Tutoring Guidelines and Expectations
Appointment Times: Available times are generally open if you call two or three days in advance. You will be fit in even if you are asking for an appointment right away, but openings tend to decrease in those cases. Appointments are given on a first-come/first-serve basis.
Canceling an Appointment: There will be no charge if you cancel 24 hours or more before your appointment time. After that, you should expect to pay for your entire time span irregardless of any attempts to contact A Tutoring. A Tutoring reserves the option to disregard a fee if an emergency has caused the cancellation, but this will generally only happen once. If A Tutoring is able to fill the time slot or part of the time slot with another student, you will only be charged for the time not filled.
Meeting Up: Students should generally get on Skype within 5 minutes before their start time. If I am not in your contact list already, you can search for me with the Skype Name "jdmacz" or "Joe Maciarz".
Showing Up Late and Extra Time: If you are late for an appointment, you are still responsible to pay for the time slot you've asked for including any time you missed. In general, you should only expect to only stay to the end of your appointed time. If you want extra time and I have available time to extend our tutoring session, you will be charged from the appointed start time to the time we finish.
Ending Early or Going Over: If you have to leave before the set finish time, you will generally be expected to pay for the entire time span. I will try to be a bit flexible on going over. Five or ten minutes is not a problem given that I don't have another student after you. I will generally not charge you for this extra time. But if you set an appointment for an hour or two and only end up needing a half hour, you should expect to pay for the entire time slot you asked for.
Food and Drinks: I have no problem if you want to eat or drink during the tutoring session. And don't worry, I won't expect you to bring enough for everyone.
Interest and Charges on Unpaid Balances: In general, you'll be asked to make your payment after the tutoring session. You will not be able to make a fixed appointment until you have paid for your previous session. I do not assess any fees based on any outstanding balance.
Making Appointments: Since you'll be making your payment after the tutoring session, any appointments you make at the end of a session are conditionally temporary. You will have 24 hours to make the payment for your previous appointment. If a payment is received with 24 hours, the conditional appointment automatically becomes fixed as is your time slot. If payment is not made within 24 hours, the time slot becomes available for other students to take.
End of the Course: Generally, I'll give students a month to take care of any unpaid balances. I have had a few cases of students failing to pay their final bill at the end of the semester. Since then, I have obtained the services of a collections bureau. Their fee is 50% of whatever they collect. So in order for A Tutoring to collect the original unpaid balance, the student will be accessed the collection fee as well. That would double your outstanding balance. Please avoid this scenario by taking care of your unpaid balance after your last tutoring session.