CFA Institute Reviews 22

You'll waste your money and time . You loan the access to the courses, so if you miss your exam, you'll pay access to the learning ecosystem again. You can't juste pay access to the LES, you have to pay for registration+LES each time, even if you don't have the time to train. So if you want to learn at your own pace, and then regiter, it's not possible.
At the exam, they trick the results so that more than x% (> 50%) of the candidates fail and have to pay again the whole package, making a comfortable life rent for the CFA Institute.
To me it looks like a scam.

I simply downloaded a PDF brochure and now they won't let me unsubscribe from the more than daily email marketing. Clicking "unsubscribe" takes you to a page to create an account to update your email preferences, which is a violation of the CAN-SPAM ACT. They should know better!

Despite reports of serious ethical breaches at CFA UK involving senior leadership and some members, the CFA Institute has failed to take action.

After raising a discrimination complaint that I faced upon trying to enter the exam hall they disregarded it completely and never even took accountability although tapes were also reviewed to corroborate what I was claiming. All they said was sorry for your experience but nothing else was done. For a “global” institute they sure are hypocritical in the way they uphold their “ethics” to the point of being so anal about discussing exam questions. Disgusting experience to an institute I once had respect for. Regret every dollar I put into this

I received a photo of a CFA Institute graduation certificate as verification that the person I was working with is a certified Financial Agent and it looked fake. They refused to confirm it without my being able to produce a signed affidavit of who I am and his birthday. Unlike an accredited school, they would not verify their own certificates of graduation. I therefore can only conclude that this school is a sham.

A lady working here is very rude, treating us like children.

Double Standards. I felt heavily harassed and retaliated after reporting unethical behaviour from certain "privileged" members of this organisation.

They only care about money. I made a plea to postpone my exam due to a serious illness and they couldn’t care less.

I got incorrectly declined the attendance of a CFA event while on travel even though my attendance is technically relevant (been in business for over 10 years to understand the relevance and we’re at the forefront of specific subject matters worldwide) and I am a CFA Charterholder, which I decided not to renew after more than 13yrs of being a member.
It was clear that the events team is not technical and followed broad instructions from senior corporates to the detriment of educating the investor. I realized that the institute may serve a group of individuals who may not care or have skin in the game, which goes against the same standards they preach.
While the exams are very good to have a comprehensive understanding of Finance, you can now research anything you want online. The institute itself is a money making machine but doesn’t really uphold its own standards. To me, it’s a fake system which will disintegrate with the dominance of AI.

aggressive spammer - since about a year they are eager to spam me, but nobody stops it

CFA Institute shows double standards. They do not investigate the Professional Conduct reports when it comes the their own staff.

I scheduled the exam, but had to reschedule. They don't tell you upfront but it's like a $400 reschedule fee. I paid it, and now it's my rescheduled exam time and they're saying I didn't schedule the exam and forfeit all the money paid. Now they updated their policy stating that this is what they do, and even though you pay for an exam date, they do not give you an exam date. Very deceiving in every way and no one even cares if you have pass the CFA anymore so please save yourself the money time and headache by not even signing up in the first place. I paid like $1500 and never received an exam date and they are now sending me some new policy for why I don't have an exam date. Complete fraud. I'll take this to small claims this month.

Completely useless. Tried to take an exam on line, but despite extensive technical review in advance, the thing didn't work and I wasn't able to take the exam. Now trying to reschedule but despite several emails and a number of telephone calls I still can't get any resolution. Each call handler seems to be unaware of previous dialogue and can't find evidence of it on the system; and apparently the more you write in the more your mail gets put to the end of the list which is apparently too long for the call handler to see. I've been looking for a mechanism to make a complaint but can't find one on their website. Added to that the contact telephone number is incorrectly stated on their website.

No Refund from CFA Institute
Basically I paid my full fees right mid 2020 before Covid.
My test got cancelled twice and now it s too late to get a refund because I miss a 2 week period of request in JUN21. My only chance to get a refund was during those 2 weeks ONLY... WHAT A JOKE
"The mission of CFA Institute is served by generating value for core investment management professionals and engaging with the core investment management industry to advance ethics, market integrity, and professional standards of practice, which collectively contributes value to society." from CFA website
Your Behavior is the opposite of what you pretend to teach your student.
You should be ashamed of your policy and the way you conduct business

Terrible customer service. You have to wait at least 1 month for a reply via email. More importantly however, CFA institute pretends to have the highest standards which apparently do not apply to themselves. The situation is as follows. I requested a resolution process as I did not apply for my exam locations (which is my fault) however I did not receive any emails on this. CFA institute claimed they have provided my with emails and many reminders. I received print screen from their internal system indicating that the sent multiple emails to me. Nowhere I was able to spot my name on the print screens. Important is that prior to this, I had a technical issue with my name and email adress - CFA confirmed that they corrected the mistake in their IT system by email. After I bomborded them with emails, I received a general email (sent to everyone) that they need to confirm the names and email adressess. Once CFA determined that they THINK they are right you cannot do anything as they wont respond anymore. So in short:
• CFA had no reasonable effort and adequate basis for their conclusions. The printscreen does not say anything. CFA institute could have used the printscreen as evidence that the e-mail would have been sent to either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
• CFA has not shown to have adequate record retention. Simply a forward of the email would have been satisfactory.

They only care about charging money without providing a service. They do not reply to repeated requests about the CFA designation recognition in the UK after Brexit. I have emailed several times to enquire about this, I have written to the CEO in America and the UK but no answer months after repeated attepmts. The comptent they show to members is astounding. Incompetent, greedy and the reason why the public has no confidence in the financial community. I will not renew my membership ever again. Get your Charter and then leave the Institute. Shameful, shameful, shameful.

My exam was postponed due to Corona for several times. That is not the Institute’s fault. However, in December they offered me a refund due the many cancelations. I agreed to it and the institute set itself a deadline of 120 days to refund me the exam fee. This deadline has passed since weeks. Mail reminders are being ignored. Nothing what I would expect from am institution of this kind.

Terrible customer service and angry replies.

It has been three weeks and I have not received any response from them.

My testing centre was closed and I have received none response from them

I actually passed the exams without studying an awful lot but even so it was still a wast of time in hindsight. I worked in finance and IB for a couple of years but found out that most finance employers do not value it enough to justify the time investment and if you finally decide you want a life and move out of banking / PE into industry it gets even worse - the value the CFA designation provides in that case is so low that it is not even worth the trouble to fill out the required conduct form every year. My advice - do another degree instead or even better, some unpaid work experience in another field as you will gain a wider skill set and perspective on life...