Just as I feared, this job offer was too good to be true. What a load of crap. I got called by Academic Advantage a week ago. They were offering me a job as a tutor. Of course, I haven't had a "real" job in over a year, so I jumped on it. The orientation was last night. The first sign that this wasn't for me was the guy giving the orientation; he was... odd. Physically and the way he spoke, and I'm pretty sure that was something he was born with, but still. Second red flag: lady over the phone said $19/hour; he handed me the contract right as I walked in and as I'm reading it, it says $17/hr. I spoke with a few of the people around me and they were also promised $19/hr.As the night went on many more discrepancies followed. One gentleman left very shortly after going over the contract, then another woman left. There are so many ways for you to get fined by working there! File your paperwork wrong and they fine you 35 dollars. Turn it in after the 2nd of the month and there's another 25; turn it in after the 6th and you might not even get paid. There is a certain number of hours you have to work with each student before the end of the school year- don't finish those and they will charge you $27 per hour for every hour you did not complete. Besides these deal breakers, there were so many other things that just didn't feel right. The group of ladies I was sitting with didn't feel 100% sure about this thing either. Everyone in the room was asking very confused questions, to which the man would answer "You'll have to call the Academic Advantage and talk to them about that. I'm just a lowly orientation man." Really? So in other words, you don't know anything.
I left at the part where we were supposed to give all of our information to him. No, he's not a supervisor or anything like that, he's just a tutor in the program. I decided against it and I told the girls I was talking to goodbye. I really hope they decided to leave too.
When I got home, and I feel stupid for not doing this in the first place, I looked up some more information about Academic Advantage and I found so many negative responses towards them. One person claims to have been charge $810 for them not being able to find a replacement tutor for him, even though he was promised he wouldn't be penalized. Another man posted that Academic Advantage is "an ethical disaster." They tried to charge him $4700 and are withholding his pay.
Well, now I know. And now all of you know. Please stay far far away from Academic Advantage. Time to pick up on the job trail where I left off. I didn't want to tutor germy kids anyway.
I am currently 'contracting' with AA because, like you, I needed money and another job. I didn't like the $27 per hour thing, but they assured me that it was only if something happened like, you walked away without notice. I begrudgingly complied. I also didn't like that they charge you for the mandatory finger printing ($88 to be taken from your paycheck) and the 2 days of training are unpaid, regardless that they took 6-7 hours apiece.
ReplyDeleteThen I was assigned 9 students (!) I got home and realized that I couldn't handle 9 with the other part time work I hold and requested to only have 5. Oh, but wait, the minimum number is 6! Thanks for telling me? After some fighting and 3 students not cooperating, I thankfully ended up with 3. Now? They're fighting me because I submitted my information and a change in a student's school and address a week before I even met with her and come pay day, oops, your paper work is wrong, we're not paying you until you fix it! It's been a week now, I DID fix it, and I still haven't been paid. I'm only tutoring still at the moment because I don't want to punish the kids for this horrible company!
I am sorry that you had to go through that. Hopefully we can get the word out and prevent this from happening to other people.
ReplyDelete