Anyone else get weird calls from Prometric?

skrpune

The first call was about a week ago from a rep at Prometric - she called me on my cell first, then left a message at home...asking me about a test I took on 6/24 & whether I've gotten my score. I thought it was a little weird, and at first I thought they were calling about the Windows 7 Beta exam & were calling to see if I got my score report via mail yet. Well, I checked the exam date, and it was my Server+ Beta exam instead. And Prometric was calling to ask me if I got a score?! Um, aren't those not supposed to be out until October?! ??:

I forgot about it for a couple days and then returned the call last week and left a message for the rep and didn't hear back before the weekend. She decided that 7:25am today was a good time to call me back. Well, I was fast asleep (got to bed laaaaate, like post-3am) so I didn't quite register that it was my phone buzzing and I missed her call. She left another message saying "Gee, sorry, I wasn't clear before - I'm calling to see if you got your score report for that test." Sigh, aren't these folks supposed to know this already?!

Anywho, so I called her back and finally got to talk to her. First, she couldn't confirm which test it was. She just repeated the date and since I was half asleep and since I took a few in a short span, I asked her to try to confirm the test so I could be sure we were both talking about the same thing. Once we determined that we were both talking about the Server Beta, she asked me if I got a score, and I told her that I wasn't expecting one since it was a Beta exam and you don't get scores for those right away. She asked me "So you didn't see a score on the screen?!" Sigh. I told her again NO since it was a beta exam and that I don't expect to see a score for beta exams for weeks or months...and that this one's not due until October. Then she asked me if I've gotten the score in the mail yet or anything. OH MY GOD. What part of "no, this exam score isn't due out until October" does this person not understand?! GAH.

At this point I was curious why in blazes she's asking me all this, so I inquired wtf was going on (more politely than that of course). She said that if a score isn't registered in the system, it throws up a red flag that it might be a glitch or communication problem with the test center, etc. Which I can totally understand if this were a normal exam but this was a beta exam. I'm just a little surprised that they don't somehow mark betas in the system so that they don't get the little "hey I don't have a score & something might be wrong" red flag. And how come my Windows 7 Beta exam didn't come up with this same red flag? Is Prometric really just that sucky?? (Rhetorical question, I know the answer is 'yes.')

So anyone else out there getting weird phone calls from Prometric, asking to give them your score for an exam that's not scored yet? Or am I the only "special" one??

joecontreras

skrpune wrote: »

The first call was about a week ago from a rep at Prometric - she called me on my cell first, then left a message at home...asking me about a test I took on 6/24 & whether I've gotten my score. I thought it was a little weird, and at first I thought they were calling about the Windows 7 Beta exam & were calling to see if I got my score report via mail yet. Well, I checked the exam date, and it was my Server+ Beta exam instead. And Prometric was calling to ask me if I got a score?! Um, aren't those not supposed to be out until October?! ??:

I forgot about it for a couple days and then returned the call last week and left a message for the rep and didn't hear back before the weekend. She decided that 7:25am today was a good time to call me back. Well, I was fast asleep (got to bed laaaaate, like post-3am) so I didn't quite register that it was my phone buzzing and I missed her call. She left another message saying "Gee, sorry, I wasn't clear before - I'm calling to see if you got your score report for that test." Sigh, aren't these folks supposed to know this already?!

Anywho, so I called her back and finally got to talk to her. First, she couldn't confirm which test it was. She just repeated the date and since I was half asleep and since I took a few in a short span, I asked her to try to confirm the test so I could be sure we were both talking about the same thing. Once we determined that we were both talking about the Server Beta, she asked me if I got a score, and I told her that I wasn't expecting one since it was a Beta exam and you don't get scores for those right away. She asked me "So you didn't see a score on the screen?!" Sigh. I told her again NO since it was a beta exam and that I don't expect to see a score for beta exams for weeks or months...and that this one's not due until October. Then she asked me if I've gotten the score in the mail yet or anything. OH MY GOD. What part of "no, this exam score isn't due out until October" does this person not understand?! GAH.

At this point I was curious why in blazes she's asking me all this, so I inquired wtf was going on (more politely than that of course). She said that if a score isn't registered in the system, it throws up a red flag that it might be a glitch or communication problem with the test center, etc. Which I can totally understand if this were a normal exam but this was a beta exam. I'm just a little surprised that they don't somehow mark betas in the system so that they don't get the little "hey I don't have a score & something might be wrong" red flag. And how come my Windows 7 Beta exam didn't come up with this same red flag? Is Prometric really just that sucky?? (Rhetorical question, I know the answer is 'yes.')

So anyone else out there getting weird phone calls from Prometric, asking to give them your score for an exam that's not scored yet? Or am I the only "special" one??

Maybe you scored 100% and messed up there whole Beta system and now they are trying to figure out how to score everyone else based on your score.

matradley

joecontreras wrote: »

Maybe you scored 100% and messed up there whole Beta system and now they are trying to figure out how to score everyone else based on your score.

+1 for that! You dog you.

skrpune

joecontreras wrote: »

Maybe you scored 100% and messed up there whole Beta system and now they are trying to figure out how to score everyone else based on your score.

HA! If only! I like the cut of your jib though...

shednik

Nah you're just one of those special kids

dynamik

Yea, but it's usually at 3am, and they're drunk. They keep rambling on about not doing any Cisco exams and going back to MS. Weird.

skrpune

dynamik wrote: »

Yea, but it's usually at 3am, and they're drunk. They keep rambling on about not doing any Cisco exams and going back to MS. Weird.

lol...this woman wasn't drunk, but she may as well have been. I just find it odd that they're calling me to find out if I got a score for a test that I wasn't supposed to get a score for. And that they couldn't even tell me which exam it was for. Makes me wonder if the test got screwed up. Hrm...

TravR1

Or it's some kind of weird scam.

TravR1

It's sounds fishy. Companies can't call you at that hour - it's a lawsuit.

skrpune

I got another message from Prometric today...with a ticket number & a request to call them back about my score report. Le sigh.

It was after 5pm central time when I got the message and called them back, and apparently the people who have a clue about what's going on leave at 5, so I'm theoretically going to get a call back tomorrow from someone else. What I was able to get from the rep I spoke with today was that there was a possible problem on the test center side and they DO realize that it's a beta, but it's been flagged and no one can really tell me why or what's going on until tomorrow.

I took the extra step of calling the test center and the fella there knew who I was and what I was calling about before I gave him any of my test/confirmation number info. He told me that he got a call from Prometric today and that everything was sent over on test day but that they resent the info again today. He said that everything should be fine and that Prometric should have everything they need to score the exam. I flat out told him that the usage of "should" scares the bejebus out of me!! I didn't exact prepare extensively for this exam, but I did put a fair amount of effort into it and I'd hate to see it go to waste for a possible transmission error or administrative error somewhere along the line. I did my part, now I need for them to do theirs.

SO I "should" have an update from a rep at Prometric tomorrow morning. Let's hope they don't call me before 7:30 am again.

Edit: one more thing I forgot to mention...when I called Prometric, I gave them the ticket number and was put on hold while the rep looked it up - then she came back on and said "Okay, Miss XXXXX?" I said, "Um, no, that's not me..." She confirmed the ticket number again and apparently it was misassigned or I was given the wrong number. NICE! I ended up logging into Prometric's own site to grab the test confirmation number & giving that to them to access my info. Seems like they're very organized over there.

skrpune

Hrm. No call back from Prometric this morning so I called them. I talked to the same rep as I did yesterday, but today she passed me along to her supervisor. She said that she's been trying to track down who the heck is calling me because they shouldn't be - for betas, it wouldn't get flagged in their system until it's been 8 weeks after the test date, so no one should be calling me about it at this point - it's only 3 weeks since I took the exam.

I told her my concerns about the exam results not getting recorded/transmitted and she said that should not be the case here. There goes that "should" word again!

Anywho, she's supposed to call me back within 48 hours and she's promised to get down to the bottom of this. She also gave me her direct line and told me to call her & report the first/last name of any other numbskulls that call me about this, lol!
(I'm paraphrasing of course, but she sounds almost as irritated by this as I am...)

God, I love Prometric.

dynamik

This is better than a soap opera!

c:\>Get-Popcorn -butter

drewkeg

Popcorn is in the microwave

What is the deal with prometric though. With all the time and effort we put forth, the last thing you need are problems with the results

Hope all works out for ya. got my fingers crosses

skrpune

Hey, can someone pass me the popcorn?

So that manager at Prometric was supposed to call me back within 48 hours which would have been this past Friday. Well, it's Monday now so I called her to check in. She's on vacation for a week - nice!

Grr. Well, I grabbed the extension of another rep off her voice mail message and got a nice gentleman who swears he's going to look into it and call me back by noon with some sort of answer, even if he's found nothing. I'm not holding my breath. I'm giving them a little while longer to figure out what the heck is going on, and then I go to CompTIA. Who knew a beta exam could be so complicated?!

skrpune

I finally have my resolution - this guy was prompt and called me back right when he said he would, and he said not to worry. Someone messed up and saw 'pending' on my record for the exam and freaked, which is apparently fine when it's a beta exam...my record for the beta has been updated to show as 'tested' so no one else freaks out and opens up another ticket on this! Geez, all this time and frustration just because it was 'pending' instead of 'tested' and no one bothered to check if it was a beta exam?? Oy.

dynamik

Very anticlimactic. You should have at least made up a better ending

skrpune

dynamik wrote: »

Very anticlimactic. You should have at least made up a better ending

I know, hardly worth all the hub-bub and multiple phone calls. I was wondering at first if it was a system wide issue or a site issue. Seems like it was a single employee being a dork issue.

Do I still get popcorn?

mikej412

Definitely grab some popcorn -- you'll probably be getting a Customer Satisfaction Survey to find out how well they dealt with the "issue"

And if you give "less than stellar reviews" there will probably be many follow up calls, including one from that Manager when she gets back from vacation.

snadam

dynamik wrote: »

Very anticlimactic. You should have at least made up a better ending

at least it was better than Godfather part III

TravR1

Maybe they should send you a coffee mug for free or something for waking you up at 3 am... since you probably needed coffee at work the day after.

matradley

TravR1 wrote: »

Maybe they should send you a coffee mug for free or something for waking you up at 3 am... since you probably needed coffee at work the day after.

But I just want the t-shirt.

skrpune

TravR1 wrote: »

Maybe they should send you a coffee mug for free or something for waking you up at 3 am... since you probably needed coffee at work the day after.

nah, I was just up until 3am the night before and got a call from them ~7:30am the next morning (or same morning technically)...although still I wouldn't turn down a free coffee mug or t-shirt for the troubles & stress.

Psoasman

...You could write a book on this...

veritas_libertas

Wow! Does anyone know when we should be hearing about the results from this beta exam?

dynamik

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Wow! Does anyone know when we should be hearing about the results from this beta exam?

I thought it was Q3 this year...

ULWiz

Actually just open up a post on this. Is it still suppose to come this month.

matradley

ULWiz wrote: »

Actually just open up a post on this. Is it still suppose to come this month.

Cut scores are not until the beginning of November. We'll, hopefully, see the results by December. It would be a nice Christmas gift.

Hyper-Me

I'll probably have my 70-686 results before the Server+ results and it just ended.

Sad.

matradley

Hyper-Me wrote: »

I'll probably have my 70-686 results before the Server+ results and it just ended.

Sad.

If I were a betting man... I would have to agree with you.

lutscapju

skrpune wrote: »

I finally have my resolution - this guy was prompt and called me back right when he said he would, and he said not to worry. Someone messed up and saw 'pending' on my record for the exam and freaked, which is apparently fine when it's a beta exam...my record for the beta has been updated to show as 'tested' so no one else freaks out and opens up another ticket on this! Geez, all this time and frustration just because it was 'pending' instead of 'tested' and no one bothered to check if it was a beta exam?? Oy.

I accept with information: if you give "less than stellar reviews" there will probably be many follow up calls, including one from that Manager when she gets back from vacation.

veritas_libertas

Just got a letter in the mail saying I failed. I didn't practice so I don't feel bad.