[Gedeactiveerde gebruiker]
Contacting italki about their Cancellation Policy
Admin please delete this discussion, I have accepted my faults. I am ready to move on. I have had great lessons with this teacher. Missing a lesson with her would be a detriment. She has helped me more so than I could ask for. She is very valuable in this teaching community. Something happened last week that was absolutely horrific. I should not have asked her to accomodate my cancelation within 12 hours. I should have communicated my issues to her clearly, I apologize I was experiencing emotional distress.
Thank you.
16 mei 2019 14:09
Opmerkingen · 12
3
Doktè, I don't think italki staff thinks your money is more important than any personal trauma you've faced. Like all businesses, italki wants to make money. They're impersonal. As you said, some emergencies are difficult or impossible to document, so they have a standard policy for everyone: that lessons can't be cancelled in less than 24h. If one chooses to use the service, one has to accept that one might lose that money if we get sick or face some personal emergency, and the tutor/teacher we chose insists on enforcing the standard policy. No, it's not particularly nice or accommodating of the tutor, but freelancers here deal with a lot of uncertainty and sometimes have to be very strict to minimize getting constant rescheduling requests without a good cause (not saying your situation falls in there, just the teacher's perspective). Personally, I've rescheduled for new students I haven't met yet who wrote a few hours before the lesson saying they had a problem. I couldn't be certain, but I felt better that way. Some people are more suspicious of others' motives or more dependent on italki for income, so they come across as inflexible.
Alice, unfortunately, italki has removed individual cancellation policies from teachers' profiles. I think many teachers now let their students know directly in a message or during the first lesson whether they accept rescheduling/cancellations at short notice, under which circumstances, so the student can make an informed decision about whether or not to work with that teacher.
16 mei 2019
3
Hi there. Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience.
My understanding is that italki leaves it at the discretion of the teacher and student to come to an agreement about rescheduling/cancelling lessons in less than 24h. Some teachers are more protective of their time, some can allow themselves to be more flexible. The reason emergency cancellations might not be automatically allowed is that this would require documentation to be submitted (to prove there really was an emergency, and it's not just an excuse) that staff would have to review, making extra work for them (not cost-effective).
In my experience, it usually - though not always - works better for the student and teacher to agree to their own terms from the start. I've worked with teachers who do not reschedule under any circumstances, and I accepted to work with them because I liked the way they worked and they communicated their policy clearly. From the perspective of a teacher, we sometimes get many frivolous last-minute cancellations for no good reason, and that's a financial loss for us when the student has booked a popular time and we can't get another booking when they cancel within less than 24h. Sometimes, it's hard to know whether a student is being honest or whether it's a story, especially if we've only had a few lessons with them or it's something that's happened more than once.
Of course, that doesn't justify name-calling and accusing the student of lying. Just letting you know how from our perspective, it can be frustrating and unfair when students cancel last-minute for no reason at all, so you might have gotten the brunt of some pent-up anger.
As for the English of the representatives, I don't think you can choose who handles your request, but you can send another message saying specifically how you think this interaction was handled unprofessionally.
16 mei 2019
3
When did you notify the teacher of this emergency? Was it after the scheduled lesson? Did you not show up to the lesson at all or did you let the teacher know ahead of time that you couldn't make the lesson? If you did not show up to the lesson at all and did not notify the teacher until after the half hour or hour had passed and they waited around for you then it's in the right that they get the credits. Some teachers/tutors might be understanding but in general any time you don't show up for a lesson at all and don't notify the teacher/tutor at least somewhat into the lesson that you can't make it then no matter what the issue, bottom line then is you didn't arrive for the lesson. Also how many times had you taken a lesson with this teacher. Had you not shown up for previous lessons?
Italki is based in China and or Japan but I have gotten responses from very good English writer staff members that have been nothing but helpful. I don't think there would be a way to actually get specific staff members to help you. That's just like customer service with anything. You get who you get. My only advice is try reaching out to support again. But it seems like you've already made your decision to not use Italki again.
16 mei 2019
2
If it was that far in advance the teacher in my opinion shouldn't have had a problem but I may see her side of the issue if you had missed multiple lessons before. When you mention 'stop projecting my problems onto her.' makes me feel like you had not shown up for previous lessons. A teacher most likely wouldn't say that to a new student that they hadn't had issues with before. But again I don't know the whole situation. There's also lots of different teachers/tutors on Italki. If you're truly interested in learning a language you shouldn't leave a website after you've had one issue. Pick a different teacher/tutor. Also did you check this teachers feedback from other students?
16 mei 2019
1
Redacted
16 mei 2019
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