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Lighthouse Tutoring
Last updated 28 August 2026
These terms are a contract between you and Nicholas William Ian Poppelwell, trading as Lighthouse Tutoring, NZBN 9429053878878, called "Lighthouse", "we" or "us" below. By creating an account you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use Lighthouse.
Lighthouse Tutoring is a trading name of a sole trader, not a company. We say so here rather than leaving you to find out, because it tells you exactly who you are contracting with.
You must be 18 years or older and currently enrolled at the University of Canterbury. This applies to students and tutors alike. Parents linked to a student account must also be 18 or over.
Lighthouse is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by the University of Canterbury.
Lighthouse connects a student who wants help with another UC student who has proven an A-, A or A+ grade in that exact paper. Sessions run online or in person on campus.
Read this part carefully, because it decides who is responsible for what.
Your contract for the tutoring itself is with the tutor, not with Lighthouse. The tutor supplies the tutoring to you directly. Lighthouse is not the tutor and does not supply tutoring.
What Lighthouse does is find you an eligible tutor, provide the tools the session runs in, time the session, collect the payment on the tutor's behalf, and charge a commission for doing all of that. Lighthouse is the tutor's agent for collecting what you pay.
We do not guarantee that a tutor will be available for any particular paper at any particular time.
Sessions are charged by the minute, with a minimum number of minutes. The per-minute rate and the minimum are shown to you before you send a request, and the figures displayed when you send a request are the ones that apply to that session, even if they change afterwards. At the time of writing the rate is $1.50 a minute with a 20 minute minimum, so the least a session costs is $30.
There is no maximum length. A session can run as long as you both want it to and as long as you have the money for it.
The minimum is committed when the session starts. If you leave after five minutes you still pay the minimum. This exists so a tutor who turns up is not left with nothing.
Beyond the minimum you pay for the time actually used, charged by the whole minute.
You add money to a wallet before booking. You can never be charged more than the balance in your wallet. There are no surprise bills and no way to end up owing us money.
Before a session starts we work out how many minutes your balance covers, which is your balance divided by $1.50. You will be told how long you can go. You will be warned when five minutes of funded time remain, and again at one minute, and then the session ends.
If you want longer sessions, add more before you start.
Of what you pay for a session, half is the tutor's fee and half is Lighthouse's commission for arranging and running it. We collect the whole amount from your wallet and hold the tutor's half for them until it is paid out to them.
Payments into your wallet are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.
If no tutor accepts your request within the time shown when you send it, your request closes and nothing is charged.
You can take unspent money out of your wallet, and it goes back to the card that paid it.
Only the person who paid can take it back. If you added the money, it returns to your card. If a linked parent added it, it returns to their card and not to yours. This is not a rule we apply by hand: the money physically returns to the card that was charged, so it cannot go anywhere else.
Two things cannot be taken out, because there is nowhere to send them. Credit a tutor has earned was never paid in on a card. Neither was any balance we added directly. Both can still be spent on sessions.
Money already committed to a session is not available, because it is no longer unspent.
We send the money back through Stripe as a refund on the original payment. That usually appears within a few business days. A very old card that has expired or been closed can refuse a refund, and if that happens we will tell you rather than leave you guessing. Email lighthousetut@gmail.com and a person will sort it out.
Where a session does not go ahead, or where we uphold a report about a session, the money returns to your wallet and can be spent on another session, or taken out under this clause. Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or the Fair Trading Act 1986, and where those Acts give you a right to a remedy that cannot be excluded, it applies regardless of this clause.
If your wallet has not been used for three years, we may treat the remaining balance as unclaimed. If your account has not been used for five years, we may close it and the remaining balance is forfeited. We will attempt to contact you at your registered email address before closing an account under this clause, and you can take unspent money back to your card at any point before that under clause 3.3.
A session starts when the tutor marks it started, because the tutor is the person turning up to work. The clock and the cost start from that point.
You can end a session by yourself, at any time, and you pay only for the time up to that point, subject to the 20 minute minimum. You never need the tutor's agreement to stop the clock. A tutor cannot end a session on their own; if a tutor ends one and you have not, it is held for review rather than simply charged.
You can see the running cost while the session is happening. It is on the screen the whole time.
Our own software checks every few seconds that each of you is still there. This is not the video provider telling us, it is Lighthouse.
moment we saw either of you. You are not charged for the time nobody was there.
sitting waiting for you and their time is being used.
tutor who is not present.
If somebody comes back within three minutes, the same session carries on. After that it is finished and charged.
If a tutor starts a session and you never join, the tutor waits ten minutes and may then end it. The 20 minute minimum is charged and the tutor is paid their share.
If that happens because something went wrong at your end, report it and a person will look at it.
Online sessions take place in a shared video and whiteboard space. In-person sessions take place at a public location on the UC campus that you agree between you.
You are responsible for your own safety in an in-person session. Meet in public, visible places. If you feel unsafe, end the session and report it.
Lighthouse is for understanding and practice. It is not for having someone else complete work you will be assessed on.
You agree to our Academic Integrity Policy, which forms part of these terms. Both students and tutors accept it at signup and again at the start of each session.
Asking a tutor to complete assessed work, or completing assessed work for a student, may result in immediate removal from Lighthouse. We keep records of pledges, reports and any action taken, and we may provide those records to your university if required.
Report the session in the app. The tutor's share is held rather than paid out, and a person reviews it. We aim to respond within 2 business days.
We may resolve a reported session by releasing the money to the tutor, returning it to your wallet, or another outcome we consider fair. We do not make automated refunds.
Because your tutoring contract is with the tutor, a complaint about the quality of the tutoring is ultimately between you and them. We will still look at it, because we decide who stays on the platform and whether the money is released.
You may be asked to rate a session. Ratings must be honest and about the session. We may remove ratings that are abusive, dishonest, or not about the tutoring.
You must not harass, threaten, discriminate against or abuse anyone on Lighthouse; impersonate anyone; share another person's information; use Lighthouse for anything unlawful; or attempt to interfere with the service.
You must not arrange fake sessions. Running sessions that did not really happen, in order to move money between accounts, is fraud. We monitor for it and we will suspend the accounts involved and report it where appropriate.
We may suspend or remove an account for breaching these terms, and we may do so immediately where somebody's safety or academic standing is at risk.
You keep ownership of anything you upload. You give us permission to store and use it to provide the service, review reported sessions, and verify eligibility.
Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and why. Online sessions may be transcribed so that a reported session can be reviewed. Transcripts are stored privately, retained for 6 months, and readable only by our administrators.
We provide Lighthouse as it is. We do not promise it will always be available, that a tutor will be available, or that any session will produce a particular academic result.
Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 and the Fair Trading Act 1986 where they apply to you.
For the tutoring itself, your rights are against the tutor, because that is who you contracted with. Tutors are individual students explaining subjects they have proven competence in. We do not control what a tutor says and we do not guarantee the accuracy of anything said in a session.
For Lighthouse itself, we are responsible for the platform doing what these terms say it does: matching, timing, charging correctly, and holding and releasing money correctly. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the commission we charged on the session the claim relates to. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including loss of marks, academic standing, or opportunity.
We may change these terms. Material changes will be notified by email or in the app before they take effect, and you will be asked to agree again. Continuing to use Lighthouse after that means you accept them.
You may stop using Lighthouse at any time and request account deletion in Settings. Take any unspent money back to your card first, under clause 3.3, because once the account is closed we can no longer do it for you. Credit a tutor has earned cannot be returned to a card and is lost on closure, so spend that before you go.
We may end your access for a breach of these terms.
These terms are governed by New Zealand law, and the New Zealand courts have jurisdiction.
lighthousetut@gmail.com
Lighthouse Tutoring is a trading name of Nicholas William Ian Poppelwell, a sole trader registered in New Zealand, NZBN 9429053878878. We do not operate a public counter, so email is the way to reach us and we answer from the same address.
Questions about this document? Email lighthousetut@gmail.com.