I was a tutor on the website for a few months. I had a five star average, tutored many students from high school to grad school, from college to professionals, and I was a highly-seeked top tutor in my area of expertise. I was always kind towards my students, and always did my best to be fair towards all of them. I never charged a student unless I was 100% sure that I needed to. One day, I got an email from Wyzant indicating that they are banning my profile within the following month. No reason given at all. They cited paragraph 18g of the Independent Tutor Agreement, which simply says, "Wyzant can ban tutors at any time, for any reason". So, I know that I haven't done anything wrong because otherwise they would cite another paragraph in the agreement.
I was a TOP tutor in mathematics and computer science, which is what basically most students use the website for. I always did my best to avoid academic honesty policy violations, meaning that I always rejected a student's request to do their homework for them. Not only I rejected such requests, but I also reported these students to Wyzant (which is what Wyzant asks you to do). When there are many tutors on the website that will go against the academic honesty policies and simply do students' homework for money, it is interesting that I am the one that is getting banned from the website. Discrimination, opacity, and unfairness lie at the very core of this $#*!ty website.
I tried to reach out to them for 30 days, sending them tens of emails, calling them many many times, just to learn why I was being removed from the website. They didn't respond once. No correspondence, no one explained why I was being banned, and there is no way to reach out to the decision makers - you just talk to the call operators. The only email I got was 30 days later, on the day that my profile was permanently banned.
On the student side, they take your payment information, and hold onto it. You can't message a tutor unless you have your payment information on your account added. Even if you remove it, they will have it on their record, and will charge you a bunch of different things, one of them being "cancellation fees", which will cost you hundreds of dollars, and you can't reverse/appeal them.
Wyzant is a $#*!ty website for both tutors and students. They don't treat you well. You can't reach out to anyone in the company for help. They will say they will get back to you, but they never do. And if you are a tutor, you will suddenly get banned from the website all of a sudden for no reason even if you haven't done anything wrong.
$#*!, Wyzant.
Very recently after i have covered 200 hours of Wyzant tutoring i got a message from Wyzant that i have:
Dear Gayani,
After reviewing your account, Wyzant is ending your access to its platform according to paragraphs 17 and 18(b) of the Independent Tutor Agreement. It has come to our attention that a student requested that you complete work on his or her behalf. According to our records, you agreed to complete this work and as such, we will deactivate your account effective immediately.
If you disagree with this action and wish for us to reconsider, then within 10 calendar days from this notice, you may provide Wyzant with documents or other information for review.
Regards,
The Wyzant Team
My issue is that why students use Wyzant was to get assignments completed only. Otherwise no one follows Wyzant for regular lessons. Because the tutors who are there are not only school teachers, so some do not know the syllabus even.
In my whole career with Wyzant all I did was solving College and High school assignments.
Most students who need help are not the ones who knows how to complete the assignment.
Next I gave a written explanation on this truth that i promised the student to complete the assignment and explain the assignment during class.
After not assessing the truthful nature of mine even, the next mail goes on:
Dear Gayani,
Your profile has been closed according to paragraphs 17 and 18(b) of the Independent Tutor Agreement. Based on the information you provided, we will not reactivate your account. Wyzant considers this decision to be final and a representative will not be made available to further discuss this matter.
Additionally, we have notified the following students that you are no longer listed on Wyzant:
AAA, BBB, CCC. Etc.
If you have any lessons scheduled with other students, please let us know and we will notify them of your deactivation as well. Since your account is no longer active, you may also let us know if you have conducted lessons that you have not yet submitted through the platform; if you provide us with the complete lesson details (student's name, date of lesson, start time, end time, subject, and a 25-word minimum review, if this is the student's requirement), we will enter the completed lessons on your behalf. Payment for these lessons and for any other lesson you have already submitted but for which you have not yet received payment will be issued according to your selected payment schedule.
Regards,
The Wyzant Profile Review Team
www.wyzant.com
Questions? Visit our Help Center!
Where is Justice?
When they get money by advertising Homework help and assignment help given no issues. When a qualified tutor does it with ethics and explaining the assignment it's wrong.
The money that is received back from this platform is also 75% of your rate only.
This platform should be closed for illegal business.
I have proof that most of the tutors listed here are only doing assignments.
The Job requests comes like this only:
An Instant Book Lesson is Available
Gayani, there is a new urgent request for an online Java lesson. You can confirm this lesson, but must be able to accommodate the lesson start time and date.
Wednesday, May 29 at 7:30 PM MDT
Online Java lesson with AAA A., a high school student
Message From Student
I need help rewriting a piece of code to fit as a different data structure for my assignment. It's due tonight!
Student's Assignment
LeaderboardMenu. Java 39 B
All what I did was write the answer and the student obtained 99%.
Pls. Do justice here...
A top Wyzant tutor, Marlene Soper, agrees to take $40.00 then, WITHOUT NOTIFICATION, charges $60.00 instead!
The Wyzant platform malfunctions severely for over an hour and Wyzant offers compensation for the first hour only. When the tutor, Marlene Soper, steals the extra $20.00, for what she estimates to be an extra 30 minutes online, Wyzant only offers me a website coupon instead and REFUSES to help with the tutor situation.
Proof conversations copied below:
1. From Skype, when technical issues were so sever that Wyzant suggested we try another platform:
ME: "I think we need to stop here and wait for wyzant to get back to me. Sooo Sorry."
MARLENE: "Yeah. I agree. I'm so sorry about this."
ME: "plz accept the 40 USD they credit to my account on their website? Or which ever u prefer"
MARLENE: "OIK. It's up to you. They gave you the credit, you might as well use it. Right."
ME: "ok, thank you. One minute, let me log on and check. Ok, it's there"
2. From our text messages when the theft took place:
ME: "Hi Marlene. I just received notification that wyzant charged me for $24 in addition to the 40 dollar credit. Have you received any notification of this?"
MARLENE: " Nada, when we met a week ago and had difficulty, we were talking for over an hour. When we met Friday we were dealing with all of this for 1.5 hours. I asked for 1.5 hours of compensation and have not and will not ask for anything for the weekend before."
ME: " I see. I thought we agreed over skype that it was only gling to be $40? I would have preferred a heads-up, Marlene. In any case, Wyzant should be responsible for the extra payment, not me. I will contact them. Thanks".
ME (later on): "Hello. Wyzant has placed a credit of $25 USD in my account. Please accept that credit for the extra half hour and refund me the original 24.02 USD. Wyzant cannot transfer the funds to me directly, only through the tutor. Thanks."
No reply.
3. Email excerpts with Wyzant since the incident:
"Thank you for reaching out to us... Please know that tutors are able to charge for the amount of time spent with their student during a lesson. Wyzant had provided you with a credit of $40 as a courtesy due to the technical issues that you had experienced with our online lesson platform in hopes that this amount... may cover the cost of time spent attempting to troubleshoot the issues... If you do not believe the length of the lesson has been incorrectly reported by Marlene, we would encourage you to speak with her directly regarding this... I want to reiterate that we are so sorry for the technical issues... With that being said, please note that there is no way for us to refund the additional $24.20 that you were charged by Marlene without explicit permission from the tutor to reduce the length of the lesson... While the $30 coupon cannot be refunded to your payment method, it will remain on your account and can be used towards any future tutoring you receive through Wyzant... ince Wyzant acts as the payment processor for tutors listed on our site, we are unable to adjust the charge of a lesson and provide a refund without the consent of the tutor that has submitted the charge. As such, we will not be able to provide any further refunds for your lesson with Marlene S... It is important to note this decision was made in accordance with our Terms of Use of our site, which all users agree to when creating a Wyzant account. Wyzant considers this decision to be final and a representative will not be made available to discuss this matter further.
The Story:
The lesson involved in this situation is EMPTY, for over an hour I suffered SEVERE technical issues which Wyzant could not explain. I could not even log into the classroom! In the end, they suggested I try an alternative platform until they checked their own for errors. That's when they deposited credit to compensate the first hour.
Marlene only taught a total of 15 MINUTES in that entire time, simply reviewing the previous lesson in preparation for start something new. Yet, I offered to compensate her for the time she spent online WAITING by giving her the $40.00 credit deposited in my account. She ACCEPTED it as an even compensation, after all we were both affected by this. Then charged me an extra $20.00 behind my back! From my OWN money, not from Wyzant.
So what was I left with as a student? Over an hour of time wasted, no new content, severe technical issues where Wyzant could not help, and a payment of $20.00, un-anticipated and undeserved, with no real compensation from the company behind all this!
It's funny that a top reviewed math tutor would behave this way over 20.00 dollars! I am a graduate student, so 20 USD mean something to me, especially when they're taken by force. But for someone who charges $40.00 / hr and has over 400 positive reviews? I guess they do too.
Over TEN emails were sent back and forth between me and Wyzant, their answer was always the same: We're sorry for your loss, but we can't help with the tutor or the money she took. And we can't pay you directly, only site credit. Good luck!
Since I cannot upload photos onto this review, I have copy-pasted the EXACT text messages that were exchanged between me and Marlene about money, plus excerpts from my emails with Wyzant. Please read them above and judge for yourselves!
A final note: What Marlene did was immoral, it's called STEALING, I would be careful about dealing with her. Even successful tutors get greedy. Also, Wyzant is NOT built to protect the students, it doesn't care if they're being extorted by the tutors, EVEN if their platform is to blame! I would NEVER recommend this site to anyone, their policy is unfair (there's no timer in the classroom, the tutor names the duration of the lesson as she sees fit and Wyzant has no proof how long the lesson ACTUALLY lasted), the platform is ALWAYS crashing and their customer assistance is useless. Again, PLEASE do NOT save your card or PayPal information on their site.
Tutor is great.
More than I expected
It was a wonderful experience. Thank you!
The tudor was well knowledge and patient.
Treat tutor
Very good!