Advent Training

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Hi All,

I sympathise with the guys, and gals that have taken out any training with Advent and now lost out to their inability to produce what they promised.

I agree 100% with the comments in several of the forums. Parting with £5000+ for a course over a long period of time is naive and should always be done with caution (however I know what they are like especially pressure selling). Many people have now lost out, once again, giving TP's a poor name.

I was once given the opportunity to get into IT and embraced it with both hands. I cannot and will not see people who have had their hard earned cash taken from them with nothing to show at the end it. Therefore I propose to run a FREE, yes, FREE M6292 course (Installing and Configuring Windows 7 Client) over the weekend of 13/14 Feb for those who have lost out during because of an incompetent TP.

There are some buts:

Must be able to get to Lichfield in Staffordshire
Be prepared to work early until late (9am to around 6.30pm)
Have a sense of humour
First come first served (9 places max (we dont cram students in!))

All courseware included (costing EZE Training some £89 per delegate!!!)

To secure a place email [email protected]

See not all TP's are bad.

Gareth Jones
Chief Instructor

 

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Gareth - that is a great offer. Thanks for posting it here!

Sorry to read the posts of people loosing lots of money. If you have financed it (and by that I mean not used a cheque of visa debit) you may have some protection due to the financing laws - so start doing your homework by finding the agreement you signed.

Good luck.

 

Signed up. Its way better than grieving right now esp with little one on her way. Cheer up lads and gals... "only" 5k lost...

 

Nice one Gareth.

 

Wow, it's amazing how many new members appear in times of personal crisis!

Sorry guys and girls, but these things happen.

It's unlikely you'll be able to do anything until an insolvency practitioner or administrator gets involved.
Then you will get a letter explaining what to do next.

Unfortunately, as has been mentioned already, a customer who is owed £xk is unlikely to get any joy compared to other creditors who are owed £xxxk.

However, it will depend on how you paid for your course.
If you paid by cheque or bag of cash, then I'm afraid you're in trouble.

If you are paying by installments, credit card or bank loan, then you may be able to recover something.
Contact the person who funded your course, but as I said, you may not be able to do anything until you get your official creditor's letter.

 

Would you accept 10/15/20pack as a thank you?

 

I'm in the same boat... but I've paid the Barclaycard loan but not yet even taken the first exam... will keep an eye on this post in the hope that some loophole is found for compensation... I am absolutely gutted!

 

I of course cannot accept bribes however I prefer white envolopes

If anyone wants to make a contribution then I think a donation to Help for Heroes would be great.

Gareth

 

Somebody shoot me... or send me to the Advent headquarters with loads of C4 attached to me...

I am going to read through my entire agreement with Barclays tonight and see where I stand with this

I don't feel like I have any energy left to rabble on about the reasons behind this , I just feel extremley **** after finding that email, the same one thats been mentioned in this thread.

Luckiy Ive only paid just over £800 of my £5000 so it could be worse for me I guess.

Then it brightens me up a bit to know there are people in this world like Gareth.
Your the man Gareth, thanks m8

My sympathy goes out to anyone in the same or worse situation than me regarding this with Advent

I only hope that I can get my money back for this ****ing course that I should have never taken with a TP in the first place, so stupid of me.
Hopefully having paid Advent through Barclays will give me some protection... hopefully...

 

Did you pay it via a finance agreement and are paying in instalments? If you did, then it may well be worse - the bank are entitled to claim the entire cost of the loan (another thing the TP would have 'forgotten' to tell you). In fact, the customers of the TP are bank creditors - your argument on reclaiming whatever money you are owed will fall with the TP's administrators - the bank's argument will be with you.

It works something like this:

You sign up for a course with the TP
The TP advises you to pay the cost of the course with a finance agreement through a bank
The bank pays the TP the total cost of your course up front, then starts collecting your instalments (making profit on the interest)
The TP goes bust, and administrators come in to sort out the mess
You claim that you have paid out for a course that hasn't been provided, the administrator usually ends up paying you back a fraction of what the total outlay was (something like a penny in the pound)
The bank (who has already paid out the full sum of your course to the TP, remember) will continue to ask you (quite correctly) to pay the instalments that are due to them - irrespective of whether you have received the training you were promised
The people behind the TP simply start up shop somewhere else across town and repeat the same trick again for a couple of years before experiencing further 'financial difficulties'.
Repeat ad infinitum

Get yourself down to the CAB as soon as possible and explain your situation - the bank won't give a toss that the TP have gone out of business - your finance agreement is with them, not Advent. Paying the TP through Advent gives you zero protection. At least the CAB will be able to advise you about what to do if/when the letters start coming in from Barclays.

Good luck.

 

This really depends on the relationship between the TP and loan provider.
One thing companies do to increase sales is partner with a finance outlet (opposed to extorting Visa cards and pensions in the TP world!). Increasing revenue means lending to more people (or charge more for your product). More sales results in lending to people who wouldn't normally be eligible for finance at a reasonable rate. So what happens? In some cases - not all so check! The lender pays (in this case) the TP their purchase price - outright. They charge a higher than average rate of interest for increased risk on their behalf on the basis that a default (from the student) results in a reclaim from the supplier (TP in this case) - without delay; this was a condition of the loan/partnership.

After the lender has recuperated their funds, will they chase the (in this case) student? Maybe, maybe not. Although in the case of this thread, the lenders want paying - and they don't care who it is!

This is the very reason for collapse of the mainstream TP I worked for, although the method is being used (successfully) by many companies to increase "turnover".

Good luck!

boyce (training acca in former life)

 

Aha! The only thing which did lure me into the deal was a 0% interest free account so I'm not paying any interest what so ever over the whole period... none the less Ive still been screwed over big time...
I don't care how long its going to take me! I will find a way around this and get my money back!

Wish me good luck!... because I'm going to need it... alot of it!

 

I notice this morning that Advent's website:

http://www.adventtraining.co.uk/

Is showing the insolvency message publicly in the graphic banner at the top.

As a not to some of the students above, if you're ready for your exams, you can still book them through any VUE or prometric test centre. You will have to pay the £100 odd quid though.

Hopefully most of the students have received all their training materials, because then at least they can continue and only have to pay for the exam fees again. I've always avoided training provders that charge up-front for exam fees and don't send me everything on day one. Then, at least you're protected no matter what happens - the most you can lose is the support.

My sympathies to anyone caught by these guys... But don't give up on your dreams of training.

 

Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientProgram.asp

VUE: http://www6.pearsonvue.com/

Use these sites to search for the nearest test centre for you.

From these site the exams are around £114 each.

 

I have stumbled across this very informative response on this different forum, It also has a telephone number there for the BBC Birmingham center!! I'm ringing them right now!

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.u...nt-training-unable-provide-2.html#post2731966

 

Email sent. As I only live 10 minutes walk away from you guys I probably shouldn't let this slip by, and so if there are any spots free (and you don't mind me hitching a ride) then I will happily attend.

Cheers,

Qs

 

Hello All,

After having read the fall out from Advent imploding I feel that Commsupport have to assist in some manner. I want mirror Gareths offer of free courses for those affected.

I too like Gareth was once given an oppertunity to get into IT dispite not knowing one end of a router from another. Time to pay this forward.

Next week in North London (Finchley) we have 4 places still available on the N+ course. These places will be made available free of charge to ex-Advent students.

We will try to make at least 4 places available on the next 4 N+ courses for affected Advent students across our sites in the UK

Here are the details: contact Anthony on [email protected]. Anthony will contact you with the details we require to verify your authenticity

Cheers

Joe

P.S The offer to buy Advent for £1 and a pack of tabs still stands

 

What are the BBC going to do about it?

It is a real shame - but these things do happen.
I bought a car once from Empress, which was one of these big car supermarket places.
The day after I collected it, they went into administration and locked the gates.
Even people who had paid for cars in full weren't allowed to collect them.
Now that's warped - surely if it's been paid for it's no longer an asset of the company?

But for all of you out there saying 'I'm going to get my money back', good luck to you.

The fact of the matter is, that there is no money - that's why they went bust.

The administrators will sell off what they can, but the highest priority will be to pay off the banks and bills.
Sadly, the gas bill will probably be paid before the Advent staff will, and it's highly unlikely that students will see a penny.

You can't take them to court - there is nobody to take to court. Even if you tried to take the MD to court, it's out of his hands once the administrators come in. And he's got other things on his mind like trying to hang on to his house. And yacht.

 

Looking at that link, there is a post from an advent employee saying that the issue was with Barclays Partner Finance.

If any students have paid by Barclays Partner Finance, BPF will have made some provision for students to continue their training, possibly through another provider.

This may not be quick to put into place, but it's worth talking to Barclays before trying to sue people.

 

Wow, that's two amazing freebies offered to CF members. Thanks!