World Education Services [WES] review: My degree evaluation 10

Wolfgang Busch

28-15 47 Street

Astoria, NY 11103

[protected]

WolfgangBusch@earthlink.net

Ref. # 2142487

November 20th, 2008

Subject: New York City office complaint about customer service staff; Sheri, Elyse and Ballyn

To: WES

NYC address unknown

John Lembo, Manager, Academic Services; support@wes.org

Lorinda Grogg, Director; lgrogg@wes.org

Mary Beth Sowa, Director; msowa@wes.org

Todd Rutkin, Director; trutkin@wes.org

Dear Mr. Lembo, Mr. Rutkin, Mrs. Grogg and Mrs. Sowa,

It is very unfortunate that I have to write this letter to all of you, because of the lack of professionalism in the customer service department at the New York office. After reading your mission statement and the statement of the professional staff you have and the services you provide are clear and easy to understand, is quite the opposite I am experiencing. I find this very disturbing for a not for profit organization and the rules and regulations you are suppose to go by.

My name is Wolfgang Busch, I am 53 years old and I graduated from the Realschule in Heppenheim, Germany 30 years ago. I decided to go to College for political science at the Empire College in NYC and therefore I need my graduation document approved by your organization. Unfortunately Empire College only accepts WES evaluation which is part of the problem (no competition), and explains the unprofessionalism I am experiencing with your staff; Sheri, Elyse and Ballyn at customer service.

Miss Ballyn had the nerve to lie on the phone to me accusing me that I mailed the document from Germany and not the school, when I asked her which document she was looking at to back up her statement, she couldn’t answer the question.

Originally I wanted my final dental technician graduation document also evaluated by WES, but the inexperience and unprofessional action of your customer service staff was the reason why I couldn’t deal with your staff and I faxed a note to your office to forget about the dental technician evaluation and only evaluate the Realschule school report.

Of course that caused only more confusion with your staff member Miss Ballyn, because she couldn’t understand what exactly I wanted to have evaluated now. At that point I took baby steps with her and I asked her, ok, how many faxes to you have in my file and please read them back to me. After repeating myself and a wait, I actually got her to read both faxes to me. At that point I also learned that she couldn’t articulate any word right and again the unprofessionalism of your staff was quite impressive and I wonder how this people get this job. I corrected her pronunciation and finally she understood what the fax was about and which document I wanted evaluated. For the first time I felt something was clear by all parties at the same time.

Let’s not forget, every time I call customer service it takes between 15 to 20 minutes to get somebody on the line and than I have to deal with THAT. If I was running my business like this I would be out of business a long time ago.

Miss Ballyn was lazy and unprofessional, she spoke to me without looking at my documents, because when I asked specific questions she had no answers, such as: You are accusing me for mailing the document from Germany, what information do you have that states that. I wasn’t in Germany at the time when it was mailed to you and if you look at the envelop, you can see it was mailed from Germany, she told me that she doesn’t have the envelop and couldn’t back up her lie, yes this is a lie, lets be clear about that.

After waiting on hold for 20 minutes and than I have to deal with those incompetent people is very frustrating. The fact that WES has exclusivity to evaluate graduation documents for certain colleges such as Empire College, ads to the staffs arrogance and attitude. At the end I was told by Miss Ballyn that WES has to look at my entire file again. I guess to evaluate ONE document is a mayor undertaking for your staff. I asked her when I can expect the call back, she told me at the end of the day. Surprise, maybe not, well she didn’t call me back, I was sitting at home for 2 hours waiting for her callback wasting my time. Can I expect some compensation from WES for this lost time, lies and incompetence? Today is Thursday late afternoon and she still hasn’t called, 2 days later, nothing, nada. Great job ladies and gentlemen.

When I spoke to Elyse, she also couldn’t be clear with her instructions, she put me on hold to talk to the person doing the actual evaluation for clarification. Make a long story short, I requested to talk to the evaluator direct and cut out the incompetent middles women, speaking of customer service representative Elyse, she told me that she can not connect me with the evaluator, it is against your policy, great policy, keep the confusion up and running, god forbid you put a policy in place that would actually be helpful to your customers. I asked her if I could speak to a supervisor and she told me that she was the highest ranked person on the job, wow what an organization you have there. At that point I hang up on her, because I couldn’t bare another minute on the phone with her. Elyse called me back the next day and told me that it would be ok if I send a fax explaining that the name of the institution has changed and that I didn’t have to go through the school in Germany. Maybe I should hang up on them every time, maybe I can get done what needs to get done faster. Of course when I called back Elyse if she received the fax, she told me, no, and I had to fax it again, great staff you have working there.

Every time I speak to a customer service representative I get a different answer and different documents are requested. Mind you that I graduated 30 years ago in Germany and no original documents are on file at the school. I mailed my original school report to my parents and they took it to the school to make a copy and mail it out to WES.

I would appreciate it if somebody could look into this matter with experience in this field so I can move forward.

Sincerely,

Wolfgang Busch

wes should read that comment and learn from that

I agree with you about the long wait and confusion.I had to go through BBB New York to sort out my case.WES said that my documents were not sent by the university directly to them.On the website it says they only need a sealed envelope from the School.BBB resolved it for me within two weeks.

Nitin Ahuja

I hear the frustration, I am going through some of the same issues. I am documenting everything (take note of phone call dates, times, wait time, etc.), I already tried a written request for revision(unsuccessfully), I will try calling again before I file with BBB, then I'll call my lawyer.

I totally agree with you. I called them many times and never reach anybody. The phone call holding time was increased from 5 minuts to 20 minutes until you hang up the phone. I feel very bad about their service and do not understand why some colleges only takes their reports? We should file an lawsuit and contact US Education Department to close their servise in the United Stets.

yes they are terrible. complain here:

i'm trying to get my money back right now. What a nightmare.

The NY Better Business Bureau has handled 129 complaints about WES in just 3 months, and for any business what makes it to the BBB is the tip of the iceburg.

If anyone else is having problems you might get a resolution by complaining to the Better Business Bureau who seem to have resolved some of the complaints:

- http://charityreports.bbb.org/public/complaint/complaint.aspx

(check out WES's BBB file here:
http://www.bbb.org/new-york-city/business-reviews/educational-consultants/world-education-services-inc-in-new-york-ny-9023/ )

also complain here to New York Attorney General Charities Division;

- http://www.charitiesnys.com/complaints_new.html

You can also post a review of them as a charity on the GuideStar database which is an important nonprofit reference, taken seriously by funders and nonprofit researchers:

- http://www2.guidestar.org/ReportNonProfit.aspx?ein=23-7396384&Mode=NonGx&lid=494030&dl=True

I have the same problem with WES. Has anyone sued WES? I need a lawyer that would WES them for breach of contract.

WES has been so insensitive to me and I so regret having to ever deal with them. Their customer service is horrible and on the occasions I got lucky, the reps get so short with me. WES has not been true to their word to me. They were to complete my evaluation seven business days after receiving and verifying all my documents. Well it has taken 15 business days and there is no word from them. My status on my account page states the evaluation process will be completed March 15th. Well It's already March 19th and I have not heard a single word from them. Dealing with WES is a nightmare.

I have applied for WES - Canada assessment for me and my wife. I paid up the full amount for both our WES orders. The payments made even reflected in the WES profiles. I sent the documents and I received an email from WES confirming the receipt of documents. When I check my profile status on May 31st I find the status as 'pending for payment', I have received emails from WES asking for payments again. I am not able to contact the WES support, I am for ever put on hold or asked to call later because of high call volumes. This is very frustrating, please help.

I am a mature individual and wanted to get my degree transcripts evaluated. My issues with WES in Canada:
1. They limit the number of qualifications assessed to five.
2. No one answers your quesries whther emails, leteers or phone calls. When you send multiple corresponces to them regarding the same issue, they might just send you a standard format letter( copy and paste job).
3. I have been witing for months now for an accutate and complete evaluation but WES has massively understimated my GPA because they have no common sense in looking at the documents and calculating the data direct from the transcript of my degree.
4. Is it discrimination or is it incompetence and arrogance or is it a sign that the business of evaluation is a monoploy which breeds incompetence, complacency, indifference and apathy. No quality control exists and it seems WES does not care about what they churn out. May be WES has some high-ranking financial and political supporters designed to be responsible to no one and at the same time prevent other new companies getting into the evaluation business. WES just does not feel responsible for their actions.
I have found their work ethic appalling and a shambles and something must be done about it.
It has given me so much stress, anxiety, duress and has wated a year of my life because of their incompetence. I can not send a WES report full of errors (where they have massively miscalculated my GPA) to universities abroad because it would give the wrong impression and also i would get rejected becasue my GPA has been incorrectly calculated.
I have kept some of my correspondences for future reference.
Hope someone could help us.