My Understanding Of & Experiences with Fraser McKenzie

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

If something sounds too good to be true then it usually is! I agree with previous posts saying you should just take it on the chin and move on - you will only wind yourself up if you don't. FM are in business to make money, not to provide people with a massive amount of training for free if they complete it in one year (which even with experience I think would be difficult!).

Self study can be hard going but with enough determination and interest it can be done with ease (it is my prefeered method of leaning). Just to give you some idea of how much self study costs, see the following link:

http://www.careeracademy.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1

Now I would say the majority of those courses are not for beginners but the point is you can buy all of that material for approx £920.00. I hope you don't let this expereince put you off future studies.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi, I have signed for FM about 10 months ago. But I cannot finish the course either. I just want to be sure, if I do not finish it I will pay all costs, that means 4200 pounds of the course? please reply as soon as possible. thanks

 

I don't know for sure, but nobody else seems to either so I'll have a shot at it...

Chances are, that if you haven't completed the course within the required timeframe for whatever reason, then yes, you will still have to pay for it.

How much you pay depends on how you financed the course.
If you took out a loan or whatever, then you will pay interest on that too so I'd check out your paperwork.

If you don't think you are going to finish the course, write to FM as soon as possible and ask them what will happen.

You'll have the answer then.

 

Hello Martina,

If you don't complete the required learning within the 12 months it is you who is reliable for the full amount of the costs as when you signed up FM took out a loan in your name for the value of your training. See, how they screw you over - your failure has no impact on them!

Now, here you have serveral options:

1] You pay the full value of the loan before the 12 month date (the date on which you signed up to FM and took the loan out) and this way you pay no penalties or interest, just the amount that was taken out (ie, £4,200). The loan is a 12 month deffered loan hence why you have this option.

2] You pay the loan as agreed by the terms and conditions of the loan. ie, 36 monthly payments via direct debit at roughly £225/m. Which would mean you would repay about £8000 over 3 years.

3] You can get a redemption quotation whilst you are paying the loan off via monthly direct debit payments. This means if you start paying the loan off as stated in option 2 then decided to pay the rest off in one instalment, Barclays (the loan provider), would give you a figure to settle the loan. This option would be cheaper than option 2 but you would have to pay some penalties.

Alternatively, there apparently there is some law or something that means FM are half responsible for the repayment of the loan as it is a personal loan that they have taken out on your behalf but I don't know anything about this. You would have to do some further research yourself if you wanted to explore this option.

Hope this helps.

 

Let me get this straight - you think that someone who has signed up to complete a training course but doesn't do so shouldn't have to pay for it?

No offence, but it seems that a lot of people who sign up to Training Providers really are living in cloud cuckoo land. You reckon if you paid for a university course but failed the exams, or didn't sit them because you weren't ready, that the university would refund your money at the end?

 

What Zeb said.

I mean think about it.
You book a flight then don't show at the airport.
You buy cinema tickets and then decide not to go.
Even the Open University won't refund your course fees if you drop out or fail the exams. Does that make them rip-off merchants?

What were you guys expecting?
The only thing that most people here have in common is an objection to doing some kind of hard work.

 

Actually I think he has a very valid point, it's one of my issues with TP's.

1. If you sign up for a degree or college course you generally pay in installments upfront per semester. You are never fully exposed to the full costs. You can walk away at any point and just lose out on the rest of the semesters tuition. You therefore have many, usually 3 cutoff points per year where both parties can terminate the agreement and you have had what you paid for ie tuition, and they have their money. It is like paying a builder in installments.

If you fail your exams end of year one, you will have paid for three semesters. You will not have paid for 3 years or 9 semesters. This is in stark contrast to TP's, who will both impeed progress, refuse refund and demand full payment upfront.

The open university has a similar approach to universities and colleges, not based on semesters but based on modules, you pay up front per module. You only pay for the tuition and materials you recieve. You do not pay for a full degrees worth of modules up front. You have the right to take any courses you pay for, there is no witholding of materials, tuition or exams.

TP's requirements are quite unreasonable by the standards of most contracts and certainly most regulated educational insitutions.


2. You can take your earned university credits elsewhere, there is an agreed standard and regulations, and a free market, you can therefore exercise this right and complete study elsewhere should you become dissatissfied.

3. Universities and Colleges do a reasonable job of screening applications and assessing suitability and providing real unbiased advice.

I have nothing against hard work, I still think most TP's business models and practices are totally unreasonable.

They want you to take credit agreements for full upfront payment, this way you pay even if you drop out for quite reasonable reasons, such as a death of a relative.
You are also likely to end up paying quite a lot of interest. They also use high pressure sales techniques, miss-selling and they allow anyone on the course regarless of suitability, in some cases vulnerable people in terms of unemployed, mentally disabled, or impressionable young people.

Some people have had to take TP's to court to overrule contracts that have been signed by mentally disabled indivduals. I literally cannot begin to describe the sort of pond life scum these places have selling for them. They have no business selling teatowels door to door let alone education.

I'm quite sure I could have been quite badly burnt by such people if they visited me when I was an impressionable say 18, aren't you ?

Fortunately instead I had a caring maths teacher that handed me a pamphlet for a FE college offering a good HND course.

TP's in some cases are damaging the prospects of the youth of our country and therefore helping to destroy our society.

I hope the reforms people are petitioning for happen and they come under stronger regulation.

Some TP's are making millions off of destroying peoples hopes and dreams, it's big business.

The internet is full of dissatised customers, look at this place :- http://www.digitaltrends.com

 

I'm not for a nanny state, but surely some things should be sacred ? Surely 18 year old kids shouldn't have to wade though a minefield to get an education ?

Thats what regulation is for, when you go to hospital you don't get some untrained guy cutting you open.

When you buy a car, if its proved to have a design defect and kills people in accidents, it gets withdrawn and the company has to pay damages. etc

Companies should not get to operate with zero social responsibility.

 

That is a completely daft comparison to make. Building a car that kills people is NOT exhibiting a lack of social responsibility. Building a car that kills people is corporate manslaughter!

Your post above contains some perfectly valid points, and perhaps my response was a little flippant and came across as uncaring. That was far from my intention - but I am a little bit pissed off with the apparent complete lack of research done by people before signing up for something that is ridiculously expensive. I know that, in a lot of cases, this will be people who are reasonably young, but come on - there's no way that - even at sixteen - I'd have been stupid enough to sign up for something without at least asking some questions. There's absolutely zero excuse for it now - the Internet gives everyone the opportunity to find reviews of pretty much everything they may be interested in signing up for.

Its similar to the lack of foresight and the 'have everything now' attitude that got our society into such a ridiculous economic mess in the first place. I'm sick of hearing people complain about being 'allowed to' rack up 15 grand's worth of debt on store cards and credit cards. Never heard of saving?

No excuses. Do the research first.

 

I totally agree, I'm all for people taking responsibility for their actions and learning from their mistakes.

Young people today generally have to go into debt to get an education, they have been conditioned by marketing and society to accept mobile phone contracts and easy credit.

Its therefore not as straight forward for many, I was fortunate, I had good parents, I was taught to save. I wasn't brought up around all these credit agreements and dodgy contracts.

People that have never been in FE or HE have no idea how the systems work or how to go about it, they rely on getting good advice.

I can see how young people today might get drawn down the wrong path.

Throwing young people to the sharks and telling them to swim, is however a little different.

These people aren't spending 15 grand on lacoste slippers, they are spending 4-8 grand on their 'education' or so they think.

Sure in some cases they may be the same people that abuse other systems, but not all. Who do you think pays for these people ? They get their debt written off, they live off the state, they declare bankruptcy.

Ultimately we end up paying anyway, just like we are bailing out the banks for sub prime, even more reason to get these practices more heavilly regulated.

 

With regards to what Zeb and JonnyMX said about not expecting to pay. What I meant by they screw you over is that if they really believed in all the candidates and kept to their own 'policies' ie, 'we only sign up the best' or 'we reject 90% of the people we interview' then maybe they would be more prepared to put more on the line themselves to ensure our progress. By us being totally liable for all the costs it encourages the representatives to sign up anyone regardless of their suitability so they can get their commission.

I also noticed the amount of effort given studying has been questioned - I don't know if this is aimed at me or not but since I started this thread I'll assume it is. I am a well educated person - 10 GCSE's, 3 A-Level's and a 2:1 degree in Accountancy and Finance so I know how to study and know what it is to give plenty of effort and dedication. I am also a self-taught muscian (guitar, piano and drums) as well as an ex-county swimmer and current strenght athlete. I'm not bragging but just saying that I can self-learn and I understand and am prepared to give the effort and dedication needed. Also I'm financially independent therefore working 40 hour weeks and manage and run a household on top of that as well as fitting in training; I still gave 60-90 minutes a night, every night, studying. It's taken years of hard work to get to the levels that I'm at with all of the above but I haven't been given that long - only 12 months to go from not knowing what a server is to MCSE! Does this sound like a realistic achievement? FM knew all of this when signing me up and I realised a lot of effort would have to be given but I was told I would be walking up a hill then was plonked at the bottom of Mt Everest and told 'off you go, see you at the top'. I want to get across that I'm not adverse to studying but was completely mislead about the complexity of the material I would be studying. And when you're being told 'no experience neccassary' and 'most people complete the training within 2-3 months' by a professional (that's their job) you tend to believe them as they are meant to be someone of a trusted position.

This is my main issue with FM - they misrepresent information or just plain lie to potential candidates and don't care about the consequences on the individual if they don't succeed. When I signed I knew that I had just (only just!) enough in savings so if the worst did happen I could afford to pay for it and not get myself into debt etc etc So in some ways I'm one of the lucky ones but I know there's plenty out there who don't have this reserve and won't be able to afford the loan and it will near enough destroy their lives by causing stress when debt collecting agencies start chasing them. It could be 10-15 years before their credit rating restores itself and they can get a mortgage, a credit card or even a contract mobile phone. Do you think these people deserve this because they wanted to achieve more for themselves?

Ken mentioned not doing appropriate research. As mentioned in my original post I signed up in October last year when these forums about FM didn't exist - the earliest one I can find in December 08. I also mentioned that I didn't sign up on the spot as I wanted to conduct further research about FM. But, like I said, there was only the FM website which was exactly as it is now but I was told it was 'under construction', I also consulted trusted friends and relatives and it seemed like a good opportunity. Also taking into consideration on just how utterly miserable I was at my job I decided on going forward with FM - but only after several further discussions and meetings as they were my only source of information for what I was signing up for. Obviously if this information was available I would have rejected their offer. Hence why I've put my post on here, so anyone thinking about signing have more than the FM website to base their decision on. I totally agree with Ken that if you dive head first then you've only yourself to blame but I didn't have varied sources to consult only FM themselves.

I don't know if the comments made on this thread were aimed at me or not but as I started the thread I feel that maybe they are. I'm not looking to start agruements I just want to explain how I ended up in this situation and give a voice for others in a similar situation.

I do believe that there are a lot of FM candidates who have just joined up because they thought it would be an easy ride or haven't done any research and have been foolish. BUT there are others who have signed up hoping for a fantastic opportunity and wanting more from their lives or who have been preyed on because of their vunerabiility or niavity and ended up in a wholly undesirable situation and mostly because they've been mislead and it seems that only a few people understand this and don't want the same thing happening to others. DMarsh seems to be one of these people. I would like to thank you for your comments.

That's why I started this thread; to get information about FM out there and hopefully they can make a more informed choice. I'm not saying don't sign up. Just beware. But if they choose not to do the research beforehand then...

 

No it doesn't.

It took me three years.. it takes anywhere from a year to 3 or more.. the people that can pull it off in a year are most likely working with the products on a daily basis or studying full time.. I think Zeb, (he is exeptionally gifted in this field), did it in a year and from memory studied 8-10 hours a day.

 

Just thought I'd give an update of my understanding and experiences with FM:

1] It seems everyone is aware that FM is a scam (or something to that description) and both Facebooks are anti-FM. One is called 'Screwed by Fraser McKenzie' and I think that's pretty clear what it's about. The other, 'Support for Fraser McKenzie Students' has changed from a group that was helping students (created by FM students) to how to bring action against them. Here's the recent news:

"For those of you who haven't worked it out yet:

Don't expect to be given a job, or even to be sent on job interviews. You'll get sent for an interview for unpaid work experience if you are lucky.

Don't expect to be given your money back either - at least not without a fight anyway, as most of us are finding out the hard way.

If you are hard working enough, can be disciplined and manage self-study, and can afford to pay for your exams yourself, you might still get the qualification you paid for, for whatever that is worth in this job market (very little as many of us are finding). We signed an agreement that was too good to be true - and guess what - it wasn't true!"

2] They are threatening legal action against those who post negative statements about them (I can tell you first hand that they are as I've experienced it myself).

3] Apparently, they are going bust and have no money.

4] They're not paying people's loans even though they are legally required to by the contract.

5] Apparently, they're changing their name to 'Careers4People' or something similar.

I have no further suspicion only assured belief about what FM really are. I officially retract any previous statements about signing up if know/think that you're still suitable after reading this.

DO NOT SIGN UP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!

If you do sign up after reading this you really are very foolish indeed.

 

My comments haven't been aimed at you in particular - they're not really aimed at anyone because I don't know enough of the facts. But there have been others on this forum who have found themselves in a similar position and have now resorted to a bunch of doe-eyed mooing and bumping into things.

Well, that's the crux of the matter, isn't it?
The salesman has nothing to do with your training - he/she might not even know what the course is all about, depending on how seriously they take their job.
FM may also have no idea what the sales person has been saying. All they really care about is the bodies coming through the door. The saleman may have been shifting hoovers last week and hasn't had any FM sales training.

But as I like to do, you just change the context.

If you were looking at a second hand car for £5k and the salesman said 'Look, I shouldn't be doing this, but I like you. You're a handsome guy and obviously smarter than others. You know that you don't need to test drive this car - I wouldn't be selling it if I didn't know for a fact that it was A-OK. I could lose my job for telling you this, but that guy over there wants to buy it. He's just been to get the cash. If you sign here and here before he gets through the door its yours. Might be a while before we get another one in this colour. What's your girlfriend going to say when you get home without a new car?'

Would you buy it?

A salesman lives on their commission, and while I don't want to tar everyone of them with the same brush, they need to sell you something more than they care if you need to buy it. Some industries (such as finance) are regulated and some companies have stronger ethics than others, but you never know.

In just about every corporate HQ there is going to be a big chart saying 'SALES' and another saying 'PROFITS'. When they hand out bonuses to the sales force, there won't be one for 'telling the truth all the time' or 'highest ethical standards' because those guys will have been sacked before the party.

There are plenty of tips out there about what you can ask salesmen to help cover yourself, and that applies to all salesmen, not just FM or indeed TPs specifically.

Simple stuff, 'can I sit in on a class first', 'can I come into the office', 'can I speak to a tutor' etc.

I've used a TP myself. I was lucky, I could have been burned same as anyone else.
The reason that I sometimes may come across as less than sympathetic is that although I used the material and facilities provided by the TP, the only reason I got through the course was sheer bloody minded persevereance on my part. If I had sat at home waiting for the TP to call me to see if I was OK or see if I needed anything, I would be £5k down right now with nothing to show for it.

 

Reply to Daniel006
Exactlay in ur position mate...i too thank God hav savings to pay it off 'cas of my stupidity but i feel i don't wanna pay it 'cas its my hard earned savings so i culd by a morgage...i dont wanna just throw it away will find a way out of it...if not at least teach FM a lesson...ps birmingham has vanish :s never mind sonny he was my consultant also wht a load of lies i bet they were all laughing wen v signed n went home...

 

Christ! When?

Where is the GTG going to be now?

 

Oh well, no great loss...

 

Amen.

 

[fatherjack]feck off [/fatherjack]