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What has happened to Sophia?
A little history of the situation:
I registered for some free classes earlier in the summer. I was most of the way through the first 30 days of my classes, then I had 2 major family issues that derailed and depressed me. While I was away dealing my family, which took a huge amount of work, I could not log in to Sophia because they live in a remote area with no Internet access.
Briefly while I was home one weekend, I requested an extension. That was granted with no problems, but my family situations became much worse, unexpectedly and I found myself back in no-where-ville with no Internet connection. Please don't tell me how I could have taken care of the situation because there was no time for phone calls or going to a town over an hour away to get Internet access.
My second 30 days was about to expire and I requested another extension explaining the above situation. Last week, they granted 15 day extension and no further extensions. At that time, I had no time to argue or ask for an escalation.
Several times today, I've tried to chat. The CHAT link on Sophia.org is going to Livechat at this link https://www.livechat.com/, rather than being answered by a Sophia rep. Livechat says I can have 14-days free. This usually means they want my credit card info before they will let me have one conversation. They're not getting my credit card info because I've been through this type of scam before and it isn't happening again.
Is anyone experiencing these problems? Is this the death of Sophia.org? If so, my daughter and I need to switch to SL or SDC asap!
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Your situation is certainly very unfortunate and I'm sorry you had to go through that. I think Sophia has always only offered one 30 day extension and one 15 day extension. The decreased chat availability is certainly very unfortunate but since they've literally been offering every single one of their products completely free for the last few months, I think their lack of revenue and massive increase in "customers" has affected their ability to give the individual attention that they were previously famous for. I don't think this is the death of Sophia. In fact, they're launching new courses and I'm sure their operations will normalize soon after their promotion ends.
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That's unfortunate, also there is a 30 day cool down period for retaking a class I think.
Never heard of the live chat credit verification.
I do see them "online" right now.
You should try it or call them.
Hope they can resolve it.
If nothing works consider either rushing it or "dropping" and taking another class.
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07-24-2020, 05:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-24-2020, 05:13 PM by ctcarl.)
(07-24-2020, 04:15 PM)rvm Wrote: What has happened to Sophia?
A little history of the situation:
I registered for some free classes earlier in the summer. I was most of the way through the first 30 days of my classes, then I had 2 major family issues that derailed and depressed me. While I was away dealing my family, which took a huge amount of work, I could not log in to Sophia because they live in a remote area with no Internet access.
Briefly while I was home one weekend, I requested an extension. That was granted with no problems, but my family situations became much worse, unexpectedly and I found myself back in no-where-ville with no Internet connection. Please don't tell me how I could have taken care of the situation because there was no time for phone calls or going to a town over an hour away to get Internet access.
My second 30 days was about to expire and I requested another extension explaining the above situation. Last week, they granted 15 day extension and no further extensions. At that time, I had no time to argue or ask for an escalation.
Several times today, I've tried to chat. The CHAT link on Sophia.org is going to Livechat at this link https://www.livechat.com/, rather than being answered by a Sophia rep. Livechat says I can have 14-days free. This usually means they want my credit card info before they will let me have one conversation. They're not getting my credit card info because I've been through this type of scam before and it isn't happening again.
Is anyone experiencing these problems? Is this the death of Sophia.org? If so, my daughter and I need to switch to SL or SDC asap!
I personally experienced no significant problems with Sophia, other than delayed Touchstone grading and email responses. I had no problems at all with course delivery or telephone or chat based support.
I presume your second question is meant to be a dramatic and rhetorical one. If it isn't, then I would say that, no, the narrative you've related is not likely to represent "the death of Sophia.org". If I had to guess, I would say that some of the issues folks have related regarding Sophia as of late are related to the fact that they have been giving away their courses for free for months and their resources are stretched thin as a result.
While you certainly should feel free to switch to SL or SDC, I would suggest that any perceived improvement in customer service you might experience in doing so will evaporate in one week when the current Sophia free promotion expires and some semblance of normality returns.
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07-24-2020, 05:25 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-24-2020, 05:26 PM by ss20ts.)
No this is not the death of Sophia. They have always been strict about extensions. Colleges are the same way though. You have to remember that Sophia is a business and gave away over 150,000 free courses the last few months. If the courses were paid for, one may try to make an effort to complete the coursework. And others wouldn't and just waste the money. It happens. The courses were free specifically due to the pandemic.
(07-24-2020, 05:12 PM)ctcarl Wrote: (07-24-2020, 04:15 PM)rvm Wrote: What has happened to Sophia?
A little history of the situation:
I registered for some free classes earlier in the summer. I was most of the way through the first 30 days of my classes, then I had 2 major family issues that derailed and depressed me. While I was away dealing my family, which took a huge amount of work, I could not log in to Sophia because they live in a remote area with no Internet access.
Briefly while I was home one weekend, I requested an extension. That was granted with no problems, but my family situations became much worse, unexpectedly and I found myself back in no-where-ville with no Internet connection. Please don't tell me how I could have taken care of the situation because there was no time for phone calls or going to a town over an hour away to get Internet access.
My second 30 days was about to expire and I requested another extension explaining the above situation. Last week, they granted 15 day extension and no further extensions. At that time, I had no time to argue or ask for an escalation.
Several times today, I've tried to chat. The CHAT link on Sophia.org is going to Livechat at this link https://www.livechat.com/, rather than being answered by a Sophia rep. Livechat says I can have 14-days free. This usually means they want my credit card info before they will let me have one conversation. They're not getting my credit card info because I've been through this type of scam before and it isn't happening again.
Is anyone experiencing these problems? Is this the death of Sophia.org? If so, my daughter and I need to switch to SL or SDC asap!
I personally experienced no significant problems with Sophia, other than delayed Touchstone grading and email responses. I had no problems at all with course delivery or telephone or chat based support.
I presume your second question is meant to be a dramatic and rhetorical one. If it isn't, then I would say that, no, the narrative you've related is not likely to represent "the death of Sophia.org". If I had to guess, I would say that some of the issues folks have related regarding Sophia as of late are related to the fact that they have been giving away their courses for free for months and their resources are stretched thin as a result.
While you certainly should feel free to switch to SL or SDC, I would suggest that any perceived improvement in customer service you might experience in doing so will evaporate in one week when the current Sophia free promotion expires and some semblance of normality returns.
Before signing up for SL or SDC make sure you have the time to devote to your studies. Their courses aren't free. They don't offer free extensions either.
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Thank you everyone!
No, I'm not being dramatic. Pushing support off to an independent provider is how many companies suffered and almost went out of business after the year 2000 Dot-com bust. Companies who saw the important benefits of owning their own support were the survivors and thrivers. Companies who refused to understand these simple concepts suffered major hits to their reputations.
I understand the overload Sophia is/was experiencing, gaining thousands upon thousands of new students and not being prepared for such an influx. I also the financial burden of an unexpected influx of that size. However, my gut feeling is they got mega-dollars from the stimulus plan and weren't hurting financially.
Good point about not starting new classes right now as my family situation hasn't settled enough yet.
Second good point about dropping the classes and starting over another time.
Unfortunately, I now have a bad taste in my mouth for Sophia. Combine that with other Sophia experiences I've been reading on this forum, and the negatives are compounded.
The good thing is I only need two courses to graduate, however, those 2 courses, an Eng Comp and Public Speaking, are two courses that have extended times on grading.
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07-25-2020, 08:50 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-25-2020, 08:56 AM by Expert101.)
Hi, were you only able to enroll in 2 classes at a time when Sophia first started offering free course or did they implement that recently?
It was my understanding that you could enroll in as many Sophia classes at once to finish as many as possible for free. Is this accurate?
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(07-25-2020, 08:50 AM)Expert101 Wrote: Hi, were you only able to enroll in 2 classes at a time when Sophia first started offering free course or did they implement that recently?
It was my understanding that you could enroll in as many Sophia classes at once to finish as many as possible for free. Is this accurate?
No. In the beginning you could enroll in as many classes as you wanted. That hasn't been the case for weeks. For several weeks you've only been allowed to be enrolled in 2 courses at a time.
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(07-25-2020, 08:50 AM)Expert101 Wrote: Hi, were you only able to enroll in 2 classes at a time when Sophia first started offering free course or did they implement that recently?
It was my understanding that you could enroll in as many Sophia classes at once to finish as many as possible for free. Is this accurate?
Sophia just implemented this within the last few weeks.
Robin
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~ Slowly collecting credits from a variety of sources. Almost finished with my baccalaureate degree.
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(07-24-2020, 04:15 PM)rvm Wrote: ... The CHAT link on Sophia.org is going to Livechat at this link https://www.livechat.com/, rather than being answered by a Sophia rep. Livechat says I can have 14-days free. This usually means they want my credit card info before they will let me have one conversation. They're not getting my credit card info because I've been through this type of scam before and it isn't happening again. ... I have gotten this message when clicking on the chat link too, but it's a technical error and not some Sophia or Livechat scam. It happens because the script to open the chat window doesn't load corectly. This may happen because your browser or browser extensions are blocking the script, because their is an interruption or glitch in your connection to Sophia (because they're getting a crazy amount of traffic right now) or the internet, and so forth. So instead of getting the chat window, you get directed to the LiveChat site.
The trial is for the LiveChat software, NOT for Sophia. LiveChat is a software/platform that businesses can subscribe to so they can run chats on their website. They are offering a trial of their software/platform to businesses. The businesses provide the customer service reps. This is just like Moodle of Canvas, which don't teach online courses but allow institutions to offer courses using their own curricula and staff. LiveChat is is not trying to trick you that you are getting a free subscription to Sophia. You just happen to have ended up on their home page because of a technical error that wasn't supposed to happen. Whoever designed the LiveChat website didn't anticipate this error and therefore assumed anyone who comes to their home page will understand what the free trial is for.
Again, this is just a technical error. Try clicking chat again. You might need to switch browsers or disable extensions/javascript blockers/ad blockers to get it to work properly. Or you can email or call Sophia instead.
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