Mis-sold Home Learning College Course??

GemmaLouise84

Has anyone on here been mis-sold a Home Learning College course?

If so can you let me know if you do and why you feel like that? I have a complaint against them with Trading Standards and they are asking for how many people I know of the more the better the claim can be.

I feel I was mis-sold because of the following:

1. was told I would receive the full adobe software, that will enable me to start straight away after finishing course, and that this is why the course is costing me £1900 - This was not true, its the Student Edition I received and you CANNOT use if once you are no longer a student.
2. was told that they are soo confident you will pass your exams, if you don't you can sit it for free - Not true, this has to be paid for.
3. was told the books are easy to follow and made by experts - books are full of bad grammer and course mistakes.
4. Was told the exams can be sat locally - yet there is not an exam centre near me at all, I have to go over an hours drive just to get there!

The most annoying thing, thats made me very angry is telling student they are getting the full software and thats why its soo expensive! Its all lies lies lies....

Oldernotwiser

I wouldn't bother arguing point 4, an hour's drive away could quite reasonably be described as "local".

GemmaLouise84

mine is only 1hr away, someone else was told the same thing and his is over 228miles from him!!

The_One_Who

In which he should make a complaint. In any case, that is something I would have looked up prior to starting a course. The other points you may have some luck with though.

GemmaLouise84

What I am complaining about is that I was told i was getting full Adobe software worth £1k and this will help set me off on my new career as I will have the software needed and I didn't I got the student edition which costs less and cannot use after course is completed.

He did complain! They were full of excuses!

Oh I have learnt my lesson to do research now.

Thanks for replying.

surfsister

I think point 2 means you get retakes free not the initial exams.

Have you a copy of the contract stating you get adobe free and if so email them with a copy and ask when you get the full monte. Maybe it is once you finish the course?

just a few thoughts which learning place is it?

Lokolo

Erm you can use the student edition after you finish? You just have to be a student to buy the software in the first place. Hence why I am making the most of it by getting all my free copies of Windows 7 and all sorts of microsoft software

farso

Which home learning company did you use & which course?

I must say, an hour isnt a particularly huge distance, and I have books costing £60 a piece and they still have the odd word in the wrong place or full stop missing, even after countless revisions. However, there is a difference between that and not being able to understand the course material.

I must say, I don't have much experience with home learning companies, but as far as I know, a few offer a cooling off period, at least 14 days I think by law (Distance selling) so that you can review the materials and ask for a refund if they aren't what you want.

whitfreak

I think the issue is that a student edition cannot be used for comercial purposes at any point. They might be exactly the same but the licence is different.

So if you went on the course to learn new skills and then want to set up your own design company you cannot technically use the same software without upgrading the licence.

It can be used you just cannot make money of the use.....

Mrs.Choo

HI Gemma, I am gonig through the same situation. I am appalled by the standard of course material. I aslo sent the HLC guy awaywith a creidt agreement in Spet 08 only to be told a month later that they didnt have it..so I signed another....March 09 they handed the course over to debt collectors and now I am in an ongoing saga involving me, hlc, Apex, FSa and my solicitor. To top things off yesterday i went on my ponline banking and they had taken £105 from my bank from a DD mandate that had been signed in 08 surely they should have a validity date on them?

GMelikyan

Gemma,

I have the following complain about the Home Learning College.

I have registered for their JAVA course in January. After reading through the materials (past the cancellation time) I have discovered that training materials for the course are exact copy from the Java self study book available from Internet for £20 and tutoring service provided is very limited.

So I want to cancel the course.

I posted a comment about this on discussion board. They have removed my comment and treated to remove my access to their web site. I posted comment again and my access to the site was removed. I called and told them to restore access or I will block my bank account and they did on condition that I will not post any more comments about this on their discussion forum. So now I am waiting with posting another comment and getting blocked again - to see if this is a breach of contract.

When registering for the course I specifically asked if the value of the course was much more then self-study and was assured that it is. But as it appears even the book has been copied from a self-study guide.

I will be contact US publishers of the book and tell them about the copyright issue.

I am willing to complain about this to both UK and USA trade authorities.

Can you please let me know at garenmelikyan@gmail.com how to proceed?