4Geeks Academy Reviews 

I signed up to do the 4Geeks Academy cybersecurity bootcamp that was supposed to begin mid-January. 3 days before the course was due to start they shifted the entire start and end date by 2 weeks to "give people more time to do the pre-work".

The course started and the people who were granted more time showed up still without having done the work or downloaded the programs they asked us for. We wasted 2 classes sitting listening to them get help to install programs and do work they were supposed to have done weeks ago. Granted that is not 4Geeks fault but it's pitched as entry level and people showed up expecting it to be entry level not even having basic IT skills which 4Geeks don't bother to test for.

Our first tutor left the company after a week or two. He was replaced by one of the mentors for a week, a week in which we spent all 3 classes doing the work of one class because of the people who barely understood what was going on and still didn't have all the programs they needed. He was replaced by another tutor at which point I tapped out. I found out later that he also left the company and now they're on their fourth tutor. Given how much time I was spending teaching myself the curriculum I felt it would be better to save my money and continue doing that.

The refund process has been a nightmare. Their own contract states pro rata refunds are given 'within 30 business days from date of termination' but they ignored my first two emails requesting the refund, presumably to give the two different people who were emailing and calling me time to try and change my mind. I have since been emailing back and forth with the finance team. They avoided answering my requests at first for information and clarification on my date of termination and refund amount. I first requested it Feb 28th. I was told weeks ago I would "likely" get it within 2 weeks. That didn't happen. Then it was "you'll get 50% of it next week and the other 50% the week after". That didn't happen. Next I heard "you'll get it all back next week". Unsurprisingly, that also didn't happen. As of April 25th I am still waiting for my refund which should be about $4100 USD.

We have long since passed the 30 business days they laid out in their own contract so they've breached that. They have completely given me the run around. They couldn't even do the math on my refund correctly. I had to ask 3 times for them to confirm the figure I had worked out was correct. They corrected it and I asked for their formula since we had very different figures and they came back to say they'd done the math wrong and I was owed a little more than their original figure but less than mine.

I found them unprofessional, lacking in structure and organisation but worst of all is the refund process which has been dragged out to an extreme degree causing a great deal of stress and for me to have to contact the Better Business Bureau and a lawyer. I would recommend you avoid them at all costs.

I am a former student of 4Geeks Academy, Full Stack Developer (2023). I don’t gain anything by writing this, on the contrary: I risk the academy trying to take action against me, but I honestly feel scammed. If with this review I can help even one person avoid wasting the €5,000 that I threw away, I will consider it worth it.

Let me start with the ending: this course is absolutely useless for getting a job. In my class we were 15 students and, more than a year later, only 2 found jobs… and only because they were already programmers before joining. The 4Geeks certificate doesn’t open any doors: companies don’t care about it. The only thing that matters is having a solid portfolio (which you don’t build here, except for the final project).

The most disgraceful part is the false advertising: they promise immediate job opportunities and high salaries, sometimes even before finishing. But when you graduate, suddenly “it all depends on you”: on the thousands of extra hours you put into building a portfolio and accepting months of unpaid internships (some even paid-for). And if you don’t do it, they blame you and wash their hands. Who pays the bills in the meantime? Why don’t they tell you this before charging €5,000? They talk about a “unique method: learning by doing,” which is absolute nonsense, and about becoming a full stack developer in 4 months with barely 100 teaching hours… impossible. In the end you scratch the surface of several languages and master none.

Let me stress this: the average salary in Spain is €1,500 per month. It takes at least two years of saving for a person to gather €5,000. To invest that effort and hope in a course that is absolutely worthless is devastating. That’s why I find it outrageous that they play with people’s expectations.

In summary: this course is pure smoke. Marketing is the only brilliant thing they have — and they do it very well. If you really want to learn, pick one or two languages, invest your time in free tutorials, online communities or even ChatGPT, which teaches more and costs €20 a month (it explains code amazingly). And give it several months of consistent work. Everything is already on the web. Don’t waste your savings.

P.S.: Reviews can be bought…

I graduated from this bootcamp 5 years ago, I'm so happy because it helped me get a career change. Now I have 4 years working in the tech industry! In the past months I've seen how the BootCamp has been improving their services with their career and technical support for life!

The representative on the phone was giving me prices, even before we discussed the payment options, that don't match anything on the website. As a matter of fact, their price for the same online course varies from 3850-4600 if you pay upfront, whereas the representative was trying to sell me on the plan for 5300 telling me that he just applied some 1k discount to make it sound like a good deal. When I noticed when the website says and mentioned to him, on the next day he offered me to pay 4500. Overall, everything on their website is super confusing i.e. "*Discount up to €1700. From €4600 instead of €6300" or "pay upfront and get a discount", but turns out there is no additional discount. Anyhow, when I called him out on this later and tried to clarify how they come up with their prices, he avoided the question, got very rude and demanded that I pay up 6300 for the whole thing.
On top of everything, this is a coding bootcamp, but they have failed to provide a safe payment system online and instead ask to make a weird wire transfer, or pay with crypto, which is super sketchy. They say you can pay by card, but that is actually not the case. These people just can't be trusted.