Virginia College @ Birmingham, AL Financial Aid rip-off/ Not being able to drop classes Birmingham Alabama

I started going to Virginia College in December of 2006. I was a single mother (the schools MAIN 'targets' if you will), and Virginia College painted a 'rainbow and butterflies' picture of their programs and payment plans. I started my online classes going for a degree in 'Fraud Investigation'. After completing my first quarter, I was informed that program was being dropped, but my classes could be applied towards a more general 'Criminal Justice' degree. Whatever. Upon entry to my second quarter they were apparently 'upgrading' and 'tweaking' their online program, which made it very difficult to navigate most the time, and after a week I emailed the class instructor that I would be dropping the class......I got NO response. I sent the email again.....no response. I emailed finally the 'physical schools' email address, with a response saying that they really weren't "sure" about online classes and how they worked. etc etc. EXCUSES basically not to help because they were in the middle of eating lunch I guess. After about 2 weeks of waiting, I finally recieve a conformation email that my classes were dropped. Good right? WRONG> only to find out later that I was billed for the entire 3 classes (plus books...that were returned) AND was givin a '0'! That fit in NICELY with my previous 4.0 average. I have since been enrolled by Virginia College without my notice and have had to call and make trips to 'un-enroll'. The school has recently moved and has a constant turn-over of employees, all of which seem to be out in space when I try to get to the bottem of my problems with the school. I (after following the advice of my parents) went back for what was my last quarter at Virginia College before joining the military in January of 2008. I again, was over-charged. Last straw. I now (no joke) have a bill from DIRECT loans for nearly 9,000 AND a mysterious 'debt' with the school itself for about 4,000.00 ......hmmmmm.....lets do the math....5 classes taken total= 13,000??? I think NOT! Even *IF* that amount includes the 3 classes they charged me online for that I withdrew from (but was ignored for 2 weeks in my request in doing so), it STILL doesn't amount to 13,000!! I am going to talk to someone in financial aid soon...then I will update you on this fiasco of a college...

Disgruntled23
alabaster, Alabama
U.S.A.