ACE Fitness Avis 

Horrible Experience

Enrolled for their Medical exercise specialist (MES) certification. They lost my book in shipment and no one is responding

I wish I could rate this course higher! I was very happy that the material was rigorous and that the certification will mean more because of it. That being said, their testing is utterly ridiculous! I graduated High Honors with a BS in Health Education PLUS took a semester of Harvard Medical School Emeritus Health Coach coursework to prep and you would think I've never taken a health course in my life! One section on chronic disease was so extensive, it was like taking Diseases of Man I and II, so like an entire year of class for just 1 of 5 sections! What should have been my favorite section that included nutrition and physical fitness had one of the worst lecture series I've ever seen and to test well, you would have had to memorize every vitamin and mineral on the published charts. The statistical data is clearly meant to trip you up...NOT to see if you actually retained the material. Even so, I read each chapter, then re-read the chapters while note taking and highlighting (learned from past courses that just reading a chapter once while highlighting and note taking was NOT enough), watched/screenshot all the video lectures, reviewed again based on those, and STILL failed the section test. Over half of the test question information is never even mentioned in the video lectures and I've had to comb through the chapters to find obscure mentions of the topics! And NO ONE in this day and age needs to "memorize" formulas for calculating health parameters when we all know you can go right to the internet/AI to instantly calculate! They should be there for a coach to understand the concept behind them and how to use for individual clients, NOT to test memory! The tests pick out minute details from the chapter that no one EVER needs to know/memorize, stats that would be ridiculous to memorize even if you have a photographic memory and not anything applicable to a real client or things a coach needs to know. I work full time and this course seems to be set up for someone with nothing else to do in their life! So, now I'm just learning in order to test instead of learning to gain knowledge and I hate that :( Even WITH doing that though, I don't see how anyone passes these tests. I'll see how to proctored exam goes, but honestly cannot imagine how in the world I will pass it. Completely missed opportunity to make this learning a meaningful, joyful, positive experience that can actually get people like me on their way to changing lives to one of the most demoralizing and depressing educational experiences of my life! I've felt ready to give up on it several times already, but just trying to keep plugging away at it until I (hopefully pass) the exam.

ACE agreed to refund $587.50 in February 2025, but after 75+ days, I have received nothing.

When I consulted my bank headquarters, they confirmed no refund or transfer was ever initiated from ACE's end — directly contradicting ACE's claim that the refund is "Completed."

Despite multiple requests, ACE has refused to provide an ARN (Acquirer Reference Number) to verify the transaction. Without this, there is no proof any refund was ever processed.

To make matters worse, my course access was locked immediately after the refund request — meaning ACE is currently holding both my money and the service I paid for.
I have now escalated this to the FTC and relevant consumer protection authorities.
If you are considering purchasing from ACE, be aware that their refund process lacks transparency and accountability.

Horrible company! Cant get a hold of anyone! Now I lost my money and have to go to another company!!! Also the test is out of control. I studying so hard and all the Answers could be true. I took it twice. Enjoy my money ACE. I will make sure no one ever goes to you

ACE Fitness is a scam company do not refund your funds when they say they will had to put in a dispute with my credit card to get my money back. Have non existent customer service people! Horrible experience dealing with this organization !!! Highly DO NOT recommend this company for anything !! Amy Boyd

2 stars for the content - minus 3 for the VERY poor customer service. It takes an Act of God to get someone to respond to an email and the chat is always offline. Not much luck getting through on the phone. Courses are solid but no preview available, you cannot print a transcript so you have to scribble notes or keep pausing and starting. Website not easy to navigate. They will email you daily if you let your cert or Power Pass lapse but seem to conveniently ignore all other inquiries. I've taken several courses whose name was changed so it was difficult to find my certificate. I passed my GX course alomst 4 years ago yet it is still showing as "incomplete" in my portal.... If you are looking for a Personal Training cert, go with NASM or ACSM who has great service and support.

Student support is almost non-existent. There is no place to ask a question, and when you call them, you are either transferred to multiple people prior to being placed on hold (as long as 18 min before I hung up), or the machine operator tells you that nobody at the company is available to take your call, or they offer the option to call you back (only heard that once and nobody did). One lady who took my call told me to access a topic on the website where I could ask my questions but I have not found it amongst the many links. I left 2-3 voice messages throughout the course of a week saying that I can't figure out a short paragraph on pg 515 and received no reply and asked if they thought that I had done something to someone in customer service and that if they thought that, that it wasn't me, because I'm unable to get through to anybody. I do not even WANT to talk with them now, and I'm just regretting that I even purchased this from them entirely.

Terrible customer service. My textbook was lost in shipping and I've spent a week trying to get hold of anyone. Chat doesn't work. Email doesn't work. Phone doesn't work. Take your business elsewhere

No online proctor ever showed up. So I lost my chance to take the test. Now I have lost my money and have no opportunity to test since it was a re-schedule, unless I want to pay hundreds of dollars. Because their online proctor never showed up! I showed up.

ACE is a very real structured organization that is designed to make money and insult one’s time and intelligence. The past failure rate is very poor 1 out of 3 or 65%. Seems like if you were in a business to help change lives or save lives you would have the goal more attainable than 65%. I believe that they deliberately arrange their test questions according to the ones you miss during your study sessions. Also a lot of the questions are never clearly discussed when you’re studying for the exam. The proctor system is a total waste. Very unprofessional and time consuming. I called to make a complaint and tell of my experience a week ago and a representative said they would get back with me but as usual no response.

I purchased a website build service from ACE FITNESS for $479, expecting to receive the agreed-upon deliverables. However, I have yet to receive anything in return for my payment. They want me to spend more money for a different service. There was no indication at the time of purchase that I would be ineligible for a refund or transfer of services after a 6 month period.

I was informed by email after purchase, that if my content form was not submitted within six months of the purchase date, additional fees might apply. The additional fees are actually an entire new purchase of nearly $400/year. This critical information about the six-month expiration policy was not disclosed until after the purchase was made, which seems both deceptive and potentially fraudulent.

As a longtime customer of Dr Sears Wellness Institute (now owned by ACE), I am extremely disappointed and concerned about the fairness of this transaction. It feels like a "use it or lose it" trap, where essential terms were hidden until after purchase.

I urge others to be cautious and ensure they fully understand all terms and conditions before making a purchase with this company. Those terms and conditions probably don't exist. My experience has been frustrating and has raised serious concerns about their business practices.

This company is pretty bad, I've enrolled on the health coach program and after 1 month they told me on my dashboard that i must take personal trainer course to take my exam , so i told them i can't take the course because it's expensive for me as a student after that i told them i wanna make a refund they told me i can't because my refund is expire but i kept talking to them to take my money back and they were pretty slow on the process of the refund and there's someone on there team told me we will take 30% of your money i agreed on this but after they gave me my money back they took more than 30% like the lied on me!!!, for real i don't recommend this website

They are an awful company they do not listen at all. I bought there GFI course and then when done went to try to take the test first it wasn’t working and they told me take in person which I can’t do not possible when I asked for me money back because I couldn’t take it they said sorry not our problem. So I’m not able to get certified now. I highly suggest going somewhere else. Bad company and bad tech support.

when i got my certification abt 5 years ago, Ace offered great customer service. That is no longer true. It's very difficult contacting anyone for help and Im running out of options for CE. I've tried to download a couple of classes but they won't show up in my account. Im wasting more time just trying to keep my certification current. The offer online chats but lately no one is available to chat.
Terrible customer service

I received my PT certification here. I bought a hardcopy of the book, the workbook & access to ACE Answers. The best part was the study group. The practice tests were also helpful.

I did received some CE classes for free through my ACE membership, and I feel that I learned a lot about the industry. I do most of my CE classes through NASM & I do get ACE credit if I get the "special code" from NASM so that ACE can find it in the catalog. I thought the process of counting CE was straight forward. The one time I did have a question, I was able to get it answered by phone right away.

I recieved my certification from this company. It was a wealth of information i loved.
HOWEVER, trying to do continuing ed was a difficult task. I got poor information regarding the process.