GoStudent - from an ex-tutor

[TommyAbroad]

Dear All,

Following another post I placed in a Mumsnet thread which mentioned GoStudent, I thought that some of you might be interested in having more information before you make any choices about tutoring for your child.

I have been a tutor on GoStudent for just over a year. This company is manned almost entirely a bunch of salesmen and entrepreneurs (not educational experts.) To be clear, the tutors are NOT employed by GoStudent. We are regarded as "freelancers" or something woolly, to allow GS to avoid paying a fair wage, or providing any benefits whatsoever.

I could type a whole essay here, but in short:

Fees you pay, and what the tutor gets
Your 30 quid for just 50 minutes? As low as just 12 of this goes to your tutor. GoStudent take around 60% of the fee. Given that these rates paid to tutors have just gone down even further, along with the abolition of basically all achievable bonuses in the last six months, means that you have a wide choice of underpaid, undervalued and VERY unhappy tutors on board. The tutors have requested meetings with management about pay, and this has been rejected out of hand by the company. The pay has not gone up (even for inflation) for over two years.

Matching your child to a tutor
They claim to do this, but do not. Requests from parents for a tutor are simply passed around WhatsApp boards for the most part, with the "Programme Managers" hoping to find anyone at all to accept the student. Anyone, it seems, will do. The "Programme Managers" are all on commission, and don't seem to care a jot (with certain exceptions.) There seem to be no educational experts left within the company, many of the PMs don't even know the names of the teaching qualifications in the UK.

Sales and parents' contracts
GS will attempt to pressure you into a contract for a minimum of six months. What they will press for the hardest is a three-YEAR one. This cannot be cancelled, and even when it expires, it turns into a three-month rolling contract from there on. This means that you'll still need to give three months' notice, even after your child has left school and no longer needs it. On the very few grounds that they allow you to cancel a contract early, they will demand personal information such as your payslips, proof of unemployment and the like.

Trial lessons, and the tutor you get
You may well get a brilliant tutor for your trial lesson, and you are convinced to join the company as a result. But they very often then deliberately allocate you to a different tutor (this never used to happen) who is on a cheaper pay-scale, despite your first tutor being still available. You won't get a choice over this.

Pausing a contract
Yes you can... but it simply adds those months onto the end of your contract.

Your lesson credits
These have to have been booked by the next month's renewal date, or you will lose them. No rolling over credits at GoStudent.

Customer Service
Appalling. There's nothing more to be said. Once they have your money, you better expect no calls back if you have a problem.

The Platform
For the most part, doesn't work. They have their own classroom called "GoClass" (that replaced Zoom) which constantly has bugs. Video not working, audio not working, interactive digital whiteboards not working, and they are completely incompatible with Apple devices.

The Communications, Tutor and Student
They have, once again, their own software (that replaced WhatsApp) for this called GoChat. Or "NoChat" as the tutors have dubbed it, because messages often never get through. As a result, lessons get missed, and communications are lost.

Safeguarding
The less said about this the better, or I may get into hot water. Ask them if they check the tutors' DBS certificates annually, for example.

Finally, sackings.
This company is as vindictive as hell towards anyone speaking out publicly, or "rocking the boat" over issues such as pay from within. I have been summarily sacked this week (along with five others) for joining the protest against the company changing the rules over trial sessions and pay at just six days' notice for the tutors (they now get nothing for these, and are expected to act as "Salesmen" to get the student to take out a contract.) I had the temerity to send "poo emojis" on the internal message boards at such announcements, and was sacked with immediate effect by phone. Not only that, it was demanded that I do not speak to any students, parents or fellow tutors following my dismissal. They must be joking.

Please everybody, there are many platforms. Better platforms. More reliable platforms. Cheaper platforms. Go elsewhere.

Best Wishes, and thank you for reading,

An ex-GS tutor, who is now VERY happy indeed to do my tuition privately, not through this bunch of sharks.

@molly5678 - they’re such sharks.

As I said the only thing that seemed to get their attention with me was to keep writing negative reviews on trust pilot. After a few (and numerous emails and whattsap) they emailed me out of the blue to said they would cancel. They tried exactly the same tactics with me as they are with you.

@molly5678 - I’d also reference this thread on Trust pilot if I were you.

Thank you so much @tensmumllaf

I bet your trustpilot review got deleted too because mine did

@Babadook76 i wouldn’t put anything passed them.

I’ve still heard nothing from them so I expect they will ignore me until they go to take payment and I’ve blocked them.
I’ll update on here with how I get on
I can’t pay them £220 a month for tuition I don’t need!

They’ve now come back to me saying their company policy is not to provide phone recordings!! Wonder why that is!they are now saying my ‘contract’ is until July when previously they said August! And still no confirmation of when they sent me this ‘agreement’
I have categorically said I do not authorise them taking further payments using card details I provided in good faith.

So with the phone recordings, it's a "contract" that they are allowed to see, but you're not? Not sure that's legal.....😂

I’m cross with myself! I should never have given them my card details. Hoping the bank will be able to help

@molly5678 - they're very persuasive and really sell it as a flexible option so don't be too hard on yourself. They're marketing is great too. Shame the service isn't.

One more thing - please don't forget the tutors in all of this chaos at GS...

Tutors' Hourly Rates
While you may well be paying GS about 30 Pounds per hour, the tutors' payment starts at just 12 Pounds for Maths GCSE, for example. So around 60% commission is taken by GS in most cases. Preposterously greedy.

Pay Scale Increases
It can take years to get any increase at all (they have to tutor a ridiculous 300 hours in six months, just to get an increase of a Pound.) The rate for all tutors is capped at 16, even if you've been tutoring thousands of hours for years, and are a qualified teacher.

Pay Rises for Tutors
These rates have not increased in four years, not even to keep pace with inflation. Nothing. A petition to the management to try and at least get inflation-linked pay increases last year was dismissed out of hand. Rock the boat on this, and expect to be sacked - as I was.

Tutor Bonuses
Bonuses for sticking with any given student for the long-term were removed a year ago.

In short, the tutors get a pretty dreadful deal. You may be paying for 30 Quid/hr tutoring, but the tutor (for just 12) may not be seeing the work in the same light.

Gosh that is awful, what a horrible company

My daughter’s tutor has been lovely, really disappointing to know how little of my money is actually going to her.

Just a few more snippets from me.

I've been chatting in the old GoStudent WA groups, which I still maintain links with, to get inside info. There are endless new complaints like those above, about people not being able to cancel contracts. Banks still taking direct debits even though the student is now in their 20s, GS Customer Services never getting back to parents even though they promise to. You know the stuff.

"I've got a very upset parent whose been trying to contact support for almost an entire week. Her youngest daughter finishes her GCSEs this year and her membership is expired. But payment still went through for this month. She's tried to email and the support number (she got to the part that says someone will be in touch soon but no one ever came back to her.)"

There's another parent who has contacted her tutor to say that she is being charged 122 Quid a month, for just four lessons. She has cancelled her direct debit with the bank, and now GS are coming after her by email, insisting that she is contracted to pay until November. Her child finishes school in two weeks.

Not one parent that I'm aware of has been able to get any form of copy of their "contract" from GS. They also say that is "company policy" not to release recordings of the verbal contract being agreed. Hmmm.

Anyway, some tutors offered this up:

"Tell her to contact her bank ASAP and block it as fraud; the "f" word can have some big sway with the banks."

"Report direct debit as unauthorised. They'll refund. Say she can't get hold of them."

"Every time a bank gets a fraud alert, it has to be reported internally and, if it happens enough, to the FCA. If it happens enough, especially across multiple banks, then the FCA will have to look into it."

I wish you all luck at getting your money back from these sharks, or cancelling contracts with them. And please pass the word around to anyone you know or care about - leave GS well alone.

On speaking with my old tutoring colleagues, filling out this form may have some effect. I say "may." It goes straight to GS, and maybe, just maybe, it'll work for those of you trying to get out of your endless contracts.

https://share.hsforms.com/1-R0f3zrfQiCQ9cbGTPPCAQ2mxsc

I've been told that a few students had serious Special Educational Needs, and online tutoring just didn't work for them. GS then cancelled the contract after they submitted this form to that effect. You could always maybe try that avenue (whether it applies to you or not.) Just a thought.

Company policy be damned. They have a legal obligation to provide you with at least a transcript of the call if you request it. The formal request is called a SAR (Subject Access Request):

"An individual can make a SAR verbally or in writing, including on social media. A request is valid if it is clear that the individual is asking for their own personal data. An individual does not need to use a specific form of words, refer to legislation or direct the request to a specific contact."

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/individual-rights/right-of-access/#:~:text=An%20individual%20can%20make%20a,request%20to%20a%20specific%20contact.

Brilliant work there, Zimunya!

Ha, I love this. @molly5678 - good luck. I can't believe they still haven't released your from your contract.

Update!
they have now assured me they won’t take any more payments!
I asked for the date the ‘contract’ was emailed to me and the recording of this verbal agreement but they provided me with neither.
I cancelled my card in the bank to be doubly sure!
could have done without it all in the middle of my daughters GCSEs but at least I got it sorted…..through sheer persistence I think!

@molly5678 - great news. Like you say a stress you could do without but I’m really glad you got the outcome you wanted 😊

Hi
I am in the same position. Signed fixed term contract to find out that it can't be cancelled till March 2025, despite being told by customer service it ends in May 2024. Thinking to speak with my bank too. Bit worried that GS might take legal action or send bailiffs:)))) I will contact Citizen Advise to complaint to Trading Standarts. Nothing clear with GS. I was lucky with a tutor.

@JustV I had exactly the same with them. I tried to cancel last month as my daughter was finishing her exams. They said no and I would have to continue paying them until July (which they then changed to August)
They tried the you are in a ‘binding contract’ line so I asked them to send me this ‘contract’. They send over a document I had never had sight of previously and when pushed said I had made a verbal agreement. I asked them for the phone recording of the agreement which they refused to provide. Neither could they provide the date and time of them originally supplying the agreement document ( unsurprisingly as they had never sent it!)
I went on to say that if they attempt to take any more payments from my account I would take further action as they were not authorised by me.

they soon backed off and agreed not to take any more.
I didn’t trust them so also cancelled my card in the bank.
Such a shame as the tutor was brilliant and I would have recommend them.
good luck!

Cannot recommend Go Student. The tutors were great but customer service was very bad. Continuous messages asking me to refer a friend or pay for more sessions, very pushy sales tactics. When I initially signed up I had an account manager. After a few months they got rid of that, then a while later they got rid of the phone number so you could only contact them by chat or email. The chat gave incorrect responses, clearly some technical issues. At the end of the contract they automatically sign you up for another contract of the same length. If you don’t want to do this they send you an email with a link to follow, which leads to their site in German. Basically they try really hard to keep you in a contract. I would be very wary of this company and certainly wouldn’t recommend.

I thought it was well-known that GoStudent is a borderline scam. They reached "unicorn" valuation so the founders could thrive off their overblown egos. The actual service is appalling. Local FB group has a long-running thread with mums who weren't happy with the service at all and simply cannot get out of the contract. It seems their foremost goal is to get customers on board and charge hefty fees in a subscription model that's extremely difficult to terminate. This produces better numbers for their shareholders and investors, which is all they care about.

However despite all this, GoStudent made of loss of €220million in 2022. The company is reputedly crumbling around the edges so anyone who's still giving them money need to back out asap. They laid off 200 workers last fall and closed their US market before it really started.