[Help] Getting out of ITT before attending pt. 1

[jainieg]

I posted this over at RipOff Report hoping to get some guidance but I've had no responses thus far. I found this forum thanks to a viewer's response to a video about ITT being a scam over at YouTube and thought I'd see if any of you guys might be able to give me a hand. Here's my story, which I posted at RipOff Report:

I've been interested in furthering my education for some time. I'd always seen the commercials on tv, like a lot of people, for ITT Tech and thought it sounded like a great school. I figured it would be better to get a specialized degree in my area of interest rather than go to a community college, since I thought that a specialized school would be... well, specialized! And they would be better suited to teaching me what I'd need to know.

Just a bit of background about me, I did graduate from high school as an average, rather unexceptional student. Though my parents had promised they would set money aside for me for school, by the time I graduated high school, there just wasn't any money saved for me, so I decided I'd just work instead and if I ever decided to go to school, I could look into it when I felt I was ready.

I sent off for some information and got in touch with a guy named Vince, who was a recruiter for the Seattle ITT Tech and we had a nice chat. I explained that although I would have loved to attend the actual, physical school, I would be unable to as I lived too far away and didn't have access to regular, reliable transportation. So I told him that I would be interested in attending online classes instead. He told me that would be no problem and at the end of our chat, he told me that someone from financial aid would be getting in touch with me the next day. I explained to him that it wasn't the best time and could we do it on Friday, instead, and he said fine - and yet, sure enough, on Thursday, I get a call from someone from financial aid, all eager to fill out my forms!

I was a little miffed by this, but I was done with my work for the day, so I thought I might as well go ahead and get it taken care of, while I had the guy on the phone. He went through a questionnaire with me about my finances and so on and mentioned student loans and when I said that I didn't have any credit and probably wouldn't be able to *GET* a student loan, he said 'oh, don't worry, we can get you one!' and so we continued with the process of filing the FAFSA info and filling out my enrollment form at the site for the September quarter.

We concluded the call and that was about the time I got a sinking feeling. Right around the point where I received a couple of emails from him with attachments that I would need to fill out and send. I did a search and found the postings here and was very dismayed, to say the least. The very next day, I got in contact with Chase loans and had them cancel my student loan application.


Just today, I emailed the financial aid guy:

'I have been doing a great deal of research about ITT since I spoke with you last and I have not been pleased by what I found. In point of fact, I was left feeling very troubled. I have contacted Chase and had them cancel my application for a student loan and I would like for you to cancel my enrollment for online courses at ITT. I will not be talked into reapplying for the loan, so don't bother calling - you will not be speaking to me again on the phone. The next email that I expect from you is one notifying me of my enrollment being canceled.

Thank you.'


and then received this rather whiny email from him in response:

'So there isn't a reason why? I have no idea what information you are finding, but I feel that we should at least talk about this. Generally when you look on the web, you will find a lot of negative information because the people who have been affected negatively usually speak the loudest. There are thousand of testimonials out there from students who have been positively affected by ITT Tech as well. I know you can find those on the web too. I really have no idea what would have caused this change of stance from you, but would at least like to talk with you about this. This message came on kind of strong and it's making me feel as if I did something. If that is the case, I have no idea what I would/could have done to put get you feeling this way. So if you wouldn't mind, please call me back or write back. Thank you.'

His response came, though, after three separate attempts to phone me - all of which I ignored.


I sent this response back:

'As I said in my previous email, I have done some research and was not at all happy with what I found. What I found, how I found it and my reasons for wanting this enrollment canceled are all my business.

I will not answer or receive any calls from you from this point on as my decision has been made. Cancel the enrollment application immediately and send confirmation via email that it has been done.'


I didn't fill out or send in the two application forms that were forwarded to me as attachments by this financial aid person as we were working on the enrollment form, so I suppose my next question is - is there anything else I need to do? Or am I in the clear? Any further information would be much appreciated.

Just as an update to this - I sent those emails to the financial aid person who'd been assisting me on the 4th and 5th of this month (August) and while I didn't receive any response from him one way or the other after my last email (nor did I receive any information from him regarding the proper methods to cancel my enrollment application), just today, I receive a letter in the mail from the admissions office congratulating me on being accepted into the program.

The letter is dated August 6th. I tried the number at the bottom of the acceptance letter and was unsurprised to find that it was out of service, so I found the number at the ITT site and got the local information for campus admissions in my state. I have already left messages in the general voicemail and in the registrar's voicemail as to my completely and total refusal to attend their classes and that I want to withdraw IMMEDIATELY.

I will not attend a single class while I'm struggling to get myself enrolled from this ridiculous institution, as I do not want to be held responsible for using any of their precious 'resources' and get stuck with any sort of a bill - since I couldn't pay it off, even with a student loan (which I canceled just three days after speaking with the financial aid person and filling out the enrollment and FAFSA information) - and I'll be contacting them every day until I receive written proof of my removal from this stupid 'school'. If they want to dick me around, then I will give them the fight of their lives.

I obviously don't trust the ITT people to be honest, so I'm hoping that one of you here might be able to steer me in the right direction. Am I missing anything? What else do I need to do to make sure I cannot be held liable for anything, while getting myself out of this school before my classes (*snort*) start, on 9/06/08. Any help and advice you could give would be much appreciated.

[Seven ALive]

I am glad this site has helped you make an educated informed in re guards to enrollment in ITT Tech. I really should add a counter that displays Students Saved So Far: 010+++. lol

Anyway, Do not sign a single document if they present one to you, call up the bank on Monday to confirm no loans have been processed in your name. Did you complete an enrollment agreement? It's a pink long form, basically looks like a contract because it is.

I would write a letter saying you withdraw...etc. and mail it to the their corp HQ and the campus you got that enrollment letter from.

These people will say and do anything to get you change your mind. They just want your money. Representatives are just salesman looking out for commission.

You might want to PM "Frank" this site helped him get out of ITT, i wonder if they tried to pull anything on him, he canceled 2 days before classes started.

[Gourizaga]

I just want to say that this site saved me from ITT too. I was looking into ITT and i had not done much research into other schools, i came across this site when i was having trouble with the ITT Website(i was trying to access my student mail and was not working, which from what i hear is no suprise). Anyway i am glad that i came across this site, it has saved me make a HUGE mistake. I already signed a bunch of stuff and am supposed to start classes in Sept but i called yesterday and told them i want to cancel it all. I called the stupid ass rep and he was not in so i got his voicemail and left a message saying that i wanted to cancel it all and then he called me hours later and left a voicemail saying that He was wondering how everything was going and if i was ready to start classes...

I have already spoken with their head recruitment director or whatever fancy title they gave him because i expressed at how i found out that ITT's Rep is not as good as it once was and that it is terrible now, and how i wanted to sit in on a class and see if it was worth my dime and he was just another schmoozer that was trying to get me to buy the bs. Anyway they said that they had ppl sit in on classes all the time and that it would not be a problem, but whenever i ask about it now they give me vague answers.

[Seven ALive]

They say that but it never happens. If you want to sit in on a class just enter in the class, (labs you won't even get a look), for theory, just make up some bogus name to give them. They can't check until the end of the class anyway.

[jainieg]

I am glad this site has helped you make an educated informed in re guards to enrollment in ITT Tech. I really should add a counter that displays Students Saved So Far: 010+++. lol

Sounds like a good idea, to me!

Anyway, Do not sign a single document if they present one to you,

Well, see, I was planning on taking the online courses, so the form I did fill out was online and I esigned things. But from what I could see, it was just basic sort of information about loan responsibilities and so forth. I was on the phone with the ITT financial aid guy as I was filling out the form and then he sent me a couple of other forms in an email that were attached - one is a 'Loan Test' and the other is a part-time schedule application. Those he told me to fill out and fax or mail them to him on the following Monday (we were talking on a Thursday). I haven't sent those in, though. I also received an Entrance Interview .pdf, which I was supposed to fill out and send back, but I didn't do that, either.

call up the bank on Monday to confirm no loans have been processed in your name.

Well, I emailed the Chase bank people at an address I'd received in the receipt-type info I got about the application for the loan and asked them to please cancel it and then received an email back saying that the application for it had been closed and they specifically mentioned ITT, so I'm pretty sure that's all taken care of. I did all of this online, don't forget. The email I received said that my loan application for the Stafford loan for ITT had been withdrawn, but that I could still re-apply if I enrolled in another school. The email address was different from the one I'd originally sent it to (I wrote to studentloans@chase.com and got my reply from student.loans@chase.com), but the domain was the same and legit.

Did you complete an enrollment agreement? It's a pink long form, basically looks like a contract because it is.

Well, I didn't actually sign any physical forms but going back and looking at the page, it turns out I did complete the enrollment agreement and esigned it - but there are just so many forms included in the actual esigning process they all started looking identical to me. :/

I would write a letter saying you withdraw...etc. and mail it to the their corp HQ and the campus you got that enrollment letter from.

Good idea! I'll probably have to send it to three different places - because while my nearest campus is in Seattle (and that's the rep I spoke to initially), I was actually interested in taking the online courses, the campus for which is in Indianapolis. So I'll send one to each of them as well as this butthead I got the letter from.

These people will say and do anything to get you change your mind. They just want your money. Representatives are just salesman looking out for commission.

Oh, believe me, I know. That's one of the reasons why I didn't want to talk to the financial aid guy on the phone as he kept insisting in his emails to me. I told him flat out: my mind was NOT going to be changed about my decision (plus, I really hated the way he responded and said 'so you don't have a reason?' - as if I was being silly and didn't know what I was talking about - if there's one thing I HATE, it's being patronized and treated like a silly little girl). I didn't get into this to sign my life away to pay for over-inflated 'schooling' and a degree that's not worth the paper it's printed on.

I really do want a proper education and, if I've found very clear evidence saying that I'd find it elsewhere, then that's where I'm gonna go and I refuse to be treated as though I don't know my own mind about what I want to do with my life, much less my finances!

You might want to PM "Frank" this site helped him get out of ITT, i wonder if they tried to pull anything on him, he canceled 2 days before classes started.

I'll do that! I've got about a month. That should be enough time to get letters drafted and sent out and also call the admissions office and get in touch with them and I'm going to keep calling and pestering them until I get a confirmation that a letter is in the mail and if I don't get one then I call 'em again. They're gonna be sick of me, by the time this is through - they won't want me for a student. Reading the ITT .pdf, it was saying that I had until before classes started or before my first taken attendance in a class to cancel, whichever came last. Either way, I'm gonna be bombarding these suckers with letters and calls until I get what I want. It just won't be worth it for them to try to talk me out of withdrawing, because I'll give 'em all sorts of hell if they try to make me stay.

[Seven ALive]

Well good luck to you. As long as you have proof you wanted out before their little contract goes into affect (day of class), they cannot hold you financially responsible for anything. I would keep any emails you have received, even post them on this site, as well as the letters you send out.

I remember back in 04 i filled out an online form to get more information. The next day i got a call from a rep, he tried to talk me into getting 2 bachelor degrees!!! 1 in criminal justice, i kept telling him i didn't want CJ, i wanted programming. Soon enough i get emails saying i am enrolled and i got to talk to F.A.. I never even said i wanted to join or anything. Well when i enrolled in sept 06 i forgot all about that, lost my common sense, and went to that scam. Looking back at all my paperwork i signed, i can't believe i signed them, i don't know what i was thinking.

Anyway, It looks like your handling everything correctly. They will keep calling and emailing you for a while. Then they will send you post cards for you to come back. When i transfered from Henderson, NV to Tempe, AZ i got postcards and letters from the Henderson, NV campus telling me to come back. That was while i was enrolled into the tempe campus! They are con artists wanting every nickel and dime from the people they scam.

[jainieg]

Thanks for your help, guys! I really appreciate it I guess I just wanted to ask someone who'd gone through the same mess, to make sure I wasn't missing anything - just in case the sneaky buggers try to get me on some little tiny-print loophole or something. ;p

And yeah, I figure as long as I document everything very carefully (all emails saved, btw! several of them stating that I wished to have my enrollment app canceled, etc.) and don't attend a single class, I should be in the clear. The loan's been canceled, so they aren't going to get a dime for my hide, anyhow, so they'd be better off just letting me go before I really get annoying - hehe!

Oh! And also - another thing I found out. For anybody who's registered with the ITT Online courses, you would probably also want to send an email to online_registrar@itt-tech.edu and send them a cancellation request. Which is what I just did - also asking that they send me written confirmation of my withdrawal to my snail mail address once its done. That might be enough to get this taken care of (since, on the enrollment agreement, it says you can do that or send it snail-mail), but I think I'll send actual physical letters, too, once I get the chance - until I get withdrawal confirmation, anyway.

[aka name]

I have already spoken with their head recruitment director or whatever fancy title they gave him because i expressed at how i found out that ITT's Rep is not as good as it once was and that it is terrible now, :

Dude, get the cancellation in writing! Words are worthless to those people.

[jainieg]

Well, I heard back from not one but two people from the ITT Seattle campus, today, and they both sounded as though they were about to piss their knickers after hearing the voicemails I left them this weekend - lol!

I got one call from some guy named Terry and then spoke with the assistant of the Seattle campus' registrar maybe 90 mins later in a separate call I received. Both of them were surprisingly nice and didn't say a single word to try to convince me to stick with the school and the assistant in particular (Elaine) apologized rather profusely for the problems I was having. She and Terry both swore up and down that they would get it figured out for me and that they'd both get in touch with the person in charge of the online courses and get things cleared up.

I, again, insisted, very firmly but politely, that I receive a letter confirming that I'd been withdrawn from ITT's courses and while Terry hedged and said that the registrar's office usually doesn't do that, Elaine assured me that she would make sure they'd do everything they could to get it taken care of.

Think I scared 'em.

[Seven ALive]

Well that's good to hear. ITT knows about this site, they kicked me out because of it. Tried to get me to shut it down. Called me a liar and said i had no right to have this website. They know not to fuck around with this site or it's members. They are watching this site, guaranteed. I am just waiting for my 1/2 million dollar bribe lol.

[jainieg]

Well, thanks to some very firm phone chats and a few more emails, it's been confirmed for me that I'm cancelled and, as I requested (took about 3 or 4 tries) someone is sending me a hardcopy of the cancellation letter for my records.

And, this'll probably make the most ironic footnote ever to this tale -- this afternoon, I got a call from another, completely different Terry from ITT, saying that I'd signed up for some info (which I hadn't - I'd just been to the ITT page to get their stupid phone number to get in touch with the registrar's office - I hadn't entered any information at all, much less a phone number) and blahblahblah and I said, "Well, errrrrr... actually, I only just today closed my enrollment with ITT today." and the guy was like, "Really?! What do you mean by 'closed'?" "Canceled?" I said flatly. "Ohhh, I see. Was there a particular reason why?" "Yes, but it's personal," I said, not budging an inch. And so he said 'well, thank you for your time!' and hung up. Bloody vultures ;p

[jainieg]

Okay, well, here's an update to the story -- although I did receive a letter from someone (which I seem to have misplaced, right now - ugh) at ITT informing me that my enrollment had, in fact, been canceled, I just received an email from a person identifying herself as Harriet, who claimed she was going to be one of my teachers. The email was quite lengthy, apparently going into details about how to log in for class (since my presumed start date is Sept. 9) and so on and so forth. Since I'm not going that kind of defeats the purpose.

I sent an email back to her:

"Hello, Harriet --

I guess you weren't informed by the registrar's office, but I withdrew from ITT weeks ago and received a letter from someone at the school confirming this. As such, I won't be attending classes, obviously. I'm not sure if this is due to a communication problem with the school itself or what, but I am not attending ITT.

Thanks.

[me]"


No reply from Harriet as of yet, but I only sent my response a few minutes ago, while her letter was probably canned and distributed to many other 'students'. But I'm not logging into a damn thing, that's for SURE.

People really annoy me when they don't listen. But if they want another round of calls from me, they can keep up with what they're doing. I won't attend a single class and they'll just have to take me off the rosters, anyway, if they're trying to be sneaky.

Okay, I just got an email back from Harriet and it simply said: 'Not a problem. Thank you for writing back.' I guess the school doesn't even inform the teachers about students who cancel enrollment! Since I never attended a single class, I didn't feel that it was particularly necessary to dig up the info for every teacher I was supposed to have had and let them know about it, myself. That's ITT's damn job, not mine.

[Seven ALive]

This is just a small issue. If you would of attended, you would have experienced the following:

• Schedule Screwups
• Given classes you already taken
• Financial Aid lost papers
• Calls from financial aid 3 months later to fill out more paperwork they "missed"
• receiving books 2 weeks after class begun
• incompetent teachers
• middle school level classes
• old/slow lab equipment
• waste of time
• several calls from your representative

I can add about 20 more to that list, but i am getting tired.

[ttobba]

after I transferred from ITT, I got a call from what would have been my comp 2 teacher asking why I didn't attend.

[thisguy]

Haha Count me as another saved!! lol The letter I sent Itt was inspired by the first guy who posted "jainieg".

It reads

My name is , and I am signed up for your line up.

I've done a great deal of research on your school online, and I am not pleased with what I saw. I was left feeling very troubled. I would like to cancel my enrollment at Itt, for I will not be attending your school come . I'd also like all my loans from Sallie Mae, and all other loans canceled. I will be contacting them after a while to make sure this has happened. Do not bother to calling me, as I do not intend to pick up. After this precess is done. One if your recruiters told me that if I drooped out with in two weeks of staring classes that I wouldn't. I want an email confirming my enrollment and loans have been canceled.
,"

Haha what does It takes time dot org think??