I had found an advertisement for CBT Direct in a computer magazine, for an offer to try a free trial of one of their computer courses. I went to their website and clicked the link for the free trial course, the link led to an online form. I filled out the form and clicked the submit button on the page. I was expecting to be directed to a webpage full of links for trial courses, but the button only took me back to CBT Directs homepage.
A couple of days later a high pressure salesman called me at work and gave me his sales pitch for CBT Direct's training. He rambled on about how great their company was and all the awards they have received. He told me the Microsoft MCSE training course was $4500, I did not want to spend that kind of money for the course and would continue training on my own. He called back with another offer allowing me to take an unlimited amount of their courses for the next 2 years for the amount of $3000. I had told him several times that I had gone to their website to only try a free trial course. He said that this a one time only offer and that I needed to sign up with them that day.instead of using my credit card he had me go through their loan company GE Money Bank telling me it would be low interest. I was later to find out that was a lie the interest rate is 19% with a $26 fee on every payment.
After signing up for there courses I began to start taking them online. Immediately I began to run into problems I notified their Tech support. I keep my computer update with the latest service packs and critical updates from Microsoft. I ended up having to remove the updates and search for a lower version of Sun Java for their program to run on. I continued to run into problems with their courses which I would have to restart the section of the course to get through it. When ever I have complained there support would say it is a problem with my computer. I am in tech support and do know the difference between a computer problem and a problem with someone's software. The salesman said the courses had real simulations of Microsoft Windows, this was false whenever you right click on the mouse on an object in their windows simulations all you receive is a menu for Macromedia Flash which the program uses to run. If this was a real simulation you would get a menu with the objects properties. There is other training courses out there do give real life Windows XP simulations, CBT Directs do not.
After a year of struggling with this I have asked them for half of the $3000 dollars back but they have refused. They say they are a software company and do not have to give back refunds. David Moogly, another salesman called me from CBT Direct trying to offer me training for two weeks to receive my MCSE certification. I refused this and just want my money back. He told me that I could not receive any money back because it was passed the 120 day period. This was another lie their warranty is only to reimburse their students the amount of money spent on a certification test (about $125) if they failed within 120 days of taking their course. David Moogly was impossible to talk to he kept rambling on about how great CBT Direct is, when I had told him that my boss had bought courses for the IT department for $ that were far superior to what they were offering, he just laughed and told me I had no idea what I was talking about.
This was a really stupid move to trust these people and to give them my money. All I really want is $1500 dollars back for the year of not taking their course.
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