ComplaintsforAcademic Evaluation Services, Inc.

• Initial Complaint

  07/14/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I paid AES $260 to evaluate my Honours degree in Zoology from the University of Western Australia. When I supplied my documents they only requested my transcripts via eQuals. When I received my evaluation they said my Honours degree was only equivalent to the 4th year of a bachelor's degree in the US. When I told them I could supply further documents proving that it was actually a research degree and that I had previously received my bachelor's degree from the University of California Santa Cruz they told me that they would not adjust thier evaluation. I have since had to pay another company to evaluate this degree for use on my federal employment applications which came back with the correct assessment of completing 1 year of graduate level research.

  

  Business response

  08/01/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/07/26) */ We have addressed Ms. *****'s concerns via email with him directly and with the credit card process when the charge was disputed. We believe that our evaluation is correct as issued and that we followed our policies as stated. However, I have issued a full refund to Mr. ***** in good ***** to resolve this on going issue. We wish all the best for Mr. ***** and apologize for the negative experience with us. Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2022/07/29) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) All I wanted was my money back because the evaluation was not completed properly and when I brought it to their attention they refused to fix anything. I am satisfied now that I have received my refund but I still believe this company works in bad faith because they only gave me my money back when I complained publicly.

• Initial Complaint

  05/27/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I hired AES to evaluate that my Chinese undergraduate degree is equivalent to an American AA diploma. The evaluation AES came back stating I have three years of undergraduate studies. The compatibility statement on the review says my Chinese degree is compatible with the completion of three years (90 credits) of undergraduate study at a regionally accredited institution of higher education in the United States. Furthermore, the evaluation describes the admission to undergraduate study in China requires twelve years of primary school and successful completion of the National College Entrance Examination. The Dean at my college states that the AES evaluation does not say specifically that my degree is equivalent to an AA degree in America, so they will not allow me to be an accredited student. This also affects my Pell Grant. I asked Natalie T. in the evaluation department to add necessary language, but was told this can not be done. Why? I have an email from Natalie stating my Chinese degree in China is equivalent to MORE than an Associate degree. If that is the case, why not add language that say I have an equivalent AA degree? My school states that no college would accept the assessment that I received from AES. This is because the evaluation does not contain evaluation result (establish equivalent degree), thus requiring the reader to interpret. So I paid $315 for a document that colleges do not accept. I am asking AES to either add the neccessy equivilant degree or refund me. My Client ID XXXX-XXXXXXX. Corrections: * My Graduation Cerificate is equavilant to an AA undergrauduate degree. Remove the Graduation Cerificate and replace with Granduation of AA degree. * Add an equavilent of an AA degree under Comparability Statements.

  

  Business response

  06/15/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/06/06) */ In the interest of good faith and moving forward, a full refund was issued to Ms. *** on 5/27/2022, the date of this compliant. We do believe that we handled this issue professionally, accurately, and in accordance with our clearly stated policies. We believe our evaluation was correct and still we were willing to make modifications for clarity however, Ms. *** did not accept our proposal to revise the wording of the evaluation which left us only with the option to refund, per her request. I have attached record of the refunds processed and all email history where our evaluators responded to each request timely and did their best to clearly and professional explain the evaluation result. We regret any time a client is disappointed in our service and hope the refund is accepted as successful resolution of this case. We wish Ms. *** the best of luck in continuing her studies. Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2022/06/14) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) The only good thing about AES is that they refunded the $310 cost for a "useless report" qouted from the assistant dean at my college. I have a three-year undergraduate study in China. However, AES did not agree to add the language that my degree is equivalent to an Associate degree in America. AES said their reason is because it was a three-year program which is MORE than equivalent. I ended up using WES, which, for less money, included the evaluation that my degree is equivalent to an Associate's degree. Below are email exchanges between myself and the director of Evaluations and Translation Services, Kurt B*******. To: Kurt B******* <************@aes-edu.org> Hi Kurt, base on the link you provided the Zhuanke Certificate of Graduation I have is often translated as a diploma of a 2-year or 3-year junior college course. Doesn't this fact mean its equivalent to a 2 or 3 year AA diploma? A graduate certificate is a credential representing specialized training in a specific topic or skill. Sometimes referred to as a "professional certificate," graduate certificates offer professional development training ideal for fine-tuning skills or knowledge within a defined framework of study, complementing your experience or growing your expertise in a specific subject. AES' translation of my diploma as a Graduation Certificate is causing misunderstanding with HCC. The Verification Report I provided is to verify my diploma authenticity, not a translation as your employee said. This is why I paid $ 50 translation fee. AES did not translate into a right words that native english language description a deploma. So I ask you to translate it as diploma rather than a traning certificate. Lastly, can I pick up the revised avaluation today from your office in Clearwater? 3. A Zhuanke Certificate of Graduation is often translated as a Diploma of a (2-year or 3-year) junior college course. ---------- � Kurt B******* <************@aes-edu.org> Date: 2022528 01:05 Good afternoon. We don't have an office in Clearwater. I stated in my original email the change I was willing to make for you, which is that we can state explicitly that the degree exceeds an associate degree. I also specified that the degree is not equated to an associate degree. I did not agree to any request to change the translation of "Graduation Certificate" to "Associate Degree" or to "Diploma". I'm happy to make a small change for the purpose of clarity to help you use the evaluation; however, the content of the original evaluation is correct and changes beyond what I already agreed to will not be made. The copy with the updated wording is being mailed today and you will receive it tomorrow. I hope that it suffices for HCC. Best regards, Kurt B******* Director of Evaluation and Translation Services ---------- � ****** Date: 2022528 02:03 To: Kurt B******* <************@aes-edu.org> Kurt, respectfully, below is from the link you provided that shows Zhuanke is required before going on to receive a four year degree. I graduated from a 3 year undergraduate program and received a degree. You are agreeing to change the language to state my evaluation is more than an AA degree but not equivalent to an AA degree. As stated earlier, HCC believes the evaluation is useless not only for them but all colleges. I also did research from WES, they evaluate 3 years of Zhuanke degree as American AA degree (See attachment). Can you help me to understand why evaluation standards are different from AES and WES? 2. The link you sent to me clearly states "a Zhuanke certificate of graduation" is translated as a diploma, but you still refuse to correct it. If you can't translate so a local english speaker can understand, it is meaningless for the purpose reader. 3. I hope the link will be helpful to understand the Chinese undergraduate degree for your company. https://www.wes.org/advisor-blog/how-chinese-credentials-are-evaluated/ 4. I am officially asking for you to refund me as your changes will not be accepted by HCC and any college due to your translation being incorrect.

• Initial Complaint

  12/27/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I paid $435 and $50 to Academic Evaluation Services, Inc. They did not provide the service they promised. I trusted this company, but they continuously were making inaccurate translations of my documents. As a result, I lost a lot of time reading through their translation and finding more inaccuracies. I recently sent them a list of corrections to make because their last revision still contented inaccurate translations. Today, December 27, 2021, I received an email from the Director of Evaluation and Translation Services. He was very rude, falsely accused me of "demanding" and "dictating," and bullied me into intimidating to pursue my consumer rights. I replied to him today and explained how he falsely accused me of avoiding their responsibility to take my money. On March 19, 2019, they said they would do corrections of the mistakes they made. They also said I had three years to contact them if I found more errors. Due to my life circumstances, I was able to get back to them recently and sent them a detailed list with the inaccuracies to correct. It has been less than three years since I received their last revision after March 19, 2021. I attached the receipts and the email communication. I tried to ask them to fix the errors by listing them in detail in my email. But after their very rude response, I cannot subject myself to the abuse. I need my money back. The total loss is $485.

  

  Business response

  01/28/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/12/29) */ Dear Ms. *******, I'm very sorry that this issue escalated as it did. I think there is a misunderstanding of our terms and expectation of services. We feel we have reasonably addressed concerns previously brought to us within a reasonable time per our policy. If you will allow me to go through the sequence of events, I hope you will see how we have done our best within our policies to rectify prior issues. You applied for services on 12/12/2018. This included payment of $435 for the following services: Comprehensive Evaluation $225 Translations x 3 pages $150 Express Mail x 2 $60 We did request additional payment of $50 on 12/17/2018 for a detailed transcript. We state on our website that this is required in some cases. At the end of this letter, you will find the relevant link and excerpt from our website for your reference. We completed your evaluation and translation on 1/04/2019 and then received an email from you on 1/10/2019 stating that you were dissatisfied with our services. You found an error in your translation and requested a refund. We try very hard to avoid errors but as our work is created by humans, error do occur. Our policy is to correct these errors at no cost to the client, and so we did this. We issued a revision on 1/15/2019. At the end of this letter, you will find the relevant link and excerpt from our website for your reference. On 3/17/2019, you emailed again with a list of items you identified as errors. We once again reviewed your comments with the translator. Some items were oversights on our part and some were preference rather than errors, as there are multiple ways to state the same thing in translations. Nonetheless we made the requested edits and issued another revised copy of your evaluation and translation on 3/19/2019. While I can understand your frustration with the errors found, I feel we did our part to correct them as quickly as possible. I know that with each request, I personally emailed you as soon as I was notified and worked with the Director and translator to provide the revisions to you. We agree to correct any mistakes brought to our attention withing 60 days and no charge and we did that. The most recent issue was emailed to us on 12/20/2021. Due to the Christmas holiday, we did have a delay in the Director's response but our Client Service team did let you know that you would receive a reply this week so I appreciate your patience. I have reviewed the email from our Director to you on 12/27/2021. I apologize for the tone of the email as it is harsh and that was not necessary. The content of the message remains accurate, even if I do not agree with the wording. We do have a time limit to make corrections, previously 60 days, and we are much passed that. We did address prior concerns promptly when they were brought to us promptly. That time frame has expired so we will not make future updates. We do not have nor have we ever had a money back guarantee of any nature, we simply correct mistakes when brought to us timely, and again, we addressed your timely concerns. It's the latest request, that comes less than 3 years but still very late for us to address. Your requests conflicts with what we can do which makes it difficult to come to a resolution. We cannot revise the translation at this date and we cannot issue you a full refund for services completed over 2 years ago. However, in the interest of good faith I would like to issue you a partial refund for the translation fees only, which is $200. I have received two addresses from you so I am not sure where to send it. If you could please respond to this message or email us at ****************, I will issue the check asap. ************* SAN FRANCISCO, CA XXXXX ************************** Knoxville, TN XXXXX I sincerely apologize for this entire experience and I hope that my peace offering will be accepted in the vein in which is it offered. Warmly, Michelle M. R. Excerpts from our Website with relevant policies for reference: http://www.aes-edu.org/website/home/services.cfm#translation Translation fee The translation fee for all languages is $50 per page. The front and back of a document are considered two separate pages. We reserve the right to charge for additional pages of translations for documents with excessive amounts of texts or images. One page is generally estimated to have up to approximately 250 words. Determination of final cost will be made when documents are reviewed in our office. http://www.aes-edu.org/website/home/faq.cfm#Q18 What if I find a mistake on the evaluation/translation I receive? If you believe there is a mistake on your evaluation/translation, you are welcome to bring the issue to our attention in writing within 30 days by sending an email to **************** with your client ID, full name, date of evaluation, and detailed explanation of the suspected mistake. If your concerns have merit, a revised evaluation/translation will be issued at no additional cost to you. http://www.aes-edu.org/website/home/faq.cfm#Q17 What if I have questions regarding the outcome of the evaluation? Academic Evaluation Services, Inc. has an open door policy regarding the review of the work completed. We guarantee the professionalism and integrity of our procedure, which is to give each document an honest and diligent evaluation. However, it will occur that the outcome of an evaluation does not necessarily meet the expectations of the client. Also, we would like to emphasize that our evaluation process will in no way be tailored to meet client expectations, it will be 100% based on our professional process. As stated in our literature, due to the differences between U.S. and foreign education systems, the evaluations do not necessarily equal the same number of credits, years of study, grades and degrees/titles granted in the original country. You are welcome to bring to our attention (in writing, send email to ****************) any concerns you have regarding the outcome of your evaluation and we will review your file. However, please remember that we conduct a professional evaluation process that is not determined in any way by the expectations of the client. We encourage you to thoroughly read through our website and our application to ensure you agree with the terms stated prior to submitting your request for services. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/01/04) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) When I paid to Academic Evaluation Services, Inc. for the evaluation services, I did not expect that I would need to lose so much of my time repeatedly revising their work. They never told me about the 60-days limit. After March 19, 2019, when their director informed me that the second revision "will be" mailed, I waited to receive it. Then I called the AES, Inc.'s phone number, and the representative confirmed that three is a three-year time frame to address any concerns with the evaluation. Therefore, I concluded that I had three years after March 19, 2019, to read their last revision thoroughly. I was unaware of the 60-days limit they mentioned in their response to my claim. I was swamped; revising is a time-consuming process, and I needed to deal with my life priorities before doing the reading again. Again, I did not expect to spend my time reading and verifying the large translation repeatedly, especially after I paid them so much money. For the price AES charged me upfront, I expected an impeccable service. I believe they should have told me about the 60-day time frame in the email on March 19, 2019, to make me aware of that. Since I cannot use their evaluation, and I lost a lot of time repeatedly revising their translation, I need the full refund. Today, I sent them an email with the mailing address where they can mail me the full refund. Attached is the mailing address for the full refund. I also attached the link to yelp reviews written by multiple people who were highly dissatisfied with AES's business. Business Response /* (4000, 11, 2022/01/18) */ ***Document Attached*** After receiving refusal of my previous offer I have decided to issue the full refund of $485 to close this case and hopefully bring resolution and peace to Ms. *******. The check has been issued and is scheduled to arrive by January 25, 2022. As a small, family owned business I regret the stress this case has brought on all involved. I wish the best for Ms. ******* and a happy new year.

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