Prometric Server Failures

Just a warning to you guys planning to take tests at any testing centre.

Prometric's servers have been up and down like a (fill in the blank!) over the last two weeks. Concept of failover protection seems to be alien to them!

I turned up for P/T this morning having scheduled the exam over the phone with Prometric.

The monkey at the test centre had me logged for a test but didn't check the exam had been downloaded. The net result that I will have to take more time off to cover their dumb asses.

Moral of this story. Until Prometrtic have sorted their servers out, I would advise anyone to ring their testing centre 24 hours in adavance and confirm the test has been downloaded.

Regards and good luck to all

Nick

I had problem as well when booking a test 2 weeks ago : the "server" just crashed at the end : had to call back and do everything again
( I suggested her to change their system to Oracle ;))


When I arrived at the testcenter, my exam was booked for 12.30 when the test center closes at 12!....a bit of a pain when you're far from home!

I'm not surprised at all... every time I need Prometric, they fail me. They cancelled exams I cleared without warning, changed some personal information and even linked my login and password to another user.

Luckily, I never had any problems on test center. I'll be aware, anyway.

Ohhh Yess, this just gets better.

Prometric say the exam wasn't available as my card was declined. Interesting as my card company has confirmed they took the payment....TWICE.

Then just to top that off, the testing center has never heard of OTN20 promotion code!!!!

Exam scheduled for tomorrow (yet another payment taken). I'm gonna be so pissed if I fail it after all this hassle.

My experience has been better, but not without flaws.

Prometric billed my credit card for $100, but gave me a receipt for $125 which is favorable for taxes, but i would prefer that it was correct instead.

Luckily, the certificate arrived in two weeks.

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Then just to top that off, the testing center has never heard of OTN20 promotion code!!!!

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Did you use code OTN20 on 2test.com ? It didn't work for me... I had to contact Oracle directly by phone and provide my OTN login. Then, they gave me the voucher number which I used on 2test.com. The payment order was sent by mail 20 days later, no credit card needed.

IMHO, a better option than trust Prometric.

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Originally posted by adrianomp
Did you use code OTN20 on 2test.com ?

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On the rare occasions I can actually get on the site, OTN20 works fine. Gets entered in the Voucher or Promotion Code box on the same page where you enter a credit card number. Would be interesting, but I wouldn't put it past them to do a different thing for another country.

Oh well, supposedly all booked now. Best get some sleep since the test is in exactly 8 hours!

Cheers

Nick

Good luck Nick mate, hope you pass the exam tomorrow.

After two reboots an and hours delay finally did the test!!!!

52/57 so reasonably happy with that.

Greg
Thanks for the encouragement but we just got our pre visa grant letter so hopefully we will be living in Sunny Oz by August. No job of course but what the hey! Where do you go to get a potato pickers cert?


Cheers all

well done Nick!

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After two reboots an and hours delay finally did the test!!!!

52/57 so reasonably happy with that.

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Well done, Nick! How many exams missing now?

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On the rare occasions I can actually get on the site, OTN20 works fine. Gets entered in the Voucher or Promotion Code box on the same page where you enter a credit card number. Would be interesting, but I wouldn't put it past them to do a different thing for another country.

Oh well, supposedly all booked now. Best get some sleep since the test is in exactly 8 hours!

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I know it may be off-topic, since Oracle only works with Prometric, but... regarding other certification brands, what do you guys have to tell about VUE?

Do they work fine or are just another Prometric-like site? Maybe I'll try MCDBA this year and Microsoft gives the option between Prometric and VUE...

Thanks all for the congrats. Much appreciated.

Adriano, just NA to go and that's me done.

I spoke to the people at the testing centre and apart from the fact that they don't get paid anything for OCP exams until they get 35 candidates a month, they reckoned Prometric was the worst by far for booking and administration.

To give Prometric their due, they have just released a new "system" which is clearly causing them problems over and above the usual issues.

What gets me is their standard response of "Nothing we can do".

Cheers

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What gets me is their standard response of "Nothing we can do".

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I can understand that. Luckily, the girl who takes care of the exams on the test center I usually choose saved my life twice because of Prometric's system even with the fact that it wasn't her problem. At least she got a nice christmas gift and many, many thanks. If you think about how many people she must already have helped, she definitely deserves much more. :D


About the "new system", the guys on Prometric are telling me the same thing since August 2002 until last month (6 months!). In other words, a company which deals with advanced technology professionals isn't able to deal with the technology itself. Pretty Ironic. ;) :

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Originally posted by adrianomp
At least she got a nice christmas gift :

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I'm tempted to suggest some inuendo here but I'm sure that would be far beneath the rest of the members ;)

Having met the lady at The Ipswich test centre, the best she can hope for is a bunch of flowers :D

'... sound of footsteps' "No nothing dear, nothing at all honestly! aaaagh"

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Originally posted by ngdh
After two reboots an and hours delay finally did the test!!!!

52/57 so reasonably happy with that.

Greg
Thanks for the encouragement but we just got our pre visa grant letter so hopefully we will be living in Sunny Oz by August. No job of course but what the hey! Where do you go to get a potato pickers cert?


Cheers all

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Nick, that's a great score I reckon, you must be relieved to have that one behind you. Does that make only one left?

That also great news about the visa, down under in August, the Darling Downs in South East Queensland have a large Potato Picking Union you can join, tough guidelines though, and the initiation...well, I didn't even know you could do that with a Potato :confused: , but the BIG money's in Peanut Picking in another Qld town called Kingaroy :p ... personally though, I think you'd have to be nuts to go there. ;)

Anyway, in all seriousness, we'll have to catch up when I get over to England in April, I'll give you some tips on living in Oz, and show you how to Drink Beer... or is that Lager!