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Report: #1088574

Complaint Review: AFPA - Ship Bottom New Jersey

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  • Reported By: Krys — Houston Texas
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  • AFPA 1601 Long Beach Blvd, Ship Bottom, New Jersey USA

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I promise you, you can get your fitness education credentials from anywhere else with less red tape, rude customer service, and straight out ignoring phone calls on purpose. 

I'm in the military, and a big reason why I chose them is their entire section on their website about how friendly they are to military servicemen and veterans by working with their VA benefits. Veterans tend to go out of their way to choose companies that take pride in helping out our community and its members. At the end of their page (http://www.afpafitness.com/about/military-veterans/) they even have a cute "Thank you to all the men and women serving and defending the United States of America!" 

My certifications were sent in the mail to me while I was out on deployment. My parents are here at the house, they have the ability to get my mail, and they know the routine. They let me know when I receive things, and set them aside for when I come home. My certifications, however, were not part of the mail I received. After getting things settled down here on the home front, I've started making calls to get things that aren't as high priority on my list.

All I called them to do was find out how to get my certifications, if they would assist me in waiving the fee since I really never did receive them in the first place (not to mention they probably just sign a piece of pretty printed paper and shove it in an envelope), and if I could get a more detailed write-up of the classes I took back then so that I could give the write-up to my college. 

I didn't even make it to the third bullet on my agenda. They hung up on me long before then. 

The man on the phone picked up, and started off asking me how he could help me. When I attempted to start explaining what I need help with, he interrupted me. Three times, he interrupted me answering the questions he was asking, to get information that he could have said he needed before I started talking in the first place. 

"Thank you for calling AFPA, how can I help you?" 

"Well, sir, I have a situation regarding the mailing of my certifications because there was a pr--"

"HOLD ON, Wait. What is your name?" 

"Blah Blah."

"Okay. So what is it?"

"Well, I never received my certifications in the mail, and I know I have been away from the house a long time, and I'm just catching up to issues that have been on the backburner, but I was wondering if--"

"WAIT WAIT. When did you take the classes?"

That urgent tone of "Hold on" and "Wait" was super irritating, but I didn't say anything because who cares, I needed information. Eventually I conveyed my story to him, and he told me that they were sent while I was well into my deployment. I told him back that I had no doubts that they sent it, but that I never received it, and since the mailman and the post office don't handle those issues, if there is a way he can help me with this since that's what most businesses tend to do in America. 

He said it had been too long ago for me to claim now that I don't have my certifications, and that I'd need to go through the website, print out a form, and send a money order ONLY with the fees included and that it'd be $50. 

I started to ask him if this is really the only option, because I'm not at all blaming their company, only that if I had been there in person versus someone else (I.E. My parents receiving the mail for me) I would have known long before now that my certifications had not come in. My parents have lives too. 

He interrupted me AGAIN, and said I would definitely have to pay the $50 fee. 

Getting angry, but not yelling, I said "Excuse me, sir, can I just finish one sentence of what I am trying to convey to you before you interrupt me? You've been interrupting me the entire conversation. I thank you kindly for your help in getting information, and I need more, but just so you know your company is not as military friendly as you make yourselves out to be. Usually we choose places with very obvious things about veterans and working with veterans because they are usually understanding of our circumstances and how easily things get lost in the translation of deployments--" 

That is as far as I got before he hung up on me. I know he is in his office, during office hours, and I know he is the only one answering the phones. My attempts to call back were flat-out ignored. 

This place does what they say they will do, but they have over-charged fees for EVERY bit of their red tape (not even a university charges you $50 for an official transcript), they're rude, and if they simply don't like you they will just refuse to do business with you which will effectively put your education on hold. 

Do yourself a favor and pick another place of business that is actually professional. When your education is on the line, these people are NOT going to help you. 

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 10/01/2013 08:35 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/afpa/ship-bottom-new-jersey-08008/afpa-american-fitness-professionals-associates-falsely-claims-to-be-military-friendly-1088574. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
1Author
0Consumer
3Employee/Owner

#4 REBUTTAL Owner of company

correction in price of duplicate credentials

AUTHOR: AFPA - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, October 02, 2013

A typo occured in the last rebuttal response. Actual replacement fee for duplicate credentials is $25.00, not 250.00.

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#3 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Customer service was provided

AUTHOR: AFPA - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, October 02, 2013

What can be said to everything you have said? You have made numerous accusations, of which none are true with the exception of asking to to wait in the beginning our our conversation so that you would tell me your name. In case you forgot you began the phone conversation without identifling yourself and begain by saying you had not received your results.  Beyond that I attempted to assit you by askng your name, looking up your address, finding that we had infact mailed your two certificates to the address you provided in Texas.  The replacement fee of $250.00 per credential is both reasonable and covers the cost of printing, preparing, shipping the certiciate to you.  Colleges and universitites charge significantly more for a replacement diploma, as well as other organizations, which also charge a replacement fee.

Again, I emailed you as soon as I was able with an explanation, your dates of certificates mailed and the link to print out and submit for a duplicate set of crendentials.  How this is zero customer service which you claim is beyond comprehension. 

Your comment in your email which you did not post here that you would make this post go away if we waived the fee and sent you duplicate credentials again is not right, or for that matter ethical.  

AFPA has been in business for 20 years with excellent customer service, with thousands of military members who hold certifications successfully. 

Once again you were provided with the opportunity to obtain a duplicate set of credentials at a nominal fee to cover our costs to reproduce them, yet you choose to vent here as a result of your exaggerated claims and imagined slight.  

There will be no further response to any comments you post as it is obvious you believe you are entitled to free replacements of doucments due to either the mail losing them or being misplaced once they were delivered.

We provided you the opportunity to obtain replacement credentials, after mailing your initial set in 2012. 

 

 

 

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#2 Author of original report

Lies on top of lies. And still Zero customer service.

AUTHOR: kyuuei - ()

POSTED: Tuesday, October 01, 2013

"Regarding your phone call this morning. During the middle of our discussion are power was lost as a truck hit a telephone pole on the street by our office.  We had been in discussion regarding your credentials mailed in 2012, which you stated today you never received.  I mentioned to you this was the first time I had heard from you, and you stated you had sent a previous email regarding this topic."

 

Isn't it convenient that as soon as I was out of patience with you interrupting me every single time I attempted to talk, that the call is dropped? Is it also coincidence that when I called several times that the line not only allowed for calls to go through, but allowed for voice mails instead of telling me that the service was unavailable? And even if you were using a VOIP phone service that offers service even in power outages, and I give you extreme benefits of the doubt despite all of those convenient circumstances, that as soon as I post to you that I've filed a report on your company, that you e-mail me to continue our discussion and not a moment before? Had I not filed a report, I don't believe I would have heard from you e-mail or otherwise. Nor have you even attempted to give me a call back to continue a discussion? I was upset, and exasperated, but I was not yelling, or being absolutely beligerent, and I had not interupted you once which I cannot say the same for you. 

You hung up on me. Don't paint a horse with stripes and call it a Zebra. Those coincidences are too convenient for me to fall for that. 

 

"I confirmed your mailing address and check our records to find in fact both your Personal Trainer & Nutrition & Wellness Consultant certifications on 2/7/2012 and 7/17/2012 respectfully."

 

I believe I stated both to you and in my report that I never doubted that your company sent off the certificates--only that they got lost in mail translation between your sending them out and my receiving them. They were NOT sent certified, so there is no way to track them and ensure they were absolutely delivered to my house. For the cost of the tuition, and as hefty as the fees are to re-print them, I'd say a simple service like certified mail seems absolutely in order. My claim has been, and currently is, that I did not receive my certifications after they came from your office. 

 

"At that point you began heavy signing, and stating we were not as friendly as our website indicated, etc., which did not make any sense as I had been assisting you right along to first find if your credentials had been mailed, and then to direct you for an additional copies.  At this juncture in our conversation power was lost in our office for sometime.  " 

 

Power was lost. But it is back. Did you bother to call me back? No. Did you send me an e-mail indicating apologies for the lost conversation? Not at all. In fact, I posted immediately on your Facebook page telling others to not use your company because you hung up on me. That was immediately deleted from Facebook. I posted the report, and I suddenly get an e-mail. So tell me, was power lost and you just happened to be browsing facebook at the time on your phone? The same phone you could have used to message me in some way to continue our conversation or let me know the power had gone out? No. You could delete stuff from Facebook, but you simply could not be bothered to call me back even when power returned. 

Sad, sad customer service. 

Nothing I wrote in my 'lengthy' email to you (forgive me that I wasted your time with details about why I reported you in the first place) is out of order or place. You are lying to me about the power going out, and evne if you are not lying on the slim chance that ALL of those details mentioned earlier are pure coincidence, you made NO effort to contact me about this clearly unresolved issue. It is not EXTORTION to say that I filed a complaint, and that the complaint stands as long as your customer service is rotten. If you fix my problem, then I have nothing to complain about, and I will update the report thusly. That's all I said, and nothing about that is extortion. I'm not blackmailing you to do anything. Your company's reputation is of your own doing one way or the other. 

I stated I was deployed over the phone, and Africa is where I was. The 702nd Military Police Company, under the 3/124 CAV out of Texas is the company and battalion I was deployed under to Djibouti, Africa. I even have a convenient news article, still published online, that shows the work I was doing in Uganda with the Ugandan army DURING THE DATES YOU POSTED YOU SENT MY CREDENTIALS. So, if you want that, I'd be more than happy to provide it, my orders, and any other documentation you want. Free of charge. 

 

Your re-buttal is a red-herring. You're attacking me personally, and not the issue at hand. My ONLY 2 issues with your company are:

1. You were rude and interrupted me several times during our conversation, and hung up on me and refused to speak about the situation further until I posted to your company that I filed a report against you. 

2. That, while I understand your normal policies, considering the fact that I was deployed and I was not personally there to receive my mail nor was I in a position to attempt much contact during business hours during my work while deployed, that you would make consideration for the fact that your UNCERTIFIED mail sent to my house was understandably lost in translation and that I'd like to at least receive an ORIGINAL copy that should be included with my tuition payments before I start paying for duplicates. If I lost it on my own, or if my parents had lost it, I could understand paying for another copy to be sent. Since we never received it, and the post office won't take resposibility for uncertified mail, I feel it is unprofessional and lacking in customer service that your company refuses to send me my credentials. 

 

Your rebuttal addresses neither of those things. It just posts personal emails transacted between us, and tries to discredit me as a poster. But the truth is, it doesn't matter who I am. Only that it is standard business procedures for online businesses to send things by certified mail, or to offer options to customers who lost their things in the mail before they ever received them. 

I never said your education was crap, or that your business is shady. Only that you demand way over-priced fees for certification duplicates in the first place, and that I feel it is unprofessional to have such a lack of customer service and that people would be better off going to a business that doesn't hang up on them, lie about power outages to make a convenient excuse, and refuses to offer customer service while offering a service to a customer, And now I can add "insults customers and exaggerates explanations offered to them out of courtesy of informing them of a complaint" as well as "posts quotes from private e-mails conducted during business" to the list. 

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#1 REBUTTAL Owner of company

Phone Call & Veiled Threats

AUTHOR: AFPA - ()

POSTED: Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Email sent to Krystal @ 2:05 pm today:

 

Dear Krystal,

 

Regarding your phone call this morning. During the middle of our discussion are power was lost as a truck hit a telephone pole on the street by our office.  We had been in discussion regarding your credentials mailed in 2012, which you stated today you never received.  I mentioned to you this was the first time I had heard from you, and you stated you had sent a previous email regarding this topic.

I confirmed your mailing address and check our records to find in fact both your Personal Trainer & Nutrition & Wellness Consultant certifications on 2/7/2012 and 7/17/2012 respectfully.

I indicated since they were mailed to your correct home address in Houston and that they were not returned your option to obtain a duplicate copy would be to visit our website to order a copy of each.  You went to the website viewed the form and had the incorrect fee of $90.00, which I corrected you to indicate it would only be $50.00 as there was no fee for shipping.

At that point you began heavy signing, and stating we were not as friendly as our website indicated, etc., which did not make any sense as I had been assisting you right along to first find if your credentials had been mailed, and then to direct you for an additional copies.  At this juncture in our conversation power was lost in our office for sometime.  

Your email response to my email of attempting to assit you is as follows:

Sir, the power did not go out on your facility[how you would know this from 1700 miles away is a mystery] The phone was rining just as normal [yes, this happens even if the power is out, which you should know being prior military] -I called back several times and left messages [actually you left one message, which was retrived when the phones were working again]. No, sir, I am fairly young, but I know a lie when I see one.  

Your consideration of my examinations [one of which was absolutely submitted on time, and the other I inquired about. [you did not inquire today about any exam-just where your certifications were].  

there is an extremely long discourse regarding loaning your mother money for shoes and holding it over her head??? 

Your next sentence is the key:  I put that report up, and I am telling every single military man and woman I know over my 8 years of service, many of them in similar fitness careers, etc. if you [AFPA] are willing to change your mind and wavie the fee to resend credentials than I will take the report down. Until then, it stands. [this is called extortion, or black mail].  

In your lengthy email to AFPA you also included a very long paragraph where you stated you said about your 16 hour days, etc [you never said any of this or the fact you were deployed in the military-just that you had been in Africa at the time of your credentials being mailed to your home in Houston, Tx.  [since there were several individuals in the office they can attest to the fact that you did not say any of this].  I served my country as well for 8 years, and have never seen behavior like this before from a US serviceman.

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