scam! - english exams (Apr/01/2008 )
this is not possible! there's an organization that makes IELTS exams in Mexico. the exam is not precisely cheap, plus, they charge you more if you don't make the exam in mexico city. besides, the cost of the exam does not cover notifying the institutions you are applying to (and mentioning it in your application form for the exam). the worst is, you are not allowed to send the results personally, you have to pay an extra fee to his organization for every report you would like to be sent! this is robbery. i'm pissed!
Unfortunately, everything they are charging for seems normal. They have a virtual monopoly and over charge, just like the GRE, SAT.
The "not including x number of notifications" is kinda sketchy, and charging more based on location within the same country is also kinda odd, but the rest is par for the course with commercial standardized testing.
I don't see how they can prohibit you from self-reporting results to various institutions. It seems more likely that anyplace you'd be sending them to wants the results straight from the company without the concern of tampering/misreporting by the person who took the test. I mean, I can say that I got a 1600 on the GRE with a 6 on the writing section, but no institution would believe me without notification from the ETS.
true, you could said you got the highest ranking, but most (if not all) the universities that ask for this kind of test have methods to verify your results by accessing, in this case, the british council databases. anyway, it was already paid and the university should be receiving the results soon. not pissed anymore 
it's friday!