Penn Foster College Online, pennfoster.com, DO NOT GO TO, OR EVEN ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT PENN FOSTER. THEY ARE A SCAM TO STEAL MONEY FROM YOU!! PLEASE BEWARE Murrieta, California

I began going to Penn Foster in 2007. I was doing their Bridal Consulting class. I decided to take a different route in my education in 2008 and changed to Paralegal. Now, I had paid my tuition in full in the beginning to get the discount from the school for doing so. I paid a total of $1198.00. I have taken exactly 7 of their study "units". The last one was a written essay which I got a D on with no explanation, notes or anything. I know it was better then a D. I tried to contact the person who corrected it to ask why and I got the run around. I think they have people correcting their papers that are in High School or stay at home moms with no experience in the field they are correcting papers for. So, I decided to change schools and just get an Associate Degree somewhere else because I was fed up with their lack of communication with me. I called today 08/18/09 and cancelled only to find out that I will not get any of my money back ($1198.00) because the day I originally began was 2007. Not the date I started the Paralegal course which was February of this year. I have proof of all of this and I don't mind sharing if you want to see how they really work. To pour salt in my wound so to speak, I am not getting any of my prepaid tuition back, ($1198.00) and I also OWE them $70.00! They say I signed up for another certification program Private Investigation that I only called and emailed asking questions about. They say they have my electronic signature. I am amazed that companies can get away with this. Especially a school that talked about how they help their students. The materiel they send is thin little paper books that probably cost them pennies to print. I understand keeping some of it for the units I did take but not the entire total amount. Is there anything I can do here??

UPDATE: They have now raised the amount that they say I owe from $70 to almost $400 now with no explanation of why. They have turned me into collections because I still refuse to be ripped-off!