Policies

Acceptance of Terms: Benjamin McHale Tutoring is a sole proprietorship owned and operated by Benjamin McHale, doing business as "Benjamin McHale Tutoring" ("I," "me," or "the Business"). By booking a session, purchasing a digital product, or subscribing to a plan through this website, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use this service.

Services Provided: Benjamin McHale Tutoring provides one-on-one academic instruction in STEM subjects, as well as digital curriculum products (worksheets, reference packets, and related materials) sold as one-time purchases or subscriptions. Live sessions are conducted at scheduled times agreed upon at booking. Digital product terms are set out separately in the Digital Products & Subscriptions section below, which is incorporated by reference into these Terms.

Eligibility: Clients booking sessions on behalf of a minor must be the parent or legal guardian of that minor. Adult students may book on their own behalf.

Booking and Payment: All sessions require payment in full at the time of booking. Sessions are not confirmed until payment is received. Pricing is as listed on the booking page at the time of booking.

Cancellations and Refunds: Cancellations and refunds are governed by the separate Refund & Cancellation Policy, which is incorporated by reference into these terms.

Conduct: Clients and students are expected to engage respectfully during sessions. I reserve the right to terminate any session or ongoing tutoring relationship at my sole discretion in response to abusive, threatening, or inappropriate behavior, with refund or credit issued at my discretion based on the circumstances.

Educational & Score Outcome Disclaimer: Tutoring sessions, curriculum packets, LaTeX reference sheets, and study materials are provided solely as educational resources to support a student's technical comprehension and academic preparation. No specific academic outcome, grade, GPA, test score (including but not limited to ASVAB AFQT or mechanical subtest scores, SAT, ACT, or AP exam scores), or military/collegiate appointment or admission result (such as United States Naval Academy appointment or ROTC scholarship) is promised or guaranteed. The student and parent/guardian retain full responsibility for the student's exam performance and academic preparation.

Intellectual Property & Non-Redistribution Clause: All instructional content—including but not limited to custom LaTeX reference sheets, curriculum reference packets (e.g., Engineering Statics, Calculus II, ASVAB Mechanics), problem set solutions, exported OneNote documents, and virtual session video/audio recordings—remains my exclusive, proprietary intellectual property protected by United States copyright law. These digital assets are licensed solely to the purchasing individual (and, in the case of a minor student, the student and their parent/guardian within a single household) for personal, non-commercial academic review. Any unauthorized copying, public posting, uploading to third-party platforms (such as Course Hero, Chegg, Discord, Google Drive share links, or social media), redistribution, resale, or sharing with outside students or organizations is strictly prohibited. Violation of this license constitutes a material breach of these Terms, resulting in immediate termination of portal and vault access without refund, and may subject the violator to legal liability for copyright infringement.

Limitation of Liability: To the maximum extent permitted by law, my total liability for any claim arising from these services — whether relating to live tutoring sessions, digital products, or subscriptions — is limited to the greater of (a) $100, or (b) the total amount you paid me in the 12 months preceding the claim. I am not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind.

Disclaimer of Warranties: Services and digital products are provided "as is." I make no warranty that digital products will be uninterrupted or error-free, and I disclaim all implied warranties to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Acceptable Use: You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any account, share purchased account credentials with anyone outside your household, scrape or systematically download content, or use the service for any unlawful purpose. I may suspend or terminate access, without refund, for violations of this policy.

Changes to Terms: These terms may be updated from time to time. The current version will always be available at https://benjaminmchale.com/policies. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.

Governing Law: These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.

Contact: [email protected]

Payment: Payment is required at the time of booking to reserve your session slot. Bookings are not confirmed until payment is received.

Cancellations Outside 24 Hours: Sessions cancelled or rescheduled more than 24 hours before the scheduled start time are eligible for a full credit toward a future session. Credits are issued as a promotional code that can be applied at checkout for any future booking. Credits must be applied to a session that takes place within 90 days of the original cancelled session.

Cancellations Within 24 Hours: Sessions cancelled or rescheduled less than 24 hours before the scheduled start time are forfeited and not eligible for credit or refund. This policy compensates for the inability to fill the reserved time slot on short notice.

No-Shows: Failure to attend a scheduled session without prior notice is treated as a within-24-hour cancellation and is forfeited.

Late Arrivals: Sessions begin at their scheduled time. Time lost due to late arrival cannot be added to the end of the session or made up at a later date.

Instructor Cancellations: In the rare event that I must cancel or reschedule a session, you will receive a full refund to your original payment method within 48 hours, or, at your preference, a credit toward a future session.

Refunds: Monetary refunds are not issued for client-initiated cancellations under any circumstances. All eligible cancellations receive credit only.

Exceptions: Genuine emergencies will be considered on a case-by-case basis at my sole discretion.

What's Sold: Alongside live tutoring, I sell (a) one-time "lifetime access" purchases of curriculum bundles or individual subject modules, and (b) recurring subscriptions billed monthly or annually for ongoing access to a subject's materials. All digital-product payments are processed by Stripe.

Lifetime Purchases — Final Sale: One-time lifetime-access purchases are a final sale. Because you receive immediate, unrestricted access to downloadable digital content, refunds are not guaranteed. I may, at my sole discretion, issue a full or partial refund on a case-by-case basis (for example, a duplicate purchase or a technical failure preventing delivery).

Subscriptions — Cancel Anytime: Subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until cancelled. You may cancel at any time through the Billing Portal. Cancelling stops future renewals but does not end your current paid period early — you keep full access through the end of the period you already paid for. Cancellation does not itself entitle you to a prorated or partial refund for the current period.

Refunds Revoke Access: Because digital access is granted immediately, any refund I issue — full or partial, whether requested by you or initiated by the payment processor — immediately and permanently revokes access to the associated lifetime purchase or subscription. This mirrors how the system is built: access is tied 1:1 to payment status.

Chargebacks: Please contact me before filing a chargeback or payment dispute — most issues can be resolved directly and faster that way. Filing a chargeback without first contacting me is treated as a material breach of these Terms, immediately revokes access to the associated product, and may result in denial of future purchases.

Content License: Digital products are licensed, not sold, to the purchasing individual (or, for a minor student, the purchasing parent/guardian on the student's behalf) for personal, non-commercial, single-household use, subject to the Intellectual Property terms above. Redistribution or resale is prohibited.

Pricing Changes: I may change prices for digital products and subscriptions at any time. Price changes apply prospectively only — they do not affect a lifetime purchase you've already made or the pricing of your current, already-paid subscription period.

Information I Collect: Depending on how you use the site, I collect: your name and the student's name; email address and phone number; payment information (processed and stored by Stripe, not by me); account and purchase/subscription records (stored in my Supabase database) if you create an account or buy a digital product; information you provide during sessions relevant to instruction; audio, video, and screen capture recordings of virtual sessions (see Session Recordings below); and limited, anonymous website-usage data (see Website Analytics below).

How I Use Your Information: I use this information to: schedule and conduct tutoring sessions; send booking confirmations, reminders, receipts, and transactional emails through Resend; process payments and manage subscriptions through Stripe; provision and maintain access to purchased digital products through Supabase; communicate with you about your sessions or purchases; generate post-session study materials and video archives for the student's personal review.

Session Recordings: Virtual sessions are recorded (audio, video, and screen capture) to provide post-session video archives and exported notes as part of the service. These recordings are: used solely for the student's personal review; stored securely in a private Google Drive account, accessible only to me; not uploaded to YouTube or any public platform; not shared with third parties beyond Google Drive's role as the storage provider. Session recordings are retained for the duration of the student-tutor relationship and for 12 months thereafter, after which they are permanently deleted. By booking a virtual session, the parent or guardian consents to this recording for educational purposes and to the use of Google Drive as the secure storage location. If you do not wish for sessions to be recorded, please contact me before booking to discuss alternatives. If an alternative is agreed upon, the standard session rate still applies, and the client waives the delivery of post-session video archives.

Information Sharing: I do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. I share information only with the service providers that operate the Business, each acting under its own privacy policy: Stripe, for payment and subscription processing; Supabase, for account, purchase, and entitlement data storage; TidyCal, for session scheduling; Google, for calendar scheduling and secure storage of session recordings and notes via Google Drive; Resend, for delivering transactional emails; Cloudflare, which hosts this website and handles its network traffic; and legal authorities if required by law.

Children's Privacy & COPPA Compliance: I work with high school and collegiate students, including minors under the age of 18. In strict compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), I do not knowingly solicit or collect personal data directly from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. All portal accounts, tutoring bookings, and digital product purchases on behalf of a minor under 18 must be initiated, authorized, and overseen by the student's parent or legal guardian. The parent or guardian explicitly consents to the collection and processing of the minor student's academic and scheduling information solely for educational instruction, curriculum delivery, and progress tracking within the student portal. Parents and legal guardians have the absolute right to review their child's personal information, request corrections, or mandate the complete deletion of their child's records and recordings at any time by contacting [email protected].

Data Storage and Security: Booking and scheduling data is processed and stored securely through our third-party scheduling partner, TidyCal. Session recordings and digital notes are stored in a private Google Drive account accessible only to me. Account, purchase, and subscription-entitlement data is stored in Supabase, a hosted database provider with row-level access controls. This website is hosted and served through Cloudflare. Payment data is handled entirely by Stripe and is not stored on my systems.

Website Analytics: When you browse this website, I log limited, anonymous engagement data — such as which promotional videos you watch, how long you watch them, the page you were on, and the referring page — tied to a random session identifier generated in your browser's session storage (cleared when you close the tab). This data is not linked to your name, email, or payment information, and is used only to understand which content is helpful to visitors.

Your Rights: You may request to: access the information I have about you; correct inaccurate information; delete your information (subject to legal record-keeping requirements); opt out of non-essential communications. To exercise any of these rights, contact me at [email protected].

Cookies & Local Storage: This website may use essential cookies to maintain your session and browser session storage for the anonymous analytics session ID described above. No advertising cookies or third-party ad-tracking cookies are used.

Communications: I may send you transactional communications related to your bookings. I will not send marketing emails without your consent.

Changes to This Policy: This policy may be updated. The current version will always be available at https://benjaminmchale.com/policies.

Contact: For privacy questions, contact [email protected].