1 star
1 star
As a parent, I want to warn others about what happened when my son enrolled in the Certificate IV (22582VIC) at RMIT. We received two separate written confirmations that his application was accepted and that the course would be delivered fully online — the only reason he applied at all, since he was applying from the UK. RMIT confirmed this was absolutely fine and told him to go ahead and pay his enrolment fee, which he did — a higher fee than a student in Australia would pay, specifically because it was structured as an online enrolment from overseas.
Based on those confirmations, he enrolled and paid in good faith. Shortly after, despite RMIT being fully aware he was studying online from Scotland — it was the entire basis of his enrolment and fee — they began sending him negative attendance emails for not showing up on campus in Melbourne. He was never meant to be on campus at all.
By the time this contradiction came to light, the application windows for every other institution he could have applied to had already closed — he had no fallback, because he reasonably believed he was set with RMIT.
We cancelled before the census date, exactly as RMIT itself advised. Despite that, and despite this being entirely RMIT's error from the outset — an RMIT staff member apologised to us directly in writing "for the inaccurate information that was provided" — we are still waiting on a refund of almost $8,000, which was every cent of my son's savings. Our complaint (ref SE7417091) has been sitting with them with no meaningful resolution since.
We've since found that the specific course code RMIT enrolled him in (22582VIC) reached the end of its accreditation period in mid-2026 and has been superseded — raising further questions about how this enrolment was managed from day one.
We are now being forced into lodging a formal complaint with the Victorian Ombudsman just to get Tom's money back — money he now needs to find another way to get his qualification. No family should have to escalate to an external ombudsman to recover funds for a mistake RMIT has already admitted, in writing, was theirs.
This situation has cost my son a genuine opportunity, both educationally and professionally, through no fault of his own — only RMIT's mistake and their ongoing silence. If you're considering RMIT, be aware that their written confirmations may not be reliable, and when they get it wrong, families are left to absorb the cost while nothing moves.
