Moral Dilemma...

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.

I have a bit of a conundrum. I was doing my MCSA through a local training provider (passed 170 &190, two more to go) and it wasn’t till after I found this forum and found out what a braindump is that I realised that the tutor had been handing out softcopies of T3stking (why do we not use it’s proper name on this forum?)

Anyway, I was wondering what the best thing to do in this situation is? Is there some way I can anonymously dob them in to Microsoft? I’m worried that if I went to MS they’d take my MCPs off me, plus it wouldn’t look to good for myself and anyone else who has a cert from this place if this widely known.

Also since there is a much lauded shortage of IT professionals over here at the moment I can only predict that there will only be more of these cowboy outfits springing up.

Any ideas on my best course of action?

Billy.

 

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.

My advice is to take it easy, and don't get involved in such murky business.

There are training companies out there who may not provide the best deal for you, for a whole variety of reasons. As a computer professional only you know within yourself if you know your stuff, and can do the job. If you can't then you'll soon be found out anyway. Certs are only a basic benchmark, and there is a lot more to convincing people of what you know and what you can do than having a cert, as many people on this forum will tell you.

 

For my point of view you should just leave.
Microsoft has 1000 way for to stop braindumping.Change the question or just part of it etc etc.
I refuse braindumping becouse i think that in the real life holding a cert is just 10%.
You can be mcse but if during an interview you can't answer to questions about ipsec, cluster etc etc, you will not get the job,
If some people just fancy to have a cert to show, that is another story.And is not really my problem.

 

Yes, it is your problem if someone else braindumps their way through an MCSE. It lowers the value of your MCSE a lot.

It used to be that if you could show you had an MCSE it really meant something. Now an MCSE means very little, as so many people have braindumped their way to the cert and then failed so badly in the real world, that employers look at all holders of an MCSE with suspicion. What used to bring a premium in wages is now looked at as of no more worth than "a dime a dozen".

Should the OP turn these idiots in? I'd say he should. You can do it anonymously if I remember correctly. I see nothing morally murky about it whatsoever. Screw the jerks that want to get something for nothing, because that's what any training company pushing braindumps is after, and it is catering to those who want the same.

That someone wants to stand up for principle and say this must stop is a good thing.

 

Good answers from all. BTW, we don't use the proper names of braindumps because we don't want to even accidently promote them Also, Internet indexing robots would link this site to those names in search results. These characters are bad news and should be avoided at all costs.

 

For a greater good and utopian world, I would say dob them in.

However, with my cynical hat on, I would say that nothing will come of it.

Even if the instuctor was an MCT and the company is an MCPLS, it will probably get lost in the mire of MS red tape and paperwork.
If he's not, and they aren't, even less will happen.

And of course the worst case scenario is that you and your fellow students will be stripped of your MCPs and prevented from sitting any more.

Although quite how MS are supposed to find out where a student did their training, I'm not sure...

In this case, I'd just think of yourself and leave - as you won't be getting a certification that you can be proud of in your own mind.

 

I just said that MS has 1000 way to stop it if really want to do.
Don't think you can get a job "just" for your cert.If 25 mcse are planning for the some job, an interview will show the differences between them.
I get my study as a way to learn more and BD would not help doing that.

 

Hello,

I would definately leave the institution and dob them in. Personally I would like the certifications that I am trying to achieve and study flippin hard for to be worth something (not to mention all the money I've put into training materials, books, technet subs), not just a sheet of paper that nobody takes any notice off.

As its been said here before someone who BD's will get found out very quickly indeed, the only trouble is the hiring company may very well tar us all with the same brush. rinse and repeat a few times we might as well not bother taking any exams.

As also has been said before nothing may well come of it if you do dish the dirt but its worth a try.

 

This is a hard one.... on the one hand you should stand up for what you believe in, leave and inform on them.... however it depends on your situation, its not always so easy.

If you are paying for this yourself and wont get a refund, or you need to finish the course in order to get a job and support your family for example then i say attend the course but dont use the braindumps.

Work harder, get some test questions of your own and pass the final exams through your own hard work. Then get a job (if you arent in IT) and you will know what braindumps are. You can then advise people you meet in your IT career not to use them.

I'm not endorsing braindumps but if you situation dictates that you have to do this course (financial or employment reasons) then do it..... but do it your own way.

If you want to bring it up with the provider do so..... or if you want to inform fellow students thats your decision. Nothing stopping you informing Microsoft once your done.

Again though.... another dilema. Microsoft could take away your certs (even those done without braindumps cos they are unlikely to look on a case by case example) and why should you be punished for an unethical training provider??

Hard one for sure. Just be sure to learn from it....

 

I'd report them to Microsoft. But I'm heavily against braindumps, as I see firsthand the damage done by braindumps to certification programs, the IT training industry, and the IT industry as a whole.

 

I just now read this.

LOL. I guess I have to say that it's a safe bet to make that you have not read very many of my posts on this site. My reasons for getting certs has never included just getting a cert. I have always studied for the knowledge. I haven't even kept the documentation I received for my certs, and doubt very much whether I could even log into the MCSE site anymore as I don't use IE anymore.

I consistently downplay the value of certifications. I worked very hard to get mine, and the knowledge is priceless, but the level of competition for jobs in the MS world pretty much rules out 50-something career changers with physical disabilities and health problems for entry level jobs. Also, no business large enough to use AD is going to trust their network to a noob, no matter how knowledgeable they are. The noob simply won't get to an interview to get the chance display their knowledge. They will be weeded out very early in the process.

Yes, MS could stomp out a lot of the braindumping, but they don't care. They could care less about their customers, so why would they give a rip about techs? Does that mean that the rest of the world should operate by MS's standards?

 

Psst... Freddy... your hatred of Microsoft is starting to show again.

 

Psst. Michael, it's not hatred, it's disgust.

 

I see!

 

I do get the feeling that if MS truly cared about BD's they have the legal clout to stamp most of them out almost overnight. I don't know why they don't seem to try harder in this area. Ultimately it's their own certs that are being devalued and degraded by BD's being out there.

 

In fact they do care.
I do report MS on sites which openly sell braindumps and gladly I have seen a number of them going down. There was even a site where you could just 'buy' your certification. You just payed them and they would clear the exams for you. This site is now gone. The legal department does work, but it might take some time to get the site owners to close the site. They only see the money and most of the time they are not in the US.

 

The problem that I see is that MS are trying to do it legally and within the law. It's a bit hard against faceless entitys in other countrys who are operating illegally and will shut down one day and open under another name the next. The whole process then has to start from the beginning again.

 

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Most braindump companies operate out of countries that are beyond Microsoft's legal grasp.

 

Baloney.

MS didn't go after squat until the level of noise about the problem from people holding MS certs became so huge they couldn't evade it any longer.

The "king" braindump site of them all that stayed up for years was owned and run by a guy in Florida. A whole bunch of them existed in the US for a long time. MS just flat out ignored them until there were so many people complaining that they had to do something to maintain any semblance of even remotely caring whether or not braindumping exists. All they do now is just enough to make it look like they're doing something. If they receive enough complaints about a site they may act, but it's not as if they are out there actively searching these jerks out and putting them out of business.

And, don't even try to tell me that MS doesn't have the resources to do it. They're the richest company in the world. They have millions with which to line politicians pockets, so they have the money to go after braindump sites very aggressively, if they want to. This is a problem of lack of desire on MS's part, nothing else.