I took the Swim Instructor course taught by Mikayla. She was knowledgeable and able to relate to all the students well. The pool, Matsqui Recreation Centre was clean, well maintained and the staff friendly. After the course, Natalie in the LIT office provided excellent customer service. read more

Amazing experience please allow me to mention MATTHEW BANASIEWECZ great instructor I Learn a lot and he is absolutely nice and helpful approachable young man .keep up the good work . marizel read more

I went in with what I thjought was the correct first aid course and they refused to accept it and turned me away. No discussion, no options. Refused to refund my 550 dollars. Refused to credit the course I would take to qualify and refused any other options like take the course with no pass until i take the required first aid course. I will never do any training with Lit again. read more

If I could give a negative rating I would. Having been an instructor for 20 years, and having to regularly re-certify my courses, I can safely say AVOID LIT. I have done multiple courses with this company - many of which were delivered by unenthusiastic and novice instructors who, while they are knowledgeable about the subject matter, lack the teaching skills to effectively engage their participants. Most recently, I registered for a course 4 days prior (with space) - on the day of I received an email indicating that the course was full and I was out of luck. If you need to re-certify, go with community centres that don't outsource to LIT! read more

Don't rsik going here for any program. they will take your money at any chance they get and back it with their cunning policy. Go to red cross site and find other partners to go your program. Also LIT is the most expensive of them all. https://myrc.redcross.ca/en/ If there is negative -5 stars, i will give them. read more

It's been 6+ weeks since I last worked for LIT, and I have yet to be fully paid for the courses I taught. The owner Michael, is very deceptive. I was brought in to teach courses at the Robert Lee YMCA. However, the pool was NOT at the legal minimum depth to teach Lifeguard candidates. With new Lifeguards not able to learn critical skills in a shallow pool, I refused to teach that course. LIT seems to value the quantity of students in the class over the quality of learning that is being provided as they have no constant office support. Including providing accurate class lists for instructors. As an instructor, I am deeply concerned about companies like this in the Aquatics Industry. read more

I enjoyed the bronze medallion course because we did a lot of practical work and we practiced the important elements of the course. Isaac Y really cared about our learning. read more

LIT constantly cancels courses on very short notice and then offers you a spot in a location or on a date that probably didn't work for you in the first place. We have had this disappointing experience with LIT many times over the past few years. I would suggest you look elsewhere for a more reliable training organization where you can be assured the training you purchase will happen when you need it. LIT also makes it very difficult to get refunds and tries to upsell insurance to you so you are "covered next time this happens" rather than having reasonable business practices and making sure this doesn't always happen. read more

LIT instructors are rude and entitled. They use the pool space at the YMCA in downtown Vancouver and are constantly taking away lanes from paying members and are always disrupting the pool space. read more

BEWARE of LIT: The horrible online reviews spanning several years are entirely true. Try anywhere else if you are interested in life guard certification. We were victims of this family run company which, we learned too late, has a long history unprofessional and underhanded activity to part you from your money. Check the Better Business Bureau complaints to confirm their practices. read more

Terrible instructors that teach through yelling and threatening to fail students. They had no lesson plan and made no sense. A complete waste of time and money. read more

Really wish I read these reviews before signing my son up for a course with this company. My son had a really bad experience in his course. He says the instructors discouraged him and told him he failed part way through the first day and he felt like they wanted him to leave. The instructors yelled at the students and weren't supportive. He left on the first day. He didn't learn any skills and I'm out over $400 because they've refused to refund or credit me. Interesting and telling that they don't allow Google reviews to be posted. read more

Even though this company is practically the only ones who do lifeguarding classes in town I would not use them again. My class was cancelled due to COVID and I was unable to rebook due to various reasons, eventually I ended up losing my money for the class. Out of all the things that got cancelled due to COVID this is the only one that would not refund. Since then, their lack of communication and strict adherence to policies over common sense made me end up losing my money. read more

Do not waste your time or money with LIT. Find an alternative option. This company took additional funds off my Visa without my authorization I owed them $100 for additional materials that they said were owed to them for the lifeguarding class my son took. Nowhere in the course information did I read there would be additional fees. Nonetheless I agreed to pay and would have done so but they took it upon themselves to charge my visa without my authorization. I had told them I would be paying cash for these alleged fees. When I confronted the staff about charging my visa without my consent stating that they had committed fraud, they stated that since my son had not paid for the materials provided to him in the course he had therefore "STOLEN" from them and they would be contacting the police. Something interesting I found out during all this process, a business can not keep your credit card information without your consent. I never consented to them keeping my credit card information nor for them to make any additional payments. read more

I just arrived and will continue to build this review as the day goes on... To begin, I am NOT impressed!!!!! I've been to many first aid schools over the past 30 years and this is by far the most unprofessional looking. IF they ran a WorkSafeBC course here, they'd be breaking their agency agreement. The room is waaayy too small. It's a gross setup with very tiny rooms. It is NOT conducive to a good learning environment. Valley First Aid is way better or even TraumaTech would be more appropriate. I'll evaluate my instructor and update this post. There is no office for the instructors to use. Here's a kicker, no first aid book. Apparently you get to use one for the day and then the school keeps it. That is wrong!!!! $80 for a CPR/AED class and no book??? I can't wait to see the quality of the equipment... A lady from the business next door just walked in and said that people from here are parking in their spot and it happens every Saturday. This school doesn't sound like a good neighbor :( Class started on time. That's 1 good point. Michelle is the instructor. She is wearing very heavy heels and we can all hear every single step. I'm cringing, I should stop now. Instructor is trying, says this is her 68th class and she still doesn't seem incredibly confident or knowledgeable :( I think I'm going to be ill, the demonstrations are painful. I wish I could write a positive review, sorry yelpers, just know that there are many other schools out there. Michelle is consistently blurring the line between WorkSafeBC and Canadian Red Cross protocols. Very confusing. I'm going to stop writing this review now because I know it's not going to get any better. But let me leave you with these two points. The school seems to be doing everything in his power to save money. No books, no certificate, no gloves, and no blankets. There is far too much make believe in this class and is very difficult for the students to gain a real understanding as to how to apply the skills. There are many many other first aid schools out there, spend your money there. PS The equipment, especially the Annie CPR dolls are junk! I have attended 15 other first aid schools in my life and this is the worst. read more

See all

I spoke to the owner of LIT first aid lifeguard training, MICHAEL MILLER. He is deceiving and dishonest. I purchased MEDALLION/CROSS COMBO for a family. He tried very hard to force my family member to continue with the classes and refusing to give money back even though insurance policy was purchased. This is very inhumane since my family member, she wasn't able to continue due to sickness. I purchased insurance policy of 30$ (15$ for BRONZE MEDALLION and another 15$ for BRONZE CROSS). There are 6 classes. The first three classes are BRONZE MEDALLION and the last three classes are BRONZE CROSS. On the second day of the classes within a couple of hours she had to pull out due to sudden sickness (vomiting and Shortness of breath) . We reached out and were refused to get any refund. Michael Miller who identified himself as the owner called me and tried to forcefully convince us to get her back in class. I told him that I am concerned about her health and don't want her to continue anymore. He said he will speak to the instructor and will make an exception so that she wouldn't have to try very hard to finish the course. He said "as long as she can get in and get out of the water" he will speak to the instructor so that she can finish the course. I spoke to him over the phone. When we emailed him to confirm this he never replied back. Because he realized what he said is illegal. He also mentioned how he's in so much debt because of COVID! He was also trying to get her back in the pool for the second class so that we won't be able to get any refund back. We paid a total of 430$. But based on their policy when we reached out we were entitled to get a 200$ refund since the second class hadn't started yet and 100$ credit towards next course. Additional insurance policy: "Purchasing optional insurance allows for you to make a last minute cancellation with a full refund on your course up until the start time of a course (minus the purchase price of the insurance). Requests must be made in email prior to the course start. If insurance is not purchased, regular cancellation policy will apply" "Refund requests under the optional course insurance (purchased at the time of registration) must be made prior to the start of the course, or will be subject to a maximum of a 50% course credit only." I told him that I will be sharing my feedback across social media. I also told him that I will be taking him to court for not giving me a refund. In response he replied back and said he will sue me which I found very funny and thought I should share as well. read more

This is my second review of LIT and, just like my May 2021 review for my eldest daughter, I give my younger daughter's lifeguard certification courses 5 stars. The instructors were all outstanding and really encouraged the candidates to do their best and dig deep. Special thanks to Esa & Nicolette (NL-Pool), Meaghan (WSI Combo), Jaspreet (SFA/CPR/AED), and Elam (Bronze Combo). read more

I realize LIT is not the only company to charge admin fees but considering the entire registration is online and no person is involved a $10 admin fee for cancelling my son's registration is a money gouge. Several days cancellation notice was given. read more

Terrible LIT cancelled the NL course 3 days before the course start. I had booked off work and everything! They left me scrambling for another course and then charged me a $10 admin fee when I requested a refund. It's been two weeks and I still have not received my refund so I emailed them and was told "the cheque is in the mail". Unacceptable, since I paid for the course in full by credit card. Five months ago I took my bronze cross with them and still haven't received my certification card. Others in the course have still not received theirs either. I have since booked into another NL course which I learned about through the Lifesaving Society directly. I specifically asked for courses through any other organization. I booked through our community pool. The silver lining.... the course is only $200, not $375!! That is a huge difference in pricing!! Do yourself a favour and find another company do get your course through. Call the BC Lifesaving Society. Should be zero stars read more

I don't typically write reviews but have had so many issues with this company over the years, however, their recent customer service is beyond frustrating. They have new covid policies for refunds which they are enforcing despite having registered and paid prior to any pool or course closures from covid. I should have disputed the charge on my credit card initially when they refused to refund and had Instead recommended I support small businesses. Instead, now I am left with a no refund and after some push a partial refund policy. I work in customer service and am really having a hard time understanding their reluctance to help out and lack of understanding to their customers during these unprecedented times. All that said, the communication over email has just been rude. I had reached out to Red Cross to determine was costs may have been incurred to only warrant a partial refund policy, and they were also uncertain. Red Cross however cannot enforce how a small business operates its courses. Long story short, I would recommend using another company, preferably the city due to its transparency with payment and flexibility. read more