A word of warning: NCCHomeLearning A Level

After much thought I have decided to return to university. I decided I would sit the Accounting A Level online for my best possible chance at getting a good grade to allow me entry into a well respected university.

When looking at online providers, I was drawn to NCCHomeLearning. It has exceptional reviews. The only doubt I had was the price. It is listed at £599 on the websites. That's a hell of a lot of money when the other website I found, Oxford College, was offering it for half the price. Oxford College does not have quite as good reviews.

I noticed that NCC offered a price match service. So I thought, I will go with NCC, and get a price match to get the lower cost. Win-Win.
When I began looking at the course in more depth I realized that some of the information was incorrect on the NCC website. For example although it was advertising for the full Accounting A Level, it had the AQA code of the AS Level. The study time was listed as 200 hours which was again, for the AS level.

I reached out to a representative at NCC for some clarification. After a bit of a back and forth she agreed that the details were incorrect on the website. She said for the correct details I could visit the Oxford College website. This should have been the first alarm bell.

I messaged back and asked why was she linking me to a different companies website. She told me the NCC website was now updated and also said she could price match my course at the lower price. Brilliant!

I used to the coupon on the checkout and bought the course on the NCC website for £319, almost half the price. About ten minutes later I receive my log in details for, you guessed it, Oxford College.

So NCC is acting as a third party website for the Accounting A-Level, cranking up the price to 200%. I can't speak for other courses but how is this allowed? Nowhere on the course page did they say Oxford College would be providing the materials for my course.

When I messaged my tutor, I got a message back in poor English with my name misspelled. Part of the reason I purchased a course was to get an academic reference and predicted grade for UCAS but I'm not even sure it's worth it (Not to mention the fact that a reference and grade prediction cost an extra £20 each).

I'm really considering getting a refund and just self studying from the AQA books. What do people think? I'm a bit pissed off with it really.

*EDIT I have just realized that the course does indeed say that Oxford College will be providing the course materials. It doesn't make the price mark-up any more acceptable*