17th January 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A Liberal Democrat candidate for parliament is allegedly responsible for taking a number of unauthorised payments from credit cards. Dr. Vincent McKee runs the tuition agency ICUT, which claims to offer private tutoring for students at school and university. However, Sky News has reported that McKee has used his clients’ credit card details to take repeated payments for services for which the clients did not ask, and do not want.
What happens is that ICUT ask for a credit card payment when contacted by the student. The payment is said to be for that student’s first lesson with their tutor. Once ICUT has the credit card details though, they are able to charge more amounts to the credit card whenever they wish. This is contrary to the laws governing repeated payments on credit cards, which state that a company must make it clear when receiving the details that repeated payments will be taken, and must notify the client 14 days before any such amounts are charged to their account.
After receiving many phone calls about Dr. McKee following an initial story, Sky News posed as a student themselves, and although agreeing to pay £60 for a first lesson, ICUT subsequently attempted to take another £500. One student said that she had visited McKee’s house in tears, and begged him to return her money to her. Blue Tutors have also received negative reports regarding ICUT, and advise anyone considering hiring a tutor not to steer clear of what appears to be an underhand operation.