lessons. They also ignored the fact that the students parents asked for tutoring GCSE maths but the student expressed his intensions of doing AS-level maths. The staff ignored the fact that the client did not make their intensions clear before the first class and try to enforce 3hrs of service at the price of 2hrs only after the first class. The staff ignored that fact that the student thoroughly enjoyed the lesson and said that NO ONE HAS TAUGHT HIM IN THIS WAY BEFORE. The student also mentioned that his PREVIOUS tutor gave him formulas and asked him to memorise them, which clearly shows that this is not the first time this client have made changes to their tutoring arrangements.