AmeriCamp  Avis 

Stay FAR FAR away from this company as not only are they dishonest and rude to applicants they are now acting illegally by not offering a refund for application fees 2020. I have reported them to many watchdog companies but need as many people who have also experienced their terrible service to do so as well as the more complaints they get then the more likely they will be investigated.

1) Report them to the CMA (The Competition and Markets Authority) who have issued a statement saying- "Consumers can normally be offered credits, vouchers, re-booking or re-scheduling as an alternative to a refund, but they should not be misled or pressured into doing so, and a refund should still be an option that is just as clearly and easily available". This is just part of their statement but by law companies who's service has been affected by Coronavirus must offer a full or part refund. Americamp are REFUSING to do this. The CMA are investigating and will take legal action against companies who aren't offering refunds so the more times Americamp is reported to them then the quicker they will be to investigate.

2) Report them to The Trading Standards Authority. This can be done through your local citizens advice service. The Manchester trading standards where Americamp operate out of have stated- "If a trader had a 'no refunds' policy, it is likely to be an unfair trading practice. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibits unfair trading practices". Americamp have a no refunds policy which is therefore going against legislation but and even during the current Coronavirus crisis they are still refusing to issue any compensation. Again the more complaints the Trading Standards Agency gets about their breach in the refunds policy the more pressure will be put on Americamp.

3) The Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that a consumer must receive a 'satisfactory quality' and 'fit for purpose' when paying for a service and if not should be eligible for a refund. Neither of these requirements have been met considering the huge lack of support and help i have received from Americamp this year and more importantly i have ultimately not gone to camp this summer through no fault of my own so the service which i have paid a lot of money for is not 'fit for purpose' as i have not received what i was promised when paying the huge fees. Therefore we should be entitled to some sort of refund as neither of these requirements have been met by Americamp this year.

4) Request a FOIA (freedom of information act) to Americamp to fully disclose how the application fees have been spent so that they are now unable to to refund any of our money. I was told on the phone by one of the staff members that I couldn't receive a refund as 'all the money which I have paid to Americamp have already been spent'. This is a blatant lie considering they are offering to transfer all the fees over to next summer so if they have already 'spent all my money' where would the money come from for the fees for next year.

We as very unhappy applicants which have been treated extremely poorly by Americamp need to keep reporting them to watchdog companies and continuing to email them with all our complaints. I have sent them 3 emails in the past week stating all the issues and more which i have highlighted above all of which they have failed to reply to, but the more pressure we put on them the more likely they will have to refund us some of our fees.
Not only is Americamp shocking in their service and i have had an awful experience dealing with them over the past year but moreover they continue to delete my reviews on trust pilot and are now acting illegally by refusing to issue any refund when many companies offering a similar service are offering refunds.
Stay far away from this scam company as their lies on their website saying they are the best rated company for the past couple of years are clearly doctored considering they delete any bad review about them.
Hopefully now that their true dishonest and illegal practices have been revealed they will finally be brought to justice.

One of the worst and most dishonest companies I’ve ever come across. 1 star is being generous given what a scam this company is. Firstly the fees being advertised on their website are false. The fees in reality are much higher and at every stage of the application they demand more and more money. For example for a piece of paper to be sent they charged £40. Once you’ve paid the fees the bad level of customer service goes to non existent. I did not receive any help or support in regards to the Covid situation despite them claiming that they were offering their applicants lots of support and regular phone calls. I received nothing?
They are rude and aggressive on phone calls and made me feel backed into a corner in regards to my application.
The most disgusting part of this company comes in regards to them offering NO refunds on the fees for this year despite all the camps being closed and there being no chance of us going to camp this year. This is scandalous considering their dishonest application fees which are much higher than expected and the fact that nearly every other company are offering a refund. For them to deprive young people of their hard earned money is disgraceful.
Never ever go with this company as it will be a miserable experience from start to finish.
Even worse they keep deleting bad reviews which clearly so many people feel about this company which just goes to show how dishonest and desperate they are to keep up this scandalous company.

I would give zero stars but that sadly isn’t an option. Since the start (I signed up September 2019), I’ve felt very unsupported by the team at AmeriCamp. When I raised concerns with my application, I felt as though they just brushed it off and didn’t actually listen to me. They claim they helped, but I definitely didn’t feel like that by any members of the team I spoke to throughout the course of the process. Then, to make matters worse COVID-19 hit. I expressed my concerns as I’m asthmatic and didn’t feel comfortable going (at this point, they were adamant it’d go ahead). Their only response was “we can sort insurance to cover you if you catch it”, which isn’t reassuring when it could affect me very badly. They deleted the WhatsApp group and any posts where people asked questions so we were left feeling alone and unsupported. Then it was announced that we couldn’t go so were offered deferrals, which I explained due to my circumstances were not an option. I then got told that I would be left out of pocket, but if I did defer I would get bonus stuff thrown in for free. I raised the point that this was unfair to offer these people what they paid for and additional extras, whereas no refunds for those who couldn’t. The staff got increasingly more angry and unpleasant to deal with and I honestly would advise avoiding this company at all costs. Yes they pay more than others, but the service is horrendous so it’s not worth it.

Please share this post for me! It seems Americamp are ripping off UK students who may be already struggling due to Covid19 restrictions. It seems many students who have paid around £300 each to work for Americamp this summer have been refused refunds from this company! No fault of their own these students can no longer fly to US and not only that the camps have actually been shut down and will not take place. Even so they are refusing to refund this money to these young people! Scandalous actions with no responsibility being taken by this company. Any others affected please comment I feel we need to take this further but have no idea where to start 😡

I had a great start to the whole process- AmeriCamp had been so helpful throughout the way. I was all set for the 'summer of a lifetime'...
Then COVID-19 struck. From the start, AmeriCamp had been unwilling to answer any questions regarding COVID-19, dismissing it with a simple 'we are confident the summer will still be going ahead'. It's great to stay positive and calm about a situation, but at the same time myself and a lot of my peers felt it was ignorant to leave the possibility summer would not be going ahead out of the equation. Truthfully, even from the week that lockdown was announced and people thought things might be back to normal, we knew there would be no way that camp would go ahead as normal.
So, from here the running of AmeriCamp seemingly went downhill - more and more people had by this point realised that their 'summer of a lifetime' was in jeopardy, and rightly so had questions - which is what the WhatsApp group is usually used for.
When asking questions which would be useful to others (hence why they were asked in front of the hundreds of peers), they were yet again dodged with a blanket 'no need to worry', or the occasional 'if you message me I will be happy to answer any questions x' from the "social media manager". In PMs with said " manager", you got the same question dodging as in chat. As people who have not only paid a lot of money for the service, but have also put a lot of time into our applications, it was disappointing to say the least that our questions were being unanswered and dismissed. What was even more shocking, was the unwillingness to help after the company had been so useful up to this point. Me and my peers also found that later down the line, we were fed information based on second guesses, just as quick reassurance. The US embassy was initially closed until 1 month before most people were supposed to be leaving for camp, and one part of the process is having to go to the embassy to obtain the special J1 VISA. Rather than telling us that they didn't have the answers and they weren't sure when the embassy was going to be open, they just told us that the embassy WOULD reopen and we would all be able to get our VISAs ok.
Where next? Oh yeah, the deleting of the WhatsApp group. Upon joining the program, you are put into a WhatsApp group with hundreds of others who are also applying to the program, along with staff members who are usually on hand to answer questions quickly. That was true, until COVID-19. One day, after more and more people had 'kicked off' in the group asking for answers, we were all told that the staff were unable to handle the volume of questions and that we would all be removed from the group. This was incomprehensible to most of us - there were definitely no more questions here than there were before, and the staff could have muted the chats if they needed a break (which we would fully be able to understand - everybody needs a break some time!). The staff also worked from home a lot and I can't imagine they're having to deal with much placement at the moment, so I can't see why they couldn't be answering questions. Instead, a lot of us think that this was to cut us off from one another - the staff knew we had many friends in the group, and that we used this as a platform for chatter and not just questions.
Luckily, a number of us have a few groups other than the official one, where we were all pretty shocked and mutually agreed that something was not quite right about all of this. I think the most recent, and final stand, has been the deletion of posts in the Facebook group. A member in a seperate group had created the group initially, and retained his admin status, so could see a staff member deleting any negative posts about the company. As of late, negative reviews have also been deleted, hence my review being written here, where I know it will not be taken down. Shame on you, AmeriCamp. I know I am not alone in feeling like I have been treated like a schoolchild.

Beware .... these people are taking money when they know the camps won’t go ahead ! Then no refund ! Shocking behaviour .

Honestly, not worth the headache! Staff are horrendous, as is the service. I can definitely recommend Camp America or Camp Leaders as a better alternative though! Happy Camping 👀

UNTRUSTWORTHY AND UNRELIABLE. I don't know if it's the worst out of all American camp agencies, but it certainly is veeeeerrrrryyyyyyy bad. All of my friends who also applied through AmeriCamp shared the same opinion (and there's like 10 of us).
They give you different information across all of their communication channels. They forgot to put through my application for A MONTH, until I wondered why no camp had contacted me yet and reached out to a camp myself - and then they told me that OOPS, my application wasn't live. Then they charged me more than the website said, and I had to exchange a whoooollle bunch of emails with them to get my money back.
You're not going to get help with your taxes after you return from camp. YES, TAXES - you think they'll tell you about all the consequences of your trip to America? No, they won't. They just want your money. Sure, the salary might be the highest but the quality of customer service is TRAGIC and you will get a lot of this salary taxed and taken away from you.
Please don't use AmeriCamp. It will be a bad experience, same as to me and my friends.

AmeriCamp are very insightful, they provided me with a lot of information that prepared me for camp!! I am so happy that I went with this agency as they were very friendly and helpful since the beginning. There were many benefits from the beginning such as making sure that I was on track with my application, being there to answer questions all the time and always listening and responding to any issues that I had. AmeriCamp allowed me to have an excellent experience and has changed me for the better as I’ve learnt a lot more about myself

Had a fantastic time doing AmeriCamp this summer, couldn’t have asked for a better experience, and received so much support and guidance throughout the whole process.

Had one of the best summers of my life thanks to AmeriCamp. Would 10/10 recommend to anyone looking for an amazing experience.

Loved it so much! Such hard work, hardest work I've ever had to do; but honestly the most rewarding and shown me what it feels like to love a job. Made lifelong friends and connections. Best time of my life so far.

10/10 would recommend americamp if you want to have the best summer of your life, I seriously wouldn’t be the person I am today without americamp!❤️

Thank you so much for giving me the best summer of my life! AmeriCamp prepared me for this experience by explaining the visa process, the application stages and exactly what to expect when I arrived at Camp. I could not have done it without them.

Life changing experience would really recommend to anyone looking to go experience an American summer camp.

I had such a great summer at AmeriCamp working as a councillor. The team are amazing and always happy to help. The process was so easy and straight forward, everything was explained well and I couldn’t recommend a company enough.

An amazing experience.
The application process was straight forward. I have made friends for life all over the world and it gave me so many opportunities. I also got paid a considerable amount more than people at the same camp who used different companies.

Honestly such a brilliant company - everyone there genuinely cares about you and will help you as much as they can with whatever you need. They’re there every step of the way and are constantly supportive, encouraging and approachable. Can’t recommend them enough!

A great experience! Honestly, if you are thinking about applying, just go for it! They are a fair, awesome company that will help you out if you have any questions; they get back asap and are on top of all the application stages. There is a reason they have such a good acceptance rate and it’s because they are genuine about helping people out! As I said, I had an incredible experience - without a doubt the best summer of my life generally growing as an individual and seeing more of the world whilst doing it... so, just do it! :)

I had the best summer of my life thanks to AmeriCamp! They are there to support you every step of your application and are always at the end of a phone to answer any questions you have. I will definitely be returning and using their services again! 🇺🇸