Is My Tech Best Friend (mytechbestfriend.academy) Legit or a Scam?

Mytechbestfriend is the website of a company that organizes bootcamps to help people obtain jobs in the tech industry. According to their website:

MYTECHBESTFRIEND Is a Tech Education & Career development-based service that helps and assists minorities in our communities to break into the Tech space in the smoothest way possible. My mission is to increase minority wealth within our communities by placing people into rewarding and high paying tech careers through Career coaching, Bootcamps, resume reconstructions.

ScamAdviser was recently approached by a law firm on behalf of Mytechbestfriend which kindly requested us to remove or update information about Mytechbestfriend from our website. As we seldom receive such requests from legitimate organizations, we decided to review Mytechbestfriend to determine whether it is a genuine business or a scam. 

Who owns Mytechbestfriend?

The ‘About’ page of mytechbestfriend.academy says the following in a section titled ‘Founder’:

Hi, My name is Mary, I am a ServiceNow engineer, a business analyst, and a systems administrator and I also currently hold 12 in demand IT certifications which are in Oracle, ITIL, AWS, Azure, Splunk, ServiceNow, and Salesforce...and what if I also told you that most of these certifications were also obtained within 3 months ? this is all facts.

While trying to ascertain whether ‘Mary’ is a real person, I came across the LinkedIn profile of Mary Awodele who proclaims herself to be ‘CEO and creator of Mytechbestfriend’. After going through the profile, I did not find any signs suggesting that Mary may be a fictional creation of scammers. The profile seems legitimate.

Website Information

According to the domain registration information of mytechbestfriend.academy, the domain name was registered on 14th May 2021. The registrant’s details such as name, location and contact details have been hidden using a paid service. Therefore, it is a relatively new website with the owner’s information obscured.

The website content seems to be original and not copied, as is the case with many scam sites. The site contains information about various bootcamps for job roles in the tech industry. The details appear relevant to the mentioned role and therefore do not seem made-up. 

I did find a suspicious detail on the website in the ‘Student Highlights’ section. This section provides information about successful job transitions and placements obtained through Mytechbestfriend. 

However, there is reason to believe that this information may have been falsified. For example, the image of ‘Monica’ is actually that of an American actor named Monica Rivera.

Social Media Activity

Mytechbestfriend has a large and active social media presence. It has pages on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and also a Facebook group. All the pages have considerable followings and the pages are being actively managed. 

However, I noticed something odd with the Twitter page too. The profile creation date is given as July 2020 even though the website was only created in May 2021. 

The rate at which the Facebook group has grown is slightly odd too, as it has amassed nearly 11,000 followers in just 26 weeks. The explosive growth and inconsistent page creation dates cast doubt on whether the social media following of Mytechbestfriend is organic.

However, looking at the activity surrounding Mytechbestfriend, it doesn’t appear suspicious. The accounts talking about Mytechbestfriend seem to be real and in good numbers.

There are hundreds of ‘employees’ listed on LinkedIn too:

Mytechbestfriend Reviews

Mytechbestfriend is ultimately a business that provides a service. Looking at the reviews can give us a fair idea of whether the organization is providing satisfactory services. On ScamAdviser, Mytechbestfriend has a rating of 4 out 5 based on 3 reviews. 

From the three reviews, two speak positively about Mytechbestfriend:

The third review, however, is more critical:

Refund Policy

Mytechbestfriend has a strict refund policy that consumers should be aware of. Some important points to note (taken from their Refund Policy document):

• The student is entitled to a full refund within 48 hours after booking. After 48 hours, the student then becomes eligible for a 50% refund. 
• After 7 days have passed from booking, Student is no longer eligible for a refund.
  
  
• Legal action can be taken against students who file disputes with their bank on payments made to Mytechbestfriend.
  
  
• Wrongful disputes against Mytechbestfriend will be reported to all 3 credit bureaus and will reflect on the students credit report. Mytechbestfriend will also report dispute to collection agency and student will have to repay Mytechbestfriend the disputed amount. 

Conclusion

Overall, the available information leads me to believe that Mytechbestfriend is likely to be a legitimate organization and not a scam. There are a few strange things about their website and social media pages but the number of signs suggesting that Mytechbestfriend may be dubious is fewer than the indications that it is legitimate. It may be safe to deal with Mytechbestfriend but caution is still advised.

This article has been written by a scam fighter volunteer. If you believe the article above contains inaccuracies or is missing relevant information, please contact ScamAdviser.com using this form.