There seems to be a disproportionate amount of negative reviews on sitejabber for FirstTutors. After reading through a few of them, I'm not sure if they are even for the correct site. One mentions the inability to find if a tutor is suitable without paying the introductory fee. This is absolutely ridiculous and this person must have a cognitive deficit.
You are free to chat with the prospective tutors as much as you like without paying any fee. You can't exchange contact details for obvious reasons though. FirstTutors makes its money from the finders fee. It then does not charge commission or a recurring fee which is how every tutoring site should operate.
I've been using the site as a tutor for several years and it genuinely is a bastion in a sea of money grabbing tutoring sites that inject themselves between tutor and tutee and charge for the privilege!
I hope that FirstTutors continues to operate in this way for many years to come!