WyzAntReviews 378

I have been using Wyzant for weeks now and it has been great. I had to cancel my credit card because it had been hacked. I cannot update my payment to Wyzant until the new credit card is received. They have now cancelled my daughter's tutoring sessions. This is unbelievable to me. My daughter has her final exam next week and now does not have a tutor. There was only 1 tutoring session left. Way to care more about their bottom line then about students needed help. They were informed that the card should be received this week. You would think that they would take some type of payment over the phone, but guess what, NOPE. This is just unbelievable to me!

My son is taking college algebra as he wrap's up his high school career. He had completed his requirement's for math, but at my request he is taking the class. It is at this crucial time, the end of the school year he has started to struggle with various concepts of algebra. I can not help him, math is not my specialty: Enter, Joseph A, who is whipping up some magic with my son and his algebra book. Without the creative idea of Wyzant, and the simplicity of finding a tutor; there would be no Joseph A, and perhaps no algebra college credit for my son. You can learn and understand math on various levels, but without the kind nature and disposition of the tutor, it is meaningless. Joseph possess these positive trait's.

I've been tutoring through wyzant for over a year now. You have to put the effort in to get students: email open job listings, make a good profile, answer emails, be flexible, and do a good job. I've done those things and been very successful. Yes, they take a huge chunk for commission but I wouldn't have any students otherwise and I love not having to worry about getting paid. Some students and families are great and some aren't but that isn't wyzants fault. Same with tutors. Wyzant at least puts some effort into maintaining credentials but its more like a craigslist for tutors and students, you're not paying them to screen everyone first, you have to put the work in. They also have a guarantee if the first session with a tutor doesn't go well. They are also transparent about all of these things up front. I'd prefer to keep all my money but I really have no complaints.

I am not a staff member of Wyzant, as one reviewer suggested all 5 star ratings were. You can find my tutor profile on Wyzant to verify that. I am genuinely baffled by the low reviews and honestly trying to understand it.

This review highlights my experience, but maybe my experience is abnormal, and the company is a scam. I can only write what I have personally experienced.

Since Wyzant puts a lot of money into advertising, they are the first tutoring website that popped up in the search results when I looked for ways to become a tutor. After creating my profile, I saw all the horrid reviews of Wyzant, and so, I went ahead and created a tutoring profile at 6 other tutoring services.

Within a few days of creating my profile, a member of the Wyzant team personally called me to congratulate me for being selected to tutor for them, and he wanted to make sure I understood everything.

Within two weeks of posting my profile, I had 4 consistent clients and over 10 hours of tutoring, and it won't be long before I have over 51 (with my 4 consistent clients), and so my commission rate will drop to 30%. So by the time I need this to be lucrative( in September when I no longer am teaching), I will be making more money with a lower commission rate. I actually have to turn clients down because I can only take on so many hours while I am still finishing up the school year as a professional educator.

So, I am really confused by the low ratings. Yes, they take a high commission, and it really could be lower, but they do so much of the advertising for you that it makes sense their commission would be higher than other places.

I am baffled by all the low reviews, and I can only think of three reasons why:

1) The people writing these low reviews tried to be dishonest and take money from the clients, thus, avoiding wyzant commission, and wyzant found out and let them go, so they are ticked. Don't be dishonest, people.

2) They weren't successful as tutors, and they blame Wyzant. The thing is they might be really good tutors, but they might struggle with presenting themselves well through writing, and, unfortunately, with an online profile, you have to know how to write well.

3) Wyzant is really a scam, and right now, they are making me feel good with all my the business I am getting, and then all of the sudden, they will delete me, and I will see it is a scam. But for now, my experience with Wyzant has been quite positive, so I am going to trust that rather than some strangers on the internet who may just be ticked off for a variety of reasons and going on a rant.

(Like I said, the negative reviews may be true. I have only been tutoring for Wyzant for a month, but as far as my experience shows, they are a great company to get started in the tutoring business)

I started with WyzAnt tutoring in March of 2013. It took about 6-8 months to get my first regular solid clients. Once I did, my positive evaluations and word of mouth reputation started to grow my business. My expertise lies in math and science, as I used to be a pharmacist, and there are a broad range of subjects I can help with. It was always the educational side of pharmacy that I enjoyed the most, and now I get to see light bulbs go on in people's minds and understanding take place on almost a daily basis. This does my heart and soul so much good!

WyzAnt provides all of my referrals, and takes care of the business end of things, which I know that I am not very good at. They have handled numerous issues with aplomb, and I always get my direct deposit payments when they say they are coming. I have express pay with them, so I receive payment about 5 days after I enter lesson reports. This means I get paid something almost every day, so I have a nice source of cash flow.

It turns out that I have logged in over 900 hours of tutoring with this company, and I have the honor of being the second most successful tutoring record for the year so far in the Cincinnati/Dayton area for WyzAnt tutors. They recently invited me to join their online platform, and I just gave a pharmacology lesson to two nursing students in other parts of the country because of this! I expect this side of the business to grow slowly, as the local tutoring originally did, but I intend to gradually pull in my driving radius so that I can still serve communities close to me in person, but cater to more students by giving lessons online.

If you have a marketing niche (as I do) and if you follow WyzAnt's Terms of Service rules carefully, it is possible to help many students and make a living doing so over time. I am so glad I accidentally found WyzAnt's website two years ago!

Michelle in Mason, OH.

I have been a tutor with WyzAnt for one year, and have had nothing less than a satisfactory experience with this company. As a fellow tutor mentioned in her Face Book post; WyzAnt tutors don't have to concern themselves with finding students, spending hundreds of dollars on marketing/advertisement, or even collecting payment for services provided. I was relieved to know that student financials are handled by one party.The WyzAnt Team eliminates these concerns so I can focus on providing a satisfactory service to my students. I highly recommend WyzAnt Tutoring to students. WyzAnt provides an extremely functional online market place to assist students with locating suitable tutors within their geographical location.

I enrolled in WyzAnt as a tutor, applied for numerous positions, and became suspicious when I did not hear back from very many people. WyzAnt admitted that they do not show prospective students every application. I suspect that the vast majority of my applications did not make their way to the students. I am a certified teacher, and I was applying to positions close to my home. I strongly suspect that the reason my applications were not going through is that my hourly rates were fairly low. WyzAnt takes a percentage, so I suspect they try to promote the tutors who are charging more so they can collect more fees. When I finally completed a lesson with a student, all records of it disappeared from the website, and I was never paid. I never received any explanation from WyzAnt, They eventually deactivated my profile, probably because I was not making them enough money. (They never gave me an explanation for that, either.) WyzAnt keeps 40% of the money billed until a tutor has 200 hours in, and the way their system works, it seems to be all but impossible to get in those 200 hours. I would recommend that tutors advertise themselves through craigslist or care.com instead of WyzAnt.

Where do I begin? How about with simple and free advice:

Do not -- under any circumstances -- use WyzAnt. Do not glom onto their site's "Reviews and Testimonials" bc these are ridiculously contrived and designed to suck you in (hear that sucking sound?). Instead, do your homework and read ALL the negative reviews on Yelp, SiteJabber, Consumer Complaint Board, etc. Knowledge is power so be knowledgable about the abhorrent business tactics used by WyzAnt. Be smart, be wise, use TutorZ instead. I did and what a world of difference.

I had a horrible experience with WyzAnt in seeking a tutor. Recently, I logged in and left a message for a tutor. WyzAnt emailed saying "based on your previous requests to close your account, we are unable to provide you with an active account moving forward."

The funny thing is, I never attempted to close my account and it would not occur to me to do so.

When I asked for proof that I requested my account be closed, WyzAnt emailed me saying their "... decision to close my account was made in accordance with their terms and conditions, which are available for review on their website."

Seriously?!? WyzAnt can't even explain it to me? I now have to decipher their legally-written Terms of Service in order to figure it out? I'm left more stymied than before. It is obvious WyzAnt's email notification is a formal one and certainly not one tailored to me.

I notified WyzAnt again asking them for proof that I attempted to close my account. They responded they "could not help me" and that they were, "finished discussing the matter and no one from their team would engage in conversation over this matter." Literally. It left me thinking, "What the?!?" The only reason -- and it's a lame one -- that I can think I was banned is because I ended up never using their services. If this is true, what a ludicrous and ineffective business model they have.

WyzAnt is an extremely unforgiving company, so be careful. They are completely unwilling to work with unhappy customers or engage in a resolution. This is NOT a way to do business. They desperately need to change their business model or it will be catastrophic for them. Their customer service is atrocious. Whether you're a tutor seeking work, or a student in need of one, I implore you to not use WyzAnt. Log onto TutorZ instead and be treated with courtesy and respect, qualities WyzAnt simply does not possess.

Be careful when logging onto other tutor sites that appear not to mention WyzAnt as an affiliate or partner because as soon as you click "Send," WyzAnt pops up, and if you've been blacklisted like me, and you think you're going on a site to circumvent WyzAnt, you're not. Now, THAT'S a sneaky way to do business.

Be smart: Beware!
Be smart: Use TutorZ!

Some of the Wyzant tutors are not reliable. They setup sessions and never show, such a Richard Ly. He said that it was a free lesson. Do you believe that? Then he writes a 3 paragraph email to scold me that Do I really expect a Tutor to be able to help? He, himself wrote that he tutor to help others. What a joke. I called Wyzant and they said thatI can't file anything negative against a tutor and I haven't taken a lesson.

I've been very happy with the site and client-draw. I'm a tutor who wanted to do just that: tutor. I was not in it for the money (still not) and my first client took MONTHS to come, but less than a year later, I have 4 steady pupils and I'm over 50 hours making 70% of my $55/hour rate. Between the four clients I do about 24 - 27 hours a month. It adds up quickly and the pressure goes away once you decide to do it for fun and to help others.
Now, for me, it's just easy, extra money.

The site works well, it's a very nice interface. I have have a profile for many years and have tutored 5 people in that time (so they don't give me much business). I tutor because I enjoy it. I don't want to do it full time and the extra cash is a nice bonus. I do not like that Wyzant takes 40%. I don't think they have done anything to be entitled to 40% past one lesson. The payout structure is absolutely criminal. Wyzant gets 40%? Why? If they weren't so busy digging through emails and charged 15-20% people wouldn't have to go around them and reduce their man hours sifting through emails!

I am greatly enjoying my tutoring success with WyzAnt! The direct deposits are always submitted in a timely manner eliminating the need to remind clients about payments due or overdue as was my prior experience when operating without the WyzAnt affiliation.

profile team: rating is 'zero' Wyzant profile team removes tutor profiles from their online directory without notice.. this is one of the terms of the independent tutor Agreement which states that Wyzant or the independent tutor can end the Agreement for any reason at any time.. the Agreement also says that independent tutors have absolute discretion with their method of instruction and with services rendered, to Wyzant student users; however, the company violates this term of the independent tutor agreement and will treat the tutor as an employee, stating in one case that the tutor did not convert students into long-term clients; tutors have no obligation under the terms of use Agreement to convert students to long-term clients; the Wyzant site is an online marketplace which connects potential students and tutors .. student users are not screened with background checks and tutors can elect to have a background check ..

I was a tutor for almost a year and, though they took so much of my rate, I was happy for the new clients. THEN they sent me an email dropping me as a tutor because they said I tried to meet someone outside of the system, which is complete BS. The only thing I can think is that it was was when I had a client be in touch three times - I told her that she needed to put her credit card on file - they seem to put the onus on the tutors to police potential customers. She eventually did, but not until after she asked me to meet her at a bookstore on a certain day. My response was that yes, I'll meet her, but you need to put your credit card info on file. Wyzant accused me of scamming them, then refused (by email - they refused to return my calls and said they would not consider looking into it further) to tell me exactly what prompted my "firing".

Bad customer service. Draconian policies, blindly carried out by people who have no idea what is going on. I hope they only treat their tutors this way and not their customers. Scratch that - I hope they do because maybe they will go out of business.

As an undergrad, I tried Wyzant to get some experience and make a little extra money. I gained a couple students, and had some decent sessions, but few and far between. The worst thing about Wyzant is that they make you forfeit your privacy rights in their terms of service agreement. I was corresponding with a student who did not have payment information on file, and that was grounds to delete my account. They monitor every single message! When a student requests a lesson, there is no guarantee the student will show up. Wyzant would be "wiser" to make student payment information mandatory and charge them for no-shows. This is not a teacher-friendly service. There are other tutoring service websites out there, so best to avoid this one.

Wyzant gives the impression that they will accept a tutor on the basis on their teaching experience (I have years) their degree (I have some towards a master's degree) and testing on the subjects taught (I passed the subject tests I wanted to teach). Not True.
After I had taken the tests and given them all the personal information they asked for--including my bank account numbers--they sent a email. It stated they were sorry that they could not allow me to tutor for them.
The reason stated was because they did not like my advertisement/intro; which I could have changed. They asked for revision of this x3. I did; but they never stated why they didn't like it. Or how they would like it changed. It was 2 paragraphs. So now they have all the personal info for nothing.
They are arbitrary in their business decisions and I would not recommend anyone tutor or use their service.

Wyzant is an absolute joke. Tutors, go elsewhere where you will be respected and treated like a human being. Students, go elsewhere where you can get a reasonable lesson rate without a bloodsucking company down your throat.

The students who I found through Wyzant were shady and unreliable. I had three sessions with one of my Wyzant students. I have yet to receive payment for the third session (as of 3 weeks later) and Wyzant has been unhelpful. The payment still reads "pending" and the mother is ignoring my multiple texts, calls and messages.

I had an excellent first lesson with another one of my new students and her mother welcomed me back for further lessons. As I was leaving, she first threatened me saying that I would be fired from Wyzant for taking outside payments and then offered to pay me in cash. I declined, stating that I prefer to go through the website and she agreed that this was fine. She then left me 1 star feedback (the lowest).

I messaged her, no response. I called her and she answered, then abruptly hung up after I introduced myself and she realized who it was. Wyzant has again been unhelpful. They will only remove the negative feedback if I void the lesson and decline payment. Ridiculous policy that makes zero sense.

I WAS a valued tutor on Wyzant with multiple clients but now I refuse to give them any more of my business. Please do not support this underhanded and unreliable company.

This website is a scam. I have been a tutor for over 10 months and all of a sudden my profile is removed because of policy violation. And they won't even tell you what it is. The thing is that they take 40% of your fees first, and when you get more hours in when they are bound to change it to like 30% or 20%, they remove your profile. Absolutely scam of a business.

I had been a tutor for over a year and had great experiences with 10 to 12 students. Never had a problem with any students, which many worked with me several sessions. Then, out of the blue I receive an email (just as others here have mentioned) that stated I violated a policy and my profile was being deleted. After a couple of phone calls, no one was able to tell me anything. Without any idea as to why this should happen, no one was willing to share anything with me. It was bizarre and a mystery. Steer clear of these clowns. This is not the way to run a business by biting the hand that feeds them!

Yes, WyzAnt is a scam! I am a CPA who wanted to make some extra cash on the side. They would take 40% of what they billed students and then just dropped me without any explanation? I am contacting the State for which they are chartered and hopefully have the company audited.