I was a tutor that was listed with WyzAnt for abou...

I was a tutor that was listed with WyzAnt for about one year. I would strongly recommend that students and tutors stay away from this company, as it is my belief that they are engaged in unethical and exploitative business practices.

I have a graduate degree in education and have been in the educational field as a teacher, tutor, and program specialist for nearly 15 years -- and I can say, without reservation, that I have never worked before with such an unethical organization as WyzAnt in my educational career.

Specifically, I believe that WyzAnt is misclassifying tutors as independent contractors not only to avoid labor regulations and avoid paying employment taxes, but to exploit low-wage tutors. WyzAnt's behavior is particularly egregious because its business model is built much like a traditional pyramid or Ponzi scheme, with a high investment in time and money required by a new tutor in order to find students through the system, with the promise of earning a high return on that initial investment in the future as the tutor logs more hours of tutoring experience.

However, in order to minimize the payout, WyzAnt's regularly deletes profiles without warning, often done when a tutor rises to the next stage of the pyramid and begins earning a higher commission. These deletions are conducted by a "profile review team" at WyzAnt, which only provides very cursory and vague explanations as to why a profile was deleted, and refuses as a matter of policy to discuss the matter at all with a tutor. The criteria used by this team in determining which tutor profiles to delete is considered "proprietary" by the company and is kept secret.

Based on my experience as well as the experiences of other tutors who have had similar experiences with the company, I have come to the conclusion that WyzAnt is very likely exploiting tutors deliberately by misclassifying them as independent contractors and then terminating them without justifiable cause in order to reduce the number of tutors to whom they have to pay out higher amounts of commission. What is particularly offensive is that WyzAnt is conducting this pyramid-like scheme under the guise of an "online education company", branding themselves as a "community" of private tutors providing a "service" to students.

It is my hope that the more tutors and students become aware of this company's practices, and that WyzAnt is held accountable for its actions.