Complaint Review: Wheresmytutor.com - Internet

I saw an ad on Craigslist that said:

"TUTORS NEEDED for 2013 Right Away = $20 - $60+"

And, being a teacher looking to earn some extra money, I responded.

The link in the ad led me to this web site:

http://wheresmytutor.com/

They charge $20 to create a tutor profile, and the system is supposed to help parents and students in need of a tutor search their database and find tutors.  Assuming it works, and assuming it's not a scam, it seems like a worthwhile chance to take for $20.

So, I signed up. Had a hard time with the interface. My credit card wouldn't go through, and I had to email the president of the company, Justin C. Ketcham, for help. He responded within a few hours, and then responded further to three more emails before I had finally made the payment system work for me. Those prompt responses sure do inspire folks to think the business is legitimate.

So, then I created my tutor profile. There were some features and functions I had a problem with, but I figured I could make do.

I waited.

I received no contacts from potential tutoring customers. I began to worry that it was a scam.

Then, the site went down for four days. I emailed Justin Ketchum. Called him. No response. I emailed four times, and called four times. Nothing.

Then, the site came back up. I checked it out, and it was malfunctioning in the search function. I once again emailed Justin, and called him. No response.

I continued to attempt to contact him, with no response of any kind, for the next month.

For a MONTH.

I emailed and called, demanding a refund. No response. No surprise.

I began searching their tutor database to see if the other tutors were real people, and if they could be located and contacted outside of the system, I did so. I found and contacted more than ten, and they ALL told me stories exactly like mine: they'd had NO WORK from wheresmytutor.com, and NO RESPONSE to any emails they'd sent or voice mails they'd left for Justin Ketchum.

No one I spoke to had ever heard back from Justin Ketchum or anyone else at wheresmytutor.com (if there IS anyone else at wheresmytutor.com), AFTER they'd paid their subscription fee.

Frustrated, I despaired of ever getting a refund, or ever hearing back from Justin C. Ketcham. 

In the middle of the night, awake because the dog had been barking, I suddenly had it: He can't do his e-commerce for himself. He has to hire that out. Most companies do. Justin C. Ketchum would likely be no different.

I remembered that when I'd had trouble paying when I signed up, I got a very nice email from a woman named Luanne Albright with a company called FastSpring. She had helped me, and it dawned on me that if they were the company who handled all of the online transactions for wheresmytutor.com, THEY were the ones to talk to.

So, I emailed Luanne, and told her my story: VERY prompt responses to emails and calls (i.e., within 4 hours) BEFORE I paid the susbscription fee, and NO responses afterwards. NO WORK, NO RESPONSE, NO REFUND. I told her about how I'd emailed Justin C. Ketcham more than 15 times, and left as many voice mails for him, and how over the course of a month, I'd never heard back. I also told her that I'd spoken to at least ten other tutors who were listed in the wheresmytutor.com database, and they all told the same story, essentially, as mine: NO WORK, NO RESPONSE, NO REFUND. I told her that I had not yet been able to find a single wheresmytutor.com tutor who had EVER gotten ANY work of any kind through their association with that website and Justin C. Ketchum.

I told her that I wanted my subscription fee refunded and my "automatic subscription renewal" for the next year canceled.

I also said that if I were the type of man to speculate, I'd most likely speculate that Justin C. Ketchum was a criminal, running a scam, and that there was, in fact, NO "BUSINESS" actually taking place except taking people's money. I further speculated that Justin C. Ketcham's philosophy seemed to be (speculatively speaking, of course) that since his victims were only out $20 or $30, most didn't care enough to pursue it, or would eventually forget or become discouraged by the lack of response and just say "live and learn."

I concluded by saying that, in my speculation, Justin C. Ketchum was engaged in illegal and unethical "business" practices, and that I was sure that a reputable company like FastSpring did not want to be associated with criminals or unethical activity.

Of course, all this was just speculation. 

I got an email back from her very quickly, to the effect that she was alarmed to hear my story, would forward my email to someone higher up in FastSpring, and that she'd get back to me.

Four hours later, I got two very terse emails from "[email protected]" informing me that my subscription fee was being refunded and that my automatic subscription renewal had been canceled. No apologies, no signature. The name Justin C. Ketchum did not appear anywhere, although I believe he is the only "employee" at his "business." The reason given for the refund was "Product Not As Expected."

Hah! That's like getting rat poison instead of ketchup and saying you wanted a refund because it wasn't what you expected.

I then received a another very concerned-sounding email from Luanne at FastSpring, telling me that if I ever had a problem with a business that they handle e-commerce for, to contact them immediately.

So, I've decided to spread the word about how to get your refund from wheresmytutor.com and Justin C. Ketchum. I went back and contacted all the tutors in my area who'd been ripped off as well, and told them to contact Leanne Albright at this email:  

                                 [email protected] 

and tell her their story. Several have gotten refunds very quickly this way, after months of unanswered emails and phone calls to Mr. Ketcham and his "business."

Ultimately, Mr. Ketchum is very good at trolling and responding under fake identities to rebut claims like this one. You can find my blog about this whole experience here:

http://wheresmytutorexperience.blogspot.com/

And you can email me. I'm a real person, and I actually respond, and I can show you correspondence from several people who've had the same experience I did.

The thing is, he waits until he HAS to refund your money to do so. And then he says things publicly like, "This person just didn't wait long enough" or "This person's profile wasn't fancy enough," never discussing the fact that he NEVER responds to emails or calls unless you're trying to give him your money, and that there is NO traffic on his site. I have never met a person in real life who has ever made even $1 from tutoring for wheresmytutor.com, but I have met several (read: more than 10) who have been scammed out of their $20 by Justin Ketcham and never gotten a response to their emails and calls.

Ultimately, you can decide. Look up the metrics for his site. If you go to SEMrush.com and plug in the address for wheresmytutor.com, you'll see that good ol' Justin gets about 247 hits per month, but that's not necessarily unique hits, and many of those hits are certainly prospective tutors like I was.

http://www.semrush.com/info/www.wheresmytutor.com?db=us

Now, on this page of his website, Justin says that they have more than 2300 tutors in their database:

http://www.wheresmytutor.com/parent_faqs.htm

So, if we think about this, we can do some math. If (charitably) half of the hits are parents looking for tutors, and maybe 1/3 of them ever decide to hire a tutor (and it is not likely that the numbers are anywhere near that high), then there aren't nearly enough potential customers to provide tutoring work for even 1/5 of the registered tutors, even once a year.

So there you have it. And I won't be recanting this complaint any time soon. Justin's got the corrupt Business Consumer Alliance (they used to be the BBB of Southern California but were expelled for pay-to-play practices: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/03/12/socal-bbb-chapter-kicked-out-for-pay-to-play-scheme/) buffaloed, in part because they're corrupt and mostly because he gives refunds when his back is against the wall. He refunded my $20 (after two months of trying to call him and email him) and so my case was "resolved satisfactorily." Ha!

So, caveat emptor when dealing with Justin C. Ketchum.

In case you're interested, here's his record from ratemyprofessors.com. He used to be a chemistry teacher at a community college, until he got fired. A read through all of the comments is very interesting:  http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=287343&all=true.

 And be aware - he seems to vary spelling his last name, to avoid "complications," I'm sure. Sometimes, he's "Ketcham," and sometimes he's "Ketchum." Interesting.