SmartCertify Direct
Scammed Lied Decieved online

On or about the 1st of March I went to SmartCertify Directs website and requested some information regarding their A and MCSE certification courses.

I was contacted by one of their sales representatives by phone a few days later. Through our phone conversation, I told their sales rep that I was specifically interested in the A and MCSE certifications, he proceeded to go into his used car salesman sales pitch telling me how wonderful their products were and about a recent customer who just landed a $100,000 per year job and then tried to sell me the A and MCSE package.

At that point he tried to get my credit card information, to which I told him that I would have to talk this over with my wife. He then made the offer of the A courseware, the MCSE courseware and 2yrs free access to their online library for $2300 and that after I had passed my exam I would be referred to a job recruiter in my area that would set me up on job interviews.

He then tried to get my credit card number again, and I again told him I would have to talk it over with my wife. He proceeded to tell me how great this deal was and that he didn't know if he could offer something like this for long. So I told him that as soon as my wife got home I would talk to her and call him back.

I called him back with my credit card number and told him to send me everything in writing, he said no problem, but only sent me their product guarantee.

I was emailed my logon ID the next day and proceeded to go to their website to logon. Before you can log in you have to agree to their end user agreement in order to access the site, you have know idea what inside until you agree to their terms. I logged in ok and tried to go and view the A course that was also available to me online as well as the CD I was to be sent.

Upon trying to view their content online my browser could not open any of the courses, so I went into the live chat room to ask why I couldn't access the online content to which the room moderator told me that it's not our problem you will have to contact your computer manufacturer.

I quickly contacted my sales rep and asked him to cancel my order and refund my money (this was my first mistake I should have taken the refund and run!), by state law I had 72 hours to cancel my order. My sale rep called immediately and handed me over to their support manager who apologized and wanted to do what ever it took to get me back online.

I received the first disk (so I had thought) and began to go through the A course. I found the content to be kind of boring and it seemed to me to go off in all different directions, no logical flow. At the end of each segment of the course you have to take a short exam to determine if you can go on to the next segment, I scored above 90 % on all the tests, so I figured I would have no problem passing these exams.

So I decide to take a few practice exams that were available on the web, every test I took I failed! I abandoned SmartCertify's courseware and emailed my sales rep and told him I was unimpressed with the A course and that I hoped that the MCSE course would be better. I then began to study from A books that I still had from a hardware support class that I had taken at a local technical college.

After studying from the books, I began easily passing all the practice exams so I scheduled and passed both my exams. I sent my exam results to my training consultant and according to SmartCertify's product guarantee, if you take and pass any exam proceed over $500 they would send you at no charge the MCP for security design (I never received this)

Before I had taken my A exam I contacted my training consultant and told her to go ahead and send me the MCSE CD I was ready to start it, she replied that I was going to have to access this course online (I was supposed to get it on a CD) I dug through my paperwork and found my invoice and sure enough the MCSE courseware was not on it.

I contacted SmartCertify and told them that I wanted my MCSE on CD and they said I could have it, if I purchased it now. I was stuck, and deciding not to argue about it I started downloading the courses on to my computer which took hours for me to download just a few of them. I contacted SmartCertify again to try to get the MCSE CD to which they refused, I asked them if there was an ftp server where I could do this faster, and they said no I would have to download from the site.

I wanted to check out the MCSE course so I was able to access a few segments of the course online; I determined that these were not any better than the previous A course.By this time I had had enough and contacted SmartCertify for a refund. They refused to give me one and told me if I wanted a refund I was going to have to fail my first MCSE exam twice, which I refused to do,

So I contacted the BBB, the Federal Trade Commission, my State Attorney Generals office, my State Department of Agriculture and filed complaints with all of them. The BBB was the only one to respond, SmartCertify had agreed as a good faith gesture to finally send me the MCSE course that I should have gotten in the first place and refund me $250 of the $2300 I had spent.

I replied to the BBB that I did not accept this gesture and that because I had viewed and completed the entire A course, I would pay the $600 it cost, but wanted a refund of the remaining $1700. The BBB replied back that that was SmartCertify's only offer and that I should think about contacting an attorney.

To sum this up I was told I would get the A, MCSE, and 2yrs of online access for $2300. (I only received the A and online access) I was told that I would be set up with a job recruiter in my area (this never happened) After passing my exam I was to be sent the MCP for security design (again never happened) If I would not have abandoned the A course and studied from books I would have failed both exams. I repeatedly had problems accessing their online content (I'm assuming traffic problems)

I tried repeatedly to contact the BBB in Florida to obtain the complaint history of SmartCertify, but all of my emails go un-responded to, it's like they disappeared, and none of the other agency's have contacted me either. I was lucky enough however, to find quite few people like myself that have had similar or the same experience as I have and I will encourage them to file complaints also (there is strength in numbers)

Kevin
Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Company: SmartCertify Direct
Country: USA
State: Florida
City: Clearwater
Address: 25400 US Hwy 19 N Suite 285
Phone: 8003131630

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