This is ridiculous… Now I am certainly going with Green Test Prep ($397). Can you guys check if Green System is $397 for you too? Just to be sure that they are not doing as PrepScholar…
$397 on my computer.
Just an FYI, I sent Allen Cheng an email to his prepscholar address to let him know we now know about his pricing scam!
Green System is $397 East Coast.
Could this whole thing be a ploy to drum up “hits” to his site and to make people who are getting the $398 price feel like they are getting a deal? I am a bit cynical - but no matter it is poor business practice all around
I see no upside for this kind of pricing practice. I’m one that gets $399 and was thinking about enrolling my ds18 after the success of dd16 but this pricing scam is sickening and there’s no way I will do business with a company that does this and won’t consider is for ds20 either. People that research PrepScholar will find these threads!
Just checked Green Test prep and it is showing as $397 (like everyone else). PrepScholar still showing as $600.
I opened the pricing link in a new tab, and the listed price was $399. I then opened the link in an incognito window and found a price of $400.
There are other shady issues with this site. 1) They have a money back guarantee, which requires an official score report. College Board only sends official score reports to colleges. Someone somehow got one, and they bounced the check. 2) They provide tutoring at 4 x what they pay the tutors. They hire college kids who are perfect scorers, but probably not worth the high price they charge. 3) They appeared to have great reviews here, but some of those were obviously fake.
I am not sure why these sites are marketed this way. Green System advertised that Mr. Green charges $700/hour or something like that for tutoring.
I just checked the link several times while using a VPN to change (apparent) locations. Results:
Atlanta: 399
Seattle: 600
Milan, Italy: 399
Hong Kong: 399
Tokyo: 400
Weird.
@sattut I used Prep Scholar with my D18 and the program itself was legit but I just can’t abide by the their pricing policy. That is just wrong!
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But to be fair, the College Board will mail scores to anyone but you have to call (and pay) you can’t do it on line and may industries charge far more for their employees services than they pay their employees, home health care aids are often paid just over minimum wage but agencies that employ them often charge $50 an hour for their services. I don’t fault Prep Scholar for what they pay their employees but at the same time, I would never pay those crazy prices for a tutor. I’ve only seen one report of a bounced check and I believe that was quickly resolved. Mistakes happen. This crazy pricing policy is clearly not a mistake nor a one time thing and I can’t recommend a company that engages in this type of pricing practice.
DH just checked the link through his work computer which is logged on through Santa Clara (I think) and got $400. Really I don’t get the logic in the $397, $399, $400 price difference. Is it really worth the $3 per subscription difference to pissed of their customers? And as for the $600 price I wonder how many people would have signed up for $399 but didn’t because they were asked to pay $600. If I paid $600 and found out others were only charged $399 for the same thing I’d be very upset and demand a refund!
$410 in Firefox. $390 in Chrome. $390 in Edge. (All with same IP)
Can anyone beat $390?! What do I win?
They may be charging the $600 to people in ritzy areas. Doesn’t seem practical, as the people overpaying would find out. Doesn’t seem smart to change the price around between $390 and $410. However, after seeing how they handle refunds, I wouldn’t put anything past them.
Trust me, I do not live in a ritzy area. My work computer had $399, home computer still has $600 and no one has responded to my email.
PR nightmare. The prepscholar folks seem to have dropped all the balls on this one.
^^ agree!! What were they thinking??
I would recommend that you simply purchase the Official College Board book(for the NEW SAT), and if your kid finishes it you could use Kaplan or Princeton Review or “Ivy something or other”. But my DS17 thought that the College Board book was the best. (And the older one that took the old SAT thought so too!)
They probably want to get some suckers to sign up for $600.The correct way to do that is to make it $600 on sale for $400. Then people think they are getting a bargain. It is harder for the people who paid $600 to complain, as they just didn’t buy on sale.
@3boystogo I purchased the Official College Board Book for the new SAT and felt ripped off - every other page says for more info go to Khan.com! There was nothing in that book that wasn’t on-line for free!