"Question....Has anyone paid for training to find out later that you had not received a bit of it or very little? "

As regards to this question no, I've always been there with my horse taking the lesson for me not my horse. 
I have however gone looking for a trainer to take lessons and I visited a few; one really stuck out in my mind, now I went to this barn for English lessons, the trainer I talked with said she did not have any English Riding knowledge, but she had a English saddle, she referred to putting it on a horse and said she'd give me lessons.........  Um - No, I wanted someone with a background in English.  I did not take any lessons from this lady, but while I was there I asked about her taking in horses for training and struck up conversation, now I train my own horses, because to me training never ends, every time you touch your horse you train them, good or bad.  That is what I believe, so I want to be the one touching my horse, I may take lessons to teach myself how to do something but learning never ends with me, horsemanship is a life long journey, but it's me learning the hows and whys on my horse..   Anyway, this trainer went on to tell me she had this horse at her place for about three months now for training, and she never did anything with it, she laughed about it even.  It kind of made me personally angry about it and it wasn't even my horse.  She stated she better do something with it because the people were picking it up in a week.  Now these people figured they were getting their horse professionally trained for 90 days and truth was maybe the horse would have gotten about six hours on it that last week it was there.  Now, I didn't get in the middle of it, it wasn't my horse, but how could she turn around and ask me when would i like to book a day for lessons!!!!  She just got done telling me she scammed someone for training, technically!  I told her I'd think about it, I did, for about as long as it took me to get back into my truck and leave.  I could not believe it.  I was stunned.  Let's just say, it really opened my eyes up when I looked again for a trainer.