CIMA Opiniones 

Paid money to do Gateway. Paid my annual subscriptions. Hard to get any help whatsoever. They removed Gateway without informing me. No way of getting hold of CIMA via email. Never answered calls. Only way to get hold of them was when you paid them money (& that was a hassle too). When I moved with work from Europe to Malaysia I was contacted by their Malaysian office, only to be told my course no longer existed and I could buy another one. Yet again no help or support offered, let alone any form of refund. Terrible institution.

Firm is a joke. Been a Fellow for 12 years plus and every year it gets worse and worse. Will apply to join ANY OTHER institution to get away from these muppets.

I've been a member for many years. Each year, CIMA emailed (more recently texted) to remind you to pay your membership which is due on the 1st Jan
With their "upgrade" to being more US friendly, since 2024, they no longer send reminders
When you do finally remember yourself, they charge you an extra £199 for lapsing membership. That would be fine if received a reminder, otherwise its just underhand money making
The website is geared for America - even down to inputting your address and although my membership number has apparently changed with bringing in AICPA, this was not communicated with me at all

Extremally unhelpful and unprofessional.
I have been registered as a CIMA student for 4 years. CIMA has suspended my membership this year without letting me know.
Haven't received a single email from them in over a year, and booked meanwhile in 2024 4 exams and not once did they ask me to pay the student fees. CIMA suspended my account and I have been chasing them for the last 4 months to rejoin without success. Apparently there is an IT issue due to which I can't rejoin. IT issue which seems like it taking over 4 months to be solved.
I have been calling them every week and no updates. I have only two exams to sit in order to get qualified, and I am missing now for the second time the window for sitting the case study, so infuriating, I am close to losing my apprenticeship becuase of this unsolved issue being dragged for months.

The customer service is terrible. It results that it is impossible to cancel an invoice which has not been issued properly by CIMA and to issue a new one and it I had to reach out to them every day for 1 week to at least receive a reply different than: "please wait 1-3 working days". 130 pounds membership fee should at least guarantee a decent customer service but this is not the case with CIMA.

I applied to become a member in practice at the beginning of June 24, and they still have not communicated or processed my application; the worst part is I have been chasing them up, and no one has had the courtesy to reply to emails or call me back to let me know the status, been a member for many years, very disappointed, feels like I don't exist for them.

Extremely Poor Service

It’s been a nightmare dealing with Cima . First they stopped offering services in japan and didn’t bother to tell me. Only found out after I took 6weeks off work to prepare only to be toldcant write exams any more. My certificate for MCS still not here after 8months.

Then the communication is so so dreadful. They reply after a month if they even reply. I don’t understand what is going on .

Passed my case study eight months ago and still don't have a certificate..... Standard response of delays due to 'unforeseen circumstances' - how hard is it to print a piece of paper!? People's careers are on the line here.

Awful. Called and waited over 30 minutes to be connected. Spoke to a person who promised to change a few things wrong with my online account. He told me that he will write to me when he has done it . It is now about 3 weeks, nothing has been done. I had a customer survey request about 10 days ago and i replied and presented details of how I have been treated. Even this has not triggered any action. What is happening with CIMA ??????

Tried to renew my FLP membership but it will not let me "Oops! Technical glitch. Please try again." I had my Case study exam I had booked for May cancelled as wont let me renew. And now it is just call after call to them for them to tell me a ticket is raised and has been escalated with IT to resolve. I just want to pay them and get on with studying. Terrible service.... And no end in sight.

Paid for FLP premium yesterday and the payment left my bank. Went to go into my CIMA account to access it, and my account is exactly the same as before i transferred, cant access FLP at all. Ive received no confirmation or invoices. Theyve taken the money but i have nothing to show for it.

Ive contacted them numerous times and they just say wait a few days, or tell me to email another email address which ive done and get no response. Im now over £2000 out of pocket and cant claim it back from my employer as i have no invoice.

They dont care about students at all, customer service are so unprofessional its a joke. Wish i had stayed wih kaplan tuition rather than changing.

I have been going round in circles for 2 months to try change my surname in MyCIMA. I have phoned numerous times and been told to send an email, then when I email I am told that AICPA cannot help me with CIMA enquiries and to phone them.

The membership is extortionate for minimal benefit and terrible service. Wont be renewing again.

Thanks
Louise

Awful website/member experience these days. As a (US based) member for MANY years the website auto routes me to AICPA links, directs me to take my student exams(!), the chatbot is utterly useless and the US based phone number is for AICPA who “cannot help with anything CIMA related.” Had to CALL the UK from the US as there’s no email for issues/enquiries, which cost a fortune. This is dreadful customer service for a very expensive membership.

I received an email saying my exam had been cancelled even though my subscription had not expired. I’ve gone on to renew my subscription with no luck. I then rang the London office, and I advised I would like for them to renew over the phone so I can sort out rebooking my exam which has been cancelled for no reason. The payment wouldn’t go through. I then tried on 3 different browsers myself and it allows for the authentication through my mobile banking app however when I approve CIMA won’t take the payment. I’ve emailed on 2 occasions with no response. Not only have I wasted hours trying to sort this out I have also lost out on valuable time to study outside of work and day to day life. This is ridiculous and this is a common problem with CIMA which they still have not fixed. I’m beyond angry and frustrated.

Very similar to some of the others reviews.

Finding it impossible to contact them. No email responses (I had an email exchange a year ago which I followed up on), cant get through on the phone, cant get through on chat.

So, sadly, I cant renew. Luckily my professional reputation and experience now counts for far more than their accreditation.

When will organisations learn than the chronic under resourcing of customer service teams is a downhill slope to oblivion.

Abysmal service since CIMA taken over by AICPA. I have been in touch to arrange remission of fees since I am going on maternity leave and my income will drop significantly. I was originally advised back in October that I would need to write a letter to request this and send to a specific email address. I did this on 4th Jan, received no response, followed up on 11th Jan, got no response. I then phoned CIMA helpline on 29th Jan and after being on hold for ages, they advised that only the online chat advisors could help. After several attempts where I got a message saying that all chat advisors are busy, I finally got through. The advisor updated my cart and applied the remission discount to my membership renewal but I was then unable to proceed to checkout. I got in touch with the chat advisors again who said it's an IT issue and that I would be contacted by email within 3 days. It's now 7th Feb, I have not been contacted by CIMA as promised and so I have tried the chat line again. All advisors busy. Really abysmal. I am now considering cancelling my membership permanently. Anyone knows how to make a formal complaint to CIMA, please?

Update: I have now found out that the only way to complain to CIMA is to do it via the online chat advisors... who are always busy (have taken numerous screenshots). Brilliant strategy... they won't receive any complaints because the chat is ALWAYS busy. It's like the circle of doom of poor customer service

CIMA has been taken over by an American institute (AICPA) and respect for its members is now non-existent. CIMA regularly take unilateral action to completely undermine members’ interests with no consultation and cannot be trusted to provide a respected finance certification for members into the future. They have recently introduced a heavily compromised pathway to qualification that is only 3 exams - as long as you pay the subscription fee, “FLP” they call it. Not worth the paper it’s written on!

I have applied for the CFO Programme – and I have been accepted.
However, I found all process very unusual.
It looks to me that this CFO Programme is run by a sales team and anyone who can write CV and LinkedIn profile briefly matching very broad criteria can be accepted as long as they can pay 7k asap.
My application has been processed within 2 days, sales person checked my LinkedIn and then I received an email from an employee from Business Development which appears to be also sales, saying I have been accepted and I need to pay 7k ideally asap as the places may run out - all sales tricks to put pressure on people to pay quickly without providing proper information about the course.
The email has been sent from generic email address by employee working in the Business Development but only his first name was mentioned no surname or any information on his position in the business or where the office is located.
Attached was very simple registration form in excel. Who is processing excel forms now ? why this is not handled via CIMA website to add some credibility? Any scammer could easily hack to this process.
When I was applying for my Master degree my education and work experience was scrutinised by an academic not a sales person. What sales person knows about finance and accounting?
Also all this language like Elite programme etc and sales tricks don’t really make it feel like it is anything Elite. It feels more like a scam and it is surprising CIMA Accounting Professional Institute doesn't seem to care about appearances.
I called CIMA to verify if this email from the Business Development person was genuine as I thought it might be a scam. The person in the Customer Service with African accent, told me that they don’t have information on this programme and the only people who I can contact is Business Development as they handle everything also complains about Business Development. The only way to contact them is via email as there are no phones to the Business Development. I called again and then I spoke to another person with Philippine accent saying same thing. I raised my concerned saying it looks like CIMA is outsourcing Customer Service to factory call centres in India, Philippines and Africa who have no idea what is going on and the only thing they do is to read from a manual.
I wonder where they process application and all data they are collecting on these excel forms?
I was working in Bangalore, and there was a strict policy about collecting and protecting all kinds of data on purpose-built system not excel which can be copied, downloaded and sold to scammers.

It appears CIMA system could be easy to hack to for example an employee or a hacker can give me their personal bank account or other fake account and I will pay 7K to their bank account as there is no way of verifying anything independently.

I sent an email to the same Business Development employee who communicated with me via generic email, asking for explanation and haven’t heard back, which is concerning. This kind of email I could have received from someone who hacked a system.
I also sent e-mail to futurestudents and received reply saying that someone else will contact me.
People in Poland were helpful and tried to help but they only assured it is legitimate without giving any details and forwarded my emails to the UK as this was outside of their jurisdiction. Contact details to the Polish team I got from a friend of mine otherwise I would not be able to contact them as I could not see their contact details on CIMA website.

On CIMA website there is no information how to or where to send formal complains. There is info on how to report members but nothing about where to report CIMA.

I decided it is not worth to go through this program and pay 7k because if CIMA continue to practice this, no one will pay attention to CIMA qualification – it will be completely discredited.
Update: I have received an email from Sarah who is Director, Business Development UK. She did not addressed any of my concerns. In her email she claimed that CIMA is following robust process then she asked if im still interested in the course and ignored my repeated question where to report CIMA. I think she was only interested to know if I will be paying 7k and signing up for the course. It is difficult to find more unprofessional approach in any other organisation not to mention we are dealing here with accounting professional institute.
Update no. 2: I have received an email from Vice President, Professional Standards and Conduct and a lawyer. Didnt addressed my concerns properly and said Polish team explained all - which is not correct. On two occasions he told me he will take legal action against me for defamation.

CIMA set up an unauthorised payment and in effect stole £75. Their response is pathetic

Ashamed to be associated with a professional body that is SO unprofessional.

Every year membership renewal is torture - but this year has been ridiculous.

I've been told problems relate to the AICPA merger back in APRIL 2023!

Laughable.