- Report: #1304760
Complaint Review: CEC NY - Famingdale New York
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CEC NY
*** ***** ** Famingdale, 11735 New York, USA
Web:
www.selfdiscover.org
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CEC NY Refused to speak with me or issue a refund Famingdale New York
Last year I attended all 3 workshops at CEC NY. During my third workshop, leadership journey, I was under immense pressure to "enrol" others - similar to a ponzi scheme. I eagerly enrolled my parents for both the first (Discovery) and the second (Transformation) workshop, paying all money up front.
My parents were travelling from London, UK for the events and were unable to attend Discovery the first time around. Before they departed for the first course, I was told that they had to do Transformation that time, in 3 weeks, otherwise they would lose all of their money. I expressed that this would not be possible, due to not being able to take off so much time from their work schedules all at once, and then didn't hear more of the matter.
My parents were told at their Discovery workshop that there would be no refunds nor would they be able to attend the next Transformation. I tried to contact the owner, Haleh Khalil. I knew her due to the fact that I had done all 3 workshops and was told by others that she would not speak to me. To date, Haleh has not spoken, nor messaged me directly. I am told by other people that she is not willing to allow my parents to attend future trainings and will not give me a penny back. I have asked what the process is for getting a refund, minus my non-refundable deposit, and have been told that there is "no process".
Onto the trainings - Leadership Journey - the third training - is a complete scam. It consists of 3 months of intense pressure to sell (called "enrol") others into the program. Two of the three weekends of the program that are meant to be "training" consist predominantly of having to make phone calls (from your own phones) to people who you know to try and sign them up. It is designed to psychologically manipulate you, with peer pressure, to "enrol" people. It is sold as "making a stand for people" and "standing for transformation in their lives". There are multiple types of psychological manipulation techniques that are used to get you to "enrol" as many people as you can. In addition to the two weekends of forced phone calls, we were also required to make a daily phone call to "enrol" people. Little awards were given when someone "enrolled" someone and at every weekly meeting (which we had to find our own location for) we had a recap of who had "enrolled" that week and publicly declare how many people we had personally signed up. I essentially paid to be an unpaid saleswoman!
The entire Leadership Journey culminated in a "third weekend" - a weekend that you're not actually allowed to attend unless you had signed another person up! So to re-state - unless we weren't able to sign up someone, we were not allowed to finish a course that we had actually paid to sign up for!
During the other trainings while I was doing my Leadership Journey, we were required to be "in service". This meant that we had to be around the conference center while the other trainings were going on. It involved manning the doors, cleaning up afterwards and setting up in the morning. We were not only paying to be salespeople, we were also paying to be cleaners! Our meetings were also held at the center during trainings, where we were strategically sent in to convince the people who we signed up for the first training to then sign up for the second training!
Through all of this, Haleh, the owner, was continuously ungrateful for everything, on occasion coming in and shouting at fellow students because the people they has signed up were being "too difficult". The fact that after personally spending $10,000 and "enrolling" others to the tune of another $20,000, this woman refuses to even speak to me is laughable.
The first and second trainings (Discovery and Transformation) were average - very simillar in quaity to other such courses around - however I would never, ever, ever, recommend anyone to go to CEC NY. The third training (Leadership Journey) is a scam that I wish I had never signed up for and the woman who runs the company has no ethics, which is ironic as her entire company is based on "fulfilling your potential". Perhaps she should lead by example, but for the time being, she has ripped me off to the tune of $4000!
