Student Terms

1. Who these terms are between

These Student Terms apply when you use TutorBoost to find a tutor, message them, book a lesson or pay for one. They are an agreement between you and TutorBoost (“TutorBoost”, “we”). They work together with the Fees and Refunds, the Acceptable Use and Safety, the Privacy Notice and the Complaints and Disputes page. If these terms and one of those pages disagree about money, the Fees and Refunds page applies.

2. What TutorBoost is, and what it is not

TutorBoost is an online marketplace. Independent tutors publish profiles; you can search them, message them for free and book paid online lessons with them. Your lesson is provided by the tutor, not by TutorBoost. The contract for the lesson itself is between you and the tutor. TutorBoost is not a school, does not employ tutors, and does not decide what or how a tutor teaches.

TutorBoost provides the marketplace, the booking and payment service, the online lesson room and the support and dispute process. Those services are provided by TutorBoost to you, and the service fee described in section 5 is our charge for them.

Is your tutor a trader? Every tutor who accepts paid bookings has confirmed to us that they teach in the course of a trade, business or profession (as a self-employed person or a business), not as a private individual. We rely on that declaration and do not independently verify it. Because tutors teach as traders, consumer-protection law that applies to you where you live applies to your lesson contract with the tutor.

Who is responsible for what. The tutor is responsible for the lesson: turning up, its content and its quality. TutorBoost is responsible for taking your payment, holding it until the lesson is decided, refunding you under the Fees and Refunds, running the lesson room and handling complaints about our own service.

3. Who can use TutorBoost

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract. TutorBoost does not offer lessons to, or accounts for, anyone under 18, including through a parent or guardian. Keep your login details secure; you are responsible for what is done with your account.

4. Booking a lesson

• Lessons booked online through TutorBoost last 60 minutes and are taught in the TutorBoost lesson room.
• Each tutor sets their own price per lesson, between $10 and $200. Before you pay, you see the lesson price, the 5% service fee and the total you will be charged, in US dollars.
• When you choose a time, we hold it for you for 30 minutes while you pay. The booking is made only when the payment succeeds. You then receive a confirmation email with a calendar invitation.
• Payment is by card through our payment processor, Stripe. TutorBoost does not see or store your full card number. Your bank may charge its own currency-conversion or foreign-transaction fees, which we do not control.
• We collect the lesson price on the tutor’s behalf, as their limited payment collection agent. Paying TutorBoost counts as paying your tutor. We hold the money until the lesson has been decided under the Fees and Refunds, then pay the tutor or refund you.

5. Fees

You pay the tutor’s lesson price plus a TutorBoost service fee of 5% of the lesson price. For example, a $40.00 lesson costs you $42.00 ($40.00 + $2.00). There is no subscription for students and no charge to search or send messages. The tutor separately pays TutorBoost a commission out of the lesson price; that does not change what you pay.

6. Cancelling, missed lessons and refunds

The full rules are on the Fees and Refunds page. In short:

• Cancel at least 24 hours before the start: full refund, service fee included.
• Cancel less than 24 hours before the start: you are charged and the tutor is paid, unless your legal cancellation right in section 7 applies.
• The tutor cancels, or does not turn up: full refund, service fee included.
• You do not turn up: you are charged and the tutor is paid.
• Anything unclear or contested is decided by a person, not automatically.

7. Your legal right to cancel (EU, EEA and UK consumers)

If you live in the European Union, the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom and book as a consumer, the law gives you a right to cancel (withdraw from) a contract for services within 14 days of making it, without giving a reason.

A lesson booked for a date within those 14 days can only start in that period if you ask for it to. That is why the booking screen asks you to confirm that you want your lesson to be provided on the date you chose and that you understand the consequences below. Your confirmation is repeated in your booking email.

• If you cancel under this right before the lesson starts, you are entitled to a refund of what you paid, even if it is less than 24 hours before the lesson.
• If you cancel after the lesson has started, you pay for the part already provided, in proportion to the full price.
• Once the lesson has been provided in full, you no longer have this right to cancel.

To use this right, write to support@tutorboost.org from the email address on your account, with the words “I withdraw from my lesson booking” and the lesson date or booking link. You do not have to use any particular wording or form. A person handles the request and refunds what is due to your original card within 14 days of receiving it. The 24-hour cancel button on your lessons page applies the 24-hour rule; it does not take away this legal right.

8. The lesson room

Online lessons take place in the TutorBoost lesson room, a video room run with our provider LiveKit. The room opens 15 minutes before the start and closes 30 minutes after the scheduled end. We record who joined and left the room and when, because that record decides attendance, payment and refunds. We do not record, store or listen to the audio or video of a lesson.

9. Reviews

You may review a tutor after a lesson you booked and paid for through TutorBoost, once per lesson. Reviews must be honest and about the lesson. We do not pay for, write or edit reviews, and we do not remove a review because it is negative. How reviews are checked is explained on the How Search Results Are Ranked page.

10. Your conduct

You must follow the Acceptable Use and Safety policy. We may restrict or close your account if you seriously or repeatedly break it, and we will tell you why unless the law prevents us or doing so would put someone at risk.

11. Our responsibility to you

We provide our own services with reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for the content, quality or outcome of a lesson, which is the tutor’s responsibility, but we are responsible for applying the refund and dispute rules on the Fees and Refunds page.

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or any other liability that cannot be limited by law, and nothing in them affects the rights you have as a consumer under the law of the country where you live.

Subject to that: if you are a consumer in the EU, EEA or UK, we are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill, and not for loss that was not foreseeable. Elsewhere, and to the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability to you is limited to the greater of the amount you paid TutorBoost in the 12 months before the claim and US$100.

12. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms, for example when the law or our services change. We will tell you about a material change by email or in your account at least 30 days before it takes effect. A change never applies to a lesson you have already booked. If you do not agree, you can stop using TutorBoost and close your account; lessons already booked keep the terms they were booked under.

13. Closing your account

You can stop using TutorBoost at any time and request deletion of your account from your settings (see the Privacy Notice). Paid lessons that have not yet taken place are cancelled under section 6 or 7 first.

14. Law and disputes

Please contact us first: most problems can be solved quickly (see Complaints and Disputes).

If you live in the EU, EEA or UK: these terms are governed by the law of the State of Delaware, United States, but you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you live, and you may bring a claim in the courts of that country. Nothing in this section requires you to use arbitration.

If you live in the United States: these terms are governed by the law of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute that we cannot resolve informally will be decided by individual binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, except that either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court. Claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in a class or representative action. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing support@tutorboost.org within 30 days of first accepting these terms.

Everywhere else: these terms are governed by the law of the State of Delaware, subject to any mandatory consumer protection of the country where you live.