I signed for Solar Training with National Solar Trainers in January of 2012. The course I signed up for was to be given from February 13, 2012 to February 17, 2012. After reserving hotels and scheduling this week including bids around this schedule, I decided it was smart to call on Friday March 10, 2012 to confirm the training course in Baltimore considering at that time I did not have a location of the training.
At approximately 4:55pm PM March 10, 2012, I finally contacted someone in the office as no one ever answers their phone. They told me at that time they never scheduled the training for that week even though I inserted on my calendar the day I registered. So I cancelled my hotel reservations and went to work Monday morning as usual.
Preston the sales representative to me the actual schedule was for March 13 through 17th at the Hampton Inn Hotel at the BWI airport near Baltimore, MD. I called him Wednesday the next week because he forgot to send the confirmation email on Monday which he promised.
With the confirmation in hand I reserve Hotel rooms again for the week of March 12 – 16 2012, as Baltimore is 3-1/2 hours from my office.
On Monday night I leave about 8:30 pm to get to Baltimore that night so I rise for the 8:00 AM training. I wake up at 6:00AM eat breakfast and travel over to the Hampton In Hotel where the training is scheduled at. I arrive at 7:50AM and immediately go to the front desk to ask the desk manager what room the training for National Solar Trainers is to be held in. To say the least, I was very surprised to find out nothing was scheduled for National Solar Trainers, nor was it ever scheduled.
Please note: This training for Solar Design and installation cost $995.00, plus hotel and travel it was well over $1250.00, for just the one night I stayed in the Hotel.
When I was finally able to reach Eldin Kim Business Development Director
115 West 7th Street, Suite 300
Charlotte, NC 28202
C. (646) 915-5308
F. (704) 749-2569
He acted very surprised that I was not informed of the schedule change. He told me everyone who was scheduled to be trained in Baltimore was called and postponed for the March 17 through March 21 in Elizabeth, NJ.
He actually started to get very loud on the phone with me when I asked to speak with the owner of the company due to the fact that I wanted my travel expenses to be paid considering they did not communicate the schedule change with me for the dates in Elizabeth, NJ.
He was yelling at me on the phone hat HE WAS THE OWNER OF NATIONAL SOLAR TRAINERS, Then he calmed down and promised he would take care of me after he researched on his side with the communication problem with his company.
When I called him on March 14, 2012 to let him know what my Hotel and travel costs were he told me he was only going to offer me what he offered everyone to change their plans for his convenience. WE DON’T AND WON’T PAY FOR TRAVEL EXPENSES EVEN IF WE DID NOT COMMUNICATE THE TRAINING POSTPONEMENT TO YOU.
At that time I decided my thoughts were correct about his company and I cancelled my course for supposedly a full refund.
He Elizabeth, NJ course is about two hours closer to me so it would have been an easy decision had they been a professional company and informed me of the course date and location change. I also would have saved a week of hotel room costs. But do I really want to be trained by such a non-professional company as National Solar Trainers.
As well I posted this complaint on their Facebook page only to see it removed.
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Company Response
The following response has been submitted by the company. It's source has been verified by Groubal.
We have notified you that you will be fully refunded for the course, however at this time this is all that we are able to do. We have reached out to you (along with all of the other students that were enrolled in the Baltimore class) via email numerous times notifying you of the date change, as well as location change. However, your email address that was given was incorrect. Emails were never bounced back to us as "not delivered", so it was only our assumption that you had received all of them. Also per a phone call with our Accounts Manager, we were under the impression that New Jersey would be more accessible for you and simply an overall better fit. Our regret is that this conversation was over the phone and not able to be followed up via email because of the address being incorrect.
The owner and Business Development Director of the company has attempted to accommodate you to the best of his ability, and with a strong sense of urgency. However, the tone of voice and language used from the clients side was certainly offensive and unacceptable. At this time our company has done everything we feel in order to attempt to rectify this situation. We fully understand that although it was a communication error, it is not acceptable nor typical of our organization. Please feel free to reach out to us again, if there is anything else we can do to right this wrong.
Thank You.
15 signatures
Can you contact us directly. We are interested in writing about your story in one of our articles covering solar training.
Thanks
george at ecologicallysensible.com
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