Any opinions on Fraser McKenzie? - advice needed

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You're absolutely right about the Central Library, it's a great place for studying and being away from distractions. Though mind you, sometimes some of the female students in there can be the distraction!

 

hi!!
well all i can say is your lucky u were clever enough not to sign anything... being an 18 yr old girl i wasnt.. i now apparently owe them £500.. which was ment to be around £3500 i told them no way.. and in the end theyve told me i now owe 500.. iverefused to pay anything and are waiting to hear back from them.. this nice smiley lady wasnt called Lisa by any chance was she?!

 

Well now, being 18 does not mean you're not clever;) you were simply tricked and preyed upon as I put it.

Did they ever get you a job like they say they do? Damn, sorry to hear about your troubles. I find it difficult to comprehend that companies stoop to such lows in the field of recruitment

The lady was called Lakshmi or something.

 

i wouldnt no.. i signed the contract.. read through it briefly but not as much as a should have.
she knew i had doubts so she showed me a bit in the contract sayin i could cancel within 7 days if i sent a letter.. and that it wouldnt cost me a penny to cancel, my mm even rang her to confirm all the details & that i definately wouldnt have to pay to cancel.

once signing the contract i regretted it, i wrote a letter cancelling all agreements with fraser mckenzie and ppi..
i sent the letter by recorded delivery and requested a confirmation email from fraser mckenzie.
i never got the email so i called fraser mckenzie and they denied evergettin my letter, so i called the tracking line on my letter and they confirmed it was signed for and delivered within the 7 days. that night i recieved an email from someone at ppi learning sayin that i didnt send it within the 7 days so i would have to pay 50% of the course fee and a £500 application fee..
i proved in an email that i knew i was recieved within 7 days so i wouldnt be payin anything and they emailed back apologising for their mistake but sayin i would still have to pay the £500..

i called the man who emailed me and Lisa who did my interview for near on a week and neither of them would get back to me until i called on withheld number and i finally got through to the man, i explained that Lisa had assured me i wuldnt pay anything to cancel and he basically called me a liar sayin she wouldnt say that. Ever since Lisa wont reply to any of my calls or messages..

I assured the man that i wouldnt b paying their company a penny and if so he could take me to court, this was middle of December and i havent heard back since!!!

 

Hey Everyone,

Well unlike a lot of you, I have decided to sign up for Fraser McKenzie in Bristol. Even though I was a little sceptical as the interview seemed to easy, I read the contracts carefully before I signed, and decided to go through with it. If anything, I'll be able to give anyone answers to questions they have.

I'm currently updating my progress with Fraser McKenzie on my blog "Get Rich in a Year" if you're interested in how I am getting along.

Feel free to check it out, and let's hope I don't get scammed

 

Hi,

I went to an interview with Fraser Mckenzie last year in June and I too was offered a home learning course which they would pay for. I was also told I would be given help to find part time work whilst doing the studying, after several months I received no help whatsoever and decided I wanted to cancel the whole thing. Several months later I am told I can cancel but have to pay a £2000 cancellation fee.
My big question is: the loan was between myself and Barclay's but no money was transferred into my bank, so where did it go?
I am currently liaising with trading standards about the matter.
I know this may be too late but if I were you I would stay as far away from them as possible unless you enjoy stress and hassle.

Regards

Jade

 

Hi all, thought I'd give my thoughts on all this.

I've been with FM since September, I've done my first 2 exams ( of 8 ) and 3 classroom courses which is all the classroom study there is. My contract may be slightly different to more recent ones but when I complete my exams they have 90 days to find me a job minimum 17k or I walk away with the certification for free. I've had it checked over by various different people, it is legit.

The bottom line is though, do not sign this contract unless you are willing to work hard and actually have an interest in IT. It has amazed me on these classroom courses how many people didn't have a clue what they were signing! They thought they would be starting work straight away within the company...FM are a recruitment agency they are doing business. If you do the work within the 12 month period they have a fully qualified MCSE who they can make a fee off some company for or they'll have you working for them, if you do not finish the course you are liable to pay back training fees which get larger and larger the longer you leave it.

Any more questions feel free to ask, I was just as worried to begin with as most of you but so far, so good...if anything else interesting occurs I'll let you know

 

I've read through the paper work that I had to sign for this and nothing is particularly out of order so I'm going for it. To answer some questions and to reply to some statements made earlier:-

If going for the full MCSE (not MCSA or just the Comp Tia A+ etc certificates which they will pay part costs dependant on how much your starting salary is) then they pay for the whole thing (training and exams) as long as you pass your MCSE within the year and commit to either working for them for 2 years or one of their partners/clients for 6 months.

When exam is passed the contract states that it will be a minimum starting salary of £17K so if they cant find you a job within 90 days paying above £17K they DO have to pay for the whole course anyway and you are no longer contractually obliged to them.

They offer (at least in Birmingham) a taxi from their building to the training centre (Solihull for Bham) which is provided at their cost. :-D

Supposedly they are meant to find you at least a work experience position (and hopefully a paid one at that) at some point during the duration of the studies, I really do hope so (and it makes good business sense for them really to).

As SAMSAMMAN said, ONLY TAKE THIS ON IF YOU KNOW YOU WILL COMPLETE IT!!!
If you suddenly change your mind then a lot of debt gets bestowed on you, its all in the contracts in writing but to be fair it makes sense, why should they pay for you to screw up?

I've already been partly studying for an MCSE in my spare time anyway so this is an ideal solution for me, but please think wisely before you sign.

I will try and post up anything new and useful I find while embarking on this, also I recommend on subscribing to subscribe to BigBenjamino's blog as he seams like he is keeping a good record of how it's going for him on there (plus help him make money from his google adsense (he deserves it really with the effort he's putting in although it is only $0.25 every two clicks)).

 

I honestly hope it works out for anyone that go for it

 

This is one of those really interesting threads that has nearly 2,500 views yet only two pages of actual posts.

Makes you wonder...

 

OK, three now - but it was me that tipped it over the edge!

 

my friend joined this company but what to quit as she realises it i stoo good to be true but doesnt know what will happen if she does as thay might charge her. how best can she get out if this thing as i cant seem to help her as i have never joined one of these agencies coz i think they are fishy. has any one tried to quit and if so what happened?????????????????

i need answers please

 

The contract is quite legit and yes there is no way out without shelling a big sum of cash. I seriously Recommend working hard at it and just passing the exams and taking the job in the end as stated in the contract. If she doesn't she'll have to pay a lot of money, depending on when she is cancelling in the course, at least 50% she will have to pay (just over £2K) to almost all of it. So all I say is support your friend, make her pass, get her to take the job (or hope they dont find a job paying atleast £17K within the 90 days after she has passed) and get the whole thing paid for! Honestly it's the only way as it is a legally binding contract her and PPi, her and Fraser Mckenzie and her and Barclays. If she does decide to drop out she must pay the loan provided by Barclays before the end of the 12 months otherwise she will face paying double what the course costs after interest and be a very very unhapp person rather than just an unhappy person.

Sorry that I can't give you an easy way out or any good news at all but honestly the only way to get around it is to do what you signed up for. You could try make a claim on mis-selling but if they gave you time to read the small print and ask any questions like they did with me then you are probably most out of luck.

I on the other hand know what I was doing when signing up and was planning to take the exams with or without Fraser Mckenzie but this way it doesn't cost me anything and I am pretty much guaranteed a job at the end of it all of at least £17K

But this should be a lesson to others, DONT SIGN UP UNLESS IT IS TRUELY WHAT YOU WANT TO DO AND WILL DEDICATE YOURSELF TO PASSING THE COURSE!

 

I haven't been encouraged to undertake x course at McKenzie TP after having a quite nice conversation over the phone with one of the representatives. Neither did encourage me their web site which seems a somewhat silly and empty. Neither did the email i was sent by Lisa Faulkner. I will cancel my interview at McKenzie which is going to be on Monday But thanks to this forum where i can get tones of useful info. Thus i have been encouraged to do self study on A+ and then just carry on with other certs. However, self study doesnt suit every1, and so if u are still looking for another competent TP why not consider a career package in CompTIA ;)

Regards

 

When I was there I was told (and seen it in writing too) that if the job they found for you pays:
< 15k - They won't cover nothing
15k - 25k - they will cover half of the costs
25k+ - they will pay for it.

Now this info that it's 17k guaranteed, NO it's not, they state that this is minimal average wage for certified person (certs they provide) and that they will get you a job or you can walk away with certs if they won't in 90 days.

It's all about statements which are difficult to understand and small print unfortunately.

But in your friend's situation, by all means cheer her up and make sure she will get those overpaid certs.

Regards

 

Would like to thank everyone that's contributed to this post (except those that I believe to be employees of Frazer Mckenzie).

I've been looking for work for a few weeks now and with no relevant IT qualifications it's been very difficult to get a foot in the door anywhere - even basic admin work which I do have experience in. I have been approached by another similar company called Computrain which charged £2700 for the MCSE/MCSA course - I did my research and found this to be hugely expensive so was quite excited when Fraser Mckenzie contacted me as they told me they would pay for the whole course and was fully intending to go to the interview on Wednesday even if I was slightly skeptical.

The one piece of advice I would give to anyone going for any job is that if the employer is more interested in telling you how good their company would be for YOU rather than finding out how good you'd be for THEM - (especially with unemployment rates now) then your alarm bells should start ringing and you need to get out of there A.S.A.P.

Thanks.

 

I'm with Wood Badger on this - I've read the posts with interest since before Christmas as I know someone who used to work for Fraser Mackenzie and am quite familiar with the industry. I also suspect some of the posts supporting Frazer Mackenzie on here will have been posted by the company themselves.

Firstly the sales people dont get any basic salary at all but get £50 commission for each person they sign up - they have someone who calls people off job boards and offers them this 'amazing offer' and then all through the day its like a conveyer belt of people coming for the 'interviews' at their office. You will NEVER have anyone turned down from the so-called 'interviews' and thats where they show themselves to be dodgy. If they can genuinly guarantee a job then they would have some kind of vetting proceedure - and they dont do this, just letting anyone with any background to pay their money. This is taking advantage of people who don't know any better.

In a few months down the line once people realise they have been ripped off I wouldn't be suprised if some of the people who signed up pay the sales people a visit at the office to 'have a word' with them about what they've been signed into. They are going to have to watch their backs! It used to happen at companies like Britannia IT where a similar scam went on. Don't forget we are talking thousands of pounds here - mainly done on a 'deffered payment' loan which means the banks will be getting in touch wanting their money - with large amounts of interest on top.

I'm not sure exactly how the terms and conditions work as I've not been there but I think its along the lines that Fraser Mackenzie know most people wont actually pass all their exams as the courses are simply really hard and not only require a massive amount of study but also people of real technical ability. Thus some people may pass and get on the bottom rung of the ladder but this is the exception not the rule. Think about it - there is a shortage of jobs in the economy at the moment but they can churn people through and guarantee jobs for EVERYONE that shows up?! I don't think so. Unfortunately not everyone knows how they operate and there will be lots of people falling for this scam. My friend said there were often more than 10 people signing up every day and thats way more people than jobs they would be to able fill.

Again I'm not sure about the terms and conditions but as far as I know I expect the job guarantees will only be effective if people 'pass' all their exams. In any case as most people are forced to take out a loan they have paid their money up front and its unlikely they will getting it handed back.

This type of operation has been around for ages and companies go bust and sprout up again all the time because they are selling something they simply cant offer.. there is a long line of them like James Thornton Group, Connectivity, Britannia and more. check this link http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/m...eaving-hundreds-out-of-pocket-66331-22470143/

also this is a good threat to read as I say this is not a new scam!

http://www.certforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=4368&page=9

All I'm saying is be careful with these guys!

 

I got a phone call last Wednesday explaining nothing but good about the course. Went along to an interview yesterday, and once again, got told that the course offers nothing but great prospects. Thought it sounded to good to be true so thought I'd search a few forums. Im glad I found this one and got some views from people who have started or have inside knowledge. Looks to me like more people have suffered from this, than done good. Thanks to everyone who's saved me! ha

 

The thing about Frazer Mackenzie is this type of scam / business model has been extensively used in the area of 'job changers' over the last ten years (i.e. middle aged mechanics / manual workers who wanted to change their life into working in IT) and as such the markets been saturated in this target group.

Frazer Mackenzie seems to be contacting young college type leavers, people who are probably easy pickings for them as they are perhaps more easily pursuaded into believing this could work for them.. I know the London operation was successful in getting a lot of people through the door and signed up, as such there are now new offices popping up in cities round the country.

Unfortunatly as I say, not everyone will think to google them / check message boards in order to get the low down on the offer and I expect they will make a lot of ill gotten gains at the expense of people handing their money over in good faith.