We're always refining the process used to identify spam and illegitimate inquiries more efficiently. Part of improving how Wyzant prevents spam from reaching tutors is by asking that any message that might not be a valid request be marked as spam.
It is important to note that when a tutor reports a message as possible spam, their response time is NOT affected.
When spam is reported to Wyzant, the related account(s) are investigated by our team. If it is determined that a legitimate user's email may have been compromised or hacked, our team will reach out to the account holder to alert them of the issue, and provide information regarding how to fix it. Steps may be taken to temporarily block the account's correspondence with other users until the issue can be resolved. DO NOT REPLY TO A MESSAGE IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS ILLEGITIMATE.
It is important to note that when a tutor reports a message as possible spam, their response time is NOT affected.
When spam is reported to Wyzant, the related account(s) are investigated by our team. If it is determined that a legitimate user's email may have been compromised or hacked, our team will reach out to the account holder to alert them of the issue, and provide information regarding how to fix it. Steps may be taken to temporarily block the account's correspondence with other users until the issue can be resolved. DO NOT REPLY TO A MESSAGE IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS ILLEGITIMATE.
If an account is determined to be illegitimate - created solely for the purpose of sending spam messages - the account is immediately removed from our system, preventing further messages from being sent.
We've included the list below to help empower users of the site to better recognize common traits in spam messages:
A message might be spam if it:
- Includes encoded or spelled-out contact information, and does not also include a specific, tutoring-relevant request.
- Includes an attachment with contact information.
- Requests a tutor to send identifying information outside of the Wyzant platform.
- Includes a request for "total cost of tutoring for 1 month."
- Mentions that a tutor arranges lessons with a "caregiver."
- Explicitly asks tutors to wire money to a person currently in a different country.
- Advertises "work from home" jobs, or asks tutors to take part in surveys, quizzes, or lotteries.
- Contains no information relevant to tutoring
- Contains misspellings or poor punctuation, followed by a link the tutor is asked to click
In any case that a tutor is concerned they have received a spam message:
- Do NOT click any links within the message
- Do NOT provide identifying information
- Do NOT reply to the message
Instead, users should flag the message by clicking the Mark as Spam button at the bottom of the new message thread. If the possible spam message is in a thread a tutor in which has previously replied to, they should contact Customer Support (as the Mark as Spam button is only available for initial messages with no replies).
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