I got 4 leads from being "promoted" on instamatch. Fortunately, I got refund for 2 of them, which I shouldn't have gotten because they weren't matches. Customers wanted lessons in Norwegian and French but were led to ESL by the search engine. I had one freebie which was out of my travel area. This is one I might have responded to offering remote lessons, maybe, so since I'd already paid for it, I offered remote lessons. Didn't hear back. Another lesson that I wouldn't have responded to was someone looking for a lessons for a friend, this still may or may not work out. Honestly, I predict it will last one or two lessons that I now have to work for and spend more time than it's worth trying to arrange, but okay.  Then I turned promote and instamatch off because I hadn't read the fine print and realized I'd be paying when they responded -- not when I did!!!! But since then I've seen just about 0 in ESL. Really nothing. I get the feeling they are all being "matched." But I wonder if anyone is getting the work? Not only that, but with the meager pickings today, two of the "ESL" listings were actually native English speakers seeking lessons in other languages, a problem with the search engine that's been going on for months, and one that could easily be solved. (And that I've written to TT and spoken to support to enough for me to convinced that they consider me a crank.) I really like the TT model. I'd even be willing to pay more for leads that were actual you know LEADS. I'm not giving up on TT, but I may have to stop even looking for a couple of weeks and focus on other ways of getting students. This isn't working anymore. ... View more

Now you tell me!   ... View more

I'm updating this, as I've figured more stuff out. First, thanks to this forum I realized that I was paying for "matches" before I even saw them because of I was "promoted." I'm usually careful before I sign up for stuff. I seriously don't remember signing up to be promoted OR getting an explanation of what it meant. I couldn't figure out how to "unpromote" myself, but I finally got support to help me.  That said, the leads I was getting were awful. I was charged for "matches" that weren't matches, and that I would have known not to respond to if I'd been able to see them. For example, I responded to someone who it turned out was looking for a teacher for a friend, only he hadn't really even talked to his friend about the plan. I could tell enough once I saw the profileIto know this probably wouldn't work out, and I probably wouldn't have wasted my money.  Meanwhile in the regular jobs section, I'm seeing almost no jobs for ESL. Are they all going to other "promoted" people who aren't right for them? Are they going to local people even if they are remote jobs? Where did he leads go? ... View more

I think other people have mentioned the pricing issue. As a tutor, I can work different ways. I can do lessons remotely, meet students at public locations I regularly use, or meet them in their homes, offices, etc. There is different pricing for these options. I feel I have to use my lowest price (online) for the new match system, but I don't want students to be angry when they find the price is higher for an "in person" lesson.  There is also a potential match problem I can foresee. I've already alerted Thumbtack to this issue, but I still see it in the search results: When native English speakers want to take lessons in foreign languages that aren't catagorized on Thumbtack -- Polish, Dutch, Swedish, for instance, the system calls this: ESL and they wind up in my ESL results. They aren't going to get seen by teachers who might speak these languages! If I respond accidentally because I failed to notice that the native language is English, then I will get charged. With instance match, if the student is confused because my name comes up as say a Danish teacher, and I want to explain to the student that I don't teach Danish, I will get charged. ... View more