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For all those who are starting on an A+ course. DO NOT choose ICS for your course materials. I paid 500 quid for it and all i got was a sodding CD ROM.

 

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Have you called ICS to make sure they haven't made a mistake and forgot to include manuals and other info? Also what did they say they were going to include when you ordered the A+? It is also possible they included all materials on the CD-ROM.

Also, if you are not happy you can legally return the item and get a refund (usually within 7 or 14 day cooling off period but this may be different for CD-ROM based courses or online courses). If they have delivered goods that do not fit their original description you do have statutory rights to demand a refund but please check with the company and seek extra legal information to verify what I have just said.

Maybe someone who has used ICS before could shed some light on this matter... (for I have not).

 

£500 for a CD!!!

For that price you could have bought some self study books, a couple of lab PC's and paid for the exam!!!

 

What were you supposed to get?

What did you pay for?

They must have told you up front what you would be getting. If you add in exam fees and tutor support then 500 isn't bad. It's amazing what you can get on CD-ROM nowadays.

On the other hand, if you gave them your money 'for an A+' then warning indeed. As long as you come out of this with an A+ then they've delivered as promised.

 

Hello All,

Yep I'm familier with ICS - we actually have some sort of business relationship to resell.

ICS as part of the A+ certification give the Netg A+ CD-ROM training CD-ROM. (that's the CD-ROM you probably have right there for £500!) Although the Netg training is good what you have paid for is a self paced course - although I know that ICS do provide some sort of Tutor support.

For the record the Full A+ from Netg is £300. so the other £200 must be for the support?

 

Well, I just went to the ICS A+ course page. Normal price is 549 (quid ?) with the discounted internet price being 494 (quid?). It clearly says this is a cdrom based course so I don't understand the anger at receiving a cdrom based course. I do agree it is outrageously priced, but if you don't shop around and do research before you buy who's fault is that? It also says there are "Student Advisors" available, whatever they are, so there is some type of support available. Whether the support is any good or not is another question. I have no way of knowing.

 

Apparently:

What support will I receive from ICS?
Studying at home doesn't mean studying alone.

For all our paper-based courses, you will benefit from the support of a Personal Tutor, experienced in helping students in a distance learning situtation. Your tutor will mark and comment on your work, providing feedback and encouragement, plus answering any queries you may have.

All students have access to our ICS Student Advisors, who are only a phone call away and can provide you with practical assistance throughout your course. So we really are with you 100%.

Plus, you'll have access to our online Student Community where you can take part in forum discussions, complete surveys and manage your account.

 

The Mike Myers book, plus a couple of other ones if you need them, a couple of cheap computers, all of the free online help you will ever need in any one of a dozen or more IT forums, and practice exams seems like a much more reasonably priced way to study to me. And when you're done with your A+ you'll still have the computers to use. Looks to me like ICS is still outrageously priced because you'll still have to pay for the exams after you finish an ICS course.

 

Sounds like good advice to me!

 

First of all, and too late for you, don't ever, ever, ever sign up with ICS straight away! Wait for a month or two and I guarantee you'll be sent a 20% discount voucher. If you're really desperate to get started then always sign up through the website because there's a 10% on-line discount (or more, depends if there's a current offer running!). You obviously didn't as you paid full whack!!!

I'd give ICS a call if I were you because you should have received a book with your CD - it used to be a nice tomb called "A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC" which ran to about 1,198 pages (although still not as good as the Mike Meyers book). Not sure if it's still the same one being offered now but there is something else with the course as you'll see from their website which everyone appears to have missed:

Forget any student support - if you look at the website you'll see this doesn't apply to IT courses (although you can ring customer support to ask general questions!). Even the so called forums are useless for IT as they revamped a few months ago and removed the general discussion (the only chance of contacting anyone else doing an IT course!). For this reason alone I don't recommend using ICS if you're starting out from scratch (I've had a few years experience so I'm coping OK with their MCSA kit - which comes with the A+ and Network+ courses so I know what I'm talking about )

You really should have looked at the Career builder course (A+ with Network+ combined) which is much more reasonably priced (although the Network+ book is naff - just course overviews and practise questions, nothing substantial like the A+ book).

 

Well, from the link in Freddy's post, I'd say they are pretty up front about costs involved - even if these do seem a bit on the heavy side, and certainly when compared to self-study.

Also, having seen some NetG stuff (albeit a few years back) I would rather study for the A+ using texts written in hieroglyphics than use that material (sorry, Sarah). Damn it was cold. It may have improved now tho...apologies if it has.

It's the old story here - Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware). Always do some research on the Net, over the phone, wherever - rather than just swallow the bait from the salesmen/adverts/pixies.

 

We can all be had in one way or another if we don't do the research until after we have agreed to pay for something. That is the way of the world unfortunately. Always research thoroughly then make an educated decision.

Pete

 

*wispers* yes I agree with you!! - Personally I would never reccomend it, I only ever reccomed LearnKey and ElementK.

 

LOL ! I was wondering how you would take my comments, Sarah