Complaint Review: Career Transition Centers - Phoenix Arizona

Freedom of speech is a unique and precious privilege purchased by our forefathers with their sacrifices. But somewhere between the freedom to say what we want and the desire to express oneself is the responsibility to maintain at least a modicum of truth and verifiable fact. In rebuttal, starting with Stephen's title, he claims misleading advertising / deseptive [sic] practices. If you read his claims, there is no mention of anything resembling misleading advertising. Actually, CTC's ad states: Our professional staff has extensive experience marketing mid- & senior- managers and executives. Why not let the Executive Career Specialists at Career Transition Centers run interference for you? Stephen's counselor has been a career counselor at CTC for over 10 years; the other two counselors have been on my staff working with mid and senior level executives for 8 years and 7 years, respectively. In sum, we have serviced approximately 2,200 clients over the 15 years CTC has been in business. We believe that constitutes extensive experience. Deseptive [sic] practices Stephen met with my staff for a total of 2-1/2 hours over two days before he signed a written contract for services. The form of contract is approved by the State of Arizona as part of CTC's license to do business. The contract is all in 12-point font - not a single word in fine print. Every item and service is described in simple English - no legalese. The contract describes 11 areas of service and identifies the price for each. Stephen read every word of the contract before he signed it and he took a copy home with him. He made a down payment and promised to pay the balance in payments. Five days later, he had a 5-hour, one-on-one session with his career counselor in which Stephen described his background and goals, and his counselor set out the career pursuit program that had been personally designed for Stephen. His career pursuit campaign went forward for the next six weeks. After his first payment was past due, Stephen wrote a letter in which he starts out acknowledging [quoting from his letter] that he received valuable services and that he would whole-heartedly recommend CTC. Again in the last paragraph of his letter, Stephen wrote I would have no hesitation in recommending your firm... In this letter, he does admit that he recently signed a contract with another [his fourth] career marketing firm here in Phoenix and therefore wanted to break his contract with CTC and get his money back. He does not acknowledge that a great deal of professional time and effort invested on his behalf over the previous six weeks. This was documented to him in my letter of October 24, a copy of which was provided to the Arizona Attorney General's Office responding to Stephen's complaint. The A.G.'s Office dismissed Stephen's complaint. To quickly rebut Stephen's items: 1. CTC uses five separate databases for our clients' career campaigns, in addition to maintaining networking contacts with former clients as well as helping the new client cultivate his own effective network of friends and acquaintances. 2. Stephen was offered the opportunity to transfer to another career counselor, but he declined. 3. The Job Book reflects jobs which predominantly previous clients have asked us to send over resumes for; it also is a source for networking contacts. Obviously we don't permit everyone who walks in the door have access to it because our former clients and networking partners would be inundated and cease to want to work with us. 4. Stephen attended three of the seven career pursuit seminars and as to each one, he indicated on questionnaires that he judged the material in each was informative, helpful to his career pursuit program and the written hand-outs were well organized and contributed to the value of the seminar. 5. The claim of canned services is wholly fabricated. No two career campaigns are the same: it is completely up to the client how much of each service he/she wants to use. Some clients like to participate in several role-play video-taped interview training sessions. Here the counselor role-plays an interviewer and, with a video camera on the client, conducts various versions of interviews for about 30 minutes. For the next 60 minutes or so, the counselor plays the video tape back and, with the client, coaches on body language, unconscious mannerisms, etc. In addition if necessary, he facilitates the development of responsive techniques to deal with tough questions (such as gaps in employment or being fired from a position - that sort of thing). Some clients want to CTC to send out letters on 15 advertised jobs every week for them. Some clients want to attend (or view on video tape) the seminars multiple times. Some clients require five or six different versions of their resumes and cover letters. Some clients want to meet with their counselor for an hour or more every week to discuss advertised jobs, interview progress, etc. Etc., etc. I didn't understand Stephen's complaining that he received a detailed and organized response to his general complaints. It is my policy that if a client expresses concerns, I make strong and immediate efforts to look into them, see what happened / is happening, and look for solutions. I don't think that is a negative thing. On the contrary, I am quite sure that had I instead responded to Stephen with sweeping generalities, he would have complained about that. Stephen's claim that CTC lacks integrity is disingenuous he's the guy who signed a written contract, obtained the services, when he couldn't make his payments, files baseless complaints and then further complains when his complaints are dismissed. As to his claim that CTC lacks compassion: Stephen's rip off report completely omits the part where CTC out of a spirit of compromise on Oct. 24th we offered him his choice of three options: (1) to put his campaign and payments on hold with no loss of time while he investigates the 4th career management firm's program; or (2) CTC would restructure Stephen's payments and reassign his campaign to a new counselor of his own choosing; or (3) CTC would cancel all services under his contract, write off all the money he owes CTC ($2,000.00), and CTC would not report his late payments, nor the write-off to any credit reporting agency, thus preserving Stephen's credit rating. Stephen's response to this offer was to file his Rip Off Report.

Freedom of speech is a unique and precious privilege purchased by our forefathers with their sacrifices. But somewhere between the freedom to say what we want and the desire to express oneself is the responsibility to maintain at least a modicum of truth and verifiable fact. In rebuttal, starting with Stephen's title, he claims misleading advertising / deseptive [sic] practices. If you read his claims, there is no mention of anything resembling misleading advertising. Actually, CTC's ad states: Our professional staff has extensive experience marketing mid- & senior- managers and executives. Why not let the Executive Career Specialists at Career Transition Centers run interference for you? Stephen's counselor has been a career counselor at CTC for over 10 years; the other two counselors have been on my staff working with mid and senior level executives for 8 years and 7 years, respectively. In sum, we have serviced approximately 2,200 clients over the 15 years CTC has been in business. We believe that constitutes extensive experience. Deseptive [sic] practices Stephen met with my staff for a total of 2-1/2 hours over two days before he signed a written contract for services. The form of contract is approved by the State of Arizona as part of CTC's license to do business. The contract is all in 12-point font - not a single word in fine print. Every item and service is described in simple English - no legalese. The contract describes 11 areas of service and identifies the price for each. Stephen read every word of the contract before he signed it and he took a copy home with him. He made a down payment and promised to pay the balance in payments. Five days later, he had a 5-hour, one-on-one session with his career counselor in which Stephen described his background and goals, and his counselor set out the career pursuit program that had been personally designed for Stephen. His career pursuit campaign went forward for the next six weeks. After his first payment was past due, Stephen wrote a letter in which he starts out acknowledging [quoting from his letter] that he received valuable services and that he would whole-heartedly recommend CTC. Again in the last paragraph of his letter, Stephen wrote I would have no hesitation in recommending your firm... In this letter, he does admit that he recently signed a contract with another [his fourth] career marketing firm here in Phoenix and therefore wanted to break his contract with CTC and get his money back. He does not acknowledge that a great deal of professional time and effort invested on his behalf over the previous six weeks. This was documented to him in my letter of October 24, a copy of which was provided to the Arizona Attorney General's Office responding to Stephen's complaint. The A.G.'s Office dismissed Stephen's complaint. To quickly rebut Stephen's items: 1. CTC uses five separate databases for our clients' career campaigns, in addition to maintaining networking contacts with former clients as well as helping the new client cultivate his own effective network of friends and acquaintances. 2. Stephen was offered the opportunity to transfer to another career counselor, but he declined. 3. The Job Book reflects jobs which predominantly previous clients have asked us to send over resumes for; it also is a source for networking contacts. Obviously we don't permit everyone who walks in the door have access to it because our former clients and networking partners would be inundated and cease to want to work with us. 4. Stephen attended three of the seven career pursuit seminars and as to each one, he indicated on questionnaires that he judged the material in each was informative, helpful to his career pursuit program and the written hand-outs were well organized and contributed to the value of the seminar. 5. The claim of canned services is wholly fabricated. No two career campaigns are the same: it is completely up to the client how much of each service he/she wants to use. Some clients like to participate in several role-play video-taped interview training sessions. Here the counselor role-plays an interviewer and, with a video camera on the client, conducts various versions of interviews for about 30 minutes. For the next 60 minutes or so, the counselor plays the video tape back and, with the client, coaches on body language, unconscious mannerisms, etc. In addition if necessary, he facilitates the development of responsive techniques to deal with tough questions (such as gaps in employment or being fired from a position - that sort of thing). Some clients want to CTC to send out letters on 15 advertised jobs every week for them. Some clients want to attend (or view on video tape) the seminars multiple times. Some clients require five or six different versions of their resumes and cover letters. Some clients want to meet with their counselor for an hour or more every week to discuss advertised jobs, interview progress, etc. Etc., etc. I didn't understand Stephen's complaining that he received a detailed and organized response to his general complaints. It is my policy that if a client expresses concerns, I make strong and immediate efforts to look into them, see what happened / is happening, and look for solutions. I don't think that is a negative thing. On the contrary, I am quite sure that had I instead responded to Stephen with sweeping generalities, he would have complained about that. Stephen's claim that CTC lacks integrity is disingenuous he's the guy who signed a written contract, obtained the services, when he couldn't make his payments, files baseless complaints and then further complains when his complaints are dismissed. As to his claim that CTC lacks compassion: Stephen's rip off report completely omits the part where CTC out of a spirit of compromise on Oct. 24th we offered him his choice of three options: (1) to put his campaign and payments on hold with no loss of time while he investigates the 4th career management firm's program; or (2) CTC would restructure Stephen's payments and reassign his campaign to a new counselor of his own choosing; or (3) CTC would cancel all services under his contract, write off all the money he owes CTC ($2,000.00), and CTC would not report his late payments, nor the write-off to any credit reporting agency, thus preserving Stephen's credit rating. Stephen's response to this offer was to file his Rip Off Report.