Stonebridge College / Stonebridge Associated Colleges
Reviews and Complaints

As long as you have proof that you cancelled within the "cooling off" period then there is no way they can make you pay anything.
I would send them a letter recording delivery telling them to stop harassing you. If they then persist then take legal advice about it.

It seems that the one thing that Stonebridge excels at is ignoring complaints.
I hope you now have this sorted out.

Hi, Lesley,
This may help you ; https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-contracts-regulations

I am also really unhappy with the mannerism and way in which Stonebridge College deals with complaints.
I have signed up for a Teaching Assistant course, where practically the course booking guys sell themselves to us to purchase to course, on several times I asked if the course was internationally recognized, and the answer was "yes". Turns out it is not and on that basis I wanted to cancel. The lady from customer service gave me a call, she didnt really allow me to speak while speaking over me and said that it was my duty to research if it was recognized in my country/country wanting to teach. She didnt offer any assistance and told me that I am liable to pay. How could this be my duty when the college blatantly say they're "Internationally recognized" on several occasions. Complete B.S.

Absolutely disappointed.

I applied for a course with Stonebridge Associated Colleges, had not started the course, but lost my job shortly after enrolling on the course, which was after the 14 day cooling off period. I phoned Stonebridge to explain my problem and told them that as I had no income I wanted to cancel the course, to which I was told that it was after the 14 day period and that I had to write to the cancellations department and to send the letter recorded delivery. I sent the letter the next day, but forgot that I needed to send it recorded delivery and sent it by first class mail. I think I gave it a week or two, and when I had not heard from them, gave them a call, and guess what. They said they had not received my letter. How convenient. I do believe that this is a ploy used to keep harassing me for money. Are they so desperate for money that they have to going to these lengths?

If you cancelled AFTER the "cooling off" period then it looks like you are still liable for the cost of the course. However, I don't see why you should have to pay for the digs as they could rent them to someone else.
I would would get advice from the Citizens Adevice Bureau.

I had same issue promised course reconosed i sent 10 emails spoke to them and they said they would call me now het text and emails from credit control yet i spoke to them also but they are saying i have not what a joke of a place and od disabled they take advantage of this

This may help people who have cancelled within the 7 days but still can't get a refund ; https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-contracts-regulations

Further to the above comments, I bought an online course which seemed to fit what I wanted. As with any online purchase, it is not possible to see it before buying, so there is an option to cancel to protect consumer rights. I did not waive my cancellation rights when agreeing to the T&Cs.
I looked at a few pages, before deciding it was not suitable. Following the T&Cs in the purchase process, I sent a recorded letter the next day asking for a refund.This was well within the cooling-off time allowed. The reply agreed the timing, but said I had "viewed more than 50% of the course." There is no way of legally proving this, so this excuse cannot be used to refuse a refund. Nowhere in the T&Cs is this mentioned. CAB have taken an interest, and Trading Standards could be the next step. I will let you know what happens.

I think people need to be very careful to find out EXACTLY what they are signing up for BEFORE they part with any money for these distance-learning courses. It is also a good idea to find out who recognises the course(s). Some may not be any use in getting a job. The college should give you a copy of the contract for you to look at before you part with any money. If they won't, them the question is what are they hiding?
I hope the complainant gets their refund as it seems to be they are well within their rights.

They said I could not even exchange but as a gesture of goodwill I could exchange and not lose my £1000

I was appalled. I said I would have to do a BTEC course instead and they then said NO you can absolutely not exchange to a Btec course. They have stolen my money. They are not allowing me to exchange to a different course only if they choose from a selection of courses for me.

It is disgusting please do not get caught by this company they are absolutely terrible and cruel in their dealings with you. A real college would not behave so unethically.

I am going to go public so that people can be warned about this. The people there treat you with total disregard. They are dreadful.

I am approaching Trading Standards and will publicise this on all social media.

It is appalling. The courses are not genuinely accredited.

This company is operating in a totally unethical manner. A real college would never behave like this.
They have taken £1000 from my account and I have not even accessed a course.

This company is not a real college

Be warned

Just to add my word of warning - I signed up to a course Saturday & e-mailed to cancel within 48 hours (as is my right)
I paid by credit card.

The reply to my email to Stonebridge was that I had to put the cancellation in writing.

It seemed daft but I wrote to them & also contacted my card provider to inform them of a possible problem due to what I've read about Stonebridge.

I received a letter today telling me that although my request to cancel was received within 7 days they will not be refunding my money as I have viewed more than 50% of the course!

I hadn't even received a registration on to the course!

When I called them I got absolutely nowhere & have filed a charge-back with my credit card provider.

Be warned.

Steve

The Stonebridge Colleges Team wishes to apologise for any inconveniences caused in this case. Stonebridge Colleges aims to help students achieve their goals by delivering quality distance education courses, a high standard of support, and unique services such as unlimited time to complete courses. We regret that in this case, however, the matter has not been treated with the quality and care we consistently strive for.

No payment has been taken, nor will any payment be taken in the future from the complainant. We would like to assure you that an investigation has been undertaken internally.

We appreciate your attention to this matter and wish you the best in your continued education.

Hi DNTRLYCARE,
This may help you ; https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-contracts-regulations

Dear members of the forum! My name is Helena, I'm from Sweden. I've found this thread by Google search and came to tell you that Stonebridge Associated Colleges has proven to be a scam.

I was seriously robbed by these scammers - they refused to refund my money for a properly cancelled course, and I'm already fighting for my rights with the help of UK European Consumer Center. Don't be afraid to claim your rights too, if you were treated badly by this College! Just go for it! Altogether we will prove that such institutions should not be fostered in EU.

The College has been running this campaign called "Stonebridge Superfan" where people are supposed to get points and win prizes. One of the conditions is writing a positive review of the College here: http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews218360.html, so that these reviews are many and potential students don't have a clue on what its nature really is. On the top of this page you can see a note from the Review Center which confirms the forceful nature of these positive reviews.

Read here how you can claim your consumer rights, if they refuse to refund your money: http://zhilkin.com/Stonebridge_Associated_Colleges_are_scammers.html
And please-please-please, like the page, so that as many people as possible know what this College is really about BEFORE getting into trouble and wasting their precious money.

I wish you all the best of luck!

well i stupidly signed up at 8pm last night, saw all the things about it being dodgy and cancelled at 8am this morning, they said no they wouldnt refund me without me returning the course materials! (it was paid and cancelled within 12hours!) now refusing to give me my 49.99 deposit back, even tho im entitled to it by LAW! distance selling regs! DISGUSTED!

They are a total scam. I’ve started a petition to bring them to justice

Hi, I’ve had a similar experience & I can confirm they’re a total scam. I’ve actually started a petition on change.org to bring them to justice

Just to say that I have been studying with them on an Access to HE course to help me get a place into University and have had no problem whatsoever.

I'm getting my assignments marked within 3 days. (Handbook says 3-5 days) I have received helpful and positive feedback so far. One of my assignments was submitted for formative feedback and I got a response 30 minutes later.

I cannot fault them one bit. I do not have the same tutor as all the others at the beginning of this thread. It's the same one all the way through my course where consistency is key to academia.

The material is excellent and up to date and I am learning a lot and glad I joined up. I pay monthly and have had a little blip with my discount being acknowledged but I had a response from the team next day to sort.

A few of my peers have messaged me and we are all getting the same feedback and are all happy with the level of service and learning materials provided etc.

Please avoid these scammers. You deserve better. I enrolled on an level course allegedly accredited by CACHE Specialist in Supporting Teaching and Learning level 3. Great I thought if it's okay by CACHE it must be okay. When I signed up I was asked to pay a £50 enrolment fee on the understanding that there were a restricted number of places. (Yeah I know very gullible) and that the person I was speaking to was a course advisor. I also shared personal information on this basis about my health conditions as I thought they were there to help me on the right course. They are of course sales advisors and know nothing about the courses. I signed up. The online interface was rubbish. I take free courses with futurelearn and these are excellent. There is no ability to chat with other students. The materials were extremely poor with some of it quite out of date. When I questioned them about this nobody got back to me.

The questions pretty much required you to regurgitate the course materials. No effort required and it was completely unrelated to being in a classroom, a school or working with children. I contacted CACHE who said I should have been given information to give to my placement provider (the school) so I asked the college. They linked me to a generic leaflet aimed at employers working with year 10 pupils on two week work experience and was printed in 2002. I questioned why I had been sent this. Nobody knew.

The stress was making me ill as I already have anxiety which they assured me they would provide additional support and never even recorded it. I even had one person say to me "your anxiety can't be that bad you managed to fill out a student finance form. " What kind of person comes out with this trash? As I had paid through student loans I canceled and found out they had to return the £300 they had already claimed. I chased them for my £50 deposit and after many excuses I threatened to involve my bank and then surprise surprise it was refunded.

This is not a college. It's a scam. It's a money making enterprise designed to churn out rubbish courses and get rich off unsuspecting students. Don't waste your money or put yourself through the stress.

I undertook a dressmaking a fashion design course with stone bridge college and my tutor was Susan Richardson! This is one very busy and clever lady to be such an expert in so many varied and diverse fields!

I agree with many of the comments above, I contacted Stonebridge to complain about not being able to login to my course and got through to James Cann, who is the "office manager" yet seems to be responsible for lots of other things. Basically he didn't seem to give two hoots about me being unhappy with their service. He casually informed me that the course was no longer available online and that to transfer to another course I would have to put in writing that I wanted to, even though it was their fault for basically mis-selling the course as being available online. I also hadn't received my login details for the site and my account such as home address and post code was discussed over the phone without any security checks being undertaken (this is a breach of the Data Protection Act). I think as others have said they basically buy in courses, some of which are ok and some of which are rubbish, sell them on to the customer and have a small number of people who use the marking schemes provided by ABC, NCFE etc to mark the papers. And I have to keep asking them to mark my assignments as they forget to. I wouldn't use them again.

This is the worse place to choose to study, it's like the staff are purposely chosen to work there because they all have the same very rude attitude, I've studied with them before and encountered communication problems, which should have been a lesson to me, I decided to give them another trial when I fell pregnant and had to stay home because of sever morning sickness, in August I was admitted in hospital for sever dehydration and they also found my blood pressure was off the chart, so they decided to keep me in and monitor me, I started calling stonebridge from my hospital bed, no-one was willing to speak to me and I kept being tossed form one department to the other, I finally gave up because it was stressful, finally when I was discharged someone called, who has already decided that my course cannot cancelled, I explained till my head hurt but he still insisted on saying no. He also sent me an email with the cancellation procedure, which I followed but they are still saying no! I've developed hypertension and I'm going to have a baby with a congenital heart disease, I cannot commit to studying or financial, I sent their course materials back and it was sent back to me detailing the distance selling act, all they think about is money, they have no compassion at all, because the act dosnt say anything about bereavement or illness, cancellation is left at their own discretion which they've chosen to harass me, my blood pressure is off the chart because of them, I receive emails every day and court action red letters, I even receive text messages demanding money, they're evil and selfish, my life is a living hell because of them, I can't even read my mails anymore, my husband has to check emails for me, I cannot believe they treat people like this. Circumstances do change and sometimes there's nothing you can Do, but on the other hand if you're signed with stonebridge be prepared to go through a horrible ordeal with them, they dont have sympathy at all, right now I'm starting court proceedings after speaking to citizens advice bureau because my life and my unborn baby's life depends on it. AVOID THEM DONT FALL INTO THEIR EVIL CLAWS!

I agree that people should research a course before they pay for it, but with the Foot Health Practitioner courses it is difficult.
Nowhere on the website does it say how much money is needed to actually set up in practice, this can run to £1, 000's.
Also it is difficult to find out how many people are working in an area as most are mobile and a lot of them don't advertise and just use mobile phones so you don't know where they are!
It seems that the whole world and his wife are doing this course but very few are making a go of it. I regularly get leaflets shoved through my letter box and these people trade for about a year and then disappear.
Caveat emptor!

I pursued Business law from the college. In fact it was amazing. The course materials were well prepared and completing the course I received my Diploma from the College and another diploma from ABC awards. Although that award was not listed in the Ofqual directory, it still has credit value because institution consider it as an endorsed or accredited course from ABC awards which is found in the list Ofqual register