Parents wanting to become a tutor, please avoid https://www.firsttutors.com/

[umsg]

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 via email 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 client’s 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 student’s 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.

Although it's possible for parents to find good tutors and for tutors to find clients via websites that charge students a finders fee (Firsttutors and tutorhunt use this model - but there may be others as well) these sites do have their drawbacks for both parties.
I suspect that most parents who pay the "finders fee" are under the impression that a percentage of this goes to the tutor - it all goes to the agency. This makes the client consider the lessons as more expensive as they are factoring in the above fee, whereas as a tutor you don't.
You have my sympathies for the review, am afraid that there are inconsiderate clients on these sites and certainly I am finding ones that are making more unreasonable demands.
I received a negative review from a student a few months ago.
I have now deleted my account from this agency as I decided it wasn't helping me to find students.