I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994 into a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of Aivation Electronics. With an extensive education and training for over four years, I felt confident and ready to continue my education and understanding of electronics. It just so happened that a co-worker of mine was enrolled in Cleveland Institute of Technology (CIE) which sparked my interest.
At the time, he had neither positive nor negative feedback since he had just enrolled in the course. I figured I would give it a shot and enrolled in 1999. Unfortunately shortly after enrolling, I was Temporarily Assigned Duty (TAD) elsewhere for 90 days. Throughhout this time I was unable to receive my course material since it was delivered to my house and returned due to my absence.
When I returned back to my duty station, I was discouraged to see the CIE statement reporting that I was two months past due on my payments. I contacted CIE to explain that I had not received my material due to my TAD trip and was unable to complete any coursework. I agreed to bring my payments up to date and catch up on the assignments when I received the material.
A month went by and I still had not received the material, so when I contacted CIE to find out where it was, they informed me that I needed to send more money to have it shipped out since it was my fault that I was not available to receive it the first time. At that point, I informed them that I was withdrwing from the course due to their lack of willingness to work with me and my unpredictable military schedule.
I wrote them a letter explaining my situation, my disenrollment, and my dissatisfaction with them. Months later I received a bill for the full course demanding payment in full. When CIE was contacted, they refused to acknowledge my dissenrollment and insisted that I owed more money than if I had completed the course. Adding insult to injury, I had never received the additional courseware after the first installment.
Later on I spoke with a collection agency about CIE and they flat out told me that CIE targets service members' vulnerability and that there is nothing I can do about it. It is companies like CIE that makes hard working americans want to vomit that they would take advantage of U.S. Servicemembers all for the sake of the dollar. Is there no shame to their scam.
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