students that do not pay for their lessons

Hello teachers! I’m a new teacher here at eduFire and I’m very glad to have found this website. The entire community is so vibrant and helpful it is wonderful!

I’m starting to get used to the idea of teaching online, I’m almost sold :)

But, an area I’m still a bit hesitant is the $$ factor. From what I’ve read, if the student doesn’t show up to the class I can negotiate to reschedule later with the student. But, what if the class does occur and the student doesn’t pay?

Has that happened a lot with you teachers? Where the student has the lesson but then for some reason doesn’t pay? If so, is there anything we or eduFire can do to help?

Hey Daniel. It’s a great question and I’m sure you’ll hear from other tutors here as to what their experiences have been. We have had a couple of situations where a system glitch has prevented students from receiving a bill and we’ve also had a couple of incidents of students not paying (at least not yet… :)). But on the whole this really hasn’t been much of an issue. From what we can tell on our end about 98-99% of sessions end with the student paying the teacher.

We’ve built eduFire on premise that people are generally good and you can trust them (similar to eBay, craigslist, etc.). At some point we may have to batten down the hatches a bit but as of right now the system has worked remarkably well.

Hey Daniel,

I’ve been teaching Italian and English (to Italians) online since 1997. I may have been lucky, but I’ve never had one non-paying student. Certainly had a few never show up! :) But never one that has not payed, and this trend has continued with eduFire.

I echo Jon’s point, ‘people are generally good’. If for some reason the student and tutor don’t ‘click’ then for me, the student recognizes the tutor’s time and still pays, even if they never have another lesson.

I appreciate that it may be a initial concern and that’s understandable, but I don’t think it’s that much of an issue if at all. I’ll be interested to hear from other tutors (and students!).

Thanks for the info guys!! I’m more relieved now :) Any other tutor with more experiences?