Semi Training Claims at Trucking School

LIVONIA, Mich. - A local truck driving school is being accused for fraud. Former students say the center is preying on the unemployed desperate for work and leaving them in deeper debt with sub-par skills.

At the Nu-Way Truck Driver Training Center in Livonia, the motto is "We're Changing Lives". However, some former students say not for the better. "They pretty much promise you just a whole new life. All your problems are going to be solved. All your financial woes will be gone," said former Nu-Way student Greg Adkins.

He first learned about Nu-Way at the Michigan Works! office in Livonia. An unemployed contractor struggling to save his home, Adkins applied and planned to use tuition assistance from the state to learn how to drive a truck.

Adkins said recruiters convinced him to finance it himself so he could start sooner, assuring him he would not have to pay anything.

"He and his boss both assured me that it wasn't going to cost me either way. Just let the company that hired me pay for it," Adkins said.

It cost $6,000 for a three week course and the promise of a great job and salary. However, Adkins got a job that paid less than $10.00 a hour and could not keep it long enough for the tuition reimbursement because the skills he said he learned at Nu-Way were not up to par.

"These are vulnerable people. These are people who are on the verge of losing their homes. These are people who have been laid off from work and there's a lot of laid off workers here in Michigan," said Bill Godfrey, a legal researcher for the Ambrose Law Group.

Ambrose is representing seven clients will similar stories and filed a lawsuit claiming Nu-Way is in violation of the Michigan Consumer Protection Act and that they engage in false advertising and fraud.

"We want the courts to step in and say, 'No Nu-Way. You can't do this anymore'," Godfrey said.

A representative from Nu-Way said they have not been served with any lawsuit and, in the event that they are served, their attorneys will prove it to be false.