City & Guilds Reviews 

Pakistany facilitated scam. Teach not according to acrediting company, you get fined for it. Course is extremely confusing and very veig. Avoid.

Dear Sarah,
cc - Dame Ann Limb DBE CBE DL FCGI: Chair of the Council ¹
- Kirstie Donnelly MBE: Chief Executive Officer ¹ ² ³
- Andy Moss: Chief Customer Officer ¹ ²
- Faiza Khan MBE: Executive Director, Corporate Affairs & Foundation ¹
- Cecilia Harvey: Chief Operating Officer ¹ ²
- Abid Ismail: Chief Financial Officer ¹ ²
- Nic Barnes: Executive Director, People
I am writing to express my disappointment and frustration with the response I received from City & Guilds Customer Services, specifically from Sarah. While the response appears to be thorough and empathetic, it ultimately fails to address the core issue and provide a satisfactory solution.

The response acknowledges the repeated attempts to send the certificate, but fails to take responsibility for the failure to deliver. Instead, it shifts the blame to the postal system and implies that I should have received the certificate by now.

Furthermore, the response states that they cannot reopen the application or post the certificate again, despite their earlier gesture of goodwill. This inconsistency is unacceptable and suggests a lack of commitment to resolving the issue.

The suggestion to make a new application and pay an additional £50.00 fee is unreasonable, considering the circumstances. I have already paid for the certificate and have been patient and persistent in my attempts to receive it.

Overall, I would rate this response as poor in terms of customer service and resolution. I hope that City & Guilds will reconsider their approach and provide a more satisfactory solution.

Recommendation: City & Guilds should take responsibility for their failures and provide a complimentary reissue of the certificate, rather than charging an additional fee. They should also review their customer service approach to ensure that it is more empathetic and solution-focused.

I was meant to sit my Maths exam this morning.
I tested both laptops dozens of times since I got booked. No issues whatsoever.
I tested again last night - no issues. I downloaded the results for evidence.

This morning, an hour before my exam I test again and I get error messages that my camera and microphone cannot be accessed. Odd, as they are switched on and permissions show granted.

I switch between cameras, no change. Same issue.
I switch from CHrome to Edge, no change. Same issue.

I restarted several times, no change. Permissions show on/granted but video and audio fail test.

The tech support lady, with a crying baby next to her, cannot help me - Windows up-to-date, Chrome up-to-date, permissions granted. We struggle to hear one another as the baby is crying, we both loose patience and get upset. No issue with my laptop found or solution offered.

40 minutes into my exam (almost 2 hours of struggle to pass the navigation test), I am asked to reschedule the exam as the time left would not let me finish the exam.

On top of Maths (rescheduled), I am due to take 2 exams soon in English in two weeks time. I dread the idea of going through this stress and frustration again three times.

I am doing a English and maths course for work and the remote Invigilation test is to be quite honest and brutal is disgusting! I check my laptop 24 hours before and also on the day of my exam to have their systems saying no video/audio available. Then I speak to tech support who cannot help and also the Invigilator can not help either. In this day and age of all the tech we have available to us, City&Guilds can not sort it out! This is putting more and more stress on myself and even to the point of myself thinking is it worth all this stress! If I could give it -5 stars I would in a heart beat!!!!!!!!

Thank God for Highfield Qualifications. As a social enterprise and third sector organisation we always felt uncomfortable dealing with City and Guilds.
Finally a charitable organistion understands small training providers.

Go to Highfield or ANY OTHER LEAD BODY if you are struggling financially!
We were billed £5000 for NOT USING our City and Guilds centre as we staggered out of the pandemic.
Think about this rationally ... you register with a dentist or private doctor as one person. You don't need the service, but in order to use it next year you have to pay £5000 for the privilege.
I don't think so, City and Guilds. Go play with the Colleges and big spenders. We will find another, more fair and financially viable route for SMEs.

you get told city and guilds qualifications are for life. this clearly is not the case . for many years i have tried to progress and up skill only to be told i have to do everything again or modules of what i have already done ,
city and guilds will tell you just keep up to date with wiring regulations etc keeps you current , but still unable to take any further course without doing what i have already paid and done . same result every time from training providers , its invalid in the sense it will not map over ,so if you pass ,you still will not get a certificate . city and guild issue , but nearly three months into a ongoing complaint and city and guilds just fob you off , would say seek other qualifications as city and guilds are just like the training places just want the easy money, not interested whether they have screwed your career , before 1992 your qualifications mean nothing no matter how much you kept up to date with regulations chucking money at courses. the main one you need to upskill is impossible unless you waste/spend thousands and thousands and become a apprentice again and start all over again from the beginning,
would not recommend city and guilds to any one would not advise them to waste there time.
there are better qualifications now out there now.
Told by training providers this has happened to a excessive amount of people having to start again because of city and guilds , remember city and guilds IS NOT FOR LIFE no matter what your told its just to get your money
Discrimination on how the training providers can keep up to date with cpd, but people learning can not even though they may have the same or equivalent qualification, Read there hand books
plenty of emails to back this up, with some responses are beyond belief by using there hand book as a excuse , best way to stop this for future generations to come is bad media then they may listen .
Do not believe in Ofqual for further help, just another
get out clause from, we are part of . gov and not interested

Today I had a experience with City guilds to do a test on line and didn't went well as the person that suppose to vigilant my course told me to go out as she said it was the wrong link and come back in which I did but then the person never comeback to the link so for that I lost my slot for the test and I was still waiting on link for the vigilant for 45 minutes. They didn't told me that i lost my slot or i wasn't going to fo the test today i had to contact them after 45 minutes to find out what was happening and that's when they told me that I wasn't going to do the test today. For a City Guilds college this isn't acceptable and I'm very disappointed.

Thieves!!! Ordered a replica replacement for lost certificate, £44, heard nothing back after give my name address, details of qualification, just contacted them, Jennifer said, as AGREED, (wasn’t) after a search, the money is not transferable, they said it couldn’t be found, embarrassing! I didn’t agree, also, they can just say, we looked, couldn’t find it, thanks for the £44, they have my records, they’re lazy, the government need to look into this organisation, don’t use this service if you can help it.

Signed in for remote exam (on coding), the exam code they gave me was one digit too long so I couldn’t start my exam. Tried copy and pasting and manually entering wouldn’t accept the final digit either way. Their chatbot was also littered with typos and spelling mistakes and crashed. Additionally I signed in early to do their checks for the exam being recorded via webcam, microphone and screen capture, (which is all frankly utterly OTT) and had to redo these checks having done them early because apparently City & Guilds can’t cope with people being organised. Utter ineptitude and incompetence. They aren’t qualified to write give a coding exam based on their absolutely terrible software.

Customer service and quality of service is bottom low.
Don't waste money on the Record search service.

This exam board has shocking customer service. Their portal Walled Garden is clunky, slow and remeniscent of a website from the 1990's. They are unable to deal with the smallest requests and treat students poorly. They do this because they are unnacountable.

I would leave a zero if I could. I got above the required mark for a pass, higher than a colleague who passed, yet they failed my paper because they are only ‘allowed’ to pass x amount of papers a day/month/quarter. Sadly it’s not about right or wrong answers it is in fact a lottery! Absolutely disgusting!

I asked for help, was 'assigned' someone who I was told dealt with that college. I emailed and emailed but they never replied. I tried to escalate it but was met with a blank wall. There is no real chain of command and emails go unanswered. No help or support. Contacted them to say the college had now lied to the IOC about lost data, had an email asking why I was contacting them. Can't even read an email... too busy wasting time putting pronouns on their contact details to actually take action against failing rip off 'colleges' that have repeated complaints against them. Absolutely useless, worse than useless, the government needs to put a proper structure in place to regulate colleges and deal with student concerns.

I ordered a replacement certificate in November 2020 I was informed it had been posted but never received it I have paid for this certificate sent countless e mails and have not had this situation resolved very disappointed with such a highly esteemed organization

Not very helpful. Customer service just sends automated answers. Painful