Computeach > Reviews (31)

My husband, a chef by trade, has been struggling with health problems for several years and hasn't been able to work more than a few hours a week in the catering industry. He's always been interested in computers so having seen the adverts, we thought there would be nothing to lose in giving Computeach a call as we felt he may be better suited to a less physical job.

The advisor came to our house and began by attempting to assure us that he wasn't a salesman. He told us about Computeach's policy of only accepting the best candidates and quite early on informed us that my husband could be earning £55,000 in a few years time. This was after having asked lots of personal questions and decided that my husband was best suited to the networking route. He showed us the facilities at the Dudley training centre such as the canteen and classrooms, stressing how much space there was between terminals, the size of the desks and how good the food was. He flattered my husband by saying he was one of the best candidates he had seen since he started the job and that he was almost certain to be accepted for the course. He also told us about Computeach Careers who would almost certainly be able to get my husband a job after he had completed ten weeks of the course. So far so good...

We were ALMOST sold on the idea.....and that's why I felt I had to write this review.

The alarm bells started to ring when he told us to ignore anything we may read about Computeach or Computeach careers on the internet. He said the 85% pass rate spoke for itself and implied that any negative feedback may have been posted onto the internet by rival companies.

There was no mention of how my husband would manage the course (and hold down the job Computeach careers would help him to obtain) with his health problems. To us, this would have been one of the major points to discuss, particularly as it was mentioned on more than one occasion that Computeach is an ethical company.

We also felt that some of the questions asked were a little intrusive and not particularly relevant. For example, I don't believe that my husband's family background has a lot of bearing on his ability to do a course.

And then we came onto the cost of the courses! It was finally mentioned towards the end of the visit. The full three year group of courses would cost £5,250. However, we were not given the option to simply sign up for the starter courses. The advisor told us that the first course would last ten weeks by which time my husband would be able to build his own computer and troubleshoot any faults, potentially giving him enough skills to start looking for a job in somewhere such as PC World or a similar environment. This would have suited him down to the ground but the advisor dismissed this and said you don't want to do that, you want to be earning big money. It came across therefore, as we had to sign up for the whole group of courses and the option was never given to sign up for them individually or to just undertake the more basic courses.

More worrying for me was the offer of arranging a loan to pay for the £5250 fees. During the personal questions, we told the advisor that we already had debt problems, hence the reason why we were looking into a career change for my husband. Despite being touted as an ethical company, he seemed to have no qualms in offering to arrange a bank loan for us including a 'buy now, pay later' loan which was interest free for 12 months, with interest of 29.8% after that.

Whilst I can't comment on the quality of the courses offered by Computeach or their customer service, I really wanted to write this to warn others about ****************************************​***
***************. That may sound dramatic but the advisor, as a part of Computeach, was prepared to sell a £5,250 course to a man with restrictive health problems, who clearly couldn't afford it and to land us with a potentially crippling 29.8% loan into the bargain.

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******************************** For example, he asked me where I would like to go on holiday, my dream location. That was then used as a bargaining tool ie: look at what you can earn and then you will be able take your wife on all these dream holidays which you'll never be able to do otherwise.

Obviously, Computeach is a business like any other and has to make money but I thought the methods ******************************* in view of the fact the company was being marketed as being ethical and that the advisor was "not a sales person". Thankfully, we didn't sign up to anything but it worried me to think that other people could so easily be talked into something they simply could not afford in and wasn't right for them.

Computeach is clearly the right thing for some people as indicated by a couple of reviews on Ciao but please, please think very carefully before signing up for anything!