This is a legal scam , meaning this ... The instructor Tim told me after the driving test that I had failed even though I was a really good driver he said he failed me for using my mirror to back up but not turning my head around  when I asked him why he said nobody passes the first time He said you need to do the test two or three times or take my class for 120 minutes and you will passI passed the driving test 1st try at DMV today with a 97% 1st try paid 9$ ODEC stole my 50$Don't use this school unless you want your money taken from you! His exact words nobody passes the first time.Or pay for the 120$ class and he will pass you it's all about money with ODEC his name is Tim and he is the Albany employee he is rude and not trustworthy. Read Less

Wish I could leave a negative ten. This company is preying on kids impatient to get their drive test done without waiting months for dmv My daughter who is actually a great driver went to take hers this morning. She is 16, so not lots of life experience or self confidence when an adult instructor tells them to do something they do it. This guy tells my daughter who is in a right turn lane to go straight, she questions him, straight?? His response I said go straight. So she does. He smirks well that's an automatic fail you should have questioned me more and told me it was right turn only. She is devastated and since leaving talked to several friends that he dis the exact same thing at the exact same place. It's clearly a tactic to fail these kids and make them pay for a second test. So disgusted. Not too mention I never signed her consent to test, he didnt ask for her driving log nothing. He knew she would be failed in the first 4 minutes of the test. Run away do not use these scammers Read Less

ODEC is the worst kind of joke imaginable. They do exactly what the airlines do. . .  they overbook and then leave parents on their own to try and get driving dates scheduled. In two months our teenage daughter, who has been driving for nearly a year and is better than most adults, has only been able to schedule ONE DRIVE!!Their fee is one of the highest fees being charged for this service. You would normally associate cost with quality, but you would be fooling yourself with ODEC. Their high price is simply an obscene profit and greed driven business model. The product delivered is so sub-standard, that it would be laughable if it didn't cost so much.I should have known what we were getting into, when Mike held the parent-child introduction meeting at Aplenrose. He had a microphone with a 50' cord and never once used it. Instead, he wondered around the stage mumbling unintelligibly. When asked "can you hear me" about half way through the painful experience, we all shouted "NO!" Mike never did use the microphone, instead choosing to do what Mike wanted to do rather than what the paying people needed.We are told to schedule one drive every two weeks to allow for practice time in between. This is nothing more than a ploy to disguise the fact that they cannot, or will not, accommodate the needs of the families who have already paid a handsome fee up front.ODEC "loads" available appointments twice a week and it's a first-come first-serve feeding frenzy for the minuscule number of appointments available. What you will find, is that ODEC does not have enough qualified "instructors" who are "readily available" to meet the needs of the hundreds of students who sign up for each session. Again, this is a sheer profit and greed motivated business model, as a significant number of families just give up and move on, leaving the cash in ODEC's pocket and getting nothing of value in exchange.Our initial meeting had over 200 students from five surrounding areas. Do the math: at $500 per student, that's $100,000+ for a few weeks of lectures and essentially no driving time. Do this several times a year in multiple areas and you begin to see the profit-greed motivation to continue to overbook classes and abandon the families.When you call ODEC to ask why there are never driving dates available, you will, 9 out of 10 times, get a recorded message telling you to leave a contact number and they will call you back. . . which seldom happens. When you do get someone with a pulse, they tell you they post available appointments twice a week and you need to log on at 9:00 am and secure a time. . . along with hundreds of other families! When Mike is challenged at the weekly classes about never having available appointments, you are told to get up and log on at 5:00 am. . . still no joy!The only available time slot that has ever come up is a 40 minute drive FROM where the weekly class is held, and with someone who never taught the class nor knows your child. . . turning the driving appointment into a three hour odyssey, after a full day of school, ending at 10pm.With the obscene amounts of money ODEC is raking in, you would think they would have a 21st century website which allowed families to schedule ALL of the required drive times at one time. But no, that would require ODEC to invest resources into serving their customers, rather than the customers investing their resources into the pockets of ODEC.ODEC is NOT associated with ODOT! Don't get fooled into thinking they are associated with ODOT. . . it's simply a marketing ploy to get people to make that assumption, and hundreds do every session. "Approved by" is not the same thing people! Just think DMV and you will have the perfect example of what awaits you when you sign up with ODEC!!Do yourself a HUGE favor and look at all the ONE STAR reviews. Every single person has the same complaint. . . YOU CANNOT SCHEDULE DRIVING APPOINTMENTS! Forewarned is forearmed!!ODEC gives you a 180 day window for your handful of driving appointments. That's their "out" for not having an efficient program, website, or competent staff to handle all the overbooked families every session.Then you end up with classes overlapping because people from a previous session still need to get driving appointments scheduled, along with the CURRENT crop of overbooked families! This compounding effect creates a backlog of competing families for the limited number of weekly posted available time slots.So, in the end, you will have to deal with ODEC, THE DRIVER TRAINING COMPANY FROM HELL, or walk away from your $500 fee and either find another company or just pay the higher car insurance for not having completed a training course.Like so many before me have said, "if I could give less than one star I would." In fact, I would take it a step further and say if I could shut down their business, I would! Read Less

So far super disappointed. My son had an appointment this morning and the instructor didn’t show up. The soonest they can reschedule for is in 3 weeks. They offer no compensation for time off work to do the test. They offer nothing more than to reschedule. ZERO accountability on the part of this company. I’m very disgusted. Read Less

As many others have said, ODEC is disappointment after disappointment. There are not many offerings in town, but do yourself a favor and skip these guys anyway.My son is halfway through the course and they have only allowed us to schedule one drive. And about that drive, the instructor provided no coaching but plenty of yelling and criticism, slamming his teacher brakes on over and over to prove a point, even bringing the other female driver the tears he was so mean. They have used five different instructors at this point and the now permanent teacher is extremely dull and does little to add interest to what is admittedly a boring subject. Save your $500 or find a different school. Read Less

Worst place in Oregon and that is saying a lot because Oregon is amazing. For defensive driving courses, they offer a class every 1.5 months and even then they will cancel the class on you last minute. You could plan over a month ahead to take a class and they don't care about you and your situation at all and will not get back to you about rescheduling. How this agency can have one guy named Tim as the only person who can provide that service is beyond me (he is a piece of shit too). Do your classes at AARP or AAA. Much cheaper and so much less hassle and stress. Read Less

I AM EXTREMELY UPSET WITH THESE PEOPLE. THEY LET ME SCHEDULE MY DRIVE TEST ON 1/11/18 AND REQUIRED ME TO GET THERE ABOUT 15 MIN EARLY. I GOT THERE AT 8:45 AM AND TOOK OFF WORK TO DO THIS, I DROVE AN HOUR AWAY FROM MY HOME TO THIS PLACE. WHEN I GOT THERE NOBODY WAS THERE. I TRIED CALLING FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES AND FINALLY AT 9:00 AM SOMEONE ANSWERED. I TOLD THEM I WAS THERE FOR MY DRIVE TEST AND THAT NOBODY WAS THERE AT THE OFFICE. THE LADY TELLS ME THEY CALLED ME THE DAY BEFORE TO CANCEL. I NEVER RECEIVED A CALL. HOWEVER I DID RECEIVE A "REMINDER" TEXT AS WELL AS A REMINDER EMAIL I ALSO GAVE THEM MY WORK EMAIL CONSIDERING I CHECK IT MULTIPLE TIMES THROUGHOUT THE DAY. THE LADY TOLD ME THAT THEY TRIED CALLING, BUT MY NUMBER WAS NOT WORKING. I ASKED HER TO RECITE MY NUMBER WHICH WAS THE RIGHT NUMBER. I NEVER HAD A VOICE MAIL OR ANYTHING TO TELL ME MY APPOINTMENT WAS CANCELED. BUT SOME HOW WHEN ERIN CALLED TO TELL ME TO SCHEDULE MY APPOINTMENT SHE HAD NO ISSUES GETTING THROUGH TO ME AND MY PHONE SEEMED TO WORK JUST FINE FOR HER. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND YOU USE THIS COMPANY, THEY REQUIRE YOU TO PAY FIRST AND THEN DON'T SHOW UP TO THE APPOINTMENT THEY SCHEDULE. I READ OTHER REVIEWS SIMILAR TO THIS PRIOR TO MY APPOINTMENT BUT GAVE THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND COMPLETELY UNORGANIZED. I AM NOT HAPPY WITH THIS COMPANY, I TOLD THEM I EXPECT A REFUND AND THAT I WOULD BE LEAVING A BAD REVIEW ON THEIR SITE DUE TO THEIR LACK OF COMMUNICATION AND UNPROFESSIONALISM! Read Less

Don't sign your young driver up for ODEC. All of their instructors were great, I have no complaints about the instruction on the road my kid received. However, the program requires them to spend more time "sitting and getting" in the classroom rather than on the road practicing. They are over priced and inflexible with schedule changes. I'm sure there are better options out there. Read Less

Go somewhere else!!  Expensive and unprofessional.  The promised drives are impossible to schedule.  This is a scam!  DO NOT do this driver's ed program.  Worst system, ever, and they don't care if you complain, and don't offer solutions.  Horrible!! Read Less

1 star for Steve Hudsman or whatever his name is, he failed me twice with a reason is "you almost there". I had to paid 40 for the 2nd drive test thou. Then I gave up at this place, and scheduled DMV, guess what? I passed with 90%. Drive test at this place is a joke. Wasted my time n my effort. Read Less

I work for a high school and partner with DHS to support youth. I would not recommend this program.  There are many other options.  I made several phone calls to ODEC in regards to the youth I work with.  The representatives seem professional on the surface but lack the 'know how,' don't seem to comprehend my questions and often time I was put on hold upwards to 40 minutes and still did not have my questions answered (needing attendance info, class expectations and relay support info on my youth).   Most challenging was the lack of communication between the organization, the instructor and community.  I had no way of getting a hold of the instructor and that was very problematic as my students needed additional support throughout the program duration.  I gave ODEC feedback but It was apparent they would not change anything about their current system Read Less

They canceled my appointment because the driver was sick and told me I had to reschedule and that the next appointment was a month away. Then after they hung up after canceled the appointment I got an email saying I had to call myself to REQUEST a refund. I've had this appointment scheduled over a month, and I'm sure they could've had another driver give me the exam. Not to mention I paid $50 for this just to have them call me 2 hours before. Read Less

Horrible costumer service . we did not use service cancelled test and was informed it will take 30 days for refund its now almost 40 days no refund we are getting the run around they quickly took the money but taking too long for refund Read Less

The instructor failed me all because I didn't turn my body to check my blind spots. I did turn my head but he insisted I didn't on 5 occasions of switching lanes. This place only wants your money DO NOT go to them as a 3rd party DMV testing!!!!!! Read Less

I took a course with them and it was all around good, but there is one thing that they didn't teach us...... They never taught us how to do a normal pull in park. They only taught back-in parking and parallel parking. Other than that the course was pretty good. Read Less

shouldn't the students get more hands on actual driving rather than listening to somebody for 4 hours/ two days a week???? I could had told my daughter to just listen to some safety tips on how to drive on You-Tube and save all that money!!!! So not enough driving instructors huh??? Read Less

I took my driving test here instead of at the DMV, I had driving instructor Tim. He was very professional and went over everything with the company car. I highly recommend if you don't have time to to wait for the DMV's huge wait list. To spend the extra money and come here! Plus I passed! Yay!! Read Less

Has anyone else had a terrible time scheduling the actual drives? I check several times each day but there are no available drives. In six weeks, my son was able to schedule two drives! At this rate it will sure take a long time to complete this course ... Read Less

Couldn't be happier with the results and the instructors at ODEC. It's a bit expensive, but you won't get consistent customer service with the cheaper ones I bet. I've had my permit for FIVE years and had enough experience to survive the roads, but not safely. I asked for a female instructor due to some PTSD issues. They informed me that they didn't have any available in my area but could give me a lesson with the supervisor (very professional and kind of them to do). Right away, I knew I'd be coming back for more after my first lesson due to the guy's expertise and knowledge. I felt at ease once I started. So, I continued my lessons on with another instructor who was his cousin, Craig I believe. He was very kind and patient even though I drove like Spongebob at times. When time came to pass my first test I failed, but in no means do I blame this on the school. I'm a really nervous girl and that's what got the best of me. He told me to keep my head up and keep trying even though I felt like crap and I felt defeated. It was my last lesson, so that was the last time we spoke.Well, I took a little break (two, three weeks), did some kick ass Tai Chi, and came back with a vengeance. I PASSED with two minors and it was awesome. Even though I probably broke his record of how many kids he's passed since he started working, I would like everyone and him to know that I PASSED my second time and now I am driving with confidence :]I would recommend this place. Fer sure. Read Less