I am a kind a even tempered person usually, but PearsonVUE has pushed my buttons.

To set the scene: I have been trying to schedule an exam with them for over a month and a half now. I am able to see seat availability online but I have to call to schedule the exam.

Also, every time you call them you have to wait 3.5 minutes (I timed it) to hear their repetitive audio recording that you cannot skip. Time waster.

First Attempt: There was a date and time available at the testing center near my house that I could see online. So I call and the nice man tells me that I am wrong and there is no testing time. I do believe he was wrong and not me. So he suggested we look in other ares and suggested I drive up to 8 hours and stay in a hotel multiple nights to take my two day exam. So because of his mistake it cost me that time slot. To find another time, we looked at multiple cities in multiple states. It is not just that I was being picky, but it was unattainable financially. When we hung up the phone, I could still see the original date I wanted was in fact available. His mistake.

Second Attempt: I call back the next day. That one time slot was now taken. Ok fine, a different but worse time slot had opened and I say I will take it. It takes about 30 min of giving him my information over and over again while he is going slow and we are finally about to book it. Then he says, oh wait! While we were talking it became unavailable. So now I am screwed for a second time. He says that since there are no more times he will open a case for me to petition to get more time slots open in my area. Wonderful. I am on hold for 15 minutes while he confirms with his boss that the case will be opened. He says it was submitted and gives me a case number. This was a Thursday. He tells me to wait until the following Thursday and that someone will call me within that time. If I do not get a call, call them back. I do not get a call.

Third Attempt: Thursday comes - no call. I call them. After much of the same bs as last time, one person tells me that my case was denied last week and they were never going to call me. They have now wasted over a week of my time on false promises. Another person I talk to told me the case was not even submitted in the first place. Oh, and their system is down so call back tomorrow to see what else we can do.

I call back on Friday (the next day): After HOURS of talking to them, each one nice but not very unknowledgeable on what was going on, they again say that my case was not submitted and they will open another case for me. They do and tell me to wait ANOTHER WEEK for someone to call. I confirm that it was actually submitted. They say yes. I confirm that they will call me. They say yes. I ask if I can have a number to contact incase they do not call like last time. He tells me condescendingly that they will call. I get no number.

Fourth Attempt: Given my well earned distrust, I ask if I can schedule the exam two states away where they have available times still while I wait a whole week for my case to be looked at. I ask this because I cannot miss my school deadline. He says no. I cannot schedule it while the case is open. Oh and he cant guarantee me a spot with my case, they're just going to try.

After thinking about it, I decide I don't want to wait for them to mishandle things again and put me in an even worse position. So I call back and ask to schedule the exam two states away and cancel my case (Which means airfare, two nights in a hotel, financials that I do not have, and so much added stress). They tell me their system is down and to call back. This was at 4pm on a Friday afternoon and they close for the weekend at 7pm. I call every 15 minutes for the next three hours (and I am put on hold most of the time). System is still down. They wont call me when it's up, I have to keep calling them. Finally, at 6:55, I get through and their system is back up! But they have to put me on a "brief hold" before they can help me. They get back on the phone at 7:01 and told me I called too late and to call back on Monday.

So now, I have nothing booked. My school deadline is approaching and it is about 10 days away (7 business days). I cannot even book plane tickets to travel to a test because I don't know where it will be. If I do get a test I will have to book a last minute ticket and hotel. Not to mention the wasted time and stress. If I do not get a test, I could be pulled from my program and delay graduation.

I also tried to contact customer service. No one would talk to me. Their chat box connected me with people who disconnected too early. And the two people I did get through to, Hazel and Anson, were passive aggressive and purposely toying with me. I have screenshots of those conversations I will send if I ever get ahold of any one at the company.

I know that this post probably has no real power but if any schools or testing associations are thinking of using PearsnnVUE, I highly recommend prometric instead. Do not give your business to this company who will treat your students poorly. We notice.

So there you go, I am very stressed and sad. This is how Karens are born.

ZERO STARS! Tried to take the Florida Real Estates Sales Agent test 3 times through their online site. What a total $#*!-show. You have to take a bunch of pics with your phone via a text message link they send you to check in for the online test. Had to take the pics of my face, my ID, my pre-license certificate, and the test area- I had to take the pics over and over and over again for 45 minutes but they still wouldn't accept them so I gave up since they say if you don't check in within 15 min after the scheduled test time you can't take the test. Then the next time after take the required pics over and over again I almost gave up but somehow they were good enough to check in and a live screen finally popped into my computer with the proctor, who spoke such broken English that I couldn't understand him so he had to start a chat with me. Then he told me that the picture I took of my pre-license certificate had to be a picture of the original certificate not a picture of the certificate the school emailed to me so I said that the pearsonvue site says that if the original certificate was sent directly to the state (which it was) that a photocopy of it can be used. The proctor then told me I could leave the screen and make a photocopy of the certificate from the copy that I had downloaded from my email. I told him that I don't have a copier and said what's the difference whether I take a pic of the certificate on my computer screen or download a pic of the certificate from my computer to print out and then take a pic of that piece of paper. He said that pearsonvue policy is that it has to be a pic of a copy of a paper copy of a certificate not a pic of a copy of it from the screen of my computer. I was pissed, so he got his supervisor on, and then she got her supervisor on- both just repeated their idiotic policy and told me that I can't take the test. If you want to save yourself the drive to an onsite testing center by trying to take the test online, you will be in for a lot of grief and aggravation. So I paid the $57.xx online test fee 3 times, and still wasn't able to take the test online due to pearsonsvue's screwed up web system and stupid policy. Now I have to pay again and will have to drive 2 hours to an onsite testing system to finally take the test. It's hard to believe that Florida state and other states use this screwed up company to proctor their tests. Par for the course I guess.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with the service I received during my recent CompTIA Security+ examination at Pearson VUE. The experience was highly unsatisfactory and left me feeling cheated and mistreated.

During the examination, the webcam was not working properly, and I was unable to see myself on the screen, It was black the whole time. I received two warnings that I had moved my head, even though I made sure not to move for 50 minutes straight. Additionally, the chat function was not working correctly, and I was unable to get any assistance or clarification.

When I needed to use the restroom, I attempted to use the chat function to ask if I could leave the room, but my message was not sent, and the proctor kept talking to himself while I could not answer at any question. Shortly after, I was revoked from the examination without any reasonable explanation. This entire experience was unacceptable, and I find it highly suspicious that everything shut down in a matter of seconds.

As a recent law school graduate, I have gone through 16 years of education and have never seen anyone getting revoked from an examination because the examination platform was not working correctly. This experience left me feeling cheated and mistreated, and I refuse to pay again for an examination that I was unfairly revoked from.

I would appreciate it if you could rectify this situation promptly and provide me with an opportunity to retake the examination without additional fees. I am willing to provide any necessary documentation or evidence to support my claim.

Sincerely,

Andrei MartonDear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with the service I received during my recent CompTIA Security+ examination at Pearson VUE. The experience was highly unsatisfactory and left me feeling cheated and mistreated.

During the examination, the webcam was not working properly, and I was unable to see myself on the screen, It was black the whole time. I received two warnings that I had moved my head, even though I made sure not to move for 50 minutes straight. Additionally, the chat function was not working correctly, and I was unable to get any assistance or clarification.

When I needed to use the restroom, I attempted to use the chat function to ask if I could leave the room, but my message was not sent, and the proctor kept talking to himself while I could not answer at any question. Shortly after, I was revoked from the examination without any reasonable explanation. This entire experience was unacceptable, and I find it highly suspicious that everything shut down in a matter of seconds.

As a recent law school graduate, I have gone through 16 years of education and have never seen anyone getting revoked from an examination because the examination platform was not working correctly. This experience left me feeling cheated and mistreated, and I refuse to pay again for an examination that I was unfairly revoked from.

I would appreciate it if you could rectify this situation promptly and provide me with an opportunity to retake the examination without additional fees. I am willing to provide any necessary documentation or evidence to support my claim.

Sincerely,

Andrei Marton

I had 4 online exams with Pearsonvue, and I can confidently say I will not use them again. I took the CompTIA A+ and N+ exams. The 2 A+ exams were a breeze I never suspected they had a dodgy system, I was just lucky I guess.
My troubles started when I took the N+ exam. I simply could not check in through the mobile app, it kept giving me error messages when trying to tap to the next step of uploading my ID. I checked in with my webcam in the end but as it wasn't an autofocus webcam so the pictures were quite blurry, I tried to reason with the proctor to give me some alternatives, but they just revoked the exam. I thought it would be easy to just rebook the exam as I had no chance to do anything I was wrong. I tried calling them as others mentioned don't bother, it just hangs up or they can't hear you, or they put you on hold and hang up. I finally got an email a week later that I broke the exam rules, because I provided an invalid ID, not that I could provide any ID. I was told to pay again and rebook, so I took it up to CompTIA who sided with them after a 2 week investgation. It felt like they never read my email or saw the evidence I provided. That's is a big F for comptia as I really like their material.
I had no choice but to rebook for £220, I bought a new Logitech webcam for £80 with autofocus. I borrowed 2 more mobile phones. I thought there could be no trouble now to retake the exam, boy I was wrong.
My 4th exam was an utter nightmare from the start.
The mobile check in app did not work again, and I tried it on 3 mobile phones. I signed in with my new autofocus webcam. 20 minutes into the test they restarted the exam, and they did so 3 more times claiming they could not see my webcam feed, although the system test did not show any faults with my equipment.
Every time they restarted the test it threw me back to the end of the queue, so the whole exam lasted for almost 4 and a half hours, not to mention losing my focus every time.
I was threatened that at the 5th time they would revoke the exam, in my final desperation I turned off all security on my PC, and connected the camera to a different USB port again.
At that point I had 40 minutes left to complete 50 questions. I am sure you agree that's not how an exam should be conducted; it is a miracle I did not fail.
All in all, avoid and go to a test centre, that's what I will do for my S+ exam, I prefer drive a 100mile roundtrip than go through this bloody nightmare again.