Assisted Living Education

After the recent diagnosis of a family member with frontotemporal dementia, and the difficulty finding a caregiver, I decided to enroll in a course with Assisted Living Education (ALE) to receive my RCFE certificate. I was unable to attend day 1 and day 2 as an emergency came up regarding the family member addressed a little earlier. My wife contacted the school (Via phone call) and let the receptionist know that everything was resolved with the instructor and myself. I was to attend the first two days of next month’s course, which was taught by the same instructor. The first day of the next month’s course, another emergency came up due to similar reasons as my first emergency. I missed the first day. However, I was able to attend the second day. I emailed with my wife’s email address letting them know I would like to reschedule a missed course date. They never responded. The instructor told me in class that I would have to pay $25.00 to reschedule another course date to make up the remaining one day’s worth of education. I agreed to do so. I received an email on March 16, 2017 from William the CEO of Assisted Living Education that said I owed ALE $280.00 for failing to go to class, and would need to pay the fee to receive my certificate. The email also stated how I broke the terms and conditions twice. However, there is nothing in the terms and conditions that refer to paying any fee to reschedule a course. After receiving the email, my wife and I called to speak with William. Instead we spoke with Rebekah, a representative of ALE who was not very helpful in disclosing why we were charged $280.00 except for we broke the terms and conditions (in which there is nothing about a charge in the terms and conditions to reschedule). I emailed William describing what the emergencies consisted of that pulled me out of the classes. I emailed again asking to speak with him over the phone. William did not call me once. I just wanted to speak with him about what I was being billed for being different than what I was told in class. Instead his next email to me was one that stated “too bad, you already told Dianna (instructor) the dates you would attend and did not.” In shock, I responded with “Too bad? Excellent customer service!” He wrote back about how I failed to fulfill my responsibility. But, that too didn’t answer why the fee was not in ALE’s terms and conditions. I emailed William back and said that I would pay the fee but would revisit this matter once I completed the course. I also expressed to William my genuine dissatisfaction with his customer service skills. William refunded me my money even though I had completed 70/80 hours to receive my certificate. William wrote back to me saying “you are out” and that I had been refunded even though I asked him twice before he refunded me how to pay for the additional fee. He also went on to stating how he has contacts with DSS personnel and that ALE is a matured business of more than 25 years. I called to speak with William. Again, he refused to speak with me. He ignored all my requests to speak with him over the phone. I told Rebekah to relay a message to him, that I did not know exactly how things got so sour in the emails. Rebekah stated that I threatened him twice and that I should learn from this experience and never tell a CEO, to take a course on customer service, even though I was being spoken to in a very rude manner. I told her that I was sorry if it looked like I had threatened him but I did not. After reviewing the emails, she concluded that I did, even though I never threatened him. Rebekah told me she would let William know that I was sorry for threatening him. I never even threatened him. She also suggested that due to my actions and my conduct with William that I would have no chance of being admitted back into the course. I called back the following day to ask Rebekah if William had accepted my apology. Rebekah told me that I could no longer take the course with ALE. So, after taking time off from work and completing 70/80 hours required for the certificate, I was kicked out of the class, even though I asked him twice on directions to pay the fee. If you’re going to take this course with ALE, I highly suggest you do not raise any concerns with the representatives, especially with William, the “CEO”, as you might end up in my shoes (completed 70/80 hours and kicked out for voicing my concerns).