Thanks to anyone in advance for any help you can give.
A friend of mine has been in contact with Clearstone over the last few weeks, and they have been nothing but helpful, asking all the relevant questions, and providing him with all the necessary details.
He has just (last friday) agreed with them start dates for the training and yesterday sent them a cheque for the full cost of the course (am unsure what it is but will be £2500++).
I advised him to check out this forum and read up about this company. He is now very concerned that he has made the wrong decison.
I am posting for him as he hasnt registered yet but can one offer any advice on clearstone, espcially if anyone has had any dealing with them recently and/or problems getting money back.
Or alternativly if anyone has had recent experiences with them which have been posistive please let me know.
Any help is really appreciated…I have advised him to cancel the cheque first thing until this matter is cleared up.
Make sure he cancells that cheque ASAP! i never used clearstone but plenty have and most of the posts on this forum are negative,even the few good ones will tell you that its very expensive training with em.Basically they are ‘middle-men’ who palm out wanabees to companies on there regional lists for a ‘cut’ hence VERY expensive! basic class C training(in-cluding theory and medical)should cost no-more than a grand,no-matter where you are in the country,£880 is about the average in the midlands,£2500 is a RIP-OFF,that probably in-cludes 3 re-tests,but its still a con as a retest(in-cluding hire of truck)costs on average £250,so work it out? theres plenty of drivers on the forom who could point your mate in the right direction as far as driving schools go,just let people know what area your based and save a lot of money
He is going to cancel the cheque and get in contact with Clearstone first thing (I will let you know once I have an update)
Personally I was sent info from a company called Pathway which is very similar to Clearstone. But from reading what others have said I am going to stay away from both.
Anyone recommend HGV training in Northamptonshire area??
Can’t help much except to suggest that Sterling might not be any better from what I have read on here.
Post it as a topic and hopefully someone will advise.
But basically look at the companies for yourself, are they using realistic size vehicles. Do they offer a free assessment, take it if there is one on offer. What contacts have they got for prospective work, if they suggest they might get you in the door at x,y,g ring them and ask about them.
Yeh cheers for the advice 8wheels. I will post a topic to see if anything comes up, but I agree it cant hurt to just ring around and compare all the companies.
I will post with an update regarding Clearstone once I hear back from him.
The cheque has been cancelled and the bank explained that there is nothing they can do with it, so his money is safe…for now anyways!
He spoke to the guy at Clearstone who was giving it the usual sales spiel, blah blah you can trust us blah blah dont believe what you read on forums blah blah.
etc etc. Cheers for everyones help. My m8 is especially grateful!
I went with Sterling paid for the free Artic training course. £1148. I failed the first test and the retest plus an extra day set me back another £400 all in. Lucky for me i passed on the second attempt otherwise it would have been very expensive. The instructors i had were excellent as they were both ex army and very passionate about the job, but they were concerned that the courses just werent long enough and that they had you over a barrell on retests. The clock starts ticking as soon as you sign up and you get 12 months to pass the cpc to qualify for your free artic course so be warned about that. I never had the time to get it in and therefore lost out on the free artic course as i suspect most people do. I won’t be using Sterling for my LGV C + E when i do it hopefully sometime soon as they do it in wagon and drag and not a full size artic. Theres a firm local to me ive been looking at and will probably go with :- they seem more reasonable to me if anyone knows of them can they give me a recommendation :- road-train.co.uk/
I myselfe am a victim of clearstone but not the training I went for a job through them b4 i joined this forum, lets just say they knew little about the job & the employer gave very little away & told a pack of lies. Lets just say I worked for that Bakers (AB) in Stevenage for 1 week less than my 3 month temp to perm contract & I say thank you for making me go Class One & leave.
, let me think… 
