Anyone used The Knowledge Academy?

SJNZ

VfM4meplse wrote: »

^^^ A newbie dredging up a thread that's nearly 9 months old to promote a company = total spam.

many of their review are obviously promotional...

Coopdivi

SJNZ wrote: »

Well I'm a verified purchaser who gave The Knowledge Academy a very negative review on Trustpilot under the title "You have been warned..." provided all the relevant information to prove I was a verified purchaser but it does not show up on Trustpilot - want proof? Well The Knowledge Academy replied to my post with glib excuses and promises to sort things out. Why do only positive reviews for The Knowledge Academy only come up with a verified purchaser tag when negative ones do not? This has been reported to Trustpilot. Shady business practice?

Businesses pay Trustpilot £900 per annum for a subscription. In return they are allowed to edit reviews by removing any which they deem to be from unverified customers. Many unscrupulous organisations use this tool to remove poor reviews and add some fake, praiseworthy ones of their own. Trustpilot cannot be trusted so don't waste your breath with them.

robatwork

Coopdivi wrote: »

Businesses pay Trustpilot £900 per annum for a subscription. In return they are allowed to edit reviews by removing any which they deem to be from unverified customers. Many unscrupulous organisations use this tool to remove poor reviews and add some fake, praiseworthy ones of their own. Trustpilot cannot be trusted so don't waste your breath with them.

Interesting - thanks coop.

So you can't trust them and they aren't pilots. Bit of a misnomer then?

Woodsy

Without going into too much detail it took the threat of small claims court for The Knowledge Academy to give me back my deposit (hundreds of pounds) after a verbal agreement between me and their rep that I could cancel the booking the following working day if I wanted to. I'll never use them nor would I recommend them to any of my friends.

SJNZ

Coopdivi wrote: »

Businesses pay Trustpilot £900 per annum for a subscription. In return they are allowed to edit reviews by removing any which they deem to be from unverified customers. Many unscrupulous organisations use this tool to remove poor reviews and add some fake, praiseworthy ones of their own. Trustpilot cannot be trusted so don't waste your breath with them.

***UPDATE***

So every single negative review (up to 23rd May) has been removed from "Trust"pilot while all positive ones remain, even without purchaser verification.

I have had an email from Trustpilot asking me to verify my invoice number again - but I already did this when I wrote the first review.

Knowledge Academy doing everything in their power to stop negative reviews, rather than providing a quality service. Any business having to resort to these tactics rather than adding benefit to customers will have a short shelf life IMHO.

dustynet

I was looking around to book some CCNA training for myself and 3 colleagues over a year ago. When I came across The Knowledge Academy offering ridiculously cheap pricing I thought it was too good to be true. I rang up head office and spoke to the head of technical training in October 2013 to discuss the content of the course, the cost of course and my questions as to how they can afford to run the course at less than half the price of their competors. After a lengthy conversation and having been "reassured" that the training being delivered was comparable in every way to that being delivered by the likes of QA based in Manchester, I booked the course.
The bookings were made and timings arranged to be completed within 3 months leading up to Christmas at the Liverpool venue.


As each course drew close we were called advising that the course had been cancelled to to lack of numbers but we could be moved to a course still running in Manchester or postpone until another date. This happened for all bookings made for the Liverpool venue, including those rescheduled repeatedly through the new year into the summer. It transpires that they pretty much to not train out of Liverpool.


After waiting a year for a Liverpool date, I decided to attend the Manchester venue as did my Colleagues before me.


I was dubious about the training even before attending as the feedback from colleagues who had already attended in Manchester previously had been quite vocal with their feedback advising that TheKnowledgeAcademy allow technical courses such as the CCNA to be attended by pretty much anyone with absolutely no technical background what so ever. Understandably this impacts the progress of students who attend this training expecting to cover all of the subject matter, something which is clearly stated on their website.


The CCNA being offered as a 5 day course, consists of 2 "courses" the ICND1 and ICND2. Each of these courses is a week long course. TKA as well as other agencies offer the "Accelerated CCNA" as a week long course where it is expected that you attend the course with existing networking knowledge, start early, work late, study hard and "should" cover all of the topics.


An example of the pace of this training I and my colleagues attended is as follows:


Colleagues attended with a competent trainer who had relevant industry experience. The course had a couple of completely unskilled attendees and managed to cover the 14 modules ofICND1 and 2 modules of the 7 required on ICND2.


I attended with a trainer who had absolutely no knowledge what so ever of the subject matter, but was clearly an experienced trainer. All other attendees of this course had no networking background at all. During the first day it was miserably apparent that the trainer struggled with a language barrier, struggled with delivering the technical content of the course (OSI Reference Model and Classic IP Address Classes) as well as making racially inappropriate comments during the opening 15 minutes of the first day.


Needless to say, every delegate on that course was ringing up TKA from lunchtime onwards with complaints relating to every aspect of the training, from the trainer to the quality of training, the complete apparent lack of knowledge on this subject matter, the "language barrier" which was being used several times each hour as an excuse for this appalling training delivery.


The Knowledge Academy took calls at least 3 times every day from every delegate for 4 full days (over 60 calls of complaint in total)


Finally on the Thursday afternoon, the trainer announced that the training was cancelled for the remainder of the day and we were to go home. We were advised that TKA would contact us directly before 5pm that day.


TKA never contacted us.


We had to contact TKA on every occasion in order to progress this.

We were emailed on the Thursday evening to be advised that the course was indeed cancelled and not to attend on the Friday. An investigation was to be completed and we would be updated in due course.


2 weeks went by without any update so more calls were made, and again messages left which were never returned, just the same as during the course.


I did receive an email 3 weeks since the course which advised that I would be offered an alternative training course at a point in the future.


I replied to the email from the Quality Control Manager based out of Windsor with alternative dates, never to hear from the company since.


This is still an ongoing issue as my company has paid for the training, yet I am yet to attend a course which in any way resembles competent training.


I am yet to receive any further response from TKA offering or confirming dates on courses as promised.


I have passed this to our legal team to investigate further, who will be picking this up in due course.


I am in the process of booking training with our regular training provider QA.COM where I have attended many training courses over the years and never once had a single issue to raise. They even provide Parking Vouchers which cover most of the cost of parking.


I am in no way associated with QA.COM, Im simply a huge fan of businesses that do what they do, very well.


In Summary, I wouldn't touch The Knowledge Academy with lepers fallen appendage.


Sincerely
Dusty

Saphire23

Lol this, to the previous poster, can see you a mile off!!!
Another QA representative.

lockd0wn

Can't really speak for any of their other courses, but I did PRINCE2 foundation and practitioner with them at Manchester last August and it was a good course, the tutor really brought the material to life and I passed with a good score. Thinking of doing ITIL foundation with them later this year. :cool:

dotdash79

I used the Knowledge Academy last week for a BCS BA training course and it was very good. I booked the Friday before the course started and managed to get the price down a little. I would use them for another course.

Zaheer

I was interested in studying Oracle DBA and searched these guys on the net. Initially seemed okay and decided to take up the program through them. My state wasnt offering this program hence had to travel to another (Perth). The travel didnt bother me much as long as I would achieve a positive outcome. Left work for a week stayed in a motel and then disaster. The course content was not taught in the program. They didnt have proper resources to teach the Program. ORACLE DBA requires Practical implementation but after wasting 3 days I figured out that this was a total waste of time, effort and money. I requested for a refund and they refused. I then had a purchase another Air ticket and fly back home early. Withdrew from the program and now have logged a complaint and will make sure that these guys pay me back my full fees and the cost of additional ticket I purchased. Be careful when you deal with the Knowledge Academy.