As many of you are aware we have been utilizing the services of Alias Training and Security (ATS) over the last 20 months. Recently, we have experienced some major problems forcing us to reconsider our association with ATS. They have been delinquent on paying us for the last several classes and more than likely will not be paying us for our CQB class in Alliance, OH I am currently getting ready for this coming week.
I am not the only one who has experienced these problems, good friends and fellow trainers Mike Pannone, Pat McNamara and Craig Douglas have all had similar experience both in delinquency of revenue owed as well as lack of communications with ATS. I feel and I know I echo the others my level of frustration has reached a point where I have exhausted all avenues and the benefit of the doubt has reached the reasonable limit.
While we have done our best to communicate and come up with a reasonable solution all of our efforts have failed leading to our decision. Effective immediately I will not longer be working with ATS to promote and book our classes, all class from this point forward will be done through our own services and website.
While it should be apparent I do not have any control or influence over how ATS manages their operations, know the rest of the group and I went above and beyond trying to remedy this situation. I take this matter very seriously and I'm sure you will all see how the group and I have acted in the most professional manner, but now it is time to move forward. I count myself very fortunate to have been as successful as I have been over the years and I am indebted to the students who trust us with their training needs. This too I take very seriously and while this situation is unfortunate it in no way has affected our mission, our professionalism or our efforts.
For those of you who have registered with ATS please contact them in an effort to get refunded your class fees. Please understand, we cannot continue to carry the debt forward so as of the release of this notification all classes are canceled. I have conducted three classes to include a week long class for free as we attempted to work through this problem. My fees owed will be close to $20k so while I wish I had a better solution I am working as best as I can within the framework of reasonable solutions.
This much I can promise you, we will not fall into this situation again. We have taken safeguards and implemented new policies moving forward with the primary objective of reconstituting the classes we have the rest of the year on our schedule. If you are not able to get a refund from ATS we suggest you contact your credit card company and initiate a a claim requesting your funds be returned.
If you have any grievances with ATS I would like to hear from you so please contact us. I will do my level best to respond during next week's class so bare with me. I hope I have conveyed to you the situation and my response, I am anxious to move forward and put this behind us. Thank you for your understanding and patience and most important your steadfast support.
