ACAMSReviews of acams.org

I attempted to purchase a one-year Private Sector membership on 19/20 February 2026. However, the system failed to provide a payment confirmation page or email - nothing indicating the payment went through or not, as well as no 3d secure password for me to approve the payment. The website even displayed an error message when I attempted to pay, evidencing that the payment did not complete. Presuming the transaction had failed, I attempted the payment more times with three different credit cards, but again received no payment confirmation. Upon checking my credit card statements, I discovered that I have been charged SEVEN TIMES in total for the membership fee through three different credit cards!!! Furthermore, my ACAMS account has not been updated and still does not reflect an active membership status!!! I contacted ACAMS via several channels, including the Help Center on their website and their LinkedIn profile. Absolutely no response! And I am reading here that they take WEEKS OR EVEN MONTHS to reply. This is ILLEGAL, UNETHICAL, UNACCEPTABLE and UTTER DISRESPECT FOR CUSTOMERS. Period. I request IMMEDIATE refund of these membership charges & manual update of my account status to reflect my active 1-year membership. Frankly, I find it utterly SHOCKING that an institution of ACAMS's global standing lacks a reliable automated confirmation system and a 24/7 support centre, particularly given the high fees involved. While I was looking forward to pursuing the CAMS Certification, the lack of technical reliability and support during this process has significantly undermined my confidence in ACAMS.

I am writing to document my extreme dissatisfaction with both the billing process and the overall value of CAMS membership. First, I have been provided with incorrect pricing information on four separate occasions, resulting in significant confusion and inconvenience. Here is the chronological breakdown of the erroneous information: Initial Price: I was first incorrectly quoted only $200 USD. First Correction: I was then told the total was $200 plus an additional $525 USD for membership. Third Price: I was subsequently informed the correct membership fee is $750 USD (pre-tax). Fourth Price: While I was still trying to resolve the $750 demand, I have just received another separate email demanding $825. This situation is particularly frustrating because had I simply paid the initial $825 total that was showing on my ACAMS portal before proactively reaching out, this entire series of errors would have been avoided. Given the $200 I have already paid, I am now being asked for $750 (totaling $950), while simultaneously being billed for $825. Second, this administrative chaos only reinforces my concern that the value of CAMS has dropped tremendously. The membership benefits have been diluted, while prices for services like webinars have become exorbitant—charging hundreds for live access, and hundreds more to view the recording. When credible alternative providers like the International Compliance Association (ICA) exist, why would anyone want to be associated with an organization that demonstrates this level of incompetence and disregard for its members?

I will give ACMAS 0 star if I can. Half of the time, I can login successfully. The other half, with the same username and password, it led me to reset my password. It also took them a long time for them to confirm the payment as if they do not like money. Be aware that even after paying for the membership, you still need to pay extra money to attend their courses and get credits in order to maintain the membership. Companies do not care if you can maintain the membership or not that much, as long as you have passed the exam once, you are good to go. That is also the reason why you can see people just put ACAMS certificate issue date on Linkedln. Here is ACAMS's "competitors": Simply go to the government AML/ATF related website. To get an overview of AML/ATF, search "international anti money laundering organizations" in your browser. To get specific jurisdiction updates and instructions on how to do your job, search local financial intelligence unit. They are completely free and get updated based on criminal trends. You can also just search up news related to these trends. When I get my job interviews, they will usually ask you if you are familiar with the compliance policy of the jurisdiction the company operates in. Take a good look at that, you do not need ACAMS.

If you need proof that ACAMS is a for-profit enterprise that is only interested in taking your money, please read this review. I've been an ACAMS member for over 15 years, and was invited to speak at their conferences in Las Vegas and Hollywood for almost 10 consecutive years. My presentations always received excellent feedback from the audiences and I generally spoke to packed rooms. I'm a law enforcement professional who retired in 2023 to enter the private sector as a financial crime consultant. I noticed that I was not invited to speak at any of this year's conferences, so I reached out to my contact at ACAMS. I was told they would love to have me speak again, but my company would have to sponsor the event (known in the conference industry as "pay to play".) The message here is that ACAMS is simply not interested in having seasoned professionals share their experiences with the AML community. They want money, period. Also of note, ACAMS has changed ownership twice in the last few years and I began to notice a significant decline in the quality of their offerings. I will not be renewing my membership when it expires this year. There are a lot of other financial crime organizations out there that are worth exploring.

After being unable to do the exam, Vueperson "escalates" the issue to ACAMS, which then sends back to Vueperson. A complete joke. I wish I had seen these reviews first. What a shame. The profit-making enterprise won't last long this way. Who cares right ?!

As has happened with many professional associations, ACAMS was sold to a for-profit enterprise (regardless of their tax-status) and revenue and profit are the key focal points of the organization. Besides their accreditation programs being excessively priced, their customer service is abysmal and the instructors they hire to conduct classes are just trying to get through the curriculum rather than trying to ensure anyone learns something. They're performing an upgrade to their LMS which takes it offline for those trying to complete their coursework and the downtime is 3 entire days. This illustrates clearly that they haven't got the necessary IT skills to manage what should be a much simpler (and faster task). This experience is similar to other "professional organizations" (e.g. ATD) where they get the tax benefit of being "not for profit", but trust me... it's a very profitable business for the owners.

ACAMS is a scam. Despite lacking concrete evidence, they threatened to revoke my certification, which I earned legitimately on December 11th. Now, they're demanding an additional $100 for an alternate exam, unjustly placing the burden on me. This experience feels like unwarranted mental harassment. After so much time and effort I passed the exam and now to make more money they have started this business. This is the most awful experience.

Is it a scam to loot candidates? I passed my exam on 1st December 2023 , I received a mail from acams on 14march 2024 that my certificate has been suspended siting below resons: "Specifically, your CAMS exam on 12/1/2023 surpassed our threshold for Extreme Similarity, which typically indicates the use of shared exam content, often from an exam dumps site, the use of which are prohibited for reasons explained below. ACAMS certification questions are the copyrighted intellectual property of ACAMS, and copying, reproducing, distributing, or sharing is strictly prohibited, as stated in the Test Taker Agreement you signed prior to taking the exam (See highlighted sections of the Test Taker Agreement, attached). Furthermore, by signing the Test Taker Agreement, you represented that you had not received exam questions from others. Lastly, the Test Taker Agreement informs you of potential penalties for failing to abide by the requirements including, but not limited to revocation of your certification and ACAMS membership. " I was in shock reading after reading the mail. All my a year of hardwork and huge exam fee is on stake because of their algorithm which states that I might have got all the acams questions from some source. I was amazed by this reason so I went online searching is it even possible to get real exam questions of Acams so easily? Prestigious exams like acams is giving reasons that I might have used real exam questions available somewhere ,God knows where, if it was this easy to get exam questions every body would have passed and would have saved their retake money. Acams has all the things designed in such a way where they can charge you for every thing be it rescheduling,retaking whatever. Anyways ,they gave me two options, either to appeal or to retake with their minimum fee. I formally appealed giving all the evidences of my preparation from last one year ,my notes, my short notes everything but I received a mail today that it has been denied and I need to retake the exam because their algorithm states of using outside exam materials to pass the exam. I mean ,are they even for real? Can they give me proofs of having used other study materials? How can they dupe me of my hard earned money and what about my time invested and the trauma they are causing ? They need to understand that it's a lot of money and several months of time which has been invested despite being a full time professional. I want to challenge this, can someone guide me how to take it legally which doesn't involve cost. I won't pay a single penny and any more time of mine on this useless certification which has no ethics.