Do not put yourself through this!
This ‘company' claims to be a trusted source to ‘evaluate your education'. Well, let me disagree…
Before the beginning of this review, I would like to postulate a couple of questions that everyone should take into consideration prior to dealing with this company. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the company or Universities encouraging its use will ever reply, nor be able to give the required answers.
1. Who gave this company the right to judge or consider other people's education? Who they even are? What legal documentation do they have for what they do?
2. Given that they request some of the transcripts being sent directly by the Universities/Schools who issue them, why using this ‘middle man'? This ‘middle man' that costs roughly 200 bucks? Why not request the validated documents directly between universities? Btw this company claims to be a ‘non-profit' organisation. How many other ‘non-profit organisation' charging 200 bucks for their services do you know?
The website & the process
The website is nothing, but confusing (to put it nicely) with a highly uneven description of your ‘duties' on how to send your University diploma, its supplement etc. to these… people. All documents must be translated to English (there is your additional charge if you do not have it in English).
While there is quite a detailed description of how to send the ‘doctoral degree conferral' (either have it send by the Uni or send it yourself, but with a Uni stamp on the envelope, fair enough), but there is absolutely no description on how the ‘Academic transcripts' should be sent! Well, for those who wonder - it needs to be sent by the University. So, if you sent it yourself they will not accept it and it will throw you back another 3 weeks (to make a request at the Uni, for them to send it, and again get it approved by WES…). One of the more fascinating things was that they ‘accepted' the translation of the ‘Academic transcripts', but they did not accept the document per se because it was not sent by the awarding University… Well, what can I say to that? Does that require any comment at all? Just 1 question… how could they accept a translation of transcripts they did not know if are legit???
One more thing to sending those documents - there is no contact person in the address you are supposed to send it and many curriers simply refuse to take a package like that and I had to settle with an alternative (there is another delay).
‘Customer support'
‘Customer support' is pretty much non-existing. Well, there is a ‘do you have a question' on the right side of the page, but do not expect to be able to chat with anyone. After you click on the ‘do you have a question' a bunch of FAQ questions appears and… that's pretty much it (NO they are not useful). Moving on with the ‘customer support', yeah, there is also an e-mail. I am not even going to comment on the 2+ weeks response rate, it's the response that is just amazing. Quote:
‘Dear XYZ,
Thank you for your message.
Please visit our website for detailed information on the required documents for evaluation and how to properly submit them. Please note that it is your responsibility to have your academic documents sent to WES.
We will send you an update by email each time a new academic document has been reviewed. It will indicate the status of all documents that are required to complete your evaluation. Your evaluation will proceed after all required documents have been received and accepted by WES.
Best regards,
Shawn K.
WES Customer Service
Please do not reply to this email. It was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming email.'
End of quote.
So there are 4 things I would like to point out in this e-mail:
1. You ask a specific question and you get a go to our website response. Don't you just love it every time it happens?
2. They even have the nerve to patronize you because if you are that stupid and did not realize it: ‘Please note that it is your responsibility to have your academic documents sent to WES.‘
3. You are supposed to send sensitive information about yourself (e.g. your University transcripts, date of birth, address), but you are not even entitled to know who you are ‘talking' to - see ‘Shawn K.' I wonder if this is even a real person...
4. And to let you know how much you actually bother them you get a ‘Please do not reply to this email.' All for just 200 bucks! Isn't it wonderful?
The ‘report'
So, 6 weeks later, after you comply with all their ridiculous demands, you will receive a ‘report'. Do you wanna know what is in that report? A copied information from your documents (not even correct one! They did not even get the length of the study correctly!) with an additional sentence of their approval (well ain't I happy to have this shambolic institution let me know that I did go to school???).
The ‘badge'
This one is probably the funniest (or saddest for that matter). So after 6 weeks of struggle they ‘congratulate' for earning their ‘electronic badge' and they actually expect you to put it on your linkedIn or Facebook or other sites… Thus, basically, they expect you to promote them (I highly doubt that any other than similarly talented university clerks have ever heard of them) and show off their badge… I am speechless.
Conclusions & remarks
I highly recommend to everyone who values her or his education and overall well being not to put herself/himself through this economical & emotional abuse. Keep in mind that you were the person busting your a*s to achieve your degree and you should in no way be obligated to pay 200 bucks to these frauds to ‘validate' what no one can do better than the Institution that issued the degree/education certificate to you. Certainly better than these leeches (likely with hardly any education - well if I am mistaken, why not show the team and respective CVs online?) who prey on other people's education and charge the victims for its ‘evaluation'. Preposterous, ridiculous & scandalous. The last advice to the end: think twice to attend/work at any Institution that requests or insists on your education being evaluated by these (or similar) frauds.
![World Education Services [WES] Logo](/img/business/121439/900x900/world-education-services-wes.jpg)
