WES - World Education Services

I have used WES to evaluate my diploma and was extremely disappointed by the quality of their work. There were many serious mistakes, omissions and inappropriate grade evaluation among others. Having been dissatisfied I asked in writing WES to re-evaluate my credential. After a couple of weeks I received a response stating that the evaluation report contains no errors and that no changes would be made. This letter was closed as “Director of Evaluations” without a signature and name. I recontacted WES and tried to convince them that my complaints were legitimate. Nevertheless, they rejected my request and also refused to give me the name of the Director of evaluation, for further contact or assistance explaining that this was part of their policy.

Dr. Mohamed

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My evaluation done by WES is all wrong. I paid for the rush service and all they did is taking the money and convert grades into letters without knowledge of the foreign education system. First, they state that the pre-med degree in Belgium takes 7 years and they stand for it even after I request a correction. The pre-med program is actually 3 years. This does make a difference when evaluating the credit hours. Belgium passing grade is 10/20. Everybody can pull of the internet through my university website, article 17: http://www.ulg.ac.be/upload/docs/application/pdf/2007-07/reglementexamens2007.pdf . However, they evaluated 2 of my major classes, which I passed with an 11/20 to be F. After complaining so many times, all I receive is a letter saying that it is the best evaluation that can be done. What a joke! Converting passing grades into failing grades. They do not have the competency to evaluate Belgian transcripts and probably other foreign transcripts either. Beware!!!

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I got my eval done by WES too. minor corrections. But otherwise I am very happy wit the outcome. I though it was fair and accurate. One reason is because I followed their instructions on the website. Made sure everything they needed was there. That is the most important. It is difficult to reach them over the phone or email. Catch 22 situation! U call and they ask you to email. You get an automated reply to emails to refer to the website... and so on. Live chat help is really helpful.

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this is the letter i wrote to NACES (national association of credential evaluating services)

Respected Sir/Madam

I am mailing you as a very harrassed customer of one of the members of your association namely "World Education Services". my reference number with WES is 2130868 in the name of Mohammed Poonawala

I am not writing this letter because they have wrongly evaluated my application but because they have taken my money $165 and have been stalling evaluating my application since April 23rd 2008.

First they held up my application claiming that the name on my certificate and the name by which i had applied was different. My degree was from an islamic university which affixes many titles of respect etc which were causing WES to question the names. Finally after a couple of months of dilly dallying on their part and me running from pillar to post to gather documents to submit to WES i got the issue cleared.

Now since the last two months they are showing the status that they have sent my documents to the institution for verification. I have no problem with that but that my university hasnt received the documents till date and i and my university have faxed WES on numerous occasions to resend the documents ( i believe that there could be some small error in the address of the university WES has on file) i also have faxed them the address of university in case they want to compare it with the one they have on file or correct it, but everytime i call them i just get the standard reply " we are waiting for a reply from the university" (they dont even tell me the complete address of the university they have on file?!)

Whenever i fax them a request WES just emails me the same email over and over again not even bothering to change the date it was first sent on. Not to mention the same customer service lady who borders on the verge of rudeness and hung up a couple of times. I have even requested that they return the money if they dont want to conduct my evaluation but i get the reply that the money is non refundable. 165 dollars is a huge amount of money for me and if WES has any doubts in my credibility it should have the courtesy to refund the money if it is not in a position to evaluate my application and provide me with a service i paid for with my hard earned income.

I know NACES does not have the time to look into these matters but am just writing in the hope that i know there are many instances of WES's behaviour to its customers (you can look it up on the online forums) and NACES would take action on this so that the whole thing doesnt turn into a farce and an instrument to rip off people of other cultures, races,languages and religion who come to study in this great nation.

Yours thankfully

Mohammed Poonawala

(A harrased WES customer)

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The requirements of WES are NOT that simple. It depends on which country you are from and what mood the WES customer service operators are in. My wife is from Russia.

We called WES before sending them any money or documents to make sure we were sending them what they wanted: Original transcripts from the institution. We told them we had in our possession an untampered with envelope containing the original transcripts, sealed with the Russian university's official seal. Wes said this was fine. We filled out the forms and sent it with the money and every other document listed by WES with translation.

WES said they received the package it was not good enough and they need the transcripts sent again but in a different way!

We were then told to look at the WES website and fill out a transcript request form and mail it to a so-called "Ministry of Education", whose Russian address (and telephone number) was shown on the WES website. WE DID THIS. After a few days, my wife called the Russian "Ministry of Education" number provided by the WES website. IT TURNED OUT TO BE A FOR PROFIT PRIVATE COMPANY, NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY UNIVERSITY OR THE RUSSIAN GOVERMENT.

This "Ministry of Education" said they received the request, they WANTED MONEY, but they couldn't tell us how much money until..... we send them the original transcripts! So now we needed WES to send us back the transcripts so WE can send them to RUSSIA, so RUSSIA can send back to WES.

WES customer service refuses to return the transcripts to us or let us speak to a manager. Even if my wife traveled to Russia to obtain another set of transcripts from the university, we don't trust this Russian company to possess them any more than we trust WES.

So here we are. The Russian company still won't tell us how much money they want. After several months of repeated contact, WES refuses to offer any assistance or a refund. WES has our money but has done NOTHING!

We have now done everything WES said on the website and are willing to work with them. We are intelligent enough to have dealt with Immigration requirements without any problems. BUt don't tell ME that WES is easy to deal with.

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I believe I was the first person to post a complaint about World Education Services (WES) on this site about 3 years ago. I posses a foreign law degree which WES qualified as a mere bachelors degree. Since then, I have received numerous messages sharing with me the plight endured by unsuspecting other customers. I complained, I called, I fought... to no avail. My advice to all: Find a different service. Show this page to the school requiring you to use WES and lastly, send an e-mail of protest to the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES) http://www.naces.org/. Their contact address is: naces AT ierf.org.

Let's put WES out of business!!!

Good luck.

Rafael

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People need to read and research before they use any type of service available on the internet... requirments are plain and simple...Follow what they say on their website... dont go off and do your own thing... i got my evaluation done at wes and im happy... i read the website.. i did what they asked... my friend was not so lucky..