Complaint Review: The Academy Computer School Florida Networks - Miami Florida

I became an MCSE on my own volition with little help from the Academy ...the school I spent $10,500 on. I had to make the Win 2K labs work outside of the class time because the high turnover of incompetent instructors could not make them work during the class time.

I should have dropped the school after the 4th instructor replacement for a coursework that demands continuity from one teacher and one UNDISTURBED laboratory classroom where other classes don't reformat the drives and blow out the work of the previous night's classes.

I should followed my suspicions once reading their contract that's principle topic dealt with reimbursement vs. time spent within their curriculum... so by the time I realized there was no chance of getting my money's worth... after the 4th instructor in a mere number of weeks... they were into me for thousands, as bound by this contract...Quality of Service or not.

How can a student learning Active Directory, RRAS, IIS, ect amidst the something like 60,000 lines of code of Win 2000, have a chance of evolving within this school when the hard drives we spent hours initializing during class keep having to get redone during our next class?

As a VUE test center when I encountered a computer glitch during the simulation portion of a CCNA exam there was not a qualified person in The Academy's school to confirm the VUE error and I barely missed passing with a score of 820 going into the simulator portion of the exam that I ended up not being able to answer at all and had to retake somewhere else with a qualified person on site.

There are other students who are unhappy with the service. They, too, were made promises that were not kept or just had money stolen from them outright... one guy was coerced into leaving his credit card number with the school until he decided whether or not to attend...he decided not to attend, yet $5000 was charged to the card with no service rendered. Last I knew it was still not refunded and pending lawyer after 6 months of requesting that the Academy do the right thing...

Or how courses were promised and "package deal" charges made... and then the courses were not offered and fair refunds not made? Oh yeah...gotta take into account that "gotcha, you naive sucker" charge!

I was promised (in writing) a Dell computer and received some much cheaper piece meal deal without the quality of warranty Dell offered.

I was promised quality instruction for my Microsoft portion of my package and received instructors that likely had never made the labs work themselves... they certainly could not make them work for us during class.

Then the principle means of enticing me to attend there, thus give them the $10,500, was in this test pass guarantee. The premise is...pass three practice tests and they'll reimburse your test fee in the event that you fail it. They promised me I'd be able to take the practice tests remotely via the internet.... then they changed that a month after attending to have to take them on their site.

The minimum to pass is 80% and I found them to incorrectly grade (score right answers, wrong) much of the A+ practice tests with wrong answers.. so what chance was there to pass a practice test when the grading was fixed... and I have proof.

They told me I could take as many tests per day as I'd like then changed it to one per day with results contingent upon the nastiest secretary I've ever known's attitude getting around to it within 48 hours... she certainly was not the secretary they employed when I first walked in there.

It's easy to understand the high turnover of employees whose morale obviously deflates in a minimal amount of time...when the realization hits that they have a crook for a boss who employs unethical business practices on unsuspecting students!

Sterling

fort lauderdale, Florida
U.S.A.