Ameritrain, a fly-by-night training & grab-em cut-em leave-em bleeding ripoff scam. Charlotte, North Carolina

Imagine my surprise and shock when I went over to Ameritrain this evening, eagerly anticipating the start of my MCSE class.

Instead of a bustling center of learning, I found a gutted office littered with "glowing testimonial letters" that had been knocked off the walls by the movers in their haste to get out without being caught by angry students.

They did not even have the common courtesy to leave a note on the door. Repeated calls to the corporate office in PA got lost in voice-mail limbo.

By the time I began to put it all together, I realized that I must be just about the last person to learn the truth about Ameritrain. After reading all the other letters on this website, I see that there's not much left to add.

Still, I have one hopeful bit of information that I got from a call to the NC Attorney General's consumer affairs dept: there may be some hope for the students who got loans through Sallie Mae. Contact Sallie Mae to see if there is a way to complete your training at another site without shelling out any more money.

For those of you like me, who dipped into a rather shallow 401-K, there may be nothing left but the tax penalty we will owe IRS for early withdrawal.

James
Charlotte, North Carolina