Reviewed 10 July 2026.
The 2025 collapse of a well-known London academy, with students reporting fees of £7,500 paid for Level 7 qualifications never delivered, put a hard question on the sector’s table. What happens to your money if a training provider fails?
The due-diligence checklist
- Verify the provider on the awarding body’s own centre list (OTHM, VTCT), rather than trusting a logo on the website.
- Pay in stages, per delivered module or via deposit-then-balance, never the full qualification fee up front. A provider refusing staged payment is answering your question.
- Use card or finance protection. Payments by credit card (Section 75) or regulated finance carry recovery rights that bank transfers do not.
- Check trading history and reviews across platforms. Recent review cliffs and sudden discount blitzes are the classic distress signals.
Our position
Aurelia invoices Level 7 fees in stages aligned to delivered teaching, publishes its awarding-body status, and will happily put both in writing before you book. We think that should be the sector norm, and we say so in our choosing-a-provider guide.