ProctorU

This was the worst service I have ever received! Their website was giving me issues and I had to contact the customer service online support. I spoke with two representatives one Ahmir and one Shealynn T who had the audacity to take the issue as a personal attack because I expressed my frustration with their site. I will definitely be voicing my issues with ProcorU to all my professors who even try to require me to take tests with this company again and with my educational institution about the entity they are choosing to do business with

I’ve taken several online proctored exams via ProctorU within the last 3 years (approximately 9 online exams per year). To date, I’ve had no issues.
The exam process is pretty straightforward. There is an online tutorial of what to expect posted on their website. My university and fellow colleagues have also filled me in on what happens during a proctored exam. The best thing is to know what to expect prior to your first testing session.
I usually schedule my exams early in the morning before I go to work or on weekends so that I don’t have to wait too long to be matched up with a tutor. My exams are scheduled at least 15 to 20 minutes before the time I want to start. The verification process (checking University ID, 3 to 4 personal questions to verify identity — similar to credit check questions, 360 degree room view — to ensure no one is in the room, and laptop facing a mirror to make sure there are no crib notes on my keyboard or screen, checking of keyboard screenshot shortcuts and unauthorized applications that maybe open in the background) will take that long.
I am sincerely pleased with ProctorU, because it fits my schedule. I travel for work extensively. I could be sitting in a hotel room one day or could be home. The convenience of not having to commute to campus to take my exam is well worth the price.
Also, on a personal note… I have a preference of not wanting to sit next to nervous-​nellies or anxiety-​ridden people during exams. People who slurp their coffees/​RedBulls or chew loudly on their bagels are a bit distracting for me. The last time I sat in a classroom to take an exam, I was cramped in a small wooden desk and the person next to me was eating a egg sandwich. One of my classmates has severe test anxiety and decided to read the questions outloud while rocking back and forth.
I felt bad for him and his test anxiety, but I just couldn’t concentrate during the exam.
All in all, with ProctorU, I can sit at home comfortably on my sofa, desk, or dining room table to take an exam.

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. Do not use this joke of a site. I was asked at least 5 times to let them view my surroundings and room throughout the test. It totally ruined any focus I had (Something I already struggle with). I finished ONE POINT lower the grade I needed to pass the class, ONE POINT. I cannot help but think being constantly interrupted while taking the test was a big factor in this. I am absolutely livid.

Very corporate! This means the only part about you in which they care is your wallet! The part that caused me to cancel this exam before even starting, was that they require you to install a virus on your computer. Let me say that again, A VIRUS! It is well known that the remote viewing app called «LogMeIn» is considered in the computing industry as a virus app. Once you install this app (virus), you can NEVER get rid of it. It gets into the root of your OS like a virus does and cannot be removed. There is no uninstall app provided, and steps listed on several forums with steps on possible removal require major system modifications via the terminal app (Mac), which could fatally disable your computer and worse, end up not even removing this virus!
I requested a different method of proctoring via Skype or Chrome Remote Desktop, both of which are harmless and fully uninstallable. But ProctorU, being the corporate bully that they are, took the position of, this is what we use and if you won’t install [this virus], then we need to end the session. What customer service, «install our virus, or get the hell out!»
I ended up telling my institution that I would not use ProctorU and they will be self proctoring my exams. If enough students let their institutions know that ProctorU is unacceptable, then they will get the message not to use bully corporations like this one. Power to the people!

If I could give this company zero stars, I would.
They have awful customer service and if you are having a problem, don’t expect to actually talk to someone because they will just talk to you like they are reading a script.
They put me on hold for 30 minutes after my session started so by the time it was time to take the test it was past the access deadline. Resulting in a zero.
This sight probably won’t be around for much longer with this terrible service.

Horrible.
If your school offers this an option — I would request another service.
I should have read Unilocal reviews before signing up — since there doesn’t seem to be a single ‘good’ one. Despite going through their ‘system testing’ 3 weeks before my 3 hour exam where everything showed up ‘green’ and good to go (including Video) once I went to get started — all sorts of glitches. In the end, they claimed that my network was ‘blocking video’ — riiigggghhhhttttt. So, we could live chat and they could co-​browse on my network but it was my network blocking the video. Whatever.
I had to cancel the exam after 30 minutes of them trying to get the feed to work.
It is frustrating to study and prepare and be ready for an exam and be reliant on a technically inept operation like this whose business apparently does this one thing and this one thing only. Save your time and money and find another option.

Crazy $ 5 fee if the test isn’t scheduled early… Also, don’t feel real comfortable giving them access to my computer, but I guess I don’t have a choice.

I scheduled an exam through ProctorU and they delayed the beginning of my exam by an hour and a half. Their delay of my exam caused me to miss deadlines that I had for other courses. On the last day of the quarter this delay was very costly and caused me to rush through the exam process. Thanks to the timeliness of ProctorU my grades dropped from an A to a B+. Thanks again ProctorU.

NOT THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE.
I have never had an issue up until today. I would have given them a 5 star rating until this disaster. Brixton B was the name of my proctor today and he is slow, and unprofessional. He took 30 minutes to get me to my test because he proceeded to argue about a black slate that is a fixture in my kitchen table. It is part of the table. He made me do a 360 of the room over 5 times and he made me crawl underneath of my kitchen table to show him what was «Under» my workstation. He held up my test by a half hour when I finally got to it. He paused my video and made me wait a few minutes and said he was sorry I am frustrated. When I asked for another proctor I was denied one.
Great service ProctorU.

Update: I just had a conversation with VP of Operations from ProctorU’s Huntsville office. My complaint was the same as many of the others here. Never allowed to take my exam at my scheduled time. During the phone call, it was explained to me that their proctors are generally working with a queue of testers. Sometimes delays can be caused by technical difficulties experienced by the person in line in front of you. However, even in a smoothly flowing queue, you should not expect to be able to start your test until an average of 10 minutes after your reserved time. This is due to the checks they have to perform with your computer, setup and identity, and is not likely to happen any more quickly. My advice is to schedule your exam 15 minutes earlier than you want to begin taking it, so that all of the pre-​test tasks can be completed. Having this knowledge before scheduling my exams would have helped my experience immensely. Hopefully it helps some others.

I’ve used ProctorU for about a year now and have never had a satisfactory experience.
The proctors are typically polite but aggravating. I’ll verify my information with the first technician, then while I take my exam, I’ll be switched at least 2 times. This most recent time, I finished my exam and told my proctor. My proctor said to submit the exam, which I did. The program where I took the exam is a bit different. It saves your progress as you go, and the exam won’t technically be submitted until the deadline at midnight. I tried telling my technician this multiple times, but he ignored me. He then took control of my desktop and started messing around. Long story short, I waited over half an hour AFTER I finished my exam before he finally said «log out». I was so pissed because I literally finished my exam in 12 minutes… 30 minutes I waited to log out of my exam! My proctor would often wait 4 – 5 minutes before even responding to me.
I avoid this service as much as I can, but it’s hard because sometimes I have to take online classes. I’m writing to my university begging to bring back in-​person proctored services so I do not have to work with ProctorU again.

Today was my first ProctorU experience and I was expecting it to be royal pain after reading the reviews here. I came close to cancelling but the nearest test center is 300 miles away and costs $ 75. I felt it was worth the risk (too lazy and cheap).
To my surprise, everything went very smooth. In fact, I made the mistake of ordering an appointment for the wrong time (11:45PM instead of 11:45AM) and didn’t notice till I logged in (ordered it a month ago). I was able to change it for a small fee of $ 5 for 10:45PM, which I am okay with because I was the idiot.
Using my trusty five year old Macbook Pro, I was able to seamlessly use their software. They use citrix software to monitor your screen and capture video from your webcam/​mic. After waiting about 10 minutes for a proctor, I was asked to do a 360 degree scan of my office (did this at work, very awkward). I brought my wife’s pink mirror to work (not weird at all) to show the proctor my screen.
They do shut down multiple programs but ask permission first. I suggest closing most of your programs not used during the test, such as your torrents, emulators, porn, etc before starting the session. They also turn off the shortcuts to make screen shots which I thought was interesting, assuming so you can’t take screen grabs of the test.
Once I started the test, a chat screen is left open for the proctor to send you text messages. They never sent me any messages during the test but I did notice that the proctor changed hands about 5 or so times, I ended up with someone completely different at the end.
The only issue I had was the submit button for my test did not work (genius). My proctor suggested using a different browser, which worked. I don’t believe this had anything to do with Proctor U.
Looking at what others have said, it’s obvious this service has room to improve. I don’t suggest anyone use them who is on a tight schedule or those with a computer made in 1998.
I will give them a shot again, if any of the issues come up regarding interrupting testing, etc, then I will update this review.

AWFUL… that’s the best word to describe it. The video feed drops frequently which causes the proctor to INTERRUPT you from your test to re-​establish the video feed. You DO NOT get that precious time back in a TIMED EXAM. I was supposed to start my exam at 12:25, I didn’t actually start until 1:15… and my exam was scheduled 4 days in advance! If you are already stressed out about an exam, this will only ADD to the anxiety.
Bottom Line? Do yourself a favor and SKIP this GARBAGE and take your test in-​person at the campus.

I was referred to ProctorU by a Professor after I was unable to make an exam date. My experience with them was good, I had no problems getting set up and my Proctor seemed very sweet.
They really make sure that there’s no way for you to cheat on the exam. I had to first do a 360 turn around and have the proctor examine my room and then I had to show her where I was leaving my phone and then I had to show her a reflection of my laptop and desk surface. After she examined my surroundings I gave her access to my laptop and she did some things with the settings and closed all of my browsers… after all this I was finally able to take my exam. In the end it cost me $ 16.00 for the exam and then an additional $ 8.95 short notice fee.
I will say my only issue with them is that they changed some things around with my settings and were suppose to reverse them after the exam… which they never did. SO now I’m unable to do certain things on my macbook… and the annoying part is I’m not even sure how much they changed around so I can’t go back to my original settings.

Let me know if you think this mimics a classroom experience. Just read this exchange that happened during my midterm (50% of my grade):
Colin M.: It looks like the video feed has dropped. May I borrow your mouse to refresh the page?
Alyssa H: no
Alyssa H: i have 10 minutes left and i’m stuck on a problem
Desktop Viewing started by Colin M.
Colin M.: We will need to get the video back up or we cannot permit you to continue the exam.
Alyssa H: I see the video working
Alyssa H: Whats the problem
Colin M.: It is working now. You may continue.
Alyssa H: I finished
I cried when I wrote to my professor about how my exam was interrupted 11 times. I’m begging my University to drop this service.

I paid extra for an online course with web-​proctored exam by proctor u. Big mistake. It took them 2 hours to try to set up my exam. Staff were polite but clueless. As soon as I am connected to their software, they use up 100% of my CPU and it is impossible to do anything on the computer. They offered to contact me in 3 days, but why bother if nothing is going to change.

If this is an option… don’t even bother. I recommend you go to a live proctoring instead. They have software issues up the wazoo. I had two failed testing attempts. The live help was actually friendly and considerate but they were clueless with what to do.
Conceptually this is a great idea and the software is very easy to use. However these are the problems they don’t tell you about:
1. It only works on private (i.e. private comcast) internet because public library and college networks (at least most of them) have anti-​hacking software that blocks the live video feeds, EVEN THOUGH the system checks might say all systems go. Oh and some private internets even have security or anti-​virus packages that might block this from working.
Testing for me failed in the New Haven public library and the Yale University network.
2. They are rather flakely about giving you your money credit back for failed testing (i had to pay twice rather than be put on hold for 30 minutes).

If I could give 0 stars I would… Worst experience ever. These guys are idiots! long waits, rules that make no sense, can’t find the exams they are supposed to proctor, terrible experiences, interruptions during my exam over technical issues, just to make me download new browsers? During a timed exam?! Oh and did I mention, when they were done I had 7 minutes left to finish an hour long exam… Oh well they will notate it in my file for the professor. Oh and they charge money for this abuse… lovely. I would rather drive the hour to the local community college and pay to sit in their proctored exam center than deal with these morons ever again. Thank god I graduate soon.

I’m not one to mince words: fuck this company.
My university required as a course component in one of my engineering courses that I make an account with ProctorU and do four brief easy quizzes online with them as a systems beta test. This company really grinded my gears if that wasn’t obvi yet.
They are a high-​tech, ya know sophisticated sort of company that can grab control of your computer and remote monitor you during a real exam that needs to be proctored. Thing is, they don’t know dick about technology and can’t do one fucking thing right. Literally they don’t even have it together enough to launch the quiz you are registered to take.
They couldn’t tell their ass from their elbow with a bright flashing neon sign giving them the easy answer. They couldn’t tell their mother from a hole in the ground even if you put a trampoline over the latter. They would just get confused if you tried to roast them that trampolines used to be called jumpolines until their mama jumped on one. I imagine they need to walk around with football helmets on inside so they don’t hurt themselves too badly, but I wouldn’t know that for a fact since my business dealings with this pathetic excuse of a shit-​show are finally over praise JESUS.
For the four quizzes I spent hours each week over several different scheduled appointments trying to troubleshoot why their bullshit popsicle-​sticks and scotch tape system didn’t work on my computer to even launch the quiz in the first place. They grabbed control and changed every setting on my computer, tried every browser known to man, then just blamed my internet connection when their brilliant troubleshooting skills of ‘let’s try this in Internet Explorer instead of Chrome’ didn’t solve a motherfuckin thing.
This company would be better run if they used Civil War-​era ghosts than their current roster. The problem wasn’t my equipment. There’s nothing battlestation-​elegant about it, but it’s considered current tech in so far as I can do all my engineering programs, look at some skinemax, and browse more sophisticated websites such as this one.
Their customer service was fucking atrocious and they were arguing with me when I was politely correcting their fuck ups. One big guy (4u) when he had control of my computer kept typing in «proc​tour​.com» (not their website obvi) and not letting me fix his obvious typo, since he was sure he was right the way he was typing it in. Every interaction I had with 9-​odd different proctors involved them just shitposting word jumbled doublespeak from their word hole to fill the silence about how this is a complicated but great system (it’s fucking not either one of those things) and then going to check with their manager to see why this wasn’t launching the quiz. More of the proctors than not were on their first day with the company and this was their first video chat. Lovely. That at least goes a way to explain how rude, unprofessional, and overall cunty the proctors are — this is the level of customer service that even #Crimecast would envy.
I can’t imagine having to deal with these people for a real exam with real world implications. You can read the other reviews to see how their proctors are the mall cops of academia, they abuse a minuscule amount of ‘power’ to yell at single mothers whose kids accidentally walk into view of the webcam. I am sure little Susie knows DiffEq for those real exams and that’s why she ran in the room to solve #19(a) for mommy!
Back on the most important person in the world: me. The litany of complaints I lodged with my university finally got some resolution, but only on my school’s end. Administration had to get involved to grant me the ability to bypass the quizzes before they time-​locked themselves out as incomplete failures at the close of the business week. ProctorU to this day has still never followed up with me as they said they would when they had a work-​around to launch the quiz. What a great, punctual company with just outstanding service!!!
This company’s incompetence knows no bounds and jeopardized my course grade because their troubleshooting department, I imagine, is composed of one illiterate motherfucker who can’t even spell ‘computer’ let alone has ever actually logged on to one to do anything mildly sophisticated like browse for porn in a Chrome incognito window or post ‘lol’ in a Google Hangout.
They think they can get away with this because they think they are pushing around first-​time college students just off of the turnip truck at shit-​tier schools. But they got a lawyer back in school at an ABET accredited college of engineering, and I have no Nova Scotian problem telling these cunts to fuck right the fuck off with their poor customer service and systems that do not work.
Don’t use ProctorU. Use any alternative source of exam proctoring (your school should allow any NCTA approved site.)
Boys, this one star review is what happens when you play around with Larry «I Ain’t Playin» Larswold.

ProctorU really needs to get their act together. Twice this semester, my fellow classmates and I experienced long hold times for scheduled exams. Here is how the service is supposed to work: you sign up for an exam time, and shortly before your scheduled time you log into the site where you are greeted with a countdown icon. The icon starts counting down 15 minutes before your scheduled time. When your time arrives, you press the button and the exam process begins. Your proctor comes on the video and you walk through several steps and within 10 minutes or so, you are taking your test.
The glitch we experienced was that when your time slot was supposed to start, you instead got a message saying «waiting for technician Estimate 27 minutes» (could be any amount of minutes). So that little surprise was bad enough, but then the minute counter would then count either UP or DOWN or stay the same so when you got the original notification of the delay, it became literally a moving target. Your 27 minutes could easily turn into 55 minutes. So it’s not even like you could kick back for 27 minutes; or run and do something that would take exactly 27 minutes. You had no idea when your test would start.
The first time this happened to our class, many people had to reschedule or wait long times for the proctors to be available. We were all told there was some kind of technical glitch. The second time it happened, I was able to speak to a person at PU by calling the 800 number. By pressing every random digit, I did get through to someone. She said they were having problems because they were so busy and a lot of people were taking tests. Really, PU? This is what you guys DO! Why did you take our test reservations if the staffing was not available to support the demand?
I realize this is not end-​of-​the-​world stuff, but this is just not acceptable. My school is a major state university and I can’t believe they are associated with this kind of nonsense.