ACAMSReviews of acams.org

J'ai passé l'examen du CAMS ce matin et j'ai été désagréablement surpris par l'écart entre la formation et l'examen. ​J'ai réussi l'examen avec un score de 84/120, soit 70 % de bonnes réponses. Or sur les tests en ligne de l'ACAMS (755 questions), mon taux de bonnes réponses était de 87 %, soit 105/120. Comment un tel écart est-il possible ? La formation et les tests en ligne ne reflètent que très partiellement l'examen. Mon expérience et la logique ont contribué à répondre à de nombreuses questions. ​Dans la formation, il y a une option pour des classes virtuelles qui avaient été souscrites par mon employeur. Si vous financez vous-même la formation, je ne pense pas que cela soit réellement utile.

Supposed to be a professional licensing organization. More likely to find professionals at a lemonade stand run by toddlers. Organization is willing to lie to you, mislead you and outright never get their information correct...but still somehow expects full payment. Customer support is sort of helpful, but also the ones that lied. I love the feeling of being defrauded by the organization that certifies I can work in anti-fraud.

For me ACAMS turned out to be a waste of money unfortunately. Material provided doesn't worth the price they charge for the course plus a very high cost of yearly membership that gives you nothing apart from useless webinars. I don't recommend it at all. Save your money and do a course that actually will make a difference.

Customer support was terrible. I started reading reviews and I am so happy I did not pay money to ACAMS. Following to see if the reviews change.

I am deeply sad to dont see my name on graduate list and got a answer from ACAMS ( never see when you are graduate you have to pays always to have your name on list). I faced so many struggle while preparing, despite health issues i payed for renew twice my membership, work in many difficuties du to my health, i want to cry for disappointment. Every thing is money with ACAMS only money!

I am a certified member of ACAMs. I do appreciate the importance of the certification and awareness on AML and CFT (Counter-terrorist Financing) but This organization needs a lot of work to do in terms of their Syllabus, Examination preparation and resources, training and most of all Customer services. For a new certification body i find them trying to get your money with minimal returns. They get your money but everything is quite substandard. 1) customer services - They are very slow in responding in all queries and troubleshooting. Particular experience I had was when my access to my profile and review materials were lost and I asked for help and trouble shooting. They replied after a month which did not resolve the problem and it took them another month for them to resolve. They have to move my start date as I lost some months till my eligibility. Another issue was when i had questions on the review materials, where I find quite inconsistent and practice questions that have questionable answers... they never come back to me after I followed up again after a month, then they told me "You have an outdated material, please access new one on your profile....Where is the notification??? Do i have to read the study guide again???" 2) training, syllabus and examination prep - Way to expensive with less information. The research and pulling materials outside is the candidate's work. No notification if there were updates (as mentioned above). The Study Guide only has 4 chapters and its just like story telling with some cases. They just drop names or people and organizations and typologies and literatures, Candidate has to pull the typologies and and literatures to numerous sites (even if they have an appendix with all the sites and links, most of them dont work... better google them... (risk is you may miss any updates or you may pull the outdated files). There are only 125 practice questions and the Organization does not even have test banks or maybe a committee that would help candidates to be prepared in terms of practice questions. (Tbh, AML Trainings in my company and questions are way better an challenging). For a very expensive training/certification course, they have to provide more materials than a set 300 page study guide, an audiobook (which cannot be downloaded and only encourages candidate to slack of from the reading) and a PDF version of a flashcard that i didnt even use. The video lectures are not packed with information so better read the study guide. Without practice tests its so hard to guage if you are ready or not. It burns out most candidates with the too much reading then when the exam comes, you laugh at the exams because others questions are common sense answers and others are not even in the scope of the study guide (per my opinion) , and you just have to make your an intelligent answer. I joined some of the webex trainings and i find it most of them are courses through advertising the organization and its importance instead of technicalities. I gone tired and instead read textbooks and watch AML Documentaries lol 3) Membership, Examination fees and Rescheduling - Very Expensive. Membership is 295USD which i dont see much incentives like discounts to materials, trainings etc (unlike other professional association), Examination rescheduling fees is a whopping 100USD (consider your exchange rates). Clearly, ACAMS is really trying to get your money. 4) Value on your profession - Maybe it adds an additional letters under your name. Is it worth it? You be the judge. Will you be able to use this? Yes, but other certification bodies on compliance such as CIA, CRMA. CFSA would be a better cheaper choice to think AML is just a portion of their work. :) One more thing I remember, they should have a code of professional ethics,, and include it as part of their curriculum. I will have to see how the certification will affect me professionally and my bargaining power in getting a new job.