EC-Council - no response

Q80Crud

My initial impression with EC-Council isn't a good one. I've attempted to contact them through their posted email address as well as opening a trouble ticket through their system. It will be almost a week since I sent the email and two days since the ticket was opened and not even so much as an auto response acknowledging my requests. And yes, I did email them through a business email address.

Maybe someone here can answer my question: Does the courseware bundle include an exam voucher or not? This could get expensive with the courseware, voucher, and initial fee.

w0rd

Same thing happened to me a couple of years ago when I submitted my application and it was taking a long time to provide a code. I had to call them up and they mentioned something about the applications going overseas to be verified.

Someone needs to investigate these guys and see what the deal is. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something isn't clicking. Their website seems clunky (there is just something about it; lot of "coming soon", dead ends, etc.), their application process is odd, and a few posts around here mention something about Hong Kong as a mailing address.

ISC2 and SANS/GIAC do a fantastic job of offering meaningful services and are seen with a positive public-facing profile. I'm not getting that with EC-Council. Frankly, I'm starting to feel the only reason these guys are still around is someone did some insane sweet-talking to get DoD to include their cert on their list.

To sum it up, I came across this post... this is pretty much how I'm feeling as well:

"ec-council has always felt like the Nigerian prince who just needs some good faith money to me. But their site has gotten better, so maybe this is all part of them just improving."

Q80Crud

I finally got a response back from my trouble ticket. It looks like my original request is lost in the abyss:

[FONT=&quot]"Kindly be informed that the CEHv7 purchase through our 2CO website does not include voucher. You need to purchase the voucher separately. Thank you and Regards," [/FONT]

partsmutt

Well at least you got a response. I've been shunned by these guys twice. My company wasn't willing to put up the money for an instructor led course, but bought a full CBT package last year for self study to the tune of $1395 dollars. We then submitted all the eligibility paperwork for so I could buy my test voucher at prometric. Never came. Opened a trouble ticket, nothing happened. This was all in Q4 last year. Suddenly funding was cut here and if I didn't get my voucher purchased, it wasn't going to happen. Great. So we get busy here doing other things this year and my boss is torqued that EC-Council screwed up our training budget (He was on the hook for why we bought training and didn't get to take the test).

So I'm minding my own business, and EC University starts sending me spam at work. That just rubbed me wrong and I fired back a rant about my experience. Lo and behold, I get an email from Steven Graham, whose signature has him listed as Senior Director for EC-Council, wanting to set everything straight. He first blasts a former employee (by name no less) and claims that she messed everything up. I can only guess that she took care of vouchers and unacknowledged trouble tickets (!?). He offers to send me new training material since things have bumped to v7, and I understand it's a significant change from v6. I'm thinking this could be cool and check out the website to see what training offers they have now since v7 is all new. The training options (iLearn, etc) are not like they were a year ago, so I email Mr Senior Director Graham back for some clarification since there is nothing there like the package I bought before (big set of books and DVD videos). At that point he starts back peddling that he could discount the computer training, but was only offering an ebook. Great. So I think about over the weekend and reply back telling him to send me the ebook and I'll try to work something with my boss to get the test paid for late this year or early next, but I want an eligibility voucher with the ebook.

All I hear is crickets chirping in the silence from EC-Council. Yet again I'm getting nothing. Today is the 22nd. Last I heard from him was the 3rd. I called. What the heck, maybe he was on vacation? Admin who answered the phone said he's been there the whole month, but she'd be glad to help me or give him a message. Why bother.


Yeah, huge rant. Pissed customer. I'm sure few of you care about this, I'm just trying to spread the word about EC-Councils shady practices. I'm absolutely certain that if I had dropped a few thousand on their instructor led class, instead of self study, taking the test wouldn't be a problem.

SephStorm

shady? I think not, but not professional. Your best bet IMO is to contact the EC-Council President, Jay Bavisi. And of course, let me know how it goes. I'll spread the word either way.