National Broadcasters Training Network or BTN is one of the online radio schools - broadcasting schools, and they told me that their course was "hands on" radio training. They also said they "placed 90% of their students into paid, on air positions." My rep there was Casey O'Brien who has worked at several TV and radio stations, so I trusted him and I paid $4,450 to BTN and Tom Mansfield for the course.
When I first started "training" at the radio station, I was shocked to find out I was not allowed to even touch the equipment. That was pretty bad, so I called to complain. But Tom Mansfield - owner of Broadcasters Training Network - said not to worry they would still give me job placement with a 90% chance to find me a job. After six months I finished the all the radio training - radio school written work from their 15 year old workbook, So I started e-mailing and calling for job placement - but NOTHING HAPPENED. There was zero help. They didn't care. I left messages over and over, but Tom Mansfield or Andee Skjonsberg or nobody at BTN would ever call me back. A couple times Tom Mansfield or Andee Skjonsberg answered the phone live. I complained I had never received "hands on" radio training as they promised. Tom Mansfield actually had the nerve to suggest I pay somebody else to teach me how to work a radio board. I asked about the 90% job placement assistance, and he said they didn't actually find me a job or give me any leads or tips on jobs, but I had to send out hundreds of tapes and CDs. It was obvious that after they had my money they didn't care what happened.
So after sending out 100 CDs to radio stations in big and small towns, and having no luck at all finding a job, about a year later I got a call out of the blue from Casey O'Brien who was my rep before at BTN. He said he had left the company because they were ripping people off with false claims of job placement. He said BTN's claim of "90-95% Placement into paid, on-air positions" - what BTN claimed was number one of all broadcasting schools - and was the #1 reason people pay BTN's $4,450 tuition - was a complete fraud. He said that roughly 4%, four percent actually get jobs, no different than any other radio school - probably a bit less than most radio schools. He said that on-air jobs are extremely competitive, and that radio was a shrinking industry anyway - shrinking fast. BTN was simply putting dreams in people's minds by saying 90% of students make it on the air so they could get their money. He felt badly, so he helped me complain to the Better Business Bureau.
Tom Mansfield of the National Broadcasters Training Network responded to the BBB and I quote, "BTN stands by its advertised job placement statistics."
And THEN he had the nerve to say that because i work in my family's construction company, that I was "employed, " so BTN could "count me as a job placement." Can you believe that? Tom Mansfield and BTN - Colleen Fletcher and Andee Skjonsberg and Casey O'Brien all lied to me.
At least Casey has tried to make things right - he is helping me file a small-claims case in Brooklyn to get my money back now, February... He is suing BTN himself to recoup the moving expenses he paid. Casey also said he will add his own complaint to complaint soon, and he will include pictures of the documents I mention here so you can see them.
I still cannot believe he said that because I was working for my family's construction business that BTN - a RADIO school - could count me as a job placement. He is the biggest liar I've ever met.
DON'T BELIEVE BTN... There are other radio schools out there, broadcasting schools with solid track records that don't lie.
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