Back to the Academies International scam

Its been about six months since I blogged about Academies International, they were an organisation who nabbed my CV off Reed.co.uk and phoned up offering a guaranteed job if I went for one of their training schemes. I went along and merrily signed up to a £9,000 loan taken out on my behalf.

Anyhoo, that blog entry has consistently been really popular, with literally hundreds of folk searching on google for it.

There's a whole handful of websites attached to Academies International now including The Financial Training Academy, The Financial Recruitment Academy, The Business Development Academy, The Vocational Training Academy, The Technology Recruitment Academy, The Technology Training Academy and The Application Development Academy. The sites all look very similar and there's a load of overlap in the people they have leaving testimonials about how neat the company is.

I've been wondering how much these testimonial folk exist in real life, are they on Facebook or google? These are their names:-

• Carley Watson
• Kuldeep Wassel
• Jamal Khan
• Steven Clark
• Scot Williams
• Kazi Jubaer
• John Wright
• Kantilal Tywol
• Rabab Halabi
• Wayne Li
• Abdullah Jama
• Cara Richardson
• Xu Li
• Pete Banks
• Matthew Sulivan
• Fiona Brown
• Sharifa Marshall
• Jennifer Matthews
• Riddhima Moothoo
• Matthew McCarthy
• Jakub Jez
• Neil Turnnidge
• Henry Costa
• Martin Pluck
• Mitchell Hayes
• Joseph Davies
• Sairan Mosadegh
• Ahad Miah

That blog post last summer has garnered 22 comments so far, a record for this blog. Folk sharing their stories, mostly the same deal of phonecall referring to details on an old CV and then offering a guaranteed job.

Its true about what they are saying about the Business development acandamy, or the financial acadamy, or what ever they want to call it. i attended the course for 10 weeks, and i spent more then 8 000 pounds, for a promise i that was lie from the begining. i couldnt belive i fell for such a scam. i am trying my best to get my money back if that is possible. i would want an advice from any one who also a victiem to this crim, if there is any one who has a way to help me to get my money back. i am a 22 year old man who has quite his job, to get a better oppotrunity in the IT field, and now i am flat broke, with no money for food travel or bills. and am struglling to cope with the stress on my mind, if there is any one out there who can help me to do something about it.. i am very upset and i dont have any words to describe how am feeling.

Some people left advice in their comments, this from iyah:-

I contacted the Guardian, and they said I should report it to Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06. They will log it and if there are others then this may get picked up by the most relevant Trading Standards Office, but that was the only advice they could give me.

Maybe if we all report them, it will be picked up?

I contacted the Guardian too, but it was a futile gesture.

Rather interestingly former employees of Academies International also left comments:-

i was also a manager until i realised what they got up to there

they are sexist bullies who think employing young women will somehow get men especially to buy

yes it is a load of crap

there are no jobs

and now they are going downhill trust me!! ppl have them sussed now