Canada-Complaints.com » Education & Science » Complaint / review: Wellington College of Remedial Massage Therapies - Fraud | #3151

Wellington College of Remedial Massage Therapies
Fraud

I am a former student of Wellington College. Upon applying to the College, I had made it clear that I would like to use the an RMT diploma as a means to acquiring a degree. The 'selling point' to attend WCRMT was the fact that they claimed they were in the process of completing their accreditation so that I could get a degree after completing my training. 5 years ago they said they were 'ten months away' from completing this process. They were actively advertising this to their students as a prospect upon completing the program. I spent 20, 000 dollars on education from this institution expecting to get a degree at the end of it, only to find out later that obtaining a degree was impossible because not only are they not accredited, but they were never even pursuing accreditation. I multiple assurances from the Owner of the college and other members of the College that getting a degree would be possible after the program is complete because they were going through an accreditation. They lied, and have yet to deliver on any of their statements to their students. They are not being honest with their students about their intentions. You cannot get a degree of any kind with the training that is received from this school, despite having been told otherwise on countless occasions. You cannot transfer credits from this Institution to a University, despite what they are saying. If I was told this from the beginning, I likely would have attended another institution. Hence, they are using horribly deceptive sales tactics in order to persuade people to attend their institution.

Specifically, Wellington College was telling their student body that they were undergoing an accreditation which would make it possible to continue schooling for either nursing, physiotherapy, or occupational therapy. The claim was that we would be able to take what we had learned from a University in BC and all we would have to do is an extra year or two of course work to be able to obtain a degree. From there, the student could move on a pursue whatever they desired. Unfortunately, this was all bull shit.

Upon graduation, I applied to the University they were promoting that would accept there credits for a Bachelors in Health Science. To my shock, the University had no affiliation with whatsoever Wellington College. (Note that I had contacted the University before attending the College, and they had said that they regularly accept credits from Private Colleges but could not review them until I had graduated with a Diploma. Surely Wellington had to have known about this, but yet they said nothing about this in my discussions with them.) I contacted Wellington College 3 times about this, and on the third attempt I received and email from the Owner of the College. He stated the following:

From: [email protected]

Subject: RE: BHS and the Massage Therapy Diploma

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 09:07:08 -0500

Hi Tristan

We are presently going through a CETAC accreditation. The completion of this is 12 months from now.

As soon as we have that completed we will be applying to Thompson Rivers University for the approval of our program.

So it is targeted for next year. That may be a bit late for you.

The problem is in language. They call one thing one name and we may have a slight different description.

It is definitely on our list however to get it done.

Randy

Puzzled as to why the accreditation process was taking so long, I contacted CETAC to find out the particulars. As it turned out, Wellington had never applied for accreditation. The email from the Executive Director of CETAC is below:

Hello Tristan,

Wellington College has not at this time, applied for CETAC accreditation. We have had discussions with the College leadership regarding CETAC and have understood that they are interested in pursuing this. However, we have not yet received their application to commence the process.

Sincerely,

Deborah Burns

Executive Director

Canadian Education and Training Accreditation Commission

So I must ask, why was Wellington recommending programs with their training when they were not accredited? Why were they stating that accreditation was under way when in fact it had never begun? Why did Mr. Ellingson (Owner) inform me that the accreditation was under way? And why did they not pay the University in BC to get an assessment before suggesting it to students? Well, it's quite obvious: they were lying. And I got suckered big time.

I need not go into detail about how drastically the College's callous behavior has affected me, but suffice it to say that I have suffered academically and financially. I have tried mediation with the College only to have them disregard my claims with a statement from a lawyer while attacking me personally. They have failed to address any of my concerns. I am now in a position where I have to redo ALL of my applicable Wellington courses at a University level if I wish to progress on with my ambitions. This will take several years, and will cost thousands of dollars.

The bottom line is that they lied through there teeth and it's impacted me horribly. They let me down in ways I didn't even know a school could. I've enclosed a copy of our mediation and ask that you read it or show it to someone who was/is thinking about attending this school. There are definitely more honest institutions out there. If anyone would like to contact me regarding my predicament, I encourage you to do so.

Date:


0 comments

Information
Only registered users can leave comments.
Please Register on our website, it will take a few seconds.




Quick Registration via social networks:
Login with FacebookLogin with Google