Greetings, Anyone know if this is a legit service? I have prior credits from a traditional school, but I was only able to get one transcript due to a *ahem* rather large outstanding bill. If I could just submit it to this service it would make my life a thousand times easier, and allow me to use my prior credits rather than start all over. Thanks! Dominic
OK - lemme get this straight -- you owe a school money, and can not get a official transcript because of the money you owe? I will not get into the moral argument here about why you should pay bils you owe. I will leave that to someone else If you have to start over, how much will that cost, not only in time (oppurtunity cost) but money?
I owe approximately $5000 because one of my Parent Plus loans was denied and they failed to inform me of it until it was too late to do anything about. If I in fact had $5000 to give to them, I would. I do not. I have started a payment plan but it will take me two years to complete it and I'd rather not wait that long to complete my education when I only need approximately 30 more credits to obtain a bachelor degree. With the degree I need I could pay off that sum in less than 5 months after graduation. On more than 6 occasions I've been told that the reason I have not received promotion due to the fact I have no degree. Promotion equals around $14,000 income increase. To get rather specific, my first 3 semesters were paid in full, why shouldn't they be required to give me transcripts for the semesters that were bought and paid for? I'd rather not get into a discussion about paying what you owe because that is not the purpose of this discussion. Starting over should cost less, because I would take exams to show the knowledge I have already acquired. I don't want to have to do it that way. I'd rather get some helpful replies than critical replies on morality and financing.
Can't tell you for sure, but I'd be very suspicious. First, your credit card data is not secure when transmitted through their site, a mistake which few legitimate companies would make. Second, the site was produced in FrontPage, hardly the choice of the level of programmers who would have to be the ones creating an automated interface between college registrar databases and these folks. Third, the listed phone number is a voicemail service and is reported as "not in use." The worse news for you is that even if there were such a service that is legitimate, they still mostl likely wouldn't have access to your transcript record. If the school has your record restricted, they undoubtedly have it marked as such in their registration system, so it wouldn't be transmitted to the credential service. Unfortunately, schools basically have you over a barrel in this circumstance. And, to be fair to them, if they were to give you the transcript, they'd have no way of ensuring that you'd continue to pay your bill... it's the only leverage they have. The one thing that might work is to go to somebody very high up in administration (president, provost, whomever) and explain that it's keeping you from a $14K raise and that if you get it and complete the degree, you'll be able to pay them off quicker... but unless you have the unusual experience of finding someone in your academic setting that understands quality customer service and the fact that you're a customer, it probably won't work. Worth a try, though.
up the creek My limited experience is that once someone has been complying with a repayment plan for a period of time, the transcripts become available. If you have been in compliance for six months, it would be worth talking to someone in charge, like a provost. One point to make is that you need to have copies of the transcript to apply for jobs. Some employers will consider a years college education to be equivalent to a years work experience. With a better job, you will be in a better position to pay off the loan. If you are seriously considering transfer to a new school, it usually requires official transcripts (complete with the wax seal or embossed). Even the credit bank at Excelsior wants official transcripts. The best bet is to talk to someone in authority and point out that you are a "rightous dude" and get off the black list. On a negative note. While some businesses have an education pecking order I don't know of many that would hold a person back solely on education. You may be at the one business that does have a hard policy on promotion. But I know people with HS diploma's who supervise people with masters degrees. My favorite is the guy with just a GED who is proud to manage a whole department. While there are some businesses with a hard policy, many will translate a years work experience in a relevant field to a years education. It could be you need both experience and education? My son had difficulty getting verification of his AP credits at a Calif. college. His advisor was willing to start him in courses based on my son's "word". However, he was unwilling to develop a formal degree plan without an "official" transcript with test scores. All the best! Good luck!
How would you pay for the next 30 hours? Just another question. How do you plan to pay for the next 30 semester hours? It sounds on one had like you can just barely make the payments on the $5,000 you already owe? Just an idea, does your brick and mortor college accept clep/dantes/excelsior testing? If it does, you might be able to finish some classes through testing over the next two years. The credits would be much cheaper than offered at most colleges. It would advance you toward your degree, while not interupting the repayment plan. Last question, does your employer have a program to pay for employee training? If your employer likes you alot, maybe they would pay for some of your training. My employer will pay 80% for college courses relevant to my work, up to 12 credits a year.
I looked at the website and thought at first that it seemed legit. But if it is, it certainly raises a number of very troubling issues--would every school in America allow independent third party entities free access to their transcript data base? Even if they would--and I think upon reflection it would take a court order to cause them to do so--opening their records to "just anyone" must constitute a violation of several federal laws. Then, why would other schools and employers accept this third party transcript at a time when everyone is nearly paranoid (I wonder why) about the integrity of academic credentials? My understanding is that many schools will not even accept credit bank transcripts, demanding instead sealed copies sent directly from the recording institution. I am a teacher and I remember once getting a job with some copies sent over from the English department office (with a note from the department secretary) because the registrar's office had closed. I think, however, that those days are over. Personally, I would not trust this service to do anything but take my money. Craig
There are definitely some legitimate services that have automated links to the registrar databases at a couple hundred schools... but these are employment verification services, not transcript dissemination services. The way the legit services work is that an employer requests to verify whether a prospective employee actually holds a degree from a given school. The request, with the employee's name, name of school, date of birth, and SSN, is transmitted to the credential service, who can either instantly verify the validity of the degree (if the school in question is a participant in the online data sharing AND the student has the degree), or within 24-48 hours (if the school doesn't share online data and/or the online report indicates that there is no match for the student in the database). Just one more reason that the idiots selling bogus credentials and the dullards buying them are fighting a losing battle. In a couple of years, these credential checking services will be so prevalent, it will be nearly impossible for the fraudsters to get away with their deceptions.
You are absolutely right. I knew it was an easy matter to check graduation and even dates of matriculation. But transcripted academic records, I would hope, constitute a different story entirely. I don't really know why employers need a service--why not just call the school? Hey, maybe they will have a service soon whereby we can get rid of that "D" in German--wait! they have that even now! Thanks, CHK
