Our Commitment To Trust & Safety

ADPList is a community fueled by trust. When we started ADPList in 2021, people said it would never work. “Strangers will never learn from each other,” they said. But we believed that people are fundamentally good, and that we could design a system for you to trust one another. Our real innovation is not allowing people to mentor; it’s designing a framework to allow millions of people to trust one another. Trust is the real energy source that drives ADPList and has enabled us to scale our platform to 141 countries and with more than 8,000 mentors.

When we’re open to each other with tolerance and respect, we all benefit.

But recently, events by bad actors on our platform took advantage of that trust, including not showing up for sessions they've accepted. We intend to do everything possible to learn from these incidents when they occur.

In this year, no-shows increased by 40% of overall bookings, and expired bookings increased from 11% to an all-time high of 17% in May - all after which our team doubled down and brought it back to 11%. We’ve decided to have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to Trust & Safety matters.

People need to feel like they can trust our community, and that they can trust ADPList when something does go wrong. Today, we are making the most significant steps in designing trust on our platform since our original design in 2020. Our solution entails 4 sections.

What activities violates:

1. ‍No Show: When a member books a session but does not show up for it until 10 minutes into the session.‍
2. Last-Minute Cancellation: When a session gets canceled within 3 hours or less from its scheduled time. ‍
3. Expired Booking: An unattended booking request that is neither declined nor accepted within 48 hours.

Our course of actions:

1. Warning: If you repeatedly commit no-shows/last-minute cancellations/let bookings expire, we may give you a warning and guide you to the right actions.  ‍
2. Suspension: If even after warnings, you continue to damage the Trust & Safety of the platform, we may stop you from using ADPList by suspending your account.
3. ‍Permanent Account Removal: If the offence is serious enough or if you've repeatedly violated our Trust & Safety Guidelines, we may permanently remove your account.‍
4. Appeal: We understand that there are circumstances when the no-shows, expired bookings, or last-minute cancellations are not intended and out of your control, you will be able to appeal with required evidence. Our team will review appeals on a case-by-case basis.

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How This Works

For Mentors:

No-shows/Last-minute Cancellations (in 30 days)

• From the 2nd incidence on: We’ll send you warning emails with suggestions on how you can avoid such no-shows/last-minute cancellations.

• 4th incidence: Your account will be put on-break. You can deactivate the break once you feel you are ready to mentor again.

Expired Bookings, in 30-day window

• From 1st to 4th incidence: We’ll send you warning emails asking you to either accept or reject pending booking requests.

• 5th incidence: Your account will be put on break. You can deactivate the break once you feel you are ready to mentor again.

For Members:

No-shows/Last-minute Cancellations, in 30-day window

• 1st incidence: We’ll send you warning emails with suggestions on how to avoid such last-minute cancellations and no-shows.

• 2nd incidence: The account is suspended post second warning. You can however appeal your suspension.

Expired Rescheduled Bookings, in 30-day window

• 1st incidence: We’ll send warning emails asking you to either accept or decline the booking.

• 2nd incidence: The account is suspended post second warning. You can however appeal your suspension.

Appeal Process

• You can appeal for your account suspension with evidence here. Our Trust & Safety team will be reviewing on a case-by-case basis.
• Please note that repeated infractions can lead to permanent account removal from the platform

What’s Next

With these additional protections, we will work together with our community of mentors and members to reinforce the trust platform that we have built with our community. The world moves at the speed of trust, and the more trust that exists, the more access we can all have. ADPList is founded on trust, and our vision depends on us continuing to increase this in our community.

I have been asked what has surprised me most about ADPList. My answer is two things: that people are, in fact, fundamentally good, and that we are 99% the same. We still believe this, and with these changes, we hope to continue to demonstrate this to the world. Thank you for being part of our community.

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Yours sincerely,
Felix Lee
Co-Founder, CEO & Head of Community