Computer Career Institute - Web Promotion Specialist - computercareerinstitute.net

Computer Career Institute - Web Promotion Specialist - computercareerinstitute.net
Now called: Summit Institute - summit-institute.net
As of 8/31/08- they have AGAIN changed their name to: Personal Computer Training Institute. They have an article written by Alisha Mitchell - Expert Author. They now show a phone number of 505-839-0099 and an address is Albuquerque, NM 87101. The url we found is http://pcti-online.org/ and pctialbuquerque.com


What is a "web promotion specialist"? (Now called a Website Processing Specialist) What are the benefits? What are the downfalls? What does the certification do? Is it hard to work with Fortune 500 companies? Is this actual employment or something else? How does the "job placement" work?

In this article we will work on answering these questions and give a full review of what is offered and if it is beneficial to you.

We came across this information from an ad posted on Yahoo.com, which was written by a News Reporter, you can see the article here. This article really sparked an interest, since it does seem as though almost all, if not all, the work-at-home programs on the internet are scams of some type.

So, with this in mind, we decided to take the course with a grain of salt. A few of the things that seemed suspicious about the course, is that they seem to be trying to "sell" you on the concept. This shouldn't be the case. Notice all the testimonials on their site and the income claims. How many "schools" do this? None, that we know of. Also, if this is truly an educational site, why doesn't the site name end with .edu - instead of .net. This is strange also.

Another thing that caught our attention was how they persuade you to get in now, before the openings fill up - well, this is fine, BUT, you also see this on the internet with pretty much any work at home scam.

The news reporter article is suspicious also, no other articles or anything else from that reporter. A street address search for the news article comes up with Remax office.

The physical address for Computer Career Institute seems to be a drop box. We didn't find a main site for the college, just web pages promoting the "Web Promotion Specialist" program.

So, we decided to give it a try anyway and paid the $249 for the course.

The course itself is completely downloadable. This is a worry, since most downloadable products do NOT offer a refund, due the nature of the materials. If you read the "terms" on their page, it also does state that there are no refunds. On the main website page though, they state that if you don't get a job with a Fortune 500 company, they will refund your money. So, this was contradictory.

Regardless, we went forward, and started downloading and viewing the course. It is very well thought out, very informative, and to be frank, simple. The instruction is easy to follow along with.

What is the course about? Well, they teach you how to use blogger.com to post blogs. The blogs contain "reviews" for products or services. They also have you create blogs about concerts and books, that sort of thing. So, how do you make money? Well, the products and services you promote have affiliate programs. So, you write a blog about a product and then you have a link where people can go and buy that product, since you are an affiliate of that product or company, you get a commission for any purchases made through that link. So, in short, as an example, you sign up as an affiliate for TicketMaster.com - you then choose a band that is performing in the near future, you create a blog with that bands concerts dates, and you put a link in your blog for buying tickets. If someone buys a ticket for that concert using your link, you get a commission from TicketMaster. They also teach you how to use Google Adwords with your blog. So, when you create a blog, you put in a code for Google adsense. Google adsense then displays ads which relate to your blog content. If someone clicks on anything in the Adsense box, you get a very small amount paid to you. One thing we did find beneficial, is that they give you the MetaCode to put in your blog header, to help get your blog into the Search Engines. They do show you how to submit each of your blogs to the Search Engines also.

So, when they talk about you working with Fortune500 companies, all they are referring to is the fact that you can become an affiliate for these companies. We did find Walmart and others that do provide affiliate programs. So, this is very misleading, as you are not "employed" by these companies, you are an affiliate.

We did not find any situation where a company would reimburse you for your tuition fee. We sent an email to Computer Career Institute about this and did not receive an answer to this specific question.

As for the "certification", well, after completely the course, we received an email stating that we had "passed" the exam and we were now "certified". We then emailed back asking if there was some type of paper or diploma or something to that effect that we would receive, and we were told, "no, not at this time". So, seems as though the "certification" is just a crock.

IF, after reading this article, you decide you would still like to take the course, please contact us first, before paying $249. We may be able to share the course with you instead.

It is a serious disappointment that this company has gone so far as to create fake news sites and post bogus listings on the BBB site. They have taken "scam" to a new level.


As with any venture, you should always check out a company BEFORE paying any fees! Not only check with the Better Business Bureau, but, also check with sites like scam.com, and ripoffreport.com. Sometimes you can find a lot of information just by doing a Google search for the company and including the word scam after the company name.


BE SMART! All the best to you!

----UPDATE----- The company has changed its name to Columbia Career Institute and more recently it changed names again to Career Training Institute. As of 03/26/08, they are called Summit Institute with a URL of: summit-institute.net - They also changed the URL of the fake "news" report to: consumer-reporting.net - the reporter's name is Trish Morgan.

---UPDATE 08/31/08-----The company has AGAIN changed it's name to Personal Computer Training Institute in Albuquerque NM. The urls we have found are: pctialbuquerque.com and http://pcti-online.org/ - with a phone number of 505-839-0099. The same article has been put up as being written by Alisha Mitchell - Expert Author on an ezine website.