ComputerTraining.com, Inc. Ripoff Scam False Advertising, exaggerated and false claims made by salesperson, lack of teaching skills. Chesapeake Virginia

Check out this accreditation website that features the whole gang from Computertraining:

www.accet.org/commission/adverse-actions

Pull up 2010 and get an eyeful. I was surprised to see that Daves wife Michelle must have been in it up to her eyeballs. All four were debarred. There's a shocker.

I suspect the gang is still in the Maryland area. Folks need to keep an eye open on the web for any clues left by them or one of their kids.

The amount of suffering they have left behind is almost immeasurable. Time to return the favor, legally of course.

I took the accelerated course back in 2008, the course was a joke and a huge waste of money. Unfortunately I got roped into this scam by no just CTC but all SLM/Sallie Mae which are also being sued by multiple consumers/agencies regarding sub prime lending tactics. 

In order to get me to sign the loan the intake person Erin Mary Ackerman stated that my cosigner would be eligible to be taken off the loan after 24 full payments.  She even called Sallie Mae with us in the office when we asked the question and they confirmed this.  The loan came with the option to defer the first 6 months of payment.  No where was it written that taking the deferment would void the 24 months wait period.

Guess what after filing 5 requests to remove my cosigner as we were instructed we were told he was now stuck on the loan for the entire loan.  Because it had a deferment.  Even though they previously stated non of this, it was not even in the loan documents.  It was part of the package.  This was and is the one point that we had agreed on and I was firmly set not to even enroll unless my cosigner was able to get off the loan in good standing.  They lied to get me to sign up. 

The instructor spent our time out of the room on the phone with her babysitter and son for personal issues for a very large portion of our paid time.  To add insult to injury a large amount of questions we had to better understand some of the materials was met with responses like "that is outside of the scope of this course" even when it was directly related to and would help many understand the processes. 

The instructors policy on getting us to get certified did not rely on the training, hands on or quizzes which often times were only 3-5 questions, was do the practice tests over and over and over and memorize the answers, and when you see the real tests many of the questions will only be slightly different but will be so similar that you should be able to be a best guess or remember from the answers you memorized.  Not do you understand the question, the answers and how you got there. 

It was clearly just repeat it and memorize which answers looked similar.  Often times she would make us email her our practice test results then tell us to go right away and take the test as fast as possible so as to remember everything we basically read over and over for hours on end to memory to try and pass the tests.  This is not training.  Anyone can read and remember paragraphs of words and look for them. 

Most of the labs failed or had technical difficulties, the final lab was to do a network build out, including servers, IPAs, FWs network diagrams etc.  We not only were not able to go over every lab, but we also were not able to correct all of them or in our case any of them at all,  to see what we got right, wrong, and to learn from either case.  Because like many of the classes our instructor would say there is not enough time, but then would let us go early.  We have to keep moving so if you were stuck on something, you remained stuck. "come on guys we have to keep going" 

The you passed the course if you got your MCP (one test passed by MS)  That was the requirement.

To one of the posters above, yes strategically there were not guarantees to anything, but the company made many consumer promises that it had no way of keeping in order to get you to sign up, and for some of us with loans locked us into high debt. 

Life time job placement, and resume services.  Is one such service sold to us to get us to commit to their courses. 

Original radio ads asked if you were making 50K a year then all of the sudden the ads were pulled and replaced by another ad that removed that statement, added disclaimers that were not present in the ad I heard which got me to go to them in the first place.

Ultimately all this is moot, they were sued in a class action lawsuit, lost the case, the federal courts awarded all students tuition refunds (of course getting them from CTC is another story) which proves all our claims that they were frauds.  Otherwise the case would have been thrown out.

I am currently suing Sallie Mae for my tuition and to get the loan quashed because it was obtained falsely.    

  Whoever that was two posts up, disgard everything they said trying to hype up that school with their blanket statement of "Only people that didnt try in the class have had problems."  Thats complete bologna.  Graduated in may of 2009, was one of the few studenets in my class to get my MCSA and still the only student from my class to get an IT job.  And it was a good job, I was the network administator for a software company for 5 months, until after those 5 months they realized I didnt know anywheres NEAR what I needed to know to be a network admin.  And the whole time in school all they ever said was "You'll be a network admin, you will know more than admins that have been on the job for 5 years, admin this admin that."  Even the other guys I worked with in IT told me the school filled their students heads with so many false dreams that all they needed was microsoft. No one even cares about Microsoft!  Citrix! Linux! Crystal! SQL!!!  MCSA? hah!  Most companies dont even care if you have your MCSE they want real networking background like being Cisco certified.  Dont waste  your time and money, I cant even get a job as a level 1 tech support, they all say I didnt go to a real school and dont have real experience, and I believe them.  After working as an admin I realized I did NOT know anything!  They ONLY thing I learned in class that I ever used on the job was Active Directory, NOTHING else.  Its all 3rd party software, no one uses windows to do backups, no one uses command prompt to defrag a computer, no one uses ISA, in fact ISA is one of the big hypes of the class but whenver I mentioned ISA to anyone in the field they just laughed and said ISA is garbage, no one in their right mind would use it, they would just get a REAL hardware firewall thats unix based.

computertraining.com / .edu is horrible and i cant wait for a class action agaist them.

I have to agree that Computertraining.com is pretty much a rip-off. I went to the Computertraining.com campus in Chantilly, VA a few years ago and I had two issues with my experiences there. The first issue is that, for those who do not know much about computers save for the "limited" experience you only need when showing up to the class, the teaching is backwards. We were told to read the chapters, and THEN come in and discuss the information. How can someone read something and comprehend it when they don't understand it in the first place? I would have rather had the information taught to me and then go back and re-read that information to have it sink in.

The other problem with Computertraining.com is that the person who was there helping my friend and I sign up for loans told us that the loans we had would only incur interest six months after we were finished with the class. Little did my friend and I realize that as soon as we signed the papers, the loan was incurring interest. My friend and I came to the realization that interest had been builidng on our loan before we had to pay for anything, which was avoided or failed to be mentioned.

I ended up using all of my savings to make this Computertraining.com go away, which was one of the biggest wastes of my entire life. Sadly, I should have seen this coming; 20k for a class that won't give you anything in return? Only one person in my entire class got his or her MCSE; everyone else received the MCP or nothing at all.

This is a general post to all of the rip off reports about ComputerTraining.com

First of all, through out the ENTIRE interviewing and information gathering process NO ONE gaurantees ANYTHING to the student. I worked in the first leg of the process, but have been involved with many other aspects of it, as my fiance went through the program, and even some people who work in my department at ComputerTraining.com have decided to go through it as well.

Let's get the facts straight first: We do NOT garauntee job placement, salaries, passing of the exams, ect. Almost ALL of our campuses ARE accredited campuses. We tell you from the very beginning. This is EXTREMELY accelerated. It's a 6 month program in which you will get hands on experience working with real life problems in an instructor led environment.
You DO have homework. You DO have lab work. You DO have to work HARD at what you get.
Throughout all these reports I've only seen one or two that actually seem like the person put the effort in necessary to make it through- and just like with every SCHOOL you're going to have a few people that its just not right.

Now. In the lab environment, you are required to do labs yourself, and trouble shoot through the problems. The purpose of the lab, is to complete the activity. You need to figure out how to troubleshoot through any problems, if you absolutely can NOT figure it out, then you can ask the instructor. But these are assignments that are meant to be completed by you, not by the instructor. If the Instructor told you to hit F1 for help, then the answer was probably in the Help Menu screen.
Also, I've seen things about the finances options, because of interest things like that. There are no early pay penalties, the loans are set up through the same people who provide loans for MOST of the schools around our country. If you dont want to pay all that interest, start to pay early. Also, no one says you HAVE to take a loan out through us- if you feel those loan option arent right for you, then go find another loan option. We work with one company because they work better with our students, and work with us more to help you,so we can give our education to people who truly need it.

I've also seen people say you can get training else where for a lot cheaper.
Not for a 6 month program. Not for ALL of these certifications. And not for everything that we offer. We offer lifetime Career placement services, job fairs, and the training. We also GIVE the student access to testing practice for the test (I think I saw someone say they had to pay money to do that- thats included), all the books, plus other things that come along with the program.

Here's where some of you are right that you wouldnt be able to suceed:
If you aren't willing to work really hard for 6 months, if you arent willing to actually take the time to look at ALL of the information we give you in the information sessions, then NO you wont get all the facts straight.
We SHOW you were our students have been placed and what they are making, we ALSO tell you we cant gaurantee placement, but we will work with you till we've found you a great job.


Here's another thing. If you KNOW you can book study and pass the exams, then go for it. But for people who this isnt their FIRST job or career, they NEED hands on training. They NEEd to be able to say, yes I've worked in a lab environment. There are people from all different professions that aren't doing as well as the IT field, who decide they want to make a change. THATS why our course is set up the way it is... so that you have SOME sort of experience working in the IT field before you get placed in an actual position.



Instead of worrying about what a hand full of people misread, or didn't do. I encourage any people who are looking into the school just to see both sides of the story, talk to people who have graduated from the program or are currently going there.
One of my coworkers is doing great in the program. My fiance loves it...

In Response to Waiting to be scammed...

I have been a student with in this program and I had to drop out a little over half way though the program. I believe it is a scam and not an educational resouce for most people. I am not saying not all people fail there but I will tell you about my class and you can formulate your own opinion from there.

When I first started computer training.com, it was ok. most of the time the instructor stood up front and lectured, which was fine, but 9 out of 10 times if we needed help with a lab either A) I dont know what you did start over, or B) he fixed it real quick and moved on. Most of the time there was a lot of cursing, remarks of sexual nature, and so on. I also took my class in the winter time so when the county I lived in was under a level 3 and the school was not, I was dinged for not being present. And within the first half of class 4 people dropped and the instructor dissappeared half way though the program and the director had to finish it. They tell you its an accelerated course. But they arent really too helpful its more or less like you learn on your own and take what you can from the instructor as he lectures. Maybe its not a scam, but its not designed for people who have other responsiblilities. Its not always that you cant study, its more like, trying to balance time. If your willing to lock yourself away from everyone, everything for 6 months try it.

As far as saying the people who complain are idiots who dont know anything about computers and will drop out of universities anyway, let me share with you that I did drop from this program because I could not keep up with everyone else or the instructor. I was being questioned about had I taken my exams and that if I didnt take them two weeks after we finished a book I would loose grade points. I have a 1 year old now. then she was 3 was 6 months old. I took care of her worked my jobs and got my mcp. I did the best I could and feel like I was ripped off because for one, I didnt get the help I needed when I needed it. for two, there was a lot of bad conduct going on in class, there were often discussions more oriented towards sports and all the careers our instructor had then there were acutal discussions on how things were suppose to work.

In short Dont judge people you dont know by thier actions, perhaps there are good reasons for them.

This is more just my opinion and my experience, take it for what you will. I will not be held liable for damages or slander for giving my opinion.

Hey Michael,

Just thought I'd toss in the fact that they switched teachers midstream and took away mastermind for a few weeks while they changed the format changed a lot of the questions seeming as though memorising the questions in mastermind almost guaranteed you would pass the first couple tests.

Oh yeah I forgot. I missed one day because of a hurricane and when I came back they had switched to the cisco books because cisco was changing their tests or something on that order. I had studied a few chapters in the book. I sort of realised what type of outfit the place was when I had one of the students who had just finished his mcp and couldn't for the life of him figure out why his pc wouldn't boot up. When I gotta show an mcp how to change the boot order in the bios, you know something isn't right.

Oh yeah. Mike, Remember me sitting in class teaching charles how to do stuff with his Suse
linux on his lappy? haha.


20k what a scam. CT in chesapeake is definately not worth it.


Don

I have been a student at ComputerTraining.com in Southfield, MI for about four months now. I've finished my MCSA and am working on my MCSE. I just got a job in IT making about 40k with nothing but my certification and the hands-on experience I received in the class. I received assistance preparing my resume and preparing myself for interviews from my instructor and computertraining.com career services personnel. When can I expect the scam to begin?

There are people in my class who I'm sure will complain about it eventually. They are the ones who don't try. They came into the class expecting the instructor to spoon feed everything to them in a way a child could understand. That's not even possible. I have a feeling that this is where the people complaining on the internet came from as well.

I have to be honest about my experience at computertraining.com. My instructor is very helpful and knowledgeable. The staff has been very supportive. The people there are very friendly. Most importantly, I've learned and gained a lot from the class. They also have all the free coffee you can drink.

I really don't think I'm going to be scammed here. The people who complain are the idiots who just don't know anything about computers. Those people will drop out and lose money... just like at universities.

In response to this RIP-OFF report I am a former student(victom) of Computertraining.com. I experienced the same types of practices at the Wilmington, DE school. My class was scheduled to start on April 1st 2003, but I recieved a phone call telling me that due to scheduling conflicts class wasn't starting until April 8th. Computertraining.com needed more time to fill the class.

I went to training coordinator after about 3 weeks asking him what the procedure was for withdrawling. He advised me to discuss this matter with the instructor. About a week later after finally getting some free time with the instructor we sat down and I asked him about with drawling. He advised me to give the class 4 or 5 more weeks to make a fair decision. Of course thinking that this is a 6 month course I figured I would take his advise because I thought I would still be intitled to a refund if I withdrew before the 3 month point. What I didn't realize at the time was that Computertraining.com says the class is actually 2 parts, 4 months MCSE training and 2 months CISCO training. So taking the instructors advise and staying 4 or 5 more weeks took me past the halfway point of 8 weeks. I am sure it just worked out that way.

When I was considering the school the training coordinator(salesman) informed me that Computertraining.com was the best choice because their instructors didn't work anywhere else and were availiable 24/7. Most other schools employed part-time instructors which sacrificed the quality of education. Two weeks into the course my instructor shows up at my place of employment working under contract in the IT department.

My instructor would also spend 90 to 120 minutes a week of class time selling and recruiting new students. Potential students would come in for orientation and sit in on a lecture at the begining of class then the instuctor would give the class a 10 minute break so he could sell the program to the potential students who hadn't paid for his time while the paying students sat and waited for somtimes up to 45 minutes at a time. This is my time that I paid for and this is a breach of contract for failing to fulfill the amount of time promised.

I am also in contact with the Delaware department of education as well as the attorney generals office. I have filed a RIP-OFF report of my own but wanted to make a comments regarding this report.