Help - Marketplace

The Marketplace is a safe and secure tool that helps organise education in a way that suits you. It's where you manage payments you receive for your services and any payments you make through School of Everything.

PayPal is a safer, simpler way to send and receive money online. You can use Paypal to buy and sell on eBay and hundreds of other leading websites, or you can use it to send money quickly and safely to anyone with an e-mail address.

You can pay with money held in your PayPal account balance or use another payment method such as a credit card, debit card or your bank account. PayPal never shares your financial information with sellers or retailers.

Paypal allows us to handle transactions on behalf of our teachers. Teachers are able to send quotes directly to their students, and we don't need to get involved in the actual transaction.

Tasters and gifts can be purchased by credit card directly on School of Everything.

No, you only need a School of Everything account. When you click "Buy now" on our site, we refer you to Paypal, where you can pay with debit and credit cards direct to the teacher - although you can create or use a Paypal account to pay if you want.

A Quote is a specific offer of a teacher's services (type of lesson/duration/quantity/cost) that is sent to potential students for them to pay for through School of Everything. Before you can purchase a service from a teacher, you need to agree all the details and make sure they have committed to providing it. Then they will send you a Quote through School of Everything, which is their promise to provide the service to you, and you can then purchase it from them. The details in the Quote form the basis of your agreement with them, and your receipt for payment.

If you want a particular service from a teacher on School of Everything, simply send them a message describing what you want - what you want to learn, how you want to learn, for how long, how much you want to pay - and we'll notify them by e-mail and they can get back to you with a quote or more information.

Yes, you can pay with any major credit or debit card, and also with direct bank transfer, and with Paypal itself.

You can negotiate different ways to pay if the teacher is willing, but only transactions you make online through School of Everything's Marketplace will be covered by our support arrangements, and you also won't get a record of your payment that you can refer back to if there's a problem. If in doubt, it's always better to pay through the School of Everything.

School of Everything doesn't hold any bank details or payment information for you. We just record what you and the teacher agree, and check that payment has been received through Paypal. If you want to sell services through School of Everything, we'll need your Paypal e-mail address, but nothing else.

No, we take our commission from the teacher after you've paid them.

Everyone who sells services through School of Everything has a genuine Paypal account, which means they've had to register a bank account, had some basic security checks, and are traceable via the Paypal system. But School of Everything doesn't check qualifications or assess quality. It's up to you to check the credentials and abilities of the person who is selling you services, and to agree enough details with them to be sure what you're buying. If anyone listed on our site has made false claims, or if you suspect a teacher of not being genuine, please do let us know, or post it on our discussion forums.

Paypal lets buyers cancel their purchases and request a refund from the seller up to 60 days after the transaction. Whether a teacher agrees to the refund will depend on their payment and cancellation terms you agreed to in their quote.

Members buy and sell services directly between themselves and not through School of Everything, so if you want a refund, you'll need to contact the teacher who sold you the service. Refunds can be requested by messaging or calling the teacher, and will be given in accordance with the payment and cancellation terms you agreed when you paid for the service. If you think you are entitled to a refund and a teacher is refusing to give it to you, please let us know.

To refund a payment, you need to log in to Paypal. On Paypal's 'My Account' page, click on the 'Payments received' link. Find the payment you want to refund, click on the 'Details' link and follow the 'Refund' instructions at the bottom of the page it takes you to.

School of Everything isn't actually selling any of these services or taking part in the transactions, so if you have a problem with a buyer or seller, all we can do is mediate between you and provide information to help resolve the problem. Read more about our dispute resolution policy.

If you have any kind of problem with another member of our community, we want to hear about it. When you're logged in, just click the 'Report abuse' button on their profile and we'll be notified. You can also contact us any time.

Yes, anyone can sell services or be a teacher on School of Everything - as long as they have a School of Everything account, and a valid Paypal account.

School of Everything is only a marketplace for 'educational services'. If you sell anything else, you're violating our Terms and Conditions. You can't currently sell educational goods and products yet either, but we'll be hoping to add that soon.

Distance selling regulations mean there's more administration and legal work involved for us to let you sell goods, so currently the Marketplace is restricted to services you supply yourself. We'll be adding ways to sell other things later.

The main thing we need from you before you can receive payments through School of Everything is the e-mail address you use for your Paypal account. This allows other users to send money to your Paypal account. You also need to enter some additional information to help potential students contact you and be confident of your identity and that you are a genuine seller.

The Office of Fair Trading's Distance Selling Regulations (pdf) require you to provide a full geographic address if you are taking payment in advance. We also ask for your contact phone number because we think it's important that we know you're contactable by us, and by the people who buy from you, in the event of a problem. We never share your phone number or postal address with anyone who you haven't agreed to sell services to.

The most important things are for how long the Quotes you offer will remain valid; the conditions under which you will offer refunds; and the timeframe within which you will supply the services people buy from you. Services should be completed within 30 days unless you specify otherwise.

Here are the instructions Paypal provide on their site:

To open a PayPal Personal or Premier account, follow these steps:

1. Visit the PayPal website at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click ‘Sign Up’ at the top of the page
3. Select your country or region from the drop down menu
4. Select your preferred account type and click ‘Get Started’
5. Enter your information, including your full email address and choose a password (it must contain at least 8 characters and is case sensitive). You will need these to log in to your PayPal account
6.Click 'Agree and create account'

To open a PayPal Business account, follow these steps:

1. Visit the PayPal website at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click ‘Sign Up’ at the top of the page
3. Select your country or region from the drop down menu
4. Select Business account and click ‘Get Started’
5. Select a payment solution from the drop down menu
6. Enter your business information and click ‘Continue’
7. Enter your full email address, choose a password (it must contain at least 8 characters and is case-sensitive) and select your two security questions
8. Accept the PayPal User Agreement and Privacy Policy then click 'Sign up'

If you decide to close your PayPal account, you should withdraw any funds in your PayPal balance and then follow these steps:

1. Log in to your account at www.paypal.co.uk
2. Click 'Profile' at the top of the page
3. Click the 'Close Account' link located under 'Account Information' and follow the instructions
4. We may ask you to confirm ownership of the account before it is closed.

Quotes are the basis for the School of Everything Marketplace. They allow you to make a contract with a student to provide certain educational services to them, in return for payment. You specify the details of the service you will supply to them, and the payment and cancellation terms, in the quote details, and also specify the price you will charge. Then you can send the quote to your students, via e-mail or personal message, and they can purchase this service from you. Once you've set up your seller account, you can create, send and track your quotes from the Marketplace section of the site.

A description of the main characteristics of the services you are offering, and any arrangements for delivery or performance of the service, for example when consumers can expect the service to start. The service should be completed within 30 days unless the parties agree to a different period.

The service should be completed within 30 days unless you specify otherwise. The Office of Fair Trading's Distance Selling Regulations (pdf) state: "A contract must be carried out within the time limits agreed with the consumer as stated in your terms and conditions. If no period has been agreed, the statutory time limit is 30 days from the day after the day the consumer sends the order to you." So if you want to specify a timeframe for delivery of the service, you need to put it in the quote details or in the Payment and Cancellation Terms, otherwise you are agreeing to deliver the service to the buyer within 30 days.

All your transactions are bound by the Office of Fair Trading's Distance Selling Regulations (pdf), which specify the following:

"3.17 If you cannot meet the 30 day deadline to deliver the goods or perform the service, you must inform the consumer before the expiry of the deadline. You and the consumer may agree a revised date for delivery of the goods or performance of the service. But the consumer does not have to agree to a revised date. If they do not agree to a revised date, the contract must be treated as if it had not been made, apart from any rights that the consumer has under it as the result of the non-performance.

3.18 If you are unable to meet the deadline and have not agreed an alternative delivery date with the consumer, you must refund all money paid in relation to the contract including the postage and packaging. Please see paragraph 3.49 for information on additional services that may have been provided under a different contract. The refund should be made as quickly as possible and within a maximum of 30 days.

3.19 Any credit agreement associated with the purchase is also automatically cancelled."

Yes, but only as you make money - there are no up-front charges or flat fees. We will bill you 5% of any transaction you receive - so if you make £10 from using the site, you pay us 50p. Paypal also charge you a small fee (usually about 2-3%) for withdrawing your money afterwards, but there's not much we can do about that yet - sorry.

We will bill you on the first Tuesday of each month, for any outstanding commission on the transactions you made in the previous month. We'll send you the bill direct to your School of Everything account, and e-mail you too. You then have 28 days to pay your bill into our Paypal account.

At the moment, due to legal restrictions, our payment services only work within the UK. We'll be launching them country by country later, as we get more demand in different parts of the world, so if you'd like us to notify you when we launch it in other countries drop us a line at hello@schoolofeverything.com.

Read more about our international plans.