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Lighthouse Tutoring
Last updated 22 October 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, proven by an academic transcript a person has checked. 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.
Because we act in trade as the tutor's agent, the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 can make us responsible to you for the tutoring as well as the tutor. Nothing in these terms takes that away. If a session was not provided with reasonable care and skill, report it under clause 6 and we will put it right with you first.
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 rate that applies to a session is the one in force when a tutor accepts your request, and it does not change for that session 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.
Online sessions have no maximum length. When you send a request, you choose an estimated duration. It is a guide for you and the tutor, not a time or price limit. When the tutor accepts, we hold your available wallet money for that session. The session may continue past the estimate while it has funded time and both people remain present. You are charged only for billable minutes, subject to the minimum below. You can end it at any time.
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.
An online session may run longer than your estimate, but we never charge more than the money confirmed and held for that session. We warn you when about five funded minutes remain. You can top up during the call. If funding runs out, billing pauses for up to three minutes while you top up; the session ends if paid funds do not arrive in time. A failed or unfinished card payment never extends billable time. Optional automatic top-up requires your own prior consent and saved card, or a linked parent's separate approval with a monthly spending cap.
If you want more funded time, add more money before or during the session. A wallet can hold up to $999, counting any money held for a session that has not finished, so we will not take a top-up that would take it above that.
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 number. We keep only the card type and its last four digits, so you can see which card a refund will go back to.
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.
How we work out what is unspent. When you spend, we count money paid in on a card as spent before any credit or balance we added, and the earliest top-up first. So what you can take back is never more than a card actually paid in and has not yet been spent.
We send the money back through Stripe as a refund on the original payment. That usually appears within a few working 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, we return the money to you. Usually it goes back to your wallet, where you can spend it on another session or take it out under this clause. A person arranges every refund for an upheld report. 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.
Money in your wallet has no expiry date, and we never take it because an account goes unused. It stays yours until you spend it on sessions or take it back to your card under clause 3.3. If your account has not been used for three years we may email you to remind you it is there.
A session starts when you and the tutor have both tapped Start. The clock and the cost start from that point, not from when the tutor accepted your request.
Once a session has started, you can end it 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 your tutor finishes, you are asked to end the session. If you agree, or you have already left, you pay only up to the moment the tutor finished.
You can see how long the session has been running while it is happening.
Our own software checks about every 15 seconds that each of you is still there. This is not the video provider telling us, it is Lighthouse.
For online sessions:
to the same lesson. A short interruption is included in the billable time if the lesson resumes within that window. If either person does not return, we close the lesson and calculate the charge only through the last confirmed time both were present, subject to the minimum.
person reviews the session.
In-person sessions end the same way: when you tap End, or when the tutor taps End and you agree. If neither happens, the session closes once the length you chose has run out, and it is charged for that length. Phones are often locked in an in-person session, so we do not treat a quiet phone as someone leaving.
If a tutor accepts your request and you never join, the tutor can report it, and a session nobody started is also flagged automatically once its time has passed. A person reviews it. If you did not turn up, 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. Students accept it at signup, tutors when they start tutoring, and both 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. If you report it during the session, the session ends at that moment, so the clock stops, and the money for it is held rather than paid out while a person reviews it. You can also report a session up to 7 days after it ends. By then the money has usually been paid, so nothing is held, but a person still reviews it, no money moves without that review, and if we uphold it we refund you. We aim to respond within 2 working days.
We may resolve a reported session by releasing the money to the tutor, returning it to you, or another outcome we consider fair. We do not make automated refunds. If you disagree with our decision, tell us and we will look at it again. You can also take a dispute to the Disputes Tribunal, and nothing in these terms stops you doing that.
Your tutoring contract is with the tutor, but as their agent we are responsible to you as well (clause 2), so we look at every complaint about the quality of tutoring and put it right with you. We also 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 may review accounts 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.
Complaints about content. If something posted on Lighthouse, such as a rating comment, a request note or something on the whiteboard, is harmful or unlawful, email lighthousetut@gmail.com saying what it is and where. We will act on it within 48 hours, and we may pass your complaint to the person who posted it or remove the content.
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.
Only upload material you are allowed to share. Lecture slides, readings and past papers usually belong to the University of Canterbury or their authors, so share only what you need to explain a question, and only within the session. We may remove anything we are told infringes someone's copyright.
Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and why.
Online sessions are recorded (audio, video and shared whiteboard) and transcribed by default, so that a reported session can be reviewed. Recordings are processed to make transcripts and summaries; nobody routinely watches them. An authorised administrator may watch one if a session is reported and a review is requested. Only our administrators can access recordings. Transcripts are seen by our administrators, and by the student and tutor in a session only while a report made during that session is under review. After each recorded session, an automatic lesson summary (what it covered and what to focus on next) is shown to the student, the tutor and any linked parent; see the Privacy Policy. Recordings are deleted after 90 days and transcripts after 6 months. If one is needed for an open report or investigation, we may save a copy until it is resolved, and then delete it. In-person sessions are never recorded.
Students can turn recording off in Settings before a session. If the student does, that session is not recorded or transcribed, and it will have no automatic lesson summary. A dispute is harder to resolve without a recording or transcript, so we may have to decide it from what the people involved tell us and any other available evidence. Tutors must allow recording to tutor on Lighthouse, as explained in the Tutor Agreement. An account with both student and tutor roles must also allow recording while it has the tutor role.
Do not record a session yourself (for example with screen-recording software or another device) without the clear agreement of everyone in it.
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, the tutor is responsible to you, and so are we where the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 says so, as set out in clause 2. 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. This limit does not apply to money in your wallet that you are entitled to take back under clause 3.3, or to anything we charged you in error. We will always return those in full.
We may change these terms. Material changes will be notified in the app, and by email where we can, before they take effect, and you will be asked to agree to them before you can carry on using Lighthouse. If you do not agree, you can stop using Lighthouse and take unspent money back to your card under clause 3.3.
You may stop using Lighthouse at any time and ask for your account to be deleted in Settings. A person carries out the deletion. Before we delete it, we send any unspent money you paid in back to your card under clause 3.3. If a card refuses the refund, we email you to arrange another way to pay it back. If you tutor and have credit you earned, the Tutor Agreement explains how we pay out its value when your account closes.
We may end your access for a breach of these terms. If we do, we still return unspent money you paid in, in the same way.
These terms are governed by New Zealand law. The New Zealand courts, and the Disputes Tribunal, can decide disputes about them.
lighthousetut@gmail.com
Lighthouse Tutoring is a trading name of Nicholas William Ian Poppelwell, a sole trader registered in New Zealand, NZBN 9429053878878, of 14 Maungarei Road, Remuera, Auckland. We do not operate a public counter, so please contact us by email, and we answer from the same address.
Questions about this document? Email lighthousetut@gmail.com.