The Academic Advantage

Last year I was burned by a scam tutoring company. The company is in every legal sense legit, as it receives federal No Child Left Behind funds from the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was an independent contractor and was never employed directly by them. Long story short, I got stuck with an $80 fee for my own background check after it became apparent to me that this was not just a horrible way to make money, but that the company was basically a glorified form processing firm whose contract was filled with so many pitfalls and landmines that it was entirely possible for me to owe them more money than I could make. To put things in perspective, this company offered NCLB tutoring but did not have a single tutor in its employ.

One of the many fees it was possible to incur was the Uncompleted Hours fee. Basically, every child could receive a maximum 34 hours of billable tutoring from the company. If a tutor failed to complete these hours, or was not still tutoring that child by the end of the school year, then they were contractually obligated to pay the company $27 for every hour the company could not bill the LAUSD for.

I was only able to establish contact with one of the three student families assigned to me. Of those two I could not reach, one immediately hung up the phone upon hearing the voice of someone who spoke English as their first language. The other stated that they had not heard from a tutor from my company, The Academic Advantage, in two months. When I attempted to contact them again two days later, I discovered that they had changed their cell phone plan so that they could not receive incoming calls.

The company's prescripted solution to this was to have me drive down to whatever poor, and possibly dangerous, part of Los Angeles these families listed as their address and post a bilingual form on their door notifying them of my identity and intent. Not wanting to expose myself to unnecessary work, gas expenses, or danger, I decided that it would be easier to simply lie about posting said note and have these students dropped. If their families' living situations were anything like the one family I was able to contact then it would have been very difficult for me to find them. They were nice Hondurans, but I would have never found them among the three families that lived in the house I had traveled to if one of their (in-house) neighbors had not noticed me as an outsider with a reason to be there due to my distinctive white skin.

So, naturally, I wanted The Academic Advantage to drop these students from my file so that I would not be held responsible for their unfinished hours. I had tried to reach the company over the phone for several days, and after waiting for a total of forty minutes on hold without reaching anyone I was beginning to become aggravated. Not only was it possible this company might gouge me, but it was going to do so while providing sub-par customer service. Finally, I managed to email someone who actually responded. Here is that conversation:

Academic Advantage,

I, M.C. McMaster of Ceremonies, have made every attempt to contact the following students. Being unable to contact them or convince them to allow me, a complete stranger, into their homes so I may spend time alone with their children, I would like to be absolved of any responsibility for them so I may avoid the ridiculous fees I was constantly threatened with during my brief training.

Here is their info:

[NAME REDACTED]. Student ID#: [NUMBER REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]. Student ID#: [NUMBER REDACTED]

Please remove them from my list of students so your company does not turn to me, someone who technically does not legally work for you, instead of the Los Angeles Unified School District for your money.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

They then asked me why I didn't want to tutor these students. I thought I'd made that pretty clear. I knew that I didn't technically work for these people and that the worst they could do was invalidate my contract. I was not an employee, but a person engaged in a mutually binding contract who rendered a service. As such, I felt that I would add value to my service, completely free of charge mind you, by letting them know my true feelings.

They are impossible to contact and apparently have no wish to be contacted. As of the last time I checked, their cell phones are set so they do not receive incoming calls. Only one of them has an answering machine (with no identifying message). I have attempted to place the bilingual note on their doors but the confusing nature of their places of residence prevented me from being 100% sure whether I had placed it on the correct door. And I'm sure as hell not spending more of my time and my gas money when I'm not technically working for the Academic Advantage.

Regardless of their desire to be contacted or not, I have exhausted all attempts at communication. Therefore, I would like to have them removed from my file so that I can not be held financially liable for not completing or advancing toward the 34 hour mark. I don't know why I should be held liable, but you guys wrote the contract so you don't need to justify it.

In addition, the one student I am tutoring and have managed to contact is severely screwing up any chances I have to find a part time job (a real one, where I am employed by someone). It has added a random element to my schedule and this "job" as an independent-contractor-who-technically-isn't-employed isn't going to pay the bills. And it won't even pay much after $40 are deducted from both of my next paychecks so I could pay for the background check of myself for the privilege of not being legally employed by you.

God, I just hate this shitty fucking company I don't work for and can't be fired from. Please hurry up and assign these kids to some other poorly trained warm body with no criminal history that you guys could drag off the streets and make him financially liable for the completion of their tutoring hours. Further, I don't respect the Academic Advantages's business practices in any way, shape, or form and see it as the afterbirth resultant from another miscarriage of Bush legislation.

To recap why I wish to have them removed from my file:
-I can't contact them, and they don't seem to want to be contacted.
-I do not want to be held financially liable because the Academic Advantage could not get the full 34 hours of payment it wanted from LAUSD
-This shitty not-job is preventing me from getting real jobs
-I hate the Academic Advantage and would prefer if your management choked on a barrel of dicks.

For these reasons and more, I wish to not be held financially liable for the fulfillment of the Academic Advantage contract with LAUSD.

Dictated but not read,

M.C. McEmCee

Crude? Yes. But again, I was a contractor and not an employee. I can speak to them any way I wish providing I do not incite them to violence, incite violence against them, or incite them to violence against our glorious federal government. This elicited a response from a manager and my soon to be buddy whom I affectionately came to know as "Fuckface Fred."

Effective immediately, all students are dropped due to your intolerable and hostile behavior. Send in any paperwork immediately for the 1 student you started tutoring and the number of hours you tutored.

As per the contract you signed, you are not to have any further contact with these families.

This is an unfortunate situation, one in which your abusive language and demeanor will not be tolerated.

Fred A.

Director, Student Support Services Department
The Academic Advantage

No! Please don't give me exactly what I asked for! Don't you dare release me from your ridiculous contract by failing to uphold your end of the bargain!

Still, I wanted Fuckface to outright admit that I wouldn't have to pay the Uncompleted Hours Fee for my own records and future protection.

So, just to be clear, you're preventing me from tutoring them and thus you can't make me pay for any money you couldn't bilk our public education system out of, correct?

That's what I really care about.

I will continue to tutor my remaining student for free just to spite you, as the contract only stated that I could not accept payment for tutoring services outside of our contractual agreement. It didn't say anything about having no contact whatsoever.

Also, before I send in any paperwork, I would like you to point out the relevant part of the contract that requires I should send the paperwork in. Why should I help you make any money? I don't work for you, and therefore we have no common interest.

Shit fuck cunt bloody aborted fetus.

-M.C. McEmCee

Fuckface did not like this, as my efforts to educate a child for free would have eaten into his bottom line. I was actually looking forward to educating this child without the restrictions imposed on me by The Academic Advantage. For example, I would have been able to go over the child's homework and be actively involved in his education. I was actually prohibited from going over the child's homework, as this would not fit the criterion the LAUSD had set forth for the NCLB tutoring payments.

What made this especially retarded was that I had no fucking clue what the NCLB requirements were and The Academic Advantage made no efforts to tell me during training. All I was armed with was a link to an approved website with a shitty game the child could play where he pluralized the same words over, and over, and over.

Fuckface, sensing that federal funds might, even tangentially, elevate a child out of ignorance and poverty, quickly stepped in to quash any notions of hope inside my soul.

You are not to tutor nor contact any of these students effective immediately, as per Liquidated Damages Clause, Section #4 of your contract: “tutor shall not render services, establish or accept contact said clients independent of The Academic Advantage”.

The families involved will be notified that you will no longer be their child’s tutor.

If you don’t send in paperwork, you will not be paid.

At this point, I didn't really care about getting the forty something dollars I was owed. Hell, I hadn't even received the $16 they owed me from the previous month. The intangible benefits of berating Fuckface for working at a shitty company were much more appealing.

Ah yes, I'm reading over Liquidated Damages right now and it appears you're right. You've certainly added value to this federal grant money and served students by preventing tutors with established and successful relationships with students from having any contact whatsoever. It's wonderful to see how efficiently taxpayer money can be used when taken out of the hands of federal government and disbursed to private enterprise. You have added so much value to my money.

Anyway, Fred, you never answered my question. Am I completely absolved of all financial responsibility for my students' tutoring hours? If I continue to receive no answer or only vague answers from you I will have no choice but to take precautions against future financial harm by bringing this matter to the attention of the Better Business Bureau (who has given your company a B rating). That way there will be information on file should the matter ever come up.

Further, I don't need your filthy money. Your company works through independent contractors who are just as likely to end up owing you money rather than the other way around. This puts you in such wonderful company as Vector/Cutco, Prepaid Legal, and Herbalife. Fine, fine, company.

Unfortunately, your lawyers only saw fit to add provisions to your contract penalizing me financially if I turned in forms late. They did not have the foresight to add provisions that penalized me for not turning in the information at all. Live, learn, and scam the next batch of warm bodies you drag in to your Boiler Room office through Craigslist.

Fuckface finally admitted that, yes, I was absolved of all financial liability. I then informed him that I had filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I expected nothing to come of it, I just thought it would be fun. And it was. We bounced it back and forth for a few weeks and I needlessly wasted their time for my own amusement. I could post it here, but it would add substantially to this already long story.

Flash forward through the rest of the year. The Academic Advantage never took me off their mailing list, and sent me several mass emails which were all followed up by mass retractions. Literally, not a single mass email was ever successfully sent by this company. Wait, I take that back. They did manage to send out a "Thank you to all of our tutors!" email at the very end, several days before I received this email:

Re: Unfinished hours. Please reply ASAP

M.C. McEmCee:

We are contacting you in regards to a potential breach of the contract you signed with us. The amount owed for not completing all hours assigned to you is $40.5. The following are the names of the students whose hours were not completed, as well as the number of hours short, as of the initial review of the paperwork for the month of May.

* [NAME REDACTED]– 1.5 Hours Short
* – Hours Short
* – Hours Short
* - Hours Short
* - Hours Short
* - Hours Short

Per the contract, “Tutor shall be required to pay The Academic Advantage twenty-seven dollars ($27) per hour for each hour that Tutor is short of the NCLB Hours”

Please contact us as soon as possible as we will process your payment 6 business days from today.

Sincerely,

Aracely C.
Student Support Services
The Academic Advantage

Aracely was probably less than enthused to receive this reply to what she probably assumed was a standard gouging statement.

You worthless, incompetent fucks.

I already have several emails from one your managers, Fred "Cum Guzzling Cock Mongerer" A., absolving me of all financial responsibility for unfinished hours because you idiots decided to terminate my contract. I will not be giving your worthless tax dollar siphoning scam company a god damned dime, you worthless gaggle of hairless apes.

Please kindly choke on a dick.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

I then placed a call to the company and, again, was unable get through to them. Luckily, I still had Fred's extension and was able to leave a kindly voice mail telling him to "get the fuck on this, Fred, and get your company's shit together." Soon, I was delighted to receive this email:

RE: Committee Decision

Dear M.C. McEmCee,

After review of your file, the committee has decided that the short hours for the following students were not a result of your actions.

· [NAME REDACTED]

Your payment will be released with the next set of tutor payment direct deposits.

For further inquiries regarding payments, please contact our Invoicing and Payment department at extension 395.

We appreciate your patience.

Aracely C.
Student Support Services Representative
The Academic Advantage

There was no committe, this I know for certain. I used to work at an online retailer and we would do the same thing so that people would think they were receiving more customer service than they actually were. I would put people on hold while I talked to the "engineering department," which was really just one guy sitting at the desk directly behind me who actually knew how our products worked. Still, I really liked the idea of a hastily convened committee of dipshits gathering around a highly polished table to read my crude email aloud before discussing the matter of the $27 I supposedly owed them.

Note: At this time, I was unaware that Aracely was a common name for Latino (or Hispanic? Whatever) females.

Dear boy or girl whose name does not offer any clues as to their gender,

That's God damned right I don't owe you incompetent gaggle of shitwits any money. Now, who is this committee of simpering dolts who "decide" things? Since you've already got everyone in this "committee" sitting around pawing ineffectively at their own balls, why don't you have them withdraw the $80 fee for the background check that I supposedly owe you?

I hope you feckless herd of shitheels choke on a barrel of dicks so that your useless company can stop bilking the LAUSD and average people out of time and money for your useless, value-decreasing services.

Your entire company is filled with simpletons who can't even send out a God damned mass email without immediately having to follow up with a mass retraction. You are all fucking morons of the highest caliber, and your very existence is a constant reminder that we are all descended from apes.

Sincerely,

M.C. McEmCee

By this point, I had resolved not to pay for the background check on principal. If they wanted to send a collection agency after me then fine, let them. If they wanted to put a black mark on my credit record then fine, let them. Having done some research on bill collections agencies, I had learned that the only way a collection agency could collect from me in California was to take me to a Los Angeles Superior Court. Even if they forced me to cover their court costs, they would lose far more than the $80 they would receive in effort and time by pursuing the matter in court.

Two months later I then received a letter from a collection agency stating that I owed the $80. It was not a very convincing letter, as it politely asked me to sign said letter and admit that I did indeed owe this money. They did not even have the decency to attach any sort of debt identification number or other bureaucratic niceties to the sum I supposedly owed, something I assume is required of a legitimate debt, presumably because whatever contract I had signed with The Academic Advantage was not legitimate. Hell, The Academic Advantage training conductor had told me the sum would be removed directly from our bank accounts with the information we'd provided them. Hence, the need to politely ask me to admit that I did indeed owe this money.

To demonstrate my utter contempt for this company I replied with the following letter:

And thus the saga came to a close, with no further contact from The Academic Advantage or AmerAss. I basically acted like a big jerk who reneged on a (non-binding) contractual agreement and was both vindicated, validated, and rewarded for it in terms of how much fun I had writing this and the previous emails. I am also proud to be a statistical anomaly who cost The Academic Advantage more money than they made off of me.

The only lesson I learned, which rings true for me to this day, is that the crazier, meaner, and filthier my emails are the better the customer service I get from faceless corporations. Remember: businesses set up customer service systems to streamline processes and limit your choices. But, by being a monkey wrench in the cogs of the machine, you are guaranteed individual attention and service. Why, whenever I think of going through the normal channels when dealing with large corporatins such as Bank of America or Verizon Wireless I am reminded of Oliver Twist:

"Please sir, I want some more customer service."

"More!??!? You want MOOOOOREEE!?!?!?!?!"

-MC^3