PTE Academic - www.pearsonpte.com

I have paid the fees for Silver scored mock test which is near about 6000 INR on 25th June. So far I have not received any response from pearson pte. Customer care is saying to fill the feedback form. And I have already filled it thrice in last 7 days but no luck and no update from Pearson. Really worst experience.

Date of experience: June 25, 2024

Absolutely Outrage!

The same as other reviews, no Mandatory information that a Middle name is required, and then I lost the booking because of that no clarification on the site or email about that mandatory new policy! At the same time when I was there the same person was affected by the same issue if that would be 10 or 20 pounds, I can live with that but no circa 200!! I will not let it go If customer service does not resolve the issue and I do not get my money back or a new test schedule free of charge I will sue them! and encourage everyone else to join me. That happened today in Newcastle at about 11 AM!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! The test is a money-making scheme, they will look at any way possible to fail you or have you retake the test to pay again. Suggest taking the alternative test IELTS

To those reading and considering doing a PTE test, please read this before making any booking. 

I wanted to take the time to write a detailed review on my poor experience with the Pearson PTE English test.

Like many other people with the dream of obtaining their Australian permanent residence, I have needed to complete an English exam and regrettably chose pesaron PTE to do this. These are some things I wish I knew before wasting over $3000 and wasting so much time, so much effort and the loss of my mental health simply trying to pass their bogus computer generated exam. Which in reality doesn’t prove your english level but your ability to speak to a machine, like a machine.

To begin, dealing with PTE customer service is incredibly difficult and have such poor professionalism, to say the least! Their efficiency and response time is unbelievable slow. I had needed to contact them on many many occasions and to simply receive an email response, that was not autogenerated but somewhat of a genuine response took days, if not weeks!

Every single person I spoke to I COULD NOT understand due to their INCREDIBLY thick accents! This makes speaking to anyone from their team incredibly difficult and almost impossible. People, like me, already have English as their second or third language, so dealing with somebody on the phone who have accents as thick as their staff members is absurd. On occasion I would get a fluent English speaking friend to listen in on my conversations (to help me understand those I was speaking to from the PTE office), and they too, COULD NOT understand A SINGLE WORD of what the person on the other line was saying! This is beyond RIDICULOUS and has to be addressed by the Pearson leading team!

In addition to this, I am a person who has many medical conditions which affect my cognition. I provided Pearson with numerous medical documents and names of the strong medication I have to take daily to combat my symptoms, yet their consideration of my case was almost non-existent. I experienced little to no support from them and feel incredibly discriminated against. They will claim to support anyone with special needs however this is not true. If you’re lucky, they offer you a private room to sit your exam, maybe a 10 minute break but that is all. So if you are someone with a medical condition such as myself, do not book your English exam with Pearson PTE. I sustained severe injuries including a head injury as the result of being hit by a car (as a student here in Australia) and some of the symptoms I suffer with are intense daily migraines, sever dizziness, I now have to walk with a cane (mind you I am in my late 30’s) I have inoperable injuries in my cervical spineI and clavicle which cause me incredible amounts of ongoing pain and impede the use of my right arm and the list goes on. I WOULD NOT recommend, suggest or promote ANYONE choose Pearson PTE for their English exam.

On their website they state things like “Don’t panic” and “We’re here to help” but this is all a lie! They themselves know how difficult it is for students to pass this exam as I have in email, where a Pearson staff member admits to me that this exam is even had to pass even if you are a fluent native English speaker. They know you’re destined to fail and struggle with their computerised exam but take your hundreds of dollars anyways. Even when applying for a re-score, as I did, they trick you into paying $200, send you the same score back, they keep the money, yet provide you with ZERO feedback or evidence that the re-score even took place and when you ask them for you re-score details or proof, they refuse to share that information with you because it goes against their “policy”.

Pearson PTE is the BIGGEST trick the Commonwealth has seen and I would strongly suggest everyone saves their time and hard earned money (as international student’s) and use ANY OTHER English exam services. I guarantee you, any other choice would be better than taking Pearson’s PTE test. They are sham artists and I regret ever putting my trust in them.

Bought PTE Academic online, on starting my test everything was working fine, audio and my webcam was showing flawlessly but my passport picture had to be changed. The interviewer who was supposed to monitor the test said she will cut my connection to reconnect for sending the picture & I did not get connected again, for an hour I tried to get a hold on support and when I got to them they told me my webcam was not allowed(I had an old phone as a webcam), this was an excuse for them to not let me start my test or refund me, next day I bought a cheap webcam but they did not care & did not ask me again about my setup & did not let me do the test.

I bought a test that I was not allowed to start, a literal swindle.

I took the test 3 years ago when I was in Melbourne. Using a different passport, email, address.

Now I took it again with a new passport, email and address, in another city.

It has been a month waiting for my results. They asked me to merge both accounts and fill up forms. I answered to tech support: "just delete the old one"... they insisted in merging them. After that... I filled up 3 forms, called 4 times, sent 8 emails, asked a refund 5 times….

and I am still waiting for my test results. Now I can not study. Thanks Pearson.

I just want my money back to take IELTS

The reason they ask you why you're taking the test so they can get more money out of you. For example, most people do the exam for visa requirements and the difference of getting over 80 and under 80 is the different of your visa points being 20 vs 10 points. So in my case, I got 90,87,83 and then 79 in the fourth module. They do this purposely so you will retake the exam. They did the same to me the second time round it's a money making racket. It's important that you write a formal complaint to the Department of Immigration of the country you are applying to so they can investigate them and stop using them as a formal test centre. I also had technical issue's on the day of my exam, whereby they were at fault as the config on their screen didn't read correctly. They dragged out my complaint for a week with no resolution after me sending several emails and calls. I agree with one of the other negative reviews, in that the quality of English being spoken by the examiners was poor, they are definitely not operating out of UK like they say they are. There was also incorrect grammar in some of the questions.

Their marketing team are all over the social media content. Sometimes you see negative comments like this in their post's but they are deleted 10 minutes later.

I needed to take the test for migration purposes....

I need a score of 79 out of 90 on Communicative skills; Listening, Reading, Speaking, Writing.

One time I did the test I got 84,89,90 and 78 somewhere. I have called them asking for a review... They have responded that their test a perfect and flawless. (Nothing in life is perfect!!!!!) I asked them how the grading works and which components count toward which sections, They respond that it is complicated and that they can't disclose it.

In one of the exams I did Enabling Skills

Grammar,Oral Fluency ,Pronunciation, Vocabulary Written Discourse where all 88 and above except for spelling and yet My communication skills were 74, 85,90.69 respectively.

I am starting to have done the test enough times to realize that are beginning to seem somewhat random.

It was also suggested to do the IELTS test but same problem they give you just under what you need to get the maximum points.

They are seemingly all out to make money and not worried about their integrity.... But then again who are they accountable to?

In the PTE Academic the english is not even proper at times, grammatically..... but of course you are not allowed to take notes...

The entire thing is a real shame....

They look for reasons to disqualify you so that you pay the money again to take the test.

I have sat for the pearson Test Of English ( PTE Academic) wich is a requirement for UK Higher education ( for my final year top up). I wanted to enrole for the course, hence I have registered with pearson. I sat for the examination on 13 th of June & still wating for my result( they said with in 5 days time I get the results).

I tried to reach customer service on given telephone number but it was a mess, I was on hold for 30-45 minutes on 4 occasions but no one to answer the phone. I wanted this result urgently because I want to regiter with university soon as possible. I have spent my money & I did not get any results yet , no one to speak as well. My recomondation for the other students to stay well away from this pearson enlish test where they just DON'T CARE ABOUT THE CUSTOMER.