Proctor a no-show for CISA attempt lol

E Double U

Showed up at the test site Tuesday morning around 09:15 and waited until 11:00 with no one showing up to open the test site. Used every method of communication available to reach someone that worked there, but no luck. When I finally got a hold of someone that afternoon, all the guy said was the circumstance was due to an error and offered an apology. I reported this to both PSI and ISACA with PSI offering to refund me half of the exam fee. It was an annoying experience, but getting $355 back for a test my company paid for made it worth it.

I'll report back once I've taken the exam.

shochan

why refund only half? you didn't get to take it. They should just keep the money & just reschedule it when someone is actually there.

scaredoftests

wow..and your stressed enough by studying and psyching yourself up for the test.

H-bomb

Wow! I can’t believe they only refunded half! WTF? When I took the CISA a few weeks ago the test engine crashed around question 100. I was in complete panic. After 10 minutes the proctor was able to log in and pull the exam up where I left off. By this point my nerves were so tense I couldn’t even comprehend the questions.

E Double U

They refunded half and rescheduled me with another test center at no additional cost. Since my team allows us to take off for exams and Amsterdam is only a 30 minute train ride away I can live with the arrangement. Now I just get a little bit more study time.

H-bomb

E Double U wrote: »

They refunded half and rescheduled me with another test center at no additional cost. Since my team allows us to take off for exams and Amsterdam is only a 30 minute train ride away I can live with the arrangement. Now I just get a little bit more study time.

Ah, that makes more sense now. Looking forward to seeing your CISA passed post

doubleo

E Double U wrote: »

... getting $355 back for a test my company paid for made it worth it ...

I don't know about laws in your country but taking money which didn't originally belong to you is a serious offense here, just saying.

E Double U

doubleo wrote: »

I don't know about laws in your country but taking money which didn't originally belong to you is a serious offense here, just saying.

Being refunded money from your personal development budget given to each employee isn't against the law here. Glad I don't live in Croatia, just saying

anthonx

Maybe you can view it as compensation for the inconvenience. I would definitely take it. It's not a fraudulent transaction. Especially if there is no company policy against it.

nisti2

Wow got a refund! Hope you pass. I imagine the frustration on the first time!
Good luck!

TechGuru80

Just so we are clear here...if you tell your company you paid $600 for an exam, then they reimburse you for the cost...and then you end up getting money back making it half the cost and thereby profiting $300...that is a fireable offense, much similar to stealing.

josephandre

lol that's ridiculous. he's the one who was inconvenienced. If his company booked him a flight and he was bumped against his will and they gave him a travel voucher and meal cards, should he turn those over to the company as well?

E Double U

@ anthonx & josephandre- You two are absolutely correct! That is exactly what PSI is doing. I explained to them in the detail the events of that morning which included repeated calls to the test center, filling in the their online form, emailing them, and messaging them on WhatsApp without any luck until about 13:30. I called PSI several times that morning and they said all they could do was reset my profile for me to reschedule. When I expressed how I felt about the ordeal, PSI escalated my issue up to a Client Services Specialist who offered to pay me half of the exam fee for my inconvenience. No fraud at all. Funny thing, my biggest inconvenience that morning was not even the waste of my time, but the shifting things around to be able to be there. Changing my work schedule and missing taking my sons to school with my wife that day (something that I rarely get to do) is what really fired me up.

@ TechGuru80 - We are not clear because your scenario is not applicable here. My employer doesn't reimburse employees for exams. My employer gives each employee a personal development budget of €1,000 which we can use as we see fit. I just happen to use mine for certs because I'm a paper tiger like most on TE lol. Accepting half of the price of an exam (paid for out of my own budget) to compensate for a bad experience is not even close to stealing. If that is a fireable offense in other places of work then I am very fortunate to be where I am. Maybe your point of view is based on me stating that my employer paid for it, but by that I mean the exam was paid for by money allocated to me by my employer as opposed to me paying out of pocket and submitting an expense report for reimbursement. I guess its all in the wording because PSI could simply have a policy that says they pay out test takers have the price of an exam when they encounter issues at their test sites. Why should their gesture be declined or given back to the employer? If I had my employer pay for an exam, cancel it, and pocket the cash then I would consider that stealing. Wait, I just got an idea...

TechGuru80

E Double U wrote: »

Accepting half of the price of an exam (paid for out of my own budget) to compensate for a bad experience is not even close to stealing. If that is a fireable offense in other places of work then I am very fortunate to be where I am.

Are you planning on using the money for training or certs? Or are you going to pocket it? I did not notice you were in the Netherlands, but in the U.S. if a company saw that they probably wouldn't be too happy and could easily fire somebody if they really wanted to...honestly it's about the intent...your company gave you the budget for development so if you still use the extra towards that there isn't really a problem, but if you pocket the cash there is an ethical dilemma.

E Double U

TechGuru80 wrote: »

Are you planning on using the money for training or certs? Or are you going to pocket it? I did not notice you were in the Netherlands, but in the U.S. if a company saw that they probably wouldn't be too happy and could easily fire somebody if they really wanted to...honestly it's about the intent...your company gave you the budget for development so if you still use the extra towards that there isn't really a problem, but if you pocket the cash there is an ethical dilemma.

Are you planning on using the money for training or certs? You're asking this question to another TE cert junkie doing this as a hobby at this point so what do you think lol. I've been on a roll non-stop since 2013 (CCNA Security -> CCNP Security -> CISSP -> GCIH -> C|EH -> GCIA -> CISM -> CISA hopefully). If I stay with my current team then I will go for GPEN and my boss would like to see me do OSCP. I'm event flirting with the idea of a Scrum cert since my company fell in love with Agile and just gives away money for that training. If I move to one of the risk management teams that I've been eyeing then I'll go with CRISC and if I do that I might as well stay on the ISACA path and knock out CGEIT. I also plan to take another Dutch course so in short, yes I am absolutely using the money for more personal development. What else would I do with it? $355 worth of booze (thought about it). Wild night in the red-light district (my wife wouldn't approve). Buy myself something nice (thought about it, my wife wouldn't approve).

As a Los Angeles native that has only been residing in The Netherlands for two years, I am fully aware of how my left coast at-will employment state could handle the situation so there would be open communication with my manager just like here (nothing to hide). And there is no way that a CISSP would make an unethical choice when faced with an ethical dilemma. The code of ethics canons are very clear