Morno,
Just cause someone told you that a place is "dodgy" doesn't mean that it actually is. The person who told you may have got it 3rd 4th or 5th hand from someone else. Unless you have a first hand account or an experience of your own I wouldn't go around calling places dodgy that have been doing ratings for a very long time.
There are plenty of guys in Australia flying around who have done ratings at Pan Am and had no trouble with line training. I can tell you that cause I know people who have done it.
If the training in the USA was so bad then why aren't all the planes in the USA falling out of the sky?
Ansett are in a very lucky position where they are one of only two providers of Airbus ratings in Australia so they can charge pretty much whatever they like. They defend this by saying that the training is "superior" and you get more time doing "emergencies". They will also rubbish the competition by spreading misinformation of how bad the overseas "training" is.
Don't be fooled.