Advent Computer Training (Barclays Partner Finance)Info and discussion thread

[raj4u]

hi guys, no calls since last week..i just would like to know any updates from FOS. I knew most of the guys here complained to FOS, its nearly 4months gone..did anyone had a final outcome from FOS? we reached almost 200 pages on cag, still we are nowhere:-x

[marianporazka]

hi all am i the only one not getting contacted by computeach?

they sent me an email way back at the start of all this but i never replied.

I do'nt want to sign up with them any way so i suppose its no loss!

Hello lewis2 , I confused as lot of us. My Partner Finance is Barclays; they paid for my study. In my opinion Advent service is ****, but I contacted with Comptech by phone; they gave me reference number, and I can register as student. But the big problem for us is JOB. We can do our self study from Microsoft for less than 5400 £. I have done: CompTIA A+ , MCDST, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment (Course 2274C), EDCL (European Driving Computer License) and I am Master Degree IT from University. I have also experience in IT. No any recruitment proposition from Advent!!! Question is: How better is recruitment servie from Comptech? This company is vorth 5400 £ ? Do you, or any student have answer?

[marianporazka]

Hello lewis2 , I confused as lot of us. My Partner Finance is Barclays; they paid for my study. In my opinion Advent service is ****, but I contacted with Comptech by phone; they gave me reference number, and I can register as student. But the big problem for us is JOB. We can do our self study from Microsoft for less than 5400 £. I have done: CompTIA A+, MCDST, EDCL (European Driving Computer License), Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment (Course 2274C). I have also experience in IT. No any recruitment proposition from Advent!!! Question is: How better is recruitment service from Comptech? This company is vorth 5400 £ ? Do you, or any student have answer?

[Matt28LFC]

Hi All, just wondering, how do you know if your part of the legal action that Fuzzbutt's set up?

 

I sent my forms in around 2weeks i go i think and not heard anything from them? Thought i might get an email or something just letting me know they'd been recieved and im part of the action.

[Lankus]

Hi All, just wondering, how do you know if your part of the legal action that Fuzzbutt's set up?

 

I sent my forms in around 2weeks i go i think and not heard anything from them? Thought i might get an email or something just letting me know they'd been recieved and im part of the action.

 

Call Hausfeld and confirm they've received your papers and ask if they need anything else from you. The number's on their website

[Fuzzbutt]

just tried group site direct and got on no probs looks like AOL got there arse's in gear

 

Thanks for letting us know, Snowball. Great.

[Fuzzbutt]

hi guys, no calls since last week..i just would like to know any updates from FOS. I knew most of the guys here complained to FOS, its nearly 4months gone..did anyone had a final outcome from FOS? we reached almost 200 pages on cag, still we are nowhere:-x

 

I had a letter from the adjudicator last week assigned by FOS and he said still looking into it. In a way I'm not worried as I'm sure we'll get a result through the group legal action, (which would be preferable as we get compo etc against Barclays,) but I've still copied my letters to BPF and all their replies to FOS for the record. BPF have, however stopped writing to me now as I'm not in debt (my loan is paid off) but they have still not given a satisfactory response (even though I wrote directly to MD Paul Noble!). FOS have all that.

 

I intend to write up an article about all this once it's over, to spread around on the media to any journalist who is interested in picking it up. I've been in contact with Watchdog and Daily Mirror investigates already, sent them copies of all my docs and had positive reponses back.

 

I'm determined BPF are not going to get off lightly and will STINK in the press, if I have anything to do with it.

 

At the moment I'm waiting for the next step from Barclays to see where this goes next.

[Fuzzbutt]

Hi All, just wondering, how do you know if your part of the legal action that Fuzzbutt's set up?

 

I sent my forms in around 2weeks i go i think and not heard anything from them? Thought i might get an email or something just letting me know they'd been recieved and im part of the action.

 

The legal team probably won't contact you directly at this stage, Matt. I can assure you that they are collating all the info everyone is sending in for their case. I can also vouch that any evidence people have sent me that I requested about dates on Advent agreement, workshop experiences and so on I've forwarded directly to our lawyer and she is building a file of people's comments and feedback. Their focus at the mo is Barclays and the reply they get. They may have had a response already but I haven't heard yet.

 

The next step, if Barclays refuse to meet the lawyers or agree a reasonable outcome, will be court action. That's when the various evidence (contracts, copies of your agreements etc which you've sent to Hausfeld) will be used.

 

If you read the letter to BPF again, Hausfeld are trying to avoid court action as it will drag things out and they want a result for us ASAP. We just have to be patient and wait for Hausfeld to negotiate and sort this out in our best interests, which they will.

 

I'm sure I'll hear soon. Then everyone will know.

[Fuzzbutt]

Hi All, just wondering, how do you know if your part of the legal action that Fuzzbutt's set up?

 

I sent my forms in around 2weeks i go i think and not heard anything from them? Thought i might get an email or something just letting me know they'd been recieved and im part of the action.

 

Just in case anyone's unsure how it works, Hausfeld asked me to keep the list of everyone who contacted me to be part of the action, which I've done as a contact list on the fuzzbutt hotmail address. This is translated into an Excel spreadsheet, so even if you haven't sent docs to Hausfeld you're on my list. That means you are part of the group action.

 

Hope that explains better if anyone isn't sure. I understand this is a really stressful, confusing situation for everyone and I'm in a bit of a priveliged position in being contact person with our lawyer, so I know 'stuff is happening behind the scenes' which is a reassurance the rest of you don't have.

[Matt28LFC]

Ok thanks Fuzzbutt, really appreciate your efforts here. Hopefully we'll come out on top and i can get back to studying again. Minus the training provider though

[lowdown]

Thanks for the update Fuzzbutt,

 

Much appreciated.

[snowball574]

fuzz rocks

[Surface Scum]

Dear Fellow Advent Students

 

I too have been caught up in the fiasco that is Advent Computer Training. I received the dreaded e-mailo back in February, but naively thought that Barclays (being bound by the Consumer Credit Act) would do the right thing and arrange a suitable alternative. I have been patiently awaiting a response, but was utterly gob smacked when I finally spoke to someone at CT who knew what they were talking about, and found out that my contract with Advent actually expired back in Oct 2009.

 

As is the case with many of you I was assured by the Advent sales person that the contract was completely open ended and they would support me as long as I needed them. It was not until I read the (very) small print on the back of the enrolement form that I found out about the expiry of the contract.

 

As you can imagine I have had a horrible 24 hours, however my only saving grace is that reading some of the threads below it appears like you guys are doing something about it. Am I too late to get involved in the legal action Fuzzbutt?

 

I am happy to do whatever is rerquired to bring these con men to rights. I have been totally let down by Advent right from the beginning. The sales pitch was mainly lies, and the support and training material has been worse than useless. I paid for the course (via a BPF loan) using my grandmother's inheritance and I was hoping this would provide a stable future for my young family - how wrong could I be??

 

I am not sure I can bring much more to the action that hasn't already been provided, but I am sure I can dig out my A+ Essentials book that was a joke, and I can proove (by way of e-mails) that Advent were continuing to support me after expiration of my contract.

 

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

 

Thanks

[snowball574]

had a phone call from computeach today asked me to confirm my detail to make sure he was talkin to the right person (i didn't).instead i told him i had no intension to go with computeach and i am sortin the matter out with barclays.he tried to tell me about there training but i stopped him and said you are keeping to the 2 year term on the advent contract even though i know of other students that have gone over this term and my 2 years ended in april 2010 so i have no choice but to go after barclays for a better deal(refund)his answer to that was barclays are payin for a extra 3 month i told him i've done 4 exams and there is no way i can do the other 7 exams in 3 months his anwser to that was to talk to barclays and try and sort something out.£uck me wot we been tryin to do for the past 5 months.

 

by the way had a FOS response from barclays according to them i have no reason to complain computeach are great,if i don't reply to this response in 8 weeks they will consider the matter closed.

jay

[snowball574]

Dear Fellow Advent Students

 

I too have been caught up in the fiasco that is Advent Computer Training. I received the dreaded e-mailo back in February, but naively thought that Barclays (being bound by the Consumer Credit Act) would do the right thing and arrange a suitable alternative. I have been patiently awaiting a response, but was utterly gob smacked when I finally spoke to someone at CT who knew what they were talking about, and found out that my contract with Advent actually expired back in Oct 2009.

 

As is the case with many of you I was assured by the Advent sales person that the contract was completely open ended and they would support me as long as I needed them. It was not until I read the (very) small print on the back of the enrolement form that I found out about the expiry of the contract.

 

As you can imagine I have had a horrible 24 hours, however my only saving grace is that reading some of the threads below it appears like you guys are doing something about it. Am I too late to get involved in the legal action Fuzzbutt?

 

I am happy to do whatever is rerquired to bring these con men to rights. I have been totally let down by Advent right from the beginning. The sales pitch was mainly lies, and the support and training material has been worse than useless. I paid for the course (via a BPF loan) using my grandmother's inheritance and I was hoping this would provide a stable future for my young family - how wrong could I be??

 

I am not sure I can bring much more to the action that hasn't already been provided, but I am sure I can dig out my A+ Essentials book that was a joke, and I can proove (by way of e-mails) that Advent were continuing to support me after expiration of my contract.

 

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

 

Thanks

welcome mate

proof of after term support will really help are case, anything that prove's advent were not enforcing the term on the contract is great news.

jay

[rally2001]

On my enrolment form with advent i dont have a starting date and a finish date. This to me is proof the course was open ended because i specificaly questioned this when i signed up and the main reason i signed up with advent

[lowdown]

On my enrolment form with advent i dont have a starting date and a finish date. This to me is proof the course was open ended because i specificaly questioned this when i signed up and the main reason i signed up with advent

 

Same for me - plus no start end date on the contract.....

BPF told me on the phone there was an end date.

[of course i know there is not]

I have asked several times for a copy of their contract.To date no reply.

[raj4u]

we all knew that we are messed up with advent n Bpf..regardless of contact enddate, my query is that there is no guarantee that computeach will go into adminstration in future. what if they were..so bpf will ask all of us to go with another provider once again. Is there any way to find out how bpf advanced money to advent? it was mentioned in contract that they will forward the full amount to advent once we signed agreement. If this is the case, how bpf is funding computeach again n where are they getting this money from? bpf should chase advent or pkf to get their money back, i don't know why they are after us..

[marianporazka]

My financial advisor called for BPF, and they told all money were spend for Advent, so I can't take 4 000 £ which left after Advent gone. So BPF find for student Compteach. BPF told me I must take course from Compteach.

If they have weak level of cource, I can write leter for BPF and BPF will do investigation.

 

Compare Advent to Compteach, Compteach in Networking profile do not provide Cisco course. Cisco is very important on market, I finished with Advent CompTIA+, MCDST; for network profie I need: MCSA, MCSE and CISCO. So what I will do: I will write letter to BPF about complain where is CISCO.../:|

[lowdown]

we all knew that we are messed up with advent n Bpf..regardless of contact end date,

 

Possibly - but this is very important. This is what BPF are trying to base

their case around.

BPF are saying whats good for one Goose, aint good for another Goose.

They are flowndering, winging it , whatever you want to call it.

But one thing is for sure - they aint sure anymore...

[rally2001]

Basically BPF don't care about who they find has a new training provider because they are only interested in getting their money back. They are only saying we have an end date because the finance agreement was only over 3 years. They don't give a damn what advent offered.

[THE ROADIE]

The reason why BPF are so interested in hounding us for money is they thought they would get loads of money back via the ridiculous interest rate they slapped most of us on, moreso than if they were to persue Advent for the money they paid them.

[rally2001]

Why is my finance agreement 0% interest??? It's 5995 over three years!!

[cashins]

The reason why BPF are so interested in hounding us for money is they thought they would get loads of money back via the ridiculous interest rate they slapped most of us on, moreso than if they were to persue Advent for the money they paid them.

 

Bear in mind BPF as a seperate entity will cease to exist in the near future being intergrated with another failed Barclays company, (First Plus Financial), in Cardiff.

 

What you are getting is the standard Barclaycard (who BPF reported to) and ultimately Barclays Plc response seen so many times on this forum.

 

This is:

 

We're right, you're wrong so shut up and pay up. This mantra is repeated in the hope that many people will do just that - give up and pay up. This doesn't change until either they lose in court, or it is obvious they will lose.

 

David

[rally2001]

Well I may be one of those mugs who are still paying but only because I don't want to damage my credit rating. I'm saving for an house and looking to get a place next year, so putting my account into dispute and cancelling my DD would be a silly action in my situation. Don't get me wrong I want to do this but you can understand why I haven't