There’s a lot of mixed information about Chegg, and it ranges from they're great to they’re a scam. So, what should you believe?
Chegg is a big company ($250+ million in revenue big), and covers multiple segments across the online-learning industry. It's understandable to have a few unhappy customers… some might even use the word scam too freely. We'll get more into that topic below… but first, what (or who) exactly is Chegg?
Disclaimer:
Please note, I am not a member or an affiliate for Chegg Tutors. This review has been researched with information and/or testimonials that are available online in the public domain. Any recommendations and/or conclusions are strictly opinions and may not to apply to, or agree with, all persons or situations. See full disclaimer for more info
What is Chegg?
Chegg Tutors is an online tutoring platform where students and teachers come together in virtual classrooms.
In addition to an audio and video chat window, Chegg’s classrooms also have a full text editor and a virtual whiteboard.
There’s a lot more than tutoring here though. As mentioned above, Chegg offers a wide range of online learning services. In fact, tutoring didn't come until 2014 when Chegg aquired InstaEDU for $30 Million.
Chegg's original business was renting textbooks from a website called textbookflix.com (a play on the movie rental company Netflix).
A global company, tutoring has become a significant part of their business and today they accept applications from around the world, covering a wide range of ever-changing subjects from the ones you’d expect; Math, English, History etc. to their currently most popular; Finance, Computer Science, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Accounting, Linear Algebra, and Mechanical Engineering.
How Does it Work?
Chegg Tutor Requirements
The first step to become a tutor is to fill out an online application. It can take up to 7 business days to get a response.
The requirements are,
- Two forms of school verification to prove you are currently enrolled in 4-year university degree or have completed a 4-year university degree. These could include,
- Photo of your dimploma
- Student ID card
- Scanned copies of your transcripts
- A picture of you (selfie) holding your government issued ID such as a passport or drivers license.
- You may be required to write a test depending on the subject you are teaching.
- Access to a computer with a mic and camera, internet access and a distraction free workspace.
- A PayPal account.
- Short introductory video (optional).
If for any reason you don’t meet their requirements, there are still plenty of work at home opportunities you can check out.
Chegg Tutor Pay
For a work-at-home gig, Chegg pays pretty good. $20.00 an hour for the time you spend tutoring and/or creating a written lesson explanation.
Your pay is based on the exact number of minutes accrued during a week, and the minimum pay is 5 minutes. In other words, if you log in to answer a question that only takes two minutes, you are paid for five.
Payments arrive in your PayPal account every Thursday.
Is Chegg a Scam?
Chegg is not a scam… however, trust is always an issue when it comes to online transactions. Considering the bad publicity surrounding social media (and our private information) these days… you can never be too careful.
The question here is whether Chegg is deliberately out to rip you off, and the answer is no. Poor customer service that leads to a complaint, or an issue that slips through the cracks, does not make them a scam.
For example, here's one reviewer who makes that accusation…
I can’t imagine the number of academic related questions students have (across dozens of subjects), but it’s probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The best answers (to the questions the reviewer asked), were probably in the solution manual. Additional questions would have required a tutor.
I’m not defending Chegg (I don't know enough about the above situation)… but accusing them of being a scam is definitely a misinterpretation of the word scam.
To identify a true scam (the kind that takes your money and runs) there are few things you can easily check,
- Do they provide contact information?
- How long have they been in business (real scams burn out pretty fast, or at least change their name once people figure them out)
- Do they have a community (social media)? Scams don't typically build followings.
Most of that information is available from the Better Business Bureau. Contact names, phone numbers and an address is provided. You can also get the business age.
Sixteen years is a long time to be in business (especially online). Although some scams can endure for years, they’ll go through of cycle of death and rebirth. That’s not the case with Chegg.
As far as having a community, Chegg's Facebook page has over 600,000 followers, again… not something that occurs with scams.
And, if you have any lingering doubts about Chegg, you shouldn't. They are a publicly traded company listed on the NYSE.
I know… that doesn't mean they're a good company, but it does mean they're legit.
Chegg Complaints
As mentioned above, Chegg has two divisions. There is Chegg Tutors which provides student services such as study resources, scholarship information, College searches… and of course what we’re here for… tutoring.
Then there is Chegg Books which is their textbook sales and rental division.
If you wanted, you could spend an hour reading through the stack of Chegg complaints on the BBB website.
However, with a few exceptions… just about every complaint is about Chegg Books, not Chegg Tutors.
On the one hand, it would seem they have a customer service issue, or a misplaced policy when it comes to buying and selling textbooks. But, we're dealing with the distribution (and return) of physical products here. There's going to be challenges.
Especially books, which aren't the most durable of products.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say that not every one of those complaints is Chegg’s fault. And more importantly… they have not gone unanswered. Chegg has responded to every one of those 237 complaints.
When it comes to Chegg Tutors (not Chegg Books)… the reviews are more promising.
Chegg Tutor Reviews
The Chegg tutor reviews are generally positive, I haven’t seen any issues with pay rates, payments, platform issues or software glitches.
If there is one common complaint, it’s that establishing yourself as a tutor can be competitive.
One reviewer describing Chegg said, “It is a waiting job. As a tutor, you need to wait for a student to demand your tutoring service.”
Another said, “When you start off it is rather cutthroat trying to land clients.”
Overall though, both of those reviewers gave Chegg a good rating.
And here are some more positive reviews…
Obviously, Chegg isn’t perfect, but as a work-at-home job or side hustle you could do a lot worse.
What I Like About Chegg
- Good pay and no complaints about the payment process.
- Wide range of subjects.
- Virtual Classrooms with text editors and whiteboards.
- Chegg responds to customer complaints. The customers might not always like the response, but at least Chegg tries to resolve the issue.
What I Don’t Like
- The number of customer service related complaints. I wouldn't avoid Chegg because of the them, but they do point to an issue that needs improvement.
- It’s not for everyone. At a minimum you must be enrolled in or have completed a 4-year university degree. It’s a policy that makes sense (you must be qualified for the job)… but in subjects like languages, web design, dance, music, etc… potentially good tutors may be getting overlooked.
- The amount of work can be inconsistent. You can’t rely on Chegg as your only source of income.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to measure the benefits of working from home, but one of them is that you can live on a lot less money. And… at twenty bucks an hour, an established Chegg tutor can do quite well.
If you’ve been a freelancer for awhile and you’re looking at Chegg as another income source, they'll be a good fit for your strategy.
For those taking their first step into an at-home job, Chegg is also great choice, but you can’t depend on them as your only income source. Even if you're available to students for 15 hours a day, most of that time will be spent waiting (and you don't get paid to wait).
In many ways, online tutoring is a sales gig. You’re building a client base by providing great service to get positive reviews and referrals.
Here’s the link to get started with Chegg.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have any work-at-home or side gig recommendations? Do you have experience or valuable insights about Chegg?
Please share in the comments section below.
They are a scam. They suspended my account as I am trying to review for an exam, the day before the exam because apparentlyI am using it too much. Then they claim I shared my login but they can’t even tell me how I could have when I am the only one using it. And to think they just took my renewal money 4 days before they suspended it. Money hungry website
A full-fledged scam.
I sign up and they charge me right away, of course.
From there and to be able to access they send a confirmation email so that when you receive it you click on a link to access. So far so good.
The problem is when the link is only valid for 5 minutes, and it always takes at least 10 minutes to arrive, so several days later and after trying to access more than 30 times, always arriving the access link late, I still have not been able to enter and I am more than fed up.
In addition, they include a link to contact customer service, which does not work either, it sends to a page that does not exist and gives an error.
If I want to unsubscribe, I can’t either because I can’t log into my account and I can’t manage my subscription, so they would be forever charging me.
The only solution to stop this is to cancel the card so that they can no longer rip me off for a product that I have not been able to use even once.
A scam and a disgrace this way of acting.
They ARE a scam. I cancelled my subscription over a year ago and they continued to charge me. I contacted them by phone, they said that their records showed I did not have an active subscription with them…oh REALLY? Tell me something I don’t know. They didn’t try to help resolve the issue so I contacted my bank and disputed the charges, I had to cancel and replace my credit card as well. That worked for a few months then suddenly I started getting charged AGAIN!!! Now I have to close my whole bank account just to keep these miserable crooks from committing fraud and stealing my money. I will also be reporting them to the BBB. They are a SCAM SCAM SCAM and that is in NO WAY a misuse of the term as you say in your article. They should be prosecuted and shut down! For you to write such a one-sided, dishonest, fraudulent puff-piece means you yourself are a fraud and probably a shill as well. SHAME on you.
Hi Josey, thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. Sorry to hear you’re having such an ordeal with Chegg and I can absolutely understand your frustration under those circumstances. We are not affiliated with Chegg in any way however, and customer service was one of the issues mentioned in this review. There are many positive reviews about Chegg and there are negative ones like yours as well. We can’t verify all of them. All we can report are the facts about Chegg, which is that they’ve been in business since 2003 and they are traded on the New York Stock Exchange with a current market cap of 3.85 billion. That doesn’t mean they’re a perfect company by any means but it makes it difficult to call them a scam. My apologies if that sounds like shilling. I know you would rather we write a review that echoes your experience, but it would be inaccurate (and obviously slanderous) for us to call them a scam or claim they are deliberately committing fraud.
Having spent 1 year with Chegg as a tutor, I can say, it’s good for students who want to cheat. As a tutor you can only make significant income by doing homework for pay, euphemistically “”written lessons”, and exams for-pay. On Chegg it’s quite blatant, visible to all. Otherwise, 10$ per hour is best you can do in my opinion. But Chegg is expensive tutoring so students don’t linger. Each minute costs ~75 cents, the clock is ticking. They want quick answers, in and out. That’s not conducive to teaching or tutoring. That’s do-my-homework-for-5$ model. The money is in the cheaters. Chegg must know that. They look the other way.
Indeed I’m ok if bad students have to pay $ to Chegg to pass their courses. That’s justice. But they are punishing the other great students out there. I don’t think Chegg has support with other professors (and ex-professors like myself). At first I thought this attitude was because professors felt threatened by Chegg. Chegg didn’t invent cheating after all! They may have made cheating so easy, accessible and cheap but students still make the call on using them. But I understand it now. It’s another method to unravel integrity in yet another institution. Pretty soon students will be able to buy a bachelors degree in engineering without doing the work. Chegg is making this a reality.
America is all about making money so who can fault that logic. If folks with money want a bachelors degree, why not pay for it?
I subscribed for a month then I was able to use a 1 month subscription just for a day.,I cant even send them messages because they blocked my email,but then I have been using it for about 2 years thies madness just started recently.
chegg tutor is a scam 100%. they charge you a certain amount a month and when a tutor tries to help you they always say they have to do it in the real time thing they have which cost even more moeny!!!! why am i paying a fixed amount a month for you to ask for then more money?????
I mean they told me they were charging me 4$ as a discount, but got charged the original amount. Complained, then they charged me another 5$. How much did they pay you to advertise them?
Hi and sorry… I can’t speak to your situation specifically. As far as getting paid by Chegg… no, I haven’t. I’m not affiliation with them at all and try to be as unbiased as possible with my reviews presenting both sides. I’m also glad to you have your feedback as well and appreciate you sharing 🙂
Jay