Complaint Review: Superior Auto Institute

I signed up for the training also and found it to not be inline with the discription. The instructor leaves you for extended periods of time to answer phone calls and talk to people. You will be left for a extended time with some random tools and a body panel. I did not learn anything thats why I terminated the class early. I am now asking for a full refund. They are threatning me with a lawsuit if I dont remove my refund request on paypal. Please be careful with these guys and make sure you dont get robbed. 

1) We at SAI have never trained anyone named 'Ruben from New Mexico'.

2) The so-called 'trainee' lists our address as Laguna Beach- we moved our headquaerters to a world class facility over 3 years ago in another city- but if someone never attended our training and only looked at our website they might think we still existed in Laguna Beach..  nice try, fake. I highly doubt someone would come file a report 3 years after the fact.

3) The 'trainee' states people's names that don't even work for us (Rich/Marco? lol)- some not for over 7 years. Fake.

4)We have 100's of video testimonials that can be seen at youtube.com/user/pdrtrainingschool

Who would leave a testimonial to get their money back?  lol. Fake.

I'm going to call this person out right here, right now. Your real name, date you trained and which one of our locations. We also take pictures with all of our students- post up your pic with me and prove you are legit.

Won't happen, because this is a fake report. More than likely posted by a competitor who has dozens of legit reports/complaints. Do your research and you will see the dozens of complaints I am referencing. 

We have an impeccable online reputation and track record. As always, I'm available for any questions 1-888-992-3464.

And all and I mean ALL of our students have agreed to be contacted as a reference.

Need references? Want students in class this week? Last Week? Any time? Just call or come by.

++++++++++++++++++

Here is this months promotion: One Week PDR Training: $1995

Add PDR Tools and Accessories to the One Week Training Program: only $2495 Total.

Call 1-888-992-3464 for details.

Brian Jump

SUPERIOR AUTO INSTITUTE

888-992-3464

I used to do marketing and sales work for Superior Auto Institute and did so for a period of about 18 months off and on. I was actually the one who signed Ruben up along with another employee from his dealership. Ruben was already a PDR tech and signed up for an advanced PDR course and Wheel Repair, his coworker signed up for the standard PDR 80 course and Wheel Repair as well. If this was a legitimate complaint the poster would have known these details and surely mentioned them. Whomever posted this obviously got their tidbits of information from watching Rubens testimonial video that I oversaw when I was there.

The poster mentions my name as well as Marco, neither of us were or are trainers so to say that we were busy working on our clients (doing repairs) and not teaching is another glaring indication that this is complete fabrication and most likely done by a competitor. In my 18 months of being in the office, talking to students and helping with sales I know of only 1 competitor that resorted to openly bashing all of his competition and that was Todd, the owner of Ding King. I would frequently get calls from prospective students asking me about Ding King and telling me that Todd was openly bashing not only Superior but other schools as well. Needless to say this turned most of them away from Ding King. Todd from what I can see is his own worst enemy. I can't speak to his training or whom he employs to do his training but when I was at Superior we did have a couple of his former students inquire about training with us.

The testimonials are not mandatory nor are students compensated for making a testimonial. Students are free to say whatever it is they like and are given privacy in which to record their testimonial. The only prompting we ever gave a student was to state their name, where they were from and why they chose to train at Superior and this is done for consistency and to help put the student at ease before talking about his or her experience. Not all students opt to do testimonials but I would say about 80% did so provided there was enough time on their last day of training. I set up the computer for Ruben and his coworker to do their testimonials and at no time was compensation or a partial refund discussed. Both Ruben and his coworker left happy with the training and at no time did either express any dissatisfaction in either program. I followed up with Ruben after training and again he thanked me for the positive experience and was appreciative of all he had learned. I also had to have a spray gun shipped out to them which I had drop-shipped to the dealership and a custom LED PDR Light which we made.

To be completely fair in my time at Superior I recall only 1 student with a complaint about the school and that wasn't lodged until after he had been home for several weeks. At no time during his training did he make mention of any issues nor did his training logs reflect any dissatisfaction, in fact he was an above average student in ability. I do recall a couple of younger students that came to California to train and seemed to be more interested in the night life than in training and believe me they paid for it on training days and probably didn't get as much from the program as they could have as a result. If you want to learn PDR I don't suggest training with that kind of an attitude as the days can be long and you will feel it if you're not well rested and serious about learning.

I have read through the other reviews I wanted to point out some additional inaccuracies:

"Only 1 location" - I personally set up training in several other states, NY, Florida, Ohio and other locations. Superior has full time trainers in other states and also trainers that travel to do on-site training at dealerships and collision shops. We utilized dealerships, collision shops and other venues for training to allow each student to practice on as many vehicle types as possible and to give them as much variation as possible in access types of metal and thicknesses.

"Inferior tools" - All the Superior branded tools are made locally here in California and they use 303/304 stainless steel, I know because I placed the material orders at times when things got busy. All tools come with a lifetime warranty and in my 18 months there I only recall one or two customers asking for a replacement tool. Since they didn't require the customer send in the old tool it's impossible to tell if it was from misuse or if there was a defect in the metal. Customer service like that is hard to find these days. These are not inferior tools from China like other companies and some schools sell.

"Website creation" - While we were more than capable of setting up websites for students it was never part of the package or included with training. There is a marketing portion of the program and take aways as well but a website was never included in any package when I was there nor did any students have a website created by us in that time. I certainly can't imagine them outsourcing that especially at the prices mentioned when it would be far easier and more profitable to do in house.

In reading all of the negative reviews on here it is more than apparent to me that these are most likely all coming from the same person attempting to wage a negative publicity campaign in order to benefit financially by discrediting the competition. Sadly Ripoff Report seemingly condones this sort of thing and the only recourse a business has other than a rebuttal is to spend $2,000 as a "filing fee" to have an arbitrator look into it. The report is then noted with the arbitrators findings but not removed. If this isn't outright extortion I don't know what is.

I wasn't asked to write this response nor am I being compensated in any way, I actually only came across these reviews when searching for another company that I am doing business with. I got sidetracked and just started entering company names of places that I have done business with or worked with over the years when I came across all these recent complaints. Initially I wondered what had happened and why there were so many complaints but after reading through them as I have said, it was apparent they are fake. I couldn't sit back and be party to a business and family potentially being destroyed by outright lies and fake testimonials. Also, seeing my name mentioned and in the capacity of a trainer only added to my desire to set the record straight.

I didn't part ways amicably with Superior but that had nothing to do with the school itself or the training, which in my opinion is extremely thorough and above and beyond what other schools teach. I know this because I went to other schools and enrolled in their training in order to see what they taught so that I could be as informed and as educated as possible in order to sell and market Superiors training programs. Again while I did train in PDR to better understand it and to learn what others taught, I myself never taught or performed PDR.

As an aside, I used to use Ripoff Report when doing research on any given company but it has become more than apparent all they are out to do is list as many complaints as possible in order to drive search engine traffic for the sole purpose of generating ad revenue. Ripoff Report doesn't remove fake or fraudulent reviews because by doing so they lose content. Content and business names are how they get indexed on search engines which leads to more traffic and ad revenue. To me this practice is just as reprehensible as those who are utilizing the site to harm their competition. Please don't take my word for it, do a Google search and see for yourselves.