An assessor training organisation has become the latest NCFE-accredited provider to have its contract terminated after appearing to cease trading.
The awarding organisation NCFE has confirmed it has ended its working relationship with Great Heights Training Limited, based in Stratford, East London.
It comes after learners reported a lack of communication from the organisation, and its two websites and phone number stopped working.
An NCFE spokeswoman said: “NCFE can confirm that Great Heights Training appears to have ceased trading and as a result of this, their working relationship with NCFE has been terminated.
“At NCFE, we will be conducting our Duty of Care process in order to help registered NCFE learners complete their training.
“We would encourage all concerned learners to get in touch with NCFE so that we can advise you on the best course of action.
“Call us on 0191 239 8000 and our dedicated team will take your details and inform you of next steps.”
According to the company’s Linkedin profile, Great Heights Training was established in 2010 and had between 11 and 50 employees.
The organisation claimed to specialise in “training QCF assessors and Internal Verifiers across the UK and abroad”, with “over 10 years experience in the training industry”.
FE Week has been unable to contact Great Heights Training, or its sole director, Wale Sandals.
It comes after the results of a four-month investigation by NCFE into alleged malpractice at Bright International Training, another training organization that offered similar courses to Great Height Training, were published.
The investigation concluded there was evidence of malpractice and resulting in at least 225 learners losing their qualifications.
Having heard the NCFE CEO squirming under questioning on Radio 4 re the Bright assessing story, is it now about time that we turned the spotlight on them?
We purchased two online QCF Assessor and Verifier courses costing over £2000. After 6 months the Assessor assigned to me stopped reviewing submitted work. We have tried to email, write and telephone all to no avail. Question is, have we lost our initial investment and 6 months work?! Is there any way we can get our money back?
I purchased a online QCF Assessor course back in November 2013 About a month ago the Assessor stopped reviewing my work, I have since spoke to my bank as i paid for the course on my debit card they have told me I can have my money back so long as I can prove that Great heights Training Ltd has creased trade and on what date.
Hi John Morgan,
I know how you feel and sympathize with you all the way. I fell for the same
thing with Great Heights Training. I paid in full at the beginning of the A1 Assessor course and all was reasonably well until just about the time I sent in the assignments for the outcome 8,in May of this year. From then on all went blank, no emails, phones out of service and the E-portfolio stopped working. Enquiries to NCFG led them to investigate the problem. NCFE got back to me informing me that Great Eights was in liquidation or filled for it. They were helpful I must say, although I had other bed news today. Great eights, other than fraudsters are also con artists for they went into my bank account and took the cost of the course AGAIN!!! I am out of more then £1200 now and started getting more information pressed by the Bank to pay up. I called Insolvency Services which after a quick investigation informed me that Great Heights is not in liquidation as yet, so no liquidator was arranged, although everyone I could get information from told me that they cannot get in touch with anybody at the company. I went even further and contacted the National Archives files, where every UK company is registered with a number (in Great Heights case the number is 07311272). To my surprise, the company still exists and active. Of course you and I know that failing to inform or request unregistering procedures might get them into big problems with the Government. However, for you and me its no consolation if we don’t get our money back one way or the other. I was told by insolvency Services to phone back next week in case something would turn out as far as liquidation of that company is concerned. The battle is not over yet and I intend to pursue this until I drop dad. They might be on the run, but we have to make sure that this type of behaviour has to be stopped somewhere down the line. I am sorry for you, me and hundreds more learners that were caught in this web. My best wishes to all. I’ll try my best to keep you informed of the latest developments.
I am going through the same experience having paid £675 for a course which no longer exists. They also took 3 amounts out of my bank account without my permission – £224.10, £360 and £749. Theft.
Help me someone please! I paid three amounts to Great Heights training and have not had the course I paid for. Not only that they took £1,300 from my account without my permission (stole). I am now £2,000 out of pocket thanks to these crooks.