Job Discussion Forums

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

Recently I completed the i-to-i online Tesol course and the London Teacher Training Center course for a diploma in teaching buiness English.

I have advanced degrees and am working as an EFL teacher and wanted to beef up my C.V.

The i-to-i course is outstanding. The LTTC is good and gives value for the money paid.

I also registered for the ICAL certificate in CALL. I had difficulties both in receiving the comments from the teacher on my first less and in sending my revisied first lesson to ICAL so I decided to exercise what I thought was my 15 day right to withdraw from the course for a full refund.

I did not get a full refund.

Below is correspondence from ICAL:

Dear

I’m sorry you are encountering technical difficulties in submitting your work. Having checked the file you sent and the reply you received I noticed that the assignment was returned by our ICAL Admin (and not Sarah) due to the problem in formatting.

We process over 1000 emails a week and in order to remain efficient in doing so we have a system in place which checks the formatting of the assignments is correct before this is sent on to the tutors.

It is a shame you didn’t think to contact us about this so that we could have helped you sort things out. A simple email explaining the teething problem you were encountering would have done the trick.

In order for us to process your request for a refund we will need you to complete the ICAL Refund form which can be found at:

http://www.teacher-training.net/containers/refund

Once we receive your completed form our Accounting dept. will process your request and will inform you once this is done.

Regards

Annalisa Trapani

ICAL Administrative Director

They kept 30% of the money when their computers were at fault in jumbling and intercepting the teacher's comments and my revision.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

what system are you using?

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

Pentium 4 PC

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

I just wondered if it was a Mac v PC issue.

From reading their terms and conditions, you should be entitled to a full refund. have you asked for a reason why you have not received one.

From the tone of her reply it sounds like there might be a history of communication with you as you encountered frustration. Is there anything you aren't telling us?

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

No. They have a computerized system though which all lessons, teachers' replies and student revisions must pass. They did not explain this.
I received a deformatted evaluation of my first assignment that was almost impossible to decipher. I sent a letter to the tutor with my revisions. This letter never got to the tutor because my reply was deformmated by their program and rejected with a message that implied that the errors were on my part. It is only when I went around their wonderful system that I got the snappish reply.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

'sent a letter' to your tutor? Whyever did you do that? Especially as you were having issues with formatting. Why not a simple email as they eventually recommended in their reply to you?

I wouldn't shoot the messenger. It is unlikely that the fault lies at their end because they are running a business where correct formatting is make or break for them. If people regulalry have issues, they go down the tubes. It could be any number of techinical issues at their end, your end or in between.

What was the encoding on the document, what program are you using to format the doc and what email prog did you send it with?

I think there has certainly been miscommunication but I don't think you can jump to the conclusion that is is de facto their fault... not yet anyway.

Have you asked them why no refund (by email Wink

)

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

Let me make it clear.
All, repeat, all formatting problems were cause by the fact that all communication between tutor and student is routed through the ICAL home computer. I could not email the tutor directly. All problems were caused by ICAL's system. The document sent by the tutor to me was scrambled in the ICAL system, my replies to the tutor were interecepted and rejected by the ICAL system. I could not know that I was supposed to go outside of their system until the lady administrator told me that I should have written to her about the problems. It was only when I went outside the ICAL SOP to ask for a refund tthat I found out their system was the cause of the problem.
I have requested a full refund. I have not yet had a reply.
I had no problems commicating in my other online course.
The problem is with ICAL.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

uh oh... now I don't even think you should get a refund....

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

Dear schmooj,
Try being rational. My email works perfectly. My reception of emails from everyone but ICAL. My reception of emails jumbled by ICAL is their responsibility. Their refusal to respond to emails to ICAL jumbled by their system is their responsibility. I know you find it difficult to read, but I did make it clear that the only was to get a response was to go outside their system of communication. They sell a course to teach Computer Assisted Learning and set up a system that frustrates the process. They guarantee a full refund if one cancels within 15 days but they do not honor their guarantee.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

OK, tried to help but looks like you are just going to sulk. slater...

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

To me, Jeddah teacher appears to be right. They have set up some kind of system that fouls up the formatting.

It looks like they were stripping of the MIME types. Language encoding might be another thing.

What formats were you sending the docs in and in what format where they returned.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

How on earth can you surmise this from just reading this thread? You must have inside info.

Why on earth would an Internet based company do anything that risked fouling up formatting. Surely there are plenty of satisfied customers out there that their system works for.

Finally, I've asked about formatting etc but, as you can see, have had no details. Perhaps the OP is worried that the answers to my questions above would actually point the finger their way... Rolling Eyes

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

The wonderful people at ICAL have not yet responded with an explanation why they did not give me the full refund they promised on their web page if one cancelled within 15 days.

jeddahteacher · Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 291 Location: Arabia

ICAL does not permit direct emails from student to tutor.
I sent my first assignment as a word doc attachment through their system.
It arrived at the tutor. The tutor sent a doc attachment back. Her doc was totally deformatted and almost unreadable.
I attempted to get clarification from the tutor but all of my responses were bounced back by their system, but in a manner giving the impression that the tutor was complaining about my formatting. In reality their automatic system was generating the replies.
My guess is the the tutor was using a non-PC or perhaps another wordprocessor that was generating not quite Word compatible documents.
Since none of the other distance learning courses I have taken have generated any similar problems, the ball is in the ICAL court.