Company info?

I too received an email from Peter Frivadi with the attached pdf application file.
- The fishy part - When I used my debit card for the $95 processing fee they had a problem with reading one of my account numbers and a women contacted me asking me to read my credit card # to her. She contacted my on my cell phone and I was able to obtain her # (626-367-2232).. after I got off the phone with her I was a little suspicious so I waited an hour and called back the number, when the person picked up the phone it was very unprofessional; rather then getting a normal business greeting like "hello this is so and so from the tech pro group" I got a "hello" and when I asked if this was the application processing center for the tech-pro group she was like "umm yes yes this is" it was a little fishy.
I sent an email back to Peter Frivadi asking him if my application had been processed and instead of him responding back to me a women replied to my email stating that my application had been process and the paper work would be given to Peter Frivadi by the end of the day.
Peter Frivadi did contact me that evening to schedule my phone interview. When we spoke he asked he if I was aware of the cost of the 3 months of training camp. I told him that from reading the application I know that there are exams and lab fees that are my responsibility to pay but I was not aware of the cost of them. When he broke down the cost of everything I was a bit shocked.
The cost he gave me is the same as what has been mention in the pervious emails around $2,475 not including the lodging or exams fees. When I talked to him about finical aid he was very quick to mention that they are not a "School" and therefore do not provide a finical aid program.
There are 20 exams he told me that cost $125 each and the lodge $29 a day, so with everything it roughly comes out to be about $7,500. I did read that the education is about 25,000 which will be paid back to them once you land a job ( ? of your fist month paycheck and then 19.95% for a year). Doing some quick math - let say that you get placed in a job making 65,000 a year .. They receive $2,700 from your first month ( my numbers do not included taxes) after that 19.95% around $13,000... So to add up everything 2,700 + 13,000 and the cost of the camp 7,500 = 23,200 (they do say the program cost about 25k - however I'm not sure if this is irrelevant or just my way of justify the cost of everything).

My only lead to investigating this company is to come up with some specific questions to ask Mr. Frivadi or try to contact Microsoft and find out if heard of this company and if they are affiliated with them in anyway. Once again it seems fishy that he can not give any references and if this is not a scam if does seem like something I would be interested in just would like more background info.. If anyone knows more please let me know .. Thanks ( my email vwgti94@aol.com)

It probably is....

I would not only want to talk to references who have taken the course(who could be friends or former instructors etc), but even better companies who have hired people for the internships. That would be most enlightening, and more difficult to fake.

James

A certification is achieved through the taking of various tests and labs. Microsoft Certifications from just a Systems Admin/Engineer perspective can be broken down into the following pieces(each one consisting of its own certification:
MCP - Microsoft Certified Professional
MCSA 2000 - Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator on Windows 2000 Server
MCSA 2003 - Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator on Windows 2003 Server
MCSE 2000 - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer on Windows 2000 Server
MCSE 2003 - Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer on Windows 2003 Server
That is 5 certifications not including the designations for Security and Messaging(which would be 4 each(MCSA 2000 +Security, MCSA 2003 +Security, MCSA 2000 +Messaging, MCSA 2003 +Messaging, MCSE 2000 +Security, MCSE 2003 +Security, MCSE 2000 +Messaging, MCSE 2003 +Messaging)
Adding those in, you've got 13 Microsoft certifications. Now tack on that Microsoft is changing their certification programs to prepare for its launch of new Server and Workstation platforms and you've got even more to look at:
MCDBA - Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, MOS - Microsoft Office Specialist, MCDST - Microsoft Certified Desktop Technician, etc. There are Over 20 Microsoft Certifications, so to claim that they can help you attain evena few of these is just a drop in the bucket for someone who is ambitious.
I took the time to earn my certifications and I'm darn proud of them, so to hear you claim that there are only two of them insults my hard work.
I have my MCP, MCSA 2000/2003 +Security, and my MCSE 2000/2003 +Security and I'm currently working towards my +Messaging, which I hope to achieve in less than a month or so. Good luck to all of you looking to get Certified, as it isn't easy, but its certainly worth it.

the company's been in business for more than a year, and the BBB has no record of any complaints filed with [i]item[/i].

In this casbe, the BBB rating is not owing to the presence of positive factors, but rather than the absence of negative ones.

It still pays to do your own research, rather than relying on the BBB alone.

hello,

i am in the application process as well. can you please let me know how is everything going. my email is harrisw51@gmail.com

Really appreciate your help,

Harris

I received an email from this company as well. I am currently thinking about applying, and as well I live far away in Georgia. I sent them an email with several long questions that require answers. They are things such as, housing, food, references, backing out opportunities with no reprecussions, etc. I will come back and post the answers so that people can see it.

Mark

I have asked a few questions and this is what i have learned:
Q:
what percentage of people make it through the training and on to the internship?
what type of refund policy do you offer if i decide to leave?
under what grounds would i be asked to leave the training, and then what refund policy do you have?
what type of feedback do you hear from your students regarding the speed and intensity of the training?

A:
4 out 10 candidates are successfully completing the prep camp and moving to the internship. The prep camp is extremely challenging; this is a general feedback. You would be asked to leave if you cheat on your exams; there would not be any refund. If you decide to leave, you would owe us for the training received (prorated).

1) Contrary to public opinion, check fraud is still the kind most prevalent.

2) Any merchant who is adhering to both his merchant agreement and fraud prevention guidelines will require [b]all[/b] of the following information in order to both authorize and capture a card transaction:

a) The [b]Name[/b] of the card holder, as it appears on the card;
b) For a [i]credit[/i] card, the [b]billing address[/b] of record; [b]or[/b], if [i]debit[/i], the [b]statement address[/b] of the underlying demand account;
c) [b]Account Number[/b];
d) [b]Expiry Date[/b]; and,
e) 3-digit [b]CVC[/b] on Signature Strip, required for VISA, MasterCard & Discover cards, optional for AmEx; for American Express, the 4-digit [b]Panel Code[/b] from front of card, in lieu of CVC.

Any merchant involved in a card-not-in-hand transaction who fails to secure such information is either taking an unnecessary risk, or involved in questionable card transactions.

just for the 3 mo. "boot camp?"

Yes, that is a bit pricey.

Absent guaranteed job placement upon successful completion of training, in the area of my choice, I'd have a hard time justifying such an outlay of capital.

THIS POSTING WAS UPDATED AS OF 8/01/2007

I was recently notified that there was a discussion thread on Tech Republic regarding Tech Pros Group by various techies with questions regarding the validity of their internship service. Upon reading the discussion thread, I was quite impressed with the questions that are being asked and fully understand the legitimate concerns some techies might have about Tech Pros Group and its internships.

This discussion thread is of direct interest to me on both a personal and professional level. As you can see from my profile, I have been a member of Tech Republic for approximately 7 years and have enjoyed the camaraderie of interacting with other Tech professionals. What you may not know is that I also happened to work at Tech Pros Group.
As a fellow Tech Republic member and as the Vice President of Business Relations at Tech Pros Group, I want to make sure that fellow Tech Republic members have accurate information regarding the various internships being offered by Tech Pros Group.

We at Tech Pros Group take great pride in the internships we offer. The internship commitment is both serious and long term by both the individual and Tech Pros Group. For this reason, it is extremely important that any prospective candidate who desires to apply for the program do so only after fully understanding what is involved and is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to be successful in the internship program.

As many of the other Tech Republic members have already stated, you should never jump into such a serious commitment until you have done your homework. If you?re really serious about making a long term commitment, take the time to check us out. In fact, I would encourage all prospective candidates to visit us in California or at least send a friend or relative to visit. Historically, over 90% of candidates who visit us in person apply for the internship. For individuals who cannot make the trip to Irvine, California, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I have listed my cell phone number along with my e-mail address on my profile. Feel free to contact me with any qualitative questions you may have regarding the internship programs.

On the flip side, you shouldn?t assume that something is a scam just because its sounds like a great opportunity. Please think about the industry you are choosing to join. Our industry is full of stories that may sound unrealistic but are completely true. Individuals starting multibillion dollar companies out of their garage (Apple) and dormitories (Dell) or unemployed grad students becoming multibillionaires in just 10 years (cofounders of Google are worth over 20 billion dollars each).

On a smaller scale, there are countless individuals with less than 5 years of experience making over $100,000 per year while many individuals with over 20 years of proven experience are unemployed or struggling to make $60,000 per year. What?s the difference between the two groups? One of the key differences is being at the right place at the right time with the right knowledge, experience and certifications. Individuals with knowledge and certifications relating to in-demand large scale enterprise technologies will command higher wages than individuals with knowledge and certifications in outdated technologies and/or technologies for smaller scales (small businesses). A good example is that a level 1 Cisco Engineer with less than 3 years of experience will earn twice as much wages than a senior PC technician with over 20 years of experience.

Secondly, good work experience has nothing to do with the number of years and has everything to do with what you did during those years. In fact, 1 year as a network engineer working for a good consulting company will give you more experience than 5 years as a network administrator working for 1 company. The network engineer during his/her 1 year work experience will have handled over 20 complex networks. Responsibilities the engineer would have handled would encompass a variety of technologies (NOS, messaging, enterprise backup, firewall, routers, switches, etc.) and include various levels on responsibilities from design, installation, configuration, administration, troubleshooting, and general break/fix. The network administrator working for 1 company will only have been exposed to just 1 network. In addition most of his/her days will be spent handling a series of recurring administration tasks. The more complex responsibilities such as full scale implementations and troubleshooting are usually outsourced to consulting companies or are only handled on rare occasions.

Tech Pros Group offers a comprehensive LAN/WAN engineer internship that includes 18 weeks of remote enterprise LAN/WAN training (valued at $12,000 ? based on standard remote training rates for enterprise LAN/WAN training) and attendance at a 7 day LAN/WAN engineer camp ($7,995 ? based on boot camp style enterprise LAN/WAN training rates -visit www.globalknowledge.com or www.ascolta.com to verify rates) plus a 1 year paid internship ($30,000 escalating up to $72,000) as a LAN/WAN engineer working for a quality Microsoft/Cisco partner. During the 1 year, you will acquire concentrated experience to include handling a minimum of 20 LAN/WAN networks on a wide variety of technologies and responsibilities. Upon completion of the 1 year internship, you should qualify for positions making a minimum of $65,000 to over $95,000 per year.

So What Are The Considerations?

1. Highly competitive 2 stage application process ? All qualified candidates who are accepted for stage 1 will receive 6 weeks of remote LAN/WAN training that is designed to give you foundation in LAN/WAN technologies. During your 6 week training period, you will be assessed on your technical skills. Only the top 30% of the individuals accepted during this stage will be allowed to interview for stage 2. If you are in the top 30%, you qualify to apply for stage two of the LAN/WAN engineer internship. Approximately 35% of the candidates who apply for stage 2 are accepted. Upon acceptance you receive 12 additional weeks of remote training culminating in a 7 day LAN/WAN engineer camp held at our corporate facility in Irvine, Ca.
2. Very demanding internship ? The internship is an engineer level internship with a consulting company that provides enterprise level LAN/WAN services to professional and large scale companies. A typical intern will be working 50 to 60 hours per week to include evenings and weekends. All candidates will be given 1 month to ramp up in their position. Beginning the 2nd month, all candidates will be expected to handle a limited amount of engineering responsibilities on their own. Within 3 months, all candidates will be expected to handle the full range of responsibilities that are expected of a LAN/WAN engineer.
3. Hard Costs ? Application, Registration and Exam Fees ? All training costs of over $20,000 are included for FREE as a benefit of the internship. This includes all materials, lodging and meals during the 1 week camp. Please note that there is an application fee of $95 (fully refunded if you are not accepted) plus registration fees of $295. Also note that you will be responsible for exam fees. These exam fees are hard costs and are paid directly to the testing providers including Microsoft and Cisco. There is approximately $2,000 in exam fees paid throughout the 18 week training process.

Additional Clarifications based on false information from other Postings on Tech Republic:

1. Do I have to attend a 3 month camp and pay materials and lodging fees of $5,000? ? Tech Pros Group has replaced the 3 month camp with 18 weeks of remote training and a 1 week camp. In addition, materials and lodging fees are now included as a benefit of the internship. You will not have to pay for these fees.
2. Do I have to pay a percentage of my future income after the internship? ? Previously, all candidates who successfully completed the 1 year internship would also be required to pay a 19.95% of their future income for 1 year. This policy has been eliminated. IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE THE 1 YEAR INTERNSHIP, YOUR OBLIGATION WITH TECH PROS GROUP IS FULLFILLED.
3. Do I have to sign a contract that requires me to pay $25,000? ? All candidates who are initially accepted will receive 6 weeks of remote training. During this period, there are no employment or professional services contracts that you will be required to sign. The purpose of this 6 week period is for both you and Tech Pros Group to get to know each other. At any time during this period, you can part ways with Tech Pros Group with no obligations. If you desire to continue on to stage 2 of the LAN/WAN engineer internship, you will go through an extensive interview process including a full background check. If you pass and are fully accepted, you will be offered a professional relations contract (Internship). This is a binding contract that commits you to work for us for 1 year. In return, Tech Pros Group invests over $20,000 in training. If you follow through on the 1 year internship, there are no additional obligations. If you receive our training and decline our internship, you will be expected to pay for the training investment we made in you.
4. Is Tech Pros Group registered with the BPPVE? ? The BPPVE was the state governing body for vocational schools for the State of California. This agency no longer exists as of June 30, 2007 due to the fact its regulations were outdated and confusing. Prior to June 30, 2007, all vocational schools were required to register with the BPPVE. Tech Pros Group is not a school and therefore was not required to register with the BPPVE.

I want to thank the other IT veterans of Tech Republic for their qualitative input. I?m sure the many individuals new to information technology appreciate your comments and input. If you would like more information about our company, please feel free to contact me via phone or e-mail. I look forward to your correspondence.

Steve Copeland

I am currently towards the end of my training program with Tech Pros and am from the east coast.

Certain people seem to have many misconceptions about Tech Pros, and they seem to be spreading the misconceptions to others. I am not going to try to sell you into coming to Tech Pros, but I will attempt to clarify to you that The Pros is not a scam.

Though some people may be very critical of Tech Pros, they don?t understand what Tech Pros is actually offering (or perhaps they are simply pissed off as a result of their own actions and need someone else to blame it on). Tech Pros offers an environment for people to become Microsoft (if not Microsoft and Cisco) certified as well as for improving their hands-on skills for Microsoft and Cisco, which greatly helps the inexperienced. Tech Pros also offers career workshops and mock interviews to improve job hunting and interviewing skills.

Some may believe that Tech Pros will simply hand you a job, which is not true. They assist you in acquiring the skills necessary to land a job. As with recruiting agencies, the most Tech Pros can do is help you get an interview. The rest is up to you.

Tech Pos gives you three options: internship, self placement, or settlement. I?ll explain each of these options in a bit more detail.

Internship: In order to be on the internship track, you must fulfill all of the requirements, which include completion of all required tests and achieving certain scores on two exams created by Tech Pos. The requirements are in place so that Tech Pros knows that the candidates on the internship track know their stuff. Being on the internship track guarantees that they will find interviews for you, but again, it?s up to you to actually get the job.

Placement: People on the placement track either chose placement over internship or didn?t fulfill the requirements of being on the internship track. Being on the placement track allows candidates to work closely with a Tech Pros employee who assists you in finding a job. Placement allows candidates to learn valuable job hunting skills. It isn?t forced upon you, and it is in fact the track that I willingly chose, though I was qualified for the internship track.

Settlement: Choosing settlement means that you have the option to leave the program whenever you want, and you are charged a prorated fee for the services provided to you. Also, you don?t get the benefits of placement, which among many things includes the career workshops.

Some people may believe that they teach you to ?cheat? on the certifications in order to pass them. However, this is not true, especially for Cisco certifications. Being paper certified, as you should already know, doesn?t mean anything. It?s only a way of making yourself more attractive to whichever company you apply for. It doesn?t necessary mean that you know all the skills, which is why Tech Pros puts more emphasis on the hands-on training than on certifications. And, for Cisco certifications, it?s impossible to simply memorize the answers in order to pass the tests! It requires days and days of constant studying; in other words, you really have to know your stuff.

Many people are also commenting on having to pay Tech Pros for their services. Well, why wouldn?t you have to pay for their services?? Their business is to train individuals with the skills necessary to find a job in IT. So if they provide such services to you, doesn?t it make sense to pay them for it? We should keep in mind that Tech Pros is not a charity. The reason they make you sign contracts is to ensure that free-loaders don?t simply take off without paying after receiving their services. Signing contracts, by the way, is not a new phenomenon?

The three month program offered by Tech Pros is fairly new and is continuously improving. You can?t expect Tech Pros or any other business for that matter to be completely perfect. People who come to Tech Pros and put in effort to get a job do in fact a job. However, those who come to Tech Pros expecting a job to simply be handed to them with no effort whatsoever find that (not so surprisingly) that's not how the real world works. Rather than basing your decision on some negative and extremely biased comments left on blog sites, I suggest contacting Tech Pros and inquiring about the program. I can promise you that there will be no brainwashing.

THIS POSTING WAS UPDATED AS OF 11/06/2007

I was recently notified that there was a discussion thread on Tech Republic regarding Tech Pros Group by various techies with questions regarding the validity of their internship service. Upon reading the discussion thread, I was quite impressed with the questions that are being asked and fully understand the legitimate concerns some techies might have about Tech Pros Group and its internships.

This discussion thread is of direct interest to me on both a personal and professional level. As you can see from my profile, I have been a member of Tech Republic for approximately 7 years and have enjoyed the camaraderie of interacting with other Tech professionals. What you may not know is that I also happened to work at Tech Pros Group.
As a fellow Tech Republic member and as the Vice President of Business Relations at Tech Pros Group, I want to make sure that fellow Tech Republic members have accurate information regarding the various internships being offered by Tech Pros Group.

We at Tech Pros Group take great pride in the internships we offer. The internship commitment is both serious and long term by both the individual and Tech Pros Group. For this reason, it is extremely important that any prospective candidate who desires to apply for the program do so only after fully understanding what is involved and is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to be successful in the internship program.

As many of the other Tech Republic members have already stated, you should never jump into such a serious commitment until you have done your homework. If you?re really serious about making a long term commitment, take the time to check us out. In fact, I would encourage all prospective candidates to visit us in California or at least send a friend or relative to visit. Historically, over 90% of candidates who visit us in person apply for the internship. For individuals who cannot make the trip to Irvine, California, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I have listed my cell phone number along with my e-mail address on my profile. Feel free to contact me with any qualitative questions you may have regarding the internship programs.

On the flip side, you shouldn?t assume that something is a scam just because its sounds like a great opportunity. Please think about the industry you are choosing to join. Our industry is full of stories that may sound unrealistic but are completely true. Individuals starting multibillion dollar companies out of their garage (Apple) and dormitories (Dell) or unemployed grad students becoming multibillionaires in just 10 years (cofounders of Google are worth over 20 billion dollars each).

On a smaller scale, there are countless individuals with less than 5 years of experience making over $100,000 per year while many individuals with over 20 years of proven experience are unemployed or struggling to make $60,000 per year. What?s the difference between the two groups? One of the key differences is being at the right place at the right time with the right knowledge, experience and certifications. Individuals with knowledge and certifications relating to in-demand large scale enterprise technologies will command higher wages than individuals with knowledge and certifications in outdated technologies and/or technologies for smaller scales (small businesses). A good example is that a level 1 Cisco Engineer with less than 3 years of experience will earn twice as much wages than a senior PC technician with over 20 years of experience.

Secondly, good work experience has nothing to do with the number of years and has everything to do with what you did during those years. In fact, 1 year as a network engineer working for a good consulting company will give you more experience than 5 years as a network administrator working for 1 company. The network engineer during his/her 1 year work experience will have handled over 20 complex networks. Responsibilities the engineer would have handled would encompass a variety of technologies (NOS, messaging, enterprise backup, firewall, routers, switches, etc.) and include various levels on responsibilities from design, installation, configuration, administration, troubleshooting, and general break/fix. The network administrator working for 1 company will only have been exposed to just 1 network. In addition most of his/her days will be spent handling a series of recurring administration tasks. The more complex responsibilities such as full scale implementations and troubleshooting are usually outsourced to consulting companies or are only handled on rare occasions.

Tech Pros Group offers a comprehensive LAN/WAN engineer internship that includes 18 weeks of remote enterprise LAN/WAN training (valued at $12,000 ? based on standard remote training rates for enterprise LAN/WAN training) and attendance at a 7 day LAN/WAN engineer camp ($7,995 ? based on boot camp style enterprise LAN/WAN training rates -visit www.globalknowledge.com or www.ascolta.com to verify rates) plus a 1 year paid internship ($30,000 escalating up to $72,000) as a LAN/WAN engineer working for a quality Microsoft/Cisco partner. During the 1 year, you will acquire concentrated experience to include handling a minimum of 20 LAN/WAN networks on a wide variety of technologies and responsibilities. Upon completion of the 1 year internship, you should qualify for positions making a minimum of $65,000 to over $95,000 per year.

So What Are The Considerations?

1. Highly competitive 2 stage application process ? All qualified candidates who are accepted for stage 1 will receive 6 weeks of remote LAN/WAN training that is designed to give you foundation in LAN/WAN technologies. During your 6 week training period, you will be assessed on your technical skills. Only the top 30% of the individuals accepted during this stage will be allowed to interview for stage 2. If you are in the top 30%, you qualify to apply for stage two of the LAN/WAN engineer internship. Approximately 35% of the candidates who apply for stage 2 are accepted. Upon acceptance you receive 12 additional weeks of remote training culminating in a 7 day LAN/WAN engineer camp held at our corporate facility in Irvine, Ca.
2. Very demanding internship ? The internship is an engineer level internship with a consulting company that provides enterprise level LAN/WAN services to professional and large scale companies. A typical intern will be working 50 to 60 hours per week to include evenings and weekends. All candidates will be given 1 month to ramp up in their position. Beginning the 2nd month, all candidates will be expected to handle a limited amount of engineering responsibilities on their own. Within 3 months, all candidates will be expected to handle the full range of responsibilities that are expected of a LAN/WAN engineer.
3. Hard Costs ? Application, Registration and Exam Fees ? All training costs of over $20,000 are included for FREE as a benefit of the internship. This includes all materials, lodging and meals during the 1 week camp. Please note that there is an application fee of $95 (fully refunded if you are not accepted) plus registration fees of $295. Also note that you will be responsible for materials and exam fees. These exam fees are hard costs and are paid directly to the testing providers including Microsoft and Cisco. There is approximately $2,000 in exam fees paid throughout the 18 week training process.

Additional Clarifications based on false information from other Postings on Tech Republic:

1. Do I have to attend a 3 month camp and pay materials and lodging fees of $5,000? ? Tech Pros Group has replaced the 3 month camp with 18 weeks of remote training and a 1 week camp. In addition, materials and lodging fees are now included as a benefit of the internship. You will not have to pay for these fees.
2. Do I have to pay a percentage of my future income after the internship? ? Previously, all candidates who successfully completed the 1 year internship would also be required to pay a 19.95% of their future income for 1 year. This policy has been eliminated. IF YOU SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE THE 1 YEAR INTERNSHIP, YOUR OBLIGATION WITH TECH PROS GROUP IS FULLFILLED.
3. Do I have to sign a contract that requires me to pay $25,000? ? All candidates who are initially accepted will receive 6 weeks of remote training. During this period, there are no employment or professional services contracts that you will be required to sign. The purpose of this 6 week period is for both you and Tech Pros Group to get to know each other. At any time during this period, you can part ways with Tech Pros Group with no obligations. If you desire to continue on to stage 2 of the LAN/WAN engineer internship, you will go through an extensive interview process including a full background check. If you pass and are fully accepted, you will be offered a professional relations contract (Internship). This is a binding contract that commits you to work for us for 1 year. In return, Tech Pros Group invests over $20,000 in training. If you follow through on the 1 year internship, there are no additional obligations. If you receive our training and decline our internship, you will be expected to pay for the training investment we made in you.
4. Is Tech Pros Group registered with the BPPVE? ? The BPPVE was the state governing body for vocational schools for the State of California. This agency no longer exists as of June 30, 2007 due to the fact its regulations were outdated and confusing. Prior to June 30, 2007, all vocational schools were required to register with the BPPVE. Tech Pros Group is not a school and therefore was not required to register with the BPPVE.

I want to thank the other IT veterans of Tech Republic for their qualitative input. I?m sure the many individuals new to information technology appreciate your comments and input. If you would like more information about our company, please feel free to contact me via phone or e-mail. I look forward to your correspondence.

Steve Copeland

Via the bppve.ca.gov, the CEO of tech pros, along with his brother (partner) are banned from collecting monetary payments from consumer groups in the state of California. Also, they are not allowed to advertise.

-The horses mouth

I?m writing this post in response to the posting that was recently posted above. My response is a personal response as a long time member of Tech Republic and a fellow information technology professional. Please note that I am a Director working at Tech Pros Group. Also note that this is not an official response from Tech Pros Group but a personal response as stated earlier. If you are wondering why Tech Pros Group is not officially responding to this posts; it is due to the ridiculous/extreme nature of the posts. If you would like a more thorough understanding of Tech Pros Group, the services it offers along with facts regarding the allegations; give us a call or visit our website.

In regards to the post made above, I am both shocked and saddened as to the length in which certain individuals will lie, deceive and/or mislead good techies regarding the services Tech Pros Group offers. These individuals have made statements that are either completely false or at least misleading regarding Tech Pros Group. If one were to take the time to read the various posting made by these individuals on this site along with other sites referenced, an intelligent individual will realize how passionately biased and outright false the information being displayed are. I based my observation on personal knowledge on how incorrect the information. Unfortunately for individuals who are trying to determine whether Tech Pros Group is a ?real? organization with real services. It may be difficult to determine how valid or invalid the information is.

As an experience reader of internet blogs and posting, let me provide some suggestions:

1. Be careful of individuals who use ?anonymous? or pseudo names to express ?facts?- The use of anonymous or pseudo names is common in the blog/posting world. It allows individuals to express their opinions and observations while maintaining privacy. This allows individuals who may not normally express their view to express them more freely. Generally, this is very positive and is invaluable to the freedom of speech that all Americans cherish. One of the best parts of being a member of Tech Republic is the open forums they offer. Unfortunately, some individuals with a personal agenda use this as a tool/weapon to push their own biased agenda. These individuals have no interest in freedom of speech, helping others, for even the truth. They?re use of one pseudo/anonymous names is not only limited to one name but many. They will take factual information and twist it to such a level that the factual information presents an opposite conclusion. Others will just outright lie, knowing that many decent individuals will not take the time to verify those lies. For this reason, always verify the logic of any statements made on the internet and if you plan to make an important life decision, verify those statements by talking to the opposing parties and third party sources.

2. Business ?terrorists? - After reading a particular blog on the Internet, I realized why I was so upset about what is being said. As Americans, we are extremely concerned about passionate, cause oriented, extremist. These are individuals who proactively commit extreme acts that they would normally never do but will do because it?s for a ?cause?. On an international level, this includes damaging property, hurting and even killing innocent individuals. In regards to the internet and the business world, it can include making statement that can hurt or ?kill? a business. Examples include mentioning to people that a particular restaurant is infested with bugs or a teacher is a pedophile or a doctor is working without a license. These individuals will make statements that they know will receive a reaction to hurt or kill their target. What is amazing is the type of individuals who take these actions. One would think that these are individuals who truly have been wronged by the organization they are attacking. In many cases, it?s just the opposite. They can easily be individuals who owe money to the company they are attacking and are trying to walk away from their obligations. Even worse are individuals who are actually competition to the particular organization that is being attacked and are using the first group to eliminate their competition. Along with these two groups are individuals who are just looking for a cause and latch on to one to fulfill their own unresolved personal issues. These individuals have no association with the organization and are not even sure of the validity of the accusations but jump in because they want to be part of something. To these individuals, eliminating the target is just a game and they will use whatever method possible. The final group is individuals who truly feel that they have been wronged by an organization. Their personal stories range from true experiences to exaggerations of real experiences (unfortunately even they start to believe their own exaggerations) to magnify the situation. The problem with some members of this group is that even if the business entities they are not happy with make adjustments to correct the problem, they will never acknowledge the positive changes and assume just the worse. For all these reasons, the information provided by these individuals will not represent the current state of the target business.

3. Be careful of moderated blogs ? The accuracy and quality of moderated blogs are as good as the moderator. Some of the best blogs in regards to insightful information about a company, service or situations are moderated. On the other hand, moderated blogs can have some of the most biased inaccurate information you can find. The reason for this is that the moderator controls the comments that people are allowed to post. These results in a blog that promotes a specific agenda and all comments that are on the blog reinforce that agenda. The worse part about this situation is if you try to post comments that are contrary to the moderator agenda, it will either never get posted or get posted in a manner that negates your contrary posting. To determine the quality of the moderator, one should ALWAYS read the other blogs that the moderator has. That will give insight into the type of person the moderator is.

In regards to Tech Pros Group, I want to personally address the statements made about the company I work for and the good people that work there:

Question 1: Are we being investigated by the Orange County District Attorney (DA)?
Answer: The answer is NO. Just out of curiosity, I personally called the DA office to ask about the investigation. They not only denied any investigations, the individual I spoke to felt bad that there was such a smear campaign toward Tech Pros Group.

Question 2: Is there an investigation by the BPPVE about Tech Pros Group?
Answer: The BPPVE (Bureau for private and postsecondary and vocational education) is a sub agency that is part of the Consumer Protection Agency of California. The mandate of the agency is to protect California residents against education fraud. This means that they want to ensure that when an individual pays tuition for training related services prior to services actually being rendered, the BPPVE wants to ensure that California residents actually get those services that they paid for. Tech Pros Group, as an organization that provides training services along with other services would normally fall under their jurisdiction. The reason we do not is that we do not charge for training services before it is offered. In fact, we only collect our fees when the individual that took our service attains employment. Only then do we start receiving payment. As of this moment, we are the only private organization out there that ties our revenues directly to our candidate?s success. In regards to statements of investigations by the BPPVE there are a number of individuals who are working due to the training received through Tech Pros Group and are trying to renege on their contract. These individuals have complained to the BPPVE about Tech Pros Group with the hope that they may not have to pay on their obligations. It is my understanding that they are trying to determine if Tech Pros Group falls under their jurisdiction. Tech Pros Group is committed to following any and all the rules of the state they reside in and plan to proactively work with the BPPVE to resolve this matter.

Questions 3: Are we an unlicensed school of the BPPVE?
Answer: As stated previously, we do not fit into a school that needs to be licensed. Training is a service we provide. We do not use government resources such as grants and government supported loans. In fact, we don?t even use private education loans. Furthermore, we do even charge for our training until our training results in placement. For this reason, we do not have to be a member the BPPVE. It is my understanding that Tech Pros Group has communicated with the BPPVE on this matter and to ensure that we are in accordance with an organization that would not fall under their jurisdiction.

Facts regarding the Tech Pros Scam. The facts below are information that even individuals who have a negative agenda will agree with:

FACT ONE - Tech Pros Group is a real organization that not just a fabrication of the Internet. In fact there are countless confirmations on the Internet from individuals who attended our camps. This includes individuals who are working based on the training they received from Tech Pros Group and are trying to avoid paying on their commitments.

FACT TWO - The quality of training provided by Tech Pros Group ranges from being on par with other organizations if not better. This has even been stated by sources that have a negative agenda with Tech Pros Group.

FACT THREE ? You do not have to pay Tech Pros Group until you are working, whether through Internship or placement. This is verified by some of the negative comments stating how they have to repay income percentage payment now that they are working.

Based on these facts, how is this ever a scam? We are a real organization that provides real training that most likely will result in placement. Do we have a 100% placement ratio? NO. But, then again, who does. No matter how hard we screen our candidates there will always be approximately 10% - 20% of our candidates who will not be working. Unfortunately, when these candidates do not land a job, Tech Pros Group does not benefit even though the training service has been provided. Traditional training organizations benefits financially whether the candidate is working or not.

If you are truly serious about considering the services offered by Tech Pros Group and just want to ensure that the services are real, take the time to do full research. Don?t just read some biased blogs. Visit our website www.techprosgroup.com or give us a call.

Any serious candidate wanting to contact me directly can reach me at scopeland@techprosgroup.com for call me direct at 949-701-8668

Take care and good luck in your information technology career.

Sincerely,

Steve Copeland

Clean it up Copeland; this is what you do best. Notice that you are the only one standing up for this company. Why is that? Let me guess, maybe because they pay you? I know, I know, under this entry miraculously a student will come forward stating how this company has helped them. How could you defend a company that has hurt so many people? The reason people post anonymously is because we have been manipulated and harassed to the point that students are scared to give real information, because we have been threatened with a lawsuit, are manipulated into signing contracts that prohibit us from giving our honest opinion about this company (I am sure Mark Tran will vouch for me, oh, I forgot, Mark can no longer say anything about the company because he signed a confidentiality agreement, and was threatened with a lawsuit and forced to take his blog down).
This company is taking money from people who are already struggling, but are trying to better themselves by getting an education so that they don?t have to lie, cheat, still, or take advantage of other people to earn a living. Maybe the predator should look to the pray for a lesson on morals and how to treat your fellow human beings. I only wish I had someone to warn me before I sunk all my money into this school, training program, what ever. I hope this helps someone make the best decision for his or her future.
If there is no investigation by the Orange County District Attorney (DA), there should be and will be. No one is getting away from this.
This is not an attack this is merely the truth.

"FACT THREE ? You do not have to pay Tech Pros Group until you are working, whether through Internship or placement. This is verified by some of the negative comments stating how they have to repay income percentage payment now that they are working."

Not in my experience, Steve. Back in May of this year, I saw a posting from Tech Pros Group at CareerBuilder. The posting described two programs that TPG was holding: a "LAN/WAN Intership" (sic) and a "MCSE/CCNP Workstudy & Placement". It was implied in the posting that no money was required up front, and that after the training was completed, then I would be placed in a job.

I signed up at the site and included my resume so that I would (in their words) "receive priority program placement". Eventually I received a phone call from someone at TPG (he had a French accent, I will try and retrieve his name).

He told me that I would have to pay three thousand dollars up front for the training, which was to be held in Irvine CA. (Which begs the question: If I had had three thou, then what was I looking for a job for then?) Oh, yes: he also said that then at the end of the training period, although I would be given a paid internship in New York, TPG would collect half of my first months' salary up-front, and then 20% of the gross of the rest of the year's salary up-front as well.

When I told him that I did not have a place to stay in Irvine, he told me that TPG would provide a place to stay, at a cost. When I told him that the posting had implied that no money would be brought forward, he then started attempting to do a hard sell of the program, trying to get me to send money right now or else the position would be occupied.

I told the fellow that I wanted to know how long they've been in business and he said "Since 2004." To which I replied that then you should have at least two batches of former interns, and that could he please give me the email addresses of one of them so I can ask him what he thought of the program? He told me that he could not because "if someone is on the payroll of a company, the HR dept will not allow that info to be divulged" and that "Oh, you know, the person under internship is our employee and we can't divulge such information..."

I told him that that was a crock, since if I had gone through a program like TPG supposedly ran and it had done me good, I would be more than willing to be a character reference for the program. After all, I wasn't asking for the person's home address, just an email or maybe a phone number so I could personally ask them for their opinion of TPG.

I decided that, if TPG was not a scam, it definitely was not going about things properly, and hung up on the fellow.

Since then, I have gone through another training program, closer to home, on a payment plan which I do not need to start paying for until 2008; by the time I complete the program, I will have eight industry certifications (including CCNA and MCDBA); and, by the time I successfully complete the first exam, they will also find me a position. A much better deal than what Mr. Hard-Selling Francophone Director of TPG was trying to shove down my throat. (Yes, he claimed he was a director of Tech Pros Group.)

So, I will not say that Tech Pros Group is a scam, per se. But I will say that, at least around May 2006, TPG had some serious issues to tackle if they wanted to make people not think that something about them is fishy. On the evidence of my May 2006 experience, I would not recommend Tech Pros Group to anyone serious about getting certifications, a job, or both.

My $0.02.

it could be the second person was too lazy to type up, and copy/pasted someone else's comment in his reply.

copy/paste, people do it all the time.

if steve copeland's company is truly great as his claims, then there is no need for him to write a freaking novel to defend it.

personally i don't know anything about whatever the company he is with, but if someone that is so vigorious of defending their business, usually there are some skeletons in their closet.

that is just my personal opinion.

you know, it does nobody any good for people to arguing over the forums.

why not just call BPPVE and ask them about Ray Choi (CEO of defunct ICTP) and Eric Choi (CEO of Tech Pros Group), and see what BPPVE would say.

I mean, all the postings here are seems to be so biased on one side or another.

BPPVE's website is http://bppve.ca.gov/

and phone number is (916) 574-7720.

I think it would be best for both the believers and non-believers to call BPPVE to get a clear picture, instead of have war of words over here.

don't you all agree?

that someone else sees the same problem with an agruement as I did. Lets me know that while it doesn't prove I am sane, it at least shows I might be right! :D

While the services offered sound like they are targeted for the lazy, it doesn't sound illegal.

It makes me think of "Take this pill, no diets involved, no exercise or effort on your part, and you will look as grand as I do!"

Just the facts Ma'am! It does seem like someone has multiple accounts here in this discussion. I wish TR would step in when several accounts, all from the same IP address, are making libel claims.

Eddie- who has been with TR since 2002, interviewed them at length and made a decision to not participate in the program. He provided a detailed analysis of his conversations and left it at that. I knew I liked that guy!

This whole thing has gotten a tad wearisome. We are no longer discussing anything. More of a flame fest, in my opinion.

I agree with you- the thread should be pulled. It is getting out of hand and I am concerned that people are crossing the line in the effort.

"A boot camp that gives useless certs. Nothing new here."

It may not be new, but that doesn't make it right either :)

You can read my experience with Tech Pros Group above. I too did my due diligence via Google searching :) and after talking with Mr. Hard-Sell, I decided not to go in for it.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.