I am actually doing an e-careers course at the minute. I will let you know how I get on

There are some very interesting opposing viewpoints about e-Careers here. What I did not see is any compelling evidence that they are 'scamming' or offering something of less value than they are charging. I can only assume that either A) there is none, what is conveyed is 100% opinionated, or C) there is some evidence that just hasn't been presented. If from the above, 'C' is the most accurate, I'd like to know more about it.

 

The reason for my post is that I make it a habit to avoid funding organizations who are in the business of making money through means of deceit... even if it's only $149. I don't count people who have poor communication and/or comprehension skills who then misunderstand well intended information as the deliverer of that information as being deceitful. If anyone has anything meaningful to contribute on that topic, please spell it out and I'll get our $149 back from those 'deceitful bastards' (if that's what they are).

 

I purchased this package for my wife via Groupon. We're looking at the '37 Web-Design Courses' package for the primary reason:

 

It provides a way for her to get an introduction to products and technologies which she currently doesn't know what each are for individually except that they can be used in some way to create and maintain web sites.

 

I did not purchase this for her with any expectation that her taking these courses would bring her up to an expert level in any of the topics offered. That would be foolish.

 

I've also come across a few nice unexpected pluses:

 

1) The courses provide self-contained simulators so that the person taking the course does not need to own or purchase any expensive products, such as Adobe Photoshop, etc., to get the benefit of learning how to use the software.

 

2) If the course taker wants to use the 'real' software, they can purchase an NUS card for a nominal fee and use it to purchase Adobe Student and Teacher Edition products.

 

3) From Adobe's FAQ: Student and Teacher Edition products can be used commercially (means that if my wife eventually wants to use the software to help me with some of my commercial development, she can)

 

Irregardless, if these folks are 'scamming' people, I'd still prefer to know this.

 

Regarding the opinion of 'freely available online tutorials' are better than e-Careers, from what I've read in this thread, so far it's just a matter of personal opinion and what you expect to get out of either, and not a matter of factual information.

 

As my wife progresses with her courses, I'll come back with mine and her takes on it. She'll be starting them some time early October after she's spent a little more time on other topics she's learning from a book.

I bought a voucher for an online course from e-Careers. I missed the redemption date by a couple of days, but was not concerned as on the e-Careers website, it clearly satiate "Missed your redemption date?- Dont worry, just call our redemptions team and we will do everything we can to ensure that your voucher is not wasted."

On contacting e-Careers, the first reply I received told me that as a favour I could rebuy the voucher at the same price I had paid the first time. When I pointed out the claim on their website (and voucher), they responded with an offer to reinstate my voucher if I pay a 10 pound admin fee!

 

I have since found a number of scam reports on various websites for e-Careers.

 

This might possibly be one of those situations that I was referring to regarding someone's lack of comprehension of what was presented to them. If this was a Groupon purchase, for example, whatever you paid for the Groupon is able to be applied to a purchase without deadline if you miss the deadline to redeem your Groupon. For example, if I purchased a Groupon for $20 to get $40 worth of food from a local restaurant (common type of offering here), but I didn't redeem it in time, I could still go visit the restaurant and get at least my $20 worth of food for as long as the restaurant remains in business.

 

If you missed your redemption date, that was your fault. If you took what their web site to say as to imply things that it doesn't say, that was your fault. They legally had you on the hook to only offer you an amount of courses that could be paid for with your original voucher purchase price. It looks to me like they were being very lenient to offer you the original deal for a nominal service fee. Dealing with reinstatements and the time it takes to read emails or take calls from customers who missed their deadlines probably causes an expense for them. You can't expect them to work for free, or to give you an additional 10 pounds worth of their time because you made a mistake.

 

I'm sure those 'scam reports' are filled with garbage like this. Most always they are. I wish they were limited to the real scam reports because I don't get paid an extra 10 pounds to weed through the bad reports to find out if there is anything legit in them. Perhaps you should pay me 10 pounds too.

Hi

 

I have purchased this course and think that it was a waste of my money.

 

I was lead to believe that the course would not be the same as the video tutorials that you can find free online. They assured me that it would be more interactive, which they back-up with a 24 hour access to sample the course.

 

As soon as I purchased the package, I found:

 

> the 24 hour support does not reply to you straight away.

> when you click on the support tab goes to page that simply says "Support" nothing else

> the videos are not interactive, but just videos - when I was told that it would be interactive like their demo

> some of the course files are missing

and

> some videos would just simply stop playing.

 

I am still waiting for a reply on my query and do not have much hope of receiving a reply anytime soon

 

 

First of all, thank you to everyone who provided valuable incite here. I read the whole thread and it saved me $100. I came here after seeing the groupon. I will be looking into treehouse and linda.com... thank you very much for the suggestions.

 

I was hoping for some more places you would suggest for someone who is computer savvy, but has never written a line of code? I always wanted to be able to do web development as well as app dev, but I have a ton to learn and don't even know where I should begin. It is overwhelming when you don't go to a traditional college where they line up the classes for you!

 

I watched a course from MIT online and it was over my head. I kept up with the theoretics just fine, but the math killed me. They were using python to develop programs. After a while I just had to stop because I couldn't keep up. Maybe someone who learned on their own has had a similar experience?

 

Thanks everyone

I can't help but think I'd take some of you more seriously if you had an avatar that wasn't a silhouette, except the guy with 10,000+ posts, I see what you did there.

Hello boys and girls, just found this site as I was heading for....(drum roll) yep, e-careers to log on for the first time to my

heavily discounted web design course. Some very interesting comments on here that have definitely put my radar up so if you are interested, I'm happy to feed back on here with an unbiased view.

 

Don't worry, if it is crap, I'll let you know but conversely, if I'm learning something then I'll put that view over too.

 

Just so you know where I'm coming from, I have no experience of web design other than wordpress sites that I've put up for my live music passion. Taken on this course to get a greater understanding of the more intricate areas of web design really for an overview so I know what the hell people like you are talking about and I can join in!

 

So, until next time....

 

Sleepwalker

I can't help but think I'd take some of you more seriously if you had an avatar that wasn't a silhouette, except the guy with 10,000+ posts, I see what you did there.

 

Yeah these threads can be a bugger of a job to police.

I like to be able to let all users voice their opinions but it's hard when they're one post wonders with non verified stories of how the service was brilliant/terrible.

Well I've logged on after a password faff but I'm in. Not intending to go mental tonight, just wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I was presented with a comprehensive list of subjects so I've had a quick scan through some of them to get a flavour.

 

Does seem to need some prior knowledge as it assumes you know what some TLAs are. Had to scout around a bit to find out what they meant. It asks if you want to do the assessment first to gauge the areas you need to focus on. Bit pointless for me, I know FA about the subjects at the moment.

 

One of the posters said there was no interactivity. Not so, click on the buttons and up pops an action with a written description. I've clicked through several buttons on the HTML and dreamweaver section and they all responded.

 

Still early days, keeping a wary eye on this but too early to say if it's worth the £99.

Yeah these threads can be a bugger of a job to police.

I like to be able to let all users voice their opinions but it's hard when they're one post wonders with non verified stories of how the service was brilliant/terrible.

 

Thought that was the purpose of a forum...New users come along, post their comment - just the one of course, because they're new. So how does a new user verify their story then? Lets hope us new guys don't waste your precious time policing stories of questionable service. Is this a forum or a private clique/club?

So you suggest we let threads run amock without any research as to whether certain aligations are true? That's what Twitter and Facebook et al are for.

 

We're certainly not a private members club but we are aware of the usual techniques and methods used by companies to promote or defend their business or even to bad mouth their rivals. False accusations of bad service, made up glowing testimonials and fake reports of product failures all by fake accounts signed up for by the businesses involved as well as their rivals can be all to common which is where the moderators come in.

 

The fact is we police these forums and threads such as this to keep the quality of the posts up and to keep a level and fair playing field for all those involved.

 

Not sure where the bee in your bonnet came from but before you decide to air it next time, stop, think and possibly keep it to yourself.

So you suggest we let threads run amock without any research as to whether certain aligations are true? That's what Twitter and Facebook et al are for.

 

We're certainly not a private members club but we are aware of the usual techniques and methods used by companies to promote or defend their business or even to bad mouth their rivals. False accusations of bad service, made up glowing testimonials and fake reports of product failures all by fake accounts signed up for by the businesses involved as well as their rivals can be all to common which is where the moderators come in.

 

The fact is we police these forums and threads such as this to keep the quality of the posts up and to keep a level and fair playing field for all those involved.

 

Not sure where the bee in your bonnet came from but before you decide to air it next time, stop, think and possibly keep it to yourself.

 

And for that I applaud you. I'm sure it must take significant amount of your time to do so. I'm certain there are devious methods used by companies that you'd be far more aware of than me. However, my point was the tone and words you used which implied a patronising manner towards new posters.

 

Keep my opinion to myself? Then whats the point of a forum? We might differ on opinions but I haven't been rude or offensive.

 

Right, let's put that to bed now, I'm here to listen and learn, you carry on moderating and I'll do what I intended to do and let yourself and the other posters know how I'm finding the e-careers web package. Fair enough?

Sorry if you found it patronising, it wasn't. It was merely a comment on how threads like this are hard to moderate fairly.

 

I did find your initial comment to be rude just like you found mine to be patronising.

That's the problem with forums, things are hard to read in context.

 

Any way my original comment wasn't aimed at you but the 20 odd hidden posts above yours by 'one post wonders with unvarified stories'.

I enrolled on an ecareers couurse about 3 months ago. It is ok the only down side to e-careers is that you dont get any real qualifications just a course completion certificate. It is useful for a learning experience though! I am doing Red Hat courses with them though not web design. But the one I am doing is pretty good, well laid out and simple to understand.

Hello everyone,

 

I am having some issues with the eCareers Web Design course bought through Groupon for £99 a couple of weeks ago, (September 2012). I just happened to notice your forum on Google. I signed up to it specifically to add my findings to your discussion and for no other reason than to be of information to those interested in reading it, as follows:

 

I signed up for the course because I thought it would be good grounding for a change of career direction. I’m a complete novice at this stuff but on reading their course description and web page I felt confident that I would be taught all I need to know from the beginning. So it seemed too good to miss a £99 Groupon offer.

 

All seemed to go smoothly until a technical hitch signing in with the password they sent me. After some messing about, this was corrected by them. Their links didn't work properly.

 

When I got there, I was confronted with a pile of course material in no specific order and with no introduction. So, believing this to be a 'from scratch' course, I started with the topic at the top of the list, 'Action Script 2.0'. I discovered that this was instructional material for those familiar with Action Script 1.0. No use to me whatsoever - didn't have a clue what it was going on about. I looked for some course guidance material. There was none. Barring one or two, the course titles were alien to me and I didn't have a clue where I was supposed to start, so I went to their ‘support line’ for some assistance.

 

The person at the other end was actually of precious little help at all. I asked about course guidance material. The operator seemed to have no idea what I was asking and there was no direct response to the question. I gathered from this that there actually wasn’t any course guidance material. All I got was "Start with Photoshop and Dreamweaver and then go on to CIW foundation. You can do whatever courses you like". Then, apparently, when I have completed 70% of the entire course, they would send me my certificate. There it ended, that was it . . . their level of tutorage, guidance and support!

 

Would this be the ACA certificate, as indicated on their web page, I asked? Apparently not, it seems it’s just one they give you that tells you that you’ve done 70% of the course. I would have to book a further ACA exam myself with the appropriate authority and pay the required fee, (about £100). I asked several times for the actual point of their certificate and why their web page suggests that there’s an ACA cert at the end of the course. They failed to answer. They then terminated the conversation.

 

I’m getting pretty miffed by this stage.

 

Still, I ploughed on and selected my Photoshop course as suggested. Pretty simple with their interactive programming I thought. By way of practical exercise, I was tasked with performing the actions learned in the previous lesson. At the same time, I was told that I would need the appropriate software to enable me to do this. I looked for it and couldn’t find any. Eh? What's the point in not even providing sufficient material to perform the required tasks properly?

 

I went to the online helper. I was told that if I needed to rehearse, I would need to download the necessary software from Adobe and sent me the URL. Rehearse? You mean revise and study don't you?

 

So, off I went to Adobe. How am I supposed to complete a course as big as this on 30-day trial software? What happens at the end when I need to revise for the indicated ACA Certificate? The answer is of course, that I would have to buy the software at vast expense from Adobe. eCareers should surely provide all course material that lasts the duration of the course to enable you to complete it as required . . . . Shouldn’t they? THEN go out and buy if you need to.

 

I asked the on-line helper for more help. I was now REALLY stumbling around in the dark trying to make head or tail of what was going on. I was still awaiting answers to some of my questions. I asked about Student ID for reduced cost software through Adobe. Bizarrely, the operator told me that I was to use my e-mail address. I explained, (though I couldn’t see why I should have to), that Adobe would not of course accept my e-mail address as proof of studentship. After a good period of silence, I was advised to e-mail those at info@ecareers.com.

 

My email to them was returned because this address didn't exist. So went to their support link instead and indicated my issues together with questions about student ID. They sent me an automated ticket numbered email in response. As they did with the three other e-mails I subsequently sent them. It’s been nine days now and they still have not responded with any answers. Bad manners at best!

 

In summary as I see it:

 

No course introduction or guidance material

Poor help and assistance

Insufficient course material/software provided to complete assigned tasks.

No ability to revise and study for the course duration without potentially vast software costs.

No apparent access to student discounts on the required software anyway.

No ACA certificate.

A meaningless course certificate.

Potential additional exam fees.

 

I have lost confidence in this course and that it will fulfil its promised objectives. I’m about to try and get a refund but, judging by some other contributors to this forum, that may not be an easy task.

 

These are my own personal experiences with eCareers and their Web Design Mega Pack course. I do not speak for anyone else and write this here only for the information of this forum’s readers and contributors.

 

Make of it what you will.

I'm 28, work full time in an office, and want to learn something new. I have no further education after GCSE's, I didn't do A-levels and I didn't go to Uni.

What I do have is 11 years experience working for a high profile international company.

 

Here's my opinion.

 

I haven't studied since I was 16.

I have a family, and little time to myself.

I want to learn something new but unsure if I am capable of self study.

 

£99 is a little price to pay to figure out if I can do this, learn something new on the way, and to see if I really enjoy it.

 

I've been studying a week or two, and have learnt some basics of HTML 4.0.

 

There IS direction with the e-careers courses. Simply click in the info tab, and it states the description, the audience, features, and prerequisite. There is no prerequiste to HTML 4.0 and I know HTML is going to be a good stating point, so the above poster didn't do much home work. Also, the help instrcutions do advise the correct password to access the material, after logging in.

 

I've not experienced any issues. Yes its cheap, and the assistance and website is basic. But its £99! What do you expect?!

 

£99 is a little price to pay to figure out if I can do this, learn something new on the way, and to see if I really enjoy it.

 

 

 

and doing it for nothing is even less.

As above.

Everything that can be offered by them can also be found on the net free and legal and generally of a better quality.

Dont buy training from E careers - save your money. I bought the e careers web design course via Groupon for a supposed 92% discount at £99. The content of the course is outdated and the interface is not usually friendly. On top of all this the instructor has an annoying robotic accent since they used text to speech. Feel like I was scammed out of a £100 because I have since discovered much better training online for much less money. For example I strongly recommend teamtreehouse.com, $25 per month, everything is up to date and its real people doing the talking, which helps Another good source is Lynda.com - also $25 per month and has thousands of hours of video content with course files too. Good luck with the learning and hope this helps.

Surprised to see so many e-careers reviews. I am a complete beginner, learning from scratch. I also faced some troubles in redeeming my groupon voucher but a guy called Richard in the customer service helped me out and I had that course running a couple of days later. The course I have bought has HTML5 and Adobe CS6. Are they really outdated? Certainly not, what else can I get for such a throw away price.

 

I have a knack for photography and photo editing. I found the Adobe Photoshop training course to be really effective. Although the course is quite comprehensive, learning “masking” itself is worth the money paid. By pursuing the adobe Photoshop CS6 course, I have become proficient with photo editing. Will be soon starting off with HTML5.

 

I doubt some of the reviews as people have advertised their own websites in that. If they are pseudo users, they are pretty bad with their tricks.

Surprised to see so many e-careers reviews. I am a complete beginner, learning from scratch. I also faced some troubles in redeeming my groupon voucher but a guy called Richard in the customer service helped me out and I had that course running a couple of days later. The course I have bought has HTML5 and Adobe CS6. Are they really outdated? Certainly not, what else can I get for such a throw away price.

 

I have a knack for photography and photo editing. I found the Adobe Photoshop training course to be really effective. Although the course is quite comprehensive, learning “masking” itself is worth the money paid. By pursuing the adobe Photoshop CS6 course, I have become proficient with photo editing. Will be soon starting off with HTML5.

 

I doubt some of the reviews as people have advertised their own websites in that. If they are pseudo users, they are pretty bad with their tricks.

 

(Not) suprised to see someone from India, claiming to be someone called 'Jessica Green', suddenly joining a thread to do a bit of positive promotion. Adds to the irony of this statement though

If they are pseudo users, they are pretty bad with their tricks.

.

 

People can take what they will from such posts.

My first girlfriend was called Jessica Green.

She wasn't Indian.

 

That is all.

Are girls named with Jessica Green not allowed to move out of UK. Are you a Taliban Supporter? I am an Indian girl, bought web design course from e-careers.in. Joined the forum just to add value to this particular thread and tell about my experience. Online learning is relatively new to Indians and I am one of the proactive ones.

 

There are thousands of zed in India, but that doesn't surprise me.

You're not my Jessica Green are you? If so, come home honey, all is forgiven!

Oh the ironing.

I can only guess 'Richard' moved there as well. Odd.

There a lot of free online materials on the web. You don't have to pay for tutorials and stuff like that. With forums alone you can get a lot of free support.

Hi guys, sorry if my response is a bit out of sync. This as a thread about the quality of the courses on e-careers.com, which is a reseller of mindleaders.com courses. I just had to share my painful experience with you.

 

I redeemed the "Webmaster package" voucher purchased on Groupon on e-careers.com after many hustles with the redemption link not working at all. Started mindpealers.com courses through this reseller. Many of 21 courses in this package are out of order and not applicable. I went to mindleaders.com portal and checked them all one-by-one and I see that what I have through e-careers.com in my mindleaders.com console are just the 1st modules of each course. On top of that many modules are not applicable, almost randomly selected to bulk the package up.

 

Afterwards discovered that no certificates whatsoever become available to download on successful quizz completion. Sent numerous queries with screenshot and detailed explanation to e-careers.com support. Never received anything meaningful in response except some agent brushing me off with canned response. It has been almost a month now back and forth.

 

Last week I have been answered again by a new agent Simon Brace with an attachment of a weird scam looking certificate of completion from e-careers.com without any serial code whatsoever of the package of the entire package, when I am actually meant to receive a mindleaders.com certificate for each of the 21 courses in the package. I tried to explain my frustration to him, but he sent back extremely unprofessional letter sounding like a jerk. He said that usually they charge 10 GBR for this certificate (without any quizz completion whatsoever on half of the courses within the package!) and he sent me one for free out of his good faith. And added whole bunch of shocking insults. He said I should take it up directly with mindleaders.com and he is not willing to help. I have never came across anything like this from customer service.

 

I have spent substantial sum of money for such package from e-careers.com and intended to keep the PDF copy of the certificates, which should be available to download though mindleaders.com console on successful quizz completion.

 

There are many free tutorials and interactive learning courses available on the web and I do not recommend anyone to waste money on this scam.

I signed up recently via Groupon for GBP49. Negative comments here scared me, but I signed up for the forum to say that so far it is not at all bad, considering it was only the price of a single professional-level computer science textbook.

 

Redemption and activation (after a day) went OK (so far, it is my first day using the course). So far it is good value for my needs. I make a living from website work (a lot of Drupal backend maintenance) but was weak on Javascript, so going through some js and ajax courses in a structured way were my main interest. Sitting down learning from a book or free internet resources is possible but tougher than being walked through it on a structured course (though all learning add something and should be combined). Not being a total beginner I have done half (3 of 6 chapters) of the first of three js units in a morning. I find it more digestible than just buying a book or free tutorials. Yes, it is a dated (I was ready for that), and I am not expecting all the courses to be useful, but I am glad I bought it and have already learned something from it.

 

One caveat is that I am using it critically to extract what I need, and do additional research where necessary. If anyone expects to sign up and be guided from beginner to skilled web developer, that may be unrealistic. For that you probably need a live teacher (which is better but far more expensive). But if you use the materials as an aid to teaching yourself, and as one tool in your toolbox along with free resources, lynda.com style paid online lectures, live conferences and training meetups, O'Reilly books, etc. (or however else you like to learn), making your own judgements about your level and which parts are useful, this course add real value into the mix IMO. It is important to take time to try out what is being presented (rather than just reading on screen).

I saw a £99 E-careers course listed on a usually reputable recruiter's website and, like any wary Internet user, searched for reviews to confirm that it was too good to be true. I'm really glad I found this thread. Thanks, all.

 

(P.S. As a complete beginner, I'm finding the free courses on codeacademy.com quite helpful if variable in quality.)

Edited December 27, 201213 yr by theviciouspixie

Thanks everyone for your views on the e-careers "Webmaster Package". I have purchased this as my confidence boost for creating a personal website and think that so far, the course is very long winded - an hour to discover something which can be summaried in two sentences! I have also found the same login problems as another poster - whereby if I don't log in for a few weeks, my account is not recognised, however I am reassured by e-careers that they never delete accounts (however it takes intervention to regain access ... and their support is not 24/7, so a few golden opportunities to study have been missed). I'm glad to have found this forum as a consequence and really grateful for the "free" and low cost suggestions who's quality rivals e-careers own material, but will still make some use of the next few months while I have access (if indeed my account stays in existence!). My observations to anyone considering the groupon deal are "Don't expect much" and whatever you do - it's NOT worth any more than the groupon deal price!

Here's an update on my wife's experience so far:

 

We wanted to get started by making sure that she has the software installed for some of the courses she'll primarily be focused on - namely Adobe Photoshop and other Adobe products. e-Careers said that she would be entitled to purchase Adobe software at a discount based on her enrollment in this course. I was, of course, very skeptical, so I asked a lot of questions. I questioned e-Careers. I questioned ISIC. I questioned Adobe. After she went through the process of obtaining an ISIC card, and submitting a copy of the ISIC card and the Groupon receipt to Adobe, they approved her for the purchase of the discounted software!

 

The way I see it, she purchased a groupon for a course to learn this software. One way or another, she's going to learn it, and to do so, she's going to need this software on her PC to do so effectively enough to get a job using this software. For anyone that's not already a full time student somewhere, this can prove difficult since after taxes, you're somewhere in the neighborhood of paying $2000 USD for an Adobe CS6 Suite that covers most of it. We got her software for $449 direct from Adobe. Even if the e-Careers courses turn out to be total garbage, she's still ahead of the game.

 

When she finishes with her Java course material and moves on to the e-Careers based courses, I'll let you know how that part goes. I suspect that she'll probably go through those courses as a good introduction to the topics and then have a good enough handle to explore further with the free online resources to broaden her knowledge.

I'd like to re-iterate a point made by the poster above. YOU DO NOT NEED adobe products to work in the web world. Yes , for graphics etc Photoshop and Fireworks are nice, but there are open source and free alternatives you can use, the GIMP for example is a great photoshop alternative. As for the coding side of things, if you are just starting out, I'd advise against using Dreamweaver. grab yourself a decent and free editor or IDE, learn the mechanics of coding and give yourself a decent grounding before taking shortcuts. You can learn the basics without ever putting your hand in your pocket, also for advanced stuff, most people have already had the same problem you might come up against, so help is usually just a google search away. If not, the forums are great places to bounce ideas off people.

I'm so angry with myself. I felt something's wrong, but continued and let myself pay £99 for this course. Obviously after an hour or so I came to reason and googled the course and that's how I got here. I hoped not all is lost, and they can provide ACA certificate, but now I read they don't.

 

Does anybody know if I can cancel it and get refund if I didn't even start the course?

 

I'm simply mad, and I know it's only me I can blame.

 

 

Edit: I found their refund policy:

"

4. REFUNDS

If a course is booked or reserved and a valid request to cancel is received in writing within 7 days of your original order then you refund will be fully granted subject to the below conditions:

Please Note:
For any refund, an administration fee of £75 +VAT will be charged."

I think this says all about this company. Ugh!

Edited February 5, 201313 yr by Yanina

I purchased the Webmaster course last year on Groupon for £99. As soon as I started using it I realised I had made a mistake. It was so poorly designed and looked very amateurish. I started scouring the net to see what other people thought, and didnt find any positive reviews!

 

The course material is outdated and no software is provided to assist in learning - they dont state this before you purchase. My partner also bought this for the Photoshop module, but struggled with it as her version of Photoshop was about 3 versions above the one Ecareers teaches.

 

I am lucky that I have covered a few of the modules in my job as a trainee developer, so I was OK in completing Javascript, SQL etc. When I did, I printed out the certificates....

 

This was a few months ago now - I gave up with the course as I was finding it frustrating. The website never worked, I had so many issues logging in that I decided to leave it for a while. I logged in today to print off some certificates, and what do you know, the link to print off the certificates was gone.

 

I spoke with a customer representative on the online chat, who was clearly not English, and they said to me 'we issue the course completion certificate
you can not download by your own we issue one certificate for whole course Now it is not possible to download the certificate by ouwn'. They then said it would cost me £10 for them to send me one.

 

So not only had they removed the option to print my own certificate for each module completed, (i.e Javascript, SQL etc), they were now charging me for a certificate which just said I had completed the course (I had asked them if they send a certificate for each module, but they said it would just say 'Webmaster'). This is not good enough, a certificate which says 'Webmaster' means nothing. I expected a certificate for each module, one just like I had previously printed.

 

The representative said he would ring me... He never did.

 

I only wish I had read the reviews before I bought it.

 

I have decided to email Groupon to see if they will give me a refund - which I doubt... But its worth a try!

 

I'll keep you updated on my progress

They're money-grabbing bar stewards, that's for sure, but my own experience hasn't been too bad.

 

I've easily made the £115 or so back in discounts from shopping with an NUS card, so I'm okay with them on that front.

 

As for content, it's true that some of the modules are horrifically outdated (in particular, PHP, which dates back to 2003 or something stupid). However, the course I purchased had useful learning content for (most of) Adobe CS6, and I'm finding these a great help since I've never actually familiarised myself with all of the features of Photoshop; I just learned what I needed to as I went along.

 

I'd say the offer's worth it if, like me, you aren't completely comfortable navigating CS5/6, already know what you need to about PHP/MySQL and will benefit a lot from student discounts.

 

Otherwise, not recommended. The main course content is long out of date, and though there is some helpful info on some modules, it's nothing you can't find online for free. The way the courses are presented is terrible, too. It's a real struggle getting any of the information to sink in.

 

To make it worse, support sucks since all the company cares about is making money. The NUS card is a vast majority of what makes this only a little more than a complete waste of time & money.

Edited February 11, 201313 yr by Exode

E-careers is bloody dreadful.

 

Most of the courses have at least 1 flaw in them - some of which prevent you actually completing the course - materials supposedly available to download do not exist (photoshop), reference files which do not exist (apache/php).

 

This would be a minor irritation if the tech support was decent but it is so shoddy - the tech support have no interest in what your issue is and have two responses:-

 

(1) Change your browser (irrespective of the issue)

(2) E-mail the problem and someone will get back to you (which doesn't happen).

 

If you are truly lucky, if you are having issues doing courses such as MySQL, Apache / PHP, they advise you download content from Adobe(!).

 

They point blank refuse to extend course time on account of their materials being inaccurate/unable to complete.

 

AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID

 

It's a small amount compared to others but is the worst £99 I've ever spent.

Edited February 22, 201313 yr by mrjehst77

It's not only Groupon who are offering this 'Webmaster' course for a mere £99 – Reed, the recruitment site, have been shamelessly plugging them for a bit, now. Reed seem to be under the impression they are properly accredited courses with actual qualifications at the end of them, so based on their information I thought I'd click on the link to request some more information...

 

Their 'more information' turned up less than twenty minutes later, in the form of quite an aggressive, hard-sell phone call. Not one of my questions regarding hardware compatibility for certain programs I would be expected to practice, potential additional costs involved of purchasing additional software, etc. were answered with anything more than a: "Oh, no; that'll be fine, can I sign you up now?" – at which point, alarm bells starting ringing, I told them to call me back and I got looking up their reviews.

 

Anyway, thought I'd post to thank you all for saving me £100 and, by the sounds of things, a load of mither!

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry to dredge this topic back up from the depths, but I've just come across an e-careers deal on Time Out Offers, similar to the Groupon one mentioned previously, but this time for a smartphone app developer course. I'm naturally a pretty sceptic person with these kinds of websites, and it only took a glance at the e-careers website to wonder how legit they are, but I'm very interested in learning how to develop my own smartphone apps without having to do the full thing and learn the coding (I know, I'm a cheater).

 

Anyway the reason for my post is to ask two things:

 

1. Has anyone tried this course and if so is it as bad and outdated as the web design course discussed above? Obviously I'm not expecting great things from a heavily discounted online course, but it claims to at least enable you to design your own app and how to upload it to the Apple store, has anyone done this?

 

2. Are any of you knowledgable techies able to advise me of anywhere else that might be a good start for free or cheap learning on smartphone app development?

 

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Im currently taking the CIW webmaster course and its not too bad, im a complete novice to web design and some of the things in this course are quite informative. I paid £99 for the course and i think its worth it personally as it also covers adobe cs6 as well. Im currently doing this course as well as learning through sites like code academy. The only thing i dont like is that some of the modules are a bit out of date. I tried doing the Mysql/PHP section the other day and all the downloads they suggested were about 6 years old and wouldnt work properly with windows 8 (they are tutorials for xp). But apart from that im learning alot.

 

Hope this was of some help

Edited July 10, 201313 yr by russ130380