Hi it's Alice here :) Back again to offer advice.
1.) You want it for free and they don't do free language exchange nor have any free trial lessons. It's important to ask if the tutor you want to have help you, if they do free language exchange. If not, there's probably a reason for that. Maybe Italki tutoring is their job and they don't want to help people for free for a half hour/hour at a time. Some don't mind offering tips/advice through the discussion board but not all are comfortable helping for 'free.' Please understand why they say no and do not pressure them to change their mind or get angry with them if they don't give you help for 'free'. If they say they don't do free language exchange, please go to the community tab and click on language partners and look for someone that mentions language partner or language exchange in their bio. Or you could check the discussion board for people mentioning language partner or language exchange.
2.)If you live in a country that is on the 'no PayPal' list. Unfortunately there are some countries in the world that don't use PayPal, which if you want a lesson from a registered Italki tutor, that is how you pay them, is through PayPal. If your country doesn't use that then the tutor will not be able to tutor you. Please do not get angry at the tutor because of this, they can not control the list nor change it. Please don't in turn, then beg for free lessons.
Just because a tutor can not 'tutor' you one on one for free doesn't mean they don't care or don't want to help. Maybe they offer 'free' help in other ways. By posting helpful articles or links on the discussion board. Maybe they correct posts in the notepad section.
Thank you Chris for the correction about Trial Lessons!
It's not your problem to figure out how the student can upload money on their italki account since they don't pay you directly but via italki. Just refer them to italki support. Students from some countries like Iran really may not have any possibility to transfer money internationally due to international sanctions but this is not your problem to solve.
The student can use WeChat, Zhifubao, Union Pay, Skrill, debit/credit card, bank transfer, etc, to purchase italki credits. It doesn't matter how students reload their student wallets: It all ends up as italki credits in their accounts (right now italki also displays these as RMB in China, and in the italki beta displays them as pounds in the UK). The student first needs to purchase credits before being able to book lessons. It's just like a prepaid phone line. You can top up in many different ways, and the process is transparent for the user.
The student pays you with italki credits, which for your convenience appear as US dollars in your account. You can then withdraw your credits using several different methods. Your withdrawal method can be different from the method the student used to pay.
I hope this makes the process clear.
@Alice - italki discourages free lessons by tutors and teachers. The minimum price is $4 USD for a 60-minute lesson and $1 USD for a trial lesson.
https://support.italki.com/hc/en-us/articles/206351548-Offering-Trial-Lessons
[excerpt]
Please do not offer free lessons on italki.
We understand that it is common for offline private teachers or tutors to offer a free first lesson, but we believe that it is best for the italki online teaching community to charge at least a very small fee for a the first class. This way, you are also more likely to get "serious" students who are dedicated to learning.
