Greg Dickinson's personal web site

What follows is a timeline of my experiences with Aspreon Technologies.

9/28/2002 - Today I signed up for the CCIE certification track at Aspreon Technologies here in Birmingham. This particular course will set me back about $20k, but given the pay rate that CCIE's can demand, I see it as an investment in my future.

12/10/2002 - Finished with the CCIE Routing classes today. I take one 8 hour class a week, so each class takes 8 sessions to complete. I'm beginning to have my doubts about the training here. The instructor is young, and fresh out of college, and therefore not nearly as knowledgeable as even myself in real-world issues that come up when dealing with complex routed internetworks. Aside from that, some of the hardware that we are using won't pass the routing protocols (IS-IS and BGP come to mind immediately) and there is evidently no way to get the IOS updated to allow it to work. Perhaps it is just this instructor - everyone here seems nice enough, so I'm willing to give this one a pass.

3/1/2003 - Finished with the CCIE Switching classes today. I am thorougly underwhelmed by the utter lack of knowledge that the instructor had of the subject matter. Several times the instructor had to answer "I don't know why it works that way" to questions from myself and other members of the class. Come to find out later that the instructor does not even have the CCNP certification yet; he's just passed the switching test and evidently is now qualified to teach the switching class. The crowning achievement was the lab that we did today. We spent over 2 hours attempting to configure Fast EtherChannel between two Cisco Catalyst 5500 switches. We were unable to configure the FEC bundle, and come to find out that (after the instrctor called someone who knew) that the configuration was invalid, and we had to rip the lab apart and start over. Once I get some documentation together, I am going to request a refund of my unused tuition.

3/3/2003 - I faxed a letter to the manager of student affairs at Aspreon today. I requested a refund of the unused class tuition (approximately $14k) to be sent to the company that has the student loan for this class. I am willing to pay for the classes I took, even though I am thoroughly displeased with the quality.

3/7/2003 - I received a call today from Demetrius Hubbard at Aspreon. He says that he is the student affairs director, and (I found out from an independent source) that he is the COO of the company. He informed me that Aspreon has a no-refund policy on their technical training, and that I would not be receiving a refund of any fees paid - if I was dissatisisfied, I could sit through the class with a different instructor. Unfortunately, I was never informed of the no-refund policy at any time prior to this, and it is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation that I signed upon enrollment. This prompts a letter to the president of the company stating the experiences that I've had and seeking an equitable resolution to the situation.

3/17/2003 - After more than a week with no response whatsoever from Aspreon, I have filed an official complaint with the local Better Business Bureau office. The web form I filled out states that it takes 3 weeks for the complaint to be processed.

3/29/2003 - I received Aspreon's response to the Better Business Bureau. Here is the letter, but since the scanner I had access to was an older model, here is also a transcript of the letter:

"Dear Ms Moore

This is in response to Mr. Dickinson's complaint. I am sorry Mr. Dickinson was not happy with the instructions (sic) he received here at Aspreon, however, he chose not to address this matter until he had completed two classes. We certainly would have addressed this matter had we been informed sooner. As for his thinking that the instruction was inferior because he knew more than the instructor, as a rule these students do not attend our classes because they already know the material. They attend Aspreon because they want the training and knowledge of the material. No we do not refund and are not required by the State of Alabama Department of Post Secondary Education to have a refund policy, however, if the applicants inquire we do disclose at that time that we do not refund.

Sincerely,

Beverly Morgan"

Wow. Where do I even begin? :-)

1. As I stated earlier, and in the Better Business Bureau complaint, I gave the first class a pass, because I though it was just the age and relative inexperience of the instructor. It was only after the second class that my dissatisfaction was set in stone and the complaint was issued.
2. When I signed up for the classes at Aspreon, the salesperson was well aware of my level of technical knowledge; in fact, we even discussed me coming to work at Aspreon as a network engineer. If these classes are indeed designed for entry-level network professionals, then that should have been disclosed at that time.
3. The last line of the letter would indicate that they don't tell you that they have a no refund policy unless you ask. Could this possibly be construed as mis-representation?

The next step is binding arbitration, as I signed a binding arbitration agreement. I have absolutely no experience in this realm. If anyone reading this has experience with arbitration, please contact me.

5/21/2003 - Wow. Almost two months since my last update. So much has happened; here are the highlights:

1. I went to the State of Alabama attorney general's office. When I made the complaint, I made the mistake of using the phrase "switched network troubleshooting class." This caused the response from Aspreon that I was lying, since "(I have) never taken the troubleshooting class." Duh. I never said I did.
2. I contacted Element K (a provider of authorized Cisco courseware) and told them that at the time I took the courses that there was no way that the instructors were CCSI certified. I was told that they had since passed their tests. and were now certified.
3. So far three people have found my website and e-mailed me. Thanks to all who took the time to drop me a line.

There have been some interesting developments at Aspreon, also. *WARNING* This information is at best secondhand. Use at your own risk.

1. Aspreon has laid off all but one instructor in the Birmingham office. They have stopped all but the CCNA classes, and those classes are only taught about one day per week.
2. Equipment is disappearing from the classrooms in Birmingham. This could be because they're trying to open a Huntsville location, or it could be because...
3. Aspreon is about to file bankruptcy. Calls to their office go unanswered most of the time. When they are answered the usual receptionist does not answer them.

You can go back to the Aspreon litigation information page here.