Shaw Academy

This company has unlawfully taken money for a free trial, cancelled my account and are refusing to refund me.
I signed up for a free trial through an advert on facebook. In the company's Ts&Cs on their website, it states that payment will be taken AFTER the free trial ends. However, the money was taken STRAIGHT AWAY. I immediately emailed them to recover the money, however they cancelled my account, and are refusing to refund me.

This merchant charged me the full price of membership though I attempted to cancel at the end of a 4-week free trial period
The merchant claims that a free trial membership cannot be refunded once charged in error. Though I have disputed the charges with the merchant directly and also with my credit card company, this same merchant continues to bill me for a paid account I did not use or wish to continue after the free trial period. I am unable to pay for an ongoing and undesired service which this merchant offered in lieu of a refund, and your assistance is very greatly appreciated.

I cancelled the free trial by telephone but £49.99 has been taken from my account and they will not refund this.
I took the 4 week free trial which I cancelled before the end by telephone. I went through numerous questions always selecting to cancel and it was confirmed at the end of the call that my subscription had been cancelled.
The company have now taken £49.99 from my bank and are refusing to refund this. I have a screenshot of my phone records that clearly shows the call, date and duration to Shaw Academy.
I have tried going direct to the company but they are not helping me. I have read many poor reviews from other people that have had the same issue.
Thanks for your help.

Extremely poor customer service and platform access issues
I signed up to avail of the leadership and management course. From the very start the customer service at Shaw academy has been extremely poor. I have received nothing but generic answers to any queries I sent.
They suggest being in touch with peers on the course for support but there was no way to access this. I decided I could complete the course without the support so I decided not to make any more complaints to them as nothing was every resolved to my satisfaction.
This morning June 18th I log in to attend my lecture as scheduled and I have no way to access the class. In fact it was a displaying a completely different lecture which I have already completed. I tried to access the same lecture using their app and I experienced the same problem I can see my lecture but cannot join it. This coupled with continuous drop outs during my lectures (not to do with my internet connection) has left me extremely frustrated.
The leadership course speaks a lot about how leaders can get the best of employees and I really feel shaw could take a leaf out of their own book because at the moment even though their lecturers on this course speak highly of them customer service past the lack of proper customer service and a proper platform with out issues to access lectures is truly appalling.
I am beyond words disappointed and would really like to warn other consumers not to be hood winked by this company.

Regards

They have or had a "one click purchase" system that instantly charges you without prior confirmation, and they won't refund, even though I need it.
In the 7th of june 2020 I accidentally pressed a "one click purchase" for a certain module 1 that I did not want, it was $39.95, I didn't download it, and I reported as soon as I made the mistake because I saw that they took the money out of my account without even letting me know. Thing is they said they couldn't do anything and they were willing to give me a $199 credit, which I was not interested in, but they weren't budging. Second time as I thought I had already bought the "module 1" and it said "unlock", so I unlocked it. To my surprise, when I clicked it I was charged a membership of $69.99, again, without a prior confirmation or check out and again they don't even notify you when the money has been taken. I reported and I stated pretty clearly that I need that money because I have bills to pay, I could not accept a non-refundable; yet they insisted they couldn't and offered me a $699 credit with a $199 e-certificate, which I refused.

I was offered a 3 months subscription for R999, which I rejected but was debited for it. Now they are telling me their processes don't allow refunds.
I am registered for a Leadership course and when I registered, I was asked to add my credit card information to prevent people enrolling for multiple trial courses. 2 weeks later, R400 was debited from my account and I received a message that I am able to download a copy of Assignment 1 certificate, but the certificate doesn't even have an ID number, so it is just a useless document. A week later, I received a call offering me 3 months subscription for R999, which a declined but as we were still on the call, I received a message from the bank that R999 had been debited from my account, when I asked the guy, he apologized and said he will request a refund.

That is when the nightmare started, because Allen send me an email asking me which courses I want to enroll for, and when I told him it was a mistake from the agent and that I need him to refund me, I got told stories. I was told from they took the money because trial (28 days) had elapsed (but I was on 16 days). When I challenged that, I was eventually told they can not refund me, and I must accept a lifetime membership, which is not beneficial for me because I no-longer have an interest in pursuing the course. Now I cant even delete my credit card details on the profile and they are refusing to refund my money back.

I've been charged for something that I have not selected to buy. I have not used the item they said I've bought and they're refusing to issue a refund
I signed up to the 4-week free trial advertised on Facebook. After signing up I had a notification from PayPal saying I'd paid £39.95 to Shaw Academy. I did not purchase anything. Upon receiving the notification I immediately tried to cancel the payment through themselves and PayPal and my credit card company. All of this has happened in the last 24 hours. They're refusing to issue a refund and are trying to bully me into accepting their 'gesture of good will' by 'offering' $499 worth of 'free' product. Do you not find this awfully difficult to accept considering my requested refund is only £39.95?!
I haven't downloaded, activated or used the item I've supposedly bought and I have immediately cancelled my 4-week free trial. This happened approximately 10:30PM on Wednesday the 17th June 2020 and I've been emailing them all day today 18th June 2020.

Tried cancelling trial period, no option to change anything at all online, only phone number given, they took 3 days to email me back refusing refund.
I signed up for the free trial period, I couldn't even watch any of the classes because I couldn't sign in. The website kept telling me my password *** incorrect. I tried all passwords could think of. No go. I clicked the reset link, and that was a dead link. I tried again the next day. Same thing. I waited a week, and during this time I got nearly 4 emails a day about my classes, which was extremely annoying, now I really wanted to change it. After waiting a whole week, the link was still dead. I couldn't even find a phone number at this point, because any "contact us" links were broken, timed out, or were dead. I waited another week and after clicking on roughly 20 different links, the contact links worked, but still couldn't find a phone number or correct email address to use. The only emails I were getting at the time were class reminders. Then for the last week or two of the classes, I quit getting emails altogether. It wasn't until the day I got charged $69.99, that was the day my account magically worked, after resetting my password *** least twice to get logged in. After I logged in there still was no option anywhere to change a single detail about my account. It wouldn't even let me change my billing information. I finally found a phone number, I was hesitant to call it, but I did and they neve answered. I finally found an email and sent one kindly asking for a return and a cancellation, and they finally cancelled my account, but refuse to refund me. After some researching, I am not the only one to run into this issue, and Shaw Academy is under investigation.
The other funny thing is, their website shows tons of positive reviews, but no option within my account to write one myself. They do not have Google reviews either.
I had tried contacting them from the date of starting my free trial.

signed up for free trial, was charged $70 for 1 mnth. Said I preferred to pay 1 yr member, was charged $200 for yr and was cancelled. Want 270 refund
I signed up for free trial. I was charged $70 for 1 month at end of trial but reached out to them and said I wanted full year for $199. They responded and said they wouldn't refund $70 but would give me 6 months for free. Then about a month later they charged me $199 also. I reached out again and got same response. We won't refund but will give you 6 months free. Now I have paid for a year and an extra month. I do not trust this company and want a refund. Their customer service is terrible. The responses are very blanket statements and not personalized to my individual issue. No one will call me, and the responses are many days apart. I would like my $270 refunded and do not want a membership at all now.

SCAM - Company will not allow cancellation of free trials. Continues to charge credit card.

I have been trying to cancel my free trial for two months only to be sent in circles and they keep charging my card.

They have been charging 69.99 to my card each month even though I have gone through website instructions and phone calls to automated systems. Impossible to get a real human.

SCAM from original paid on Instagram offering free trial to digital marketing education.

The company scams by offering free trial and then charging the card regardless.
I signed up for a free month trial. Upon registering for a course a card/paypal account is required. As advertized, the first month (actually 28 days, per agreement) is free. Once the trial expired, the card on file is charged $69 automatically for the following month. Being aware of that, I attempted to cancel ahead of time, two days prior to trial expiration date. The website froze repeatedly while I tried to process the cancellation. Due to those technical diffuculties, I have been trying to process cancellation for three days in a row. When I finally processed the request, my card was already charged. I addressed the issue with customer support and requested refund, and my request was denied based on quoted terms and conditions of the free trial. As I was, in fact, aware of terms and conditions, I did everything on my part to cancel beforehand. It appears that the cancellation process is set up specifically so that the consumer has difficulty cancelling and gets charged regardless. The courses offered on the website are very basic and clearly are just a facade to scam people. I am contacting my credit card company to open a dispute in regards to this issue as well.

Not notified prior to the end of the trial, as promised. Billed on the 28th day - tried to request refund, was denied.
I signed up for the free 4 week trial on May 20th only after it was stated in the registration process that I would receive an email reminder a few days before the end of my trial period prior to billing.
I did not attend a single class or access any materials, not did I receive any communication regarding a class at Shaw academy.
On day 28 (June 16th @1030am), Shaw Academy withdrew $69.99 CDN from my account. I promptly reached out to cancel my membership and request a refund hours later. Which was denied.
My issue is:
A) I did not receive the promised reminder prior to the end of the trial period
B) I did not receive information or email or materials relating to any of the courses
C) the trial is free for 28 days. I cancelled on the 28th day, which should still be free.

I would like my money refunded - Shaw Academy offered to provide me additional access to courses, which is useless to me. This feels particularly shady given the situation with Covid-19 and how that has impacted people financially.

They did not issue any receipt or ema communication for the funds taken from my account either.

I have multiple charges taken from my account by Shaw Academy for membership fees, following my attempt to cancel a free trial.
I started a four-week free trial on April 9th, with Shaw Academy, and put May 7th in my diary as date due for cancellation if membership not desired. I also accepted the offer of a 'notification' to be provided by shaw before the trail was due to expire.
No such notification was provided at any point.

I did however, go on their website on the evening of the 6th to cancel. There was not a clear date and time as to when the trial would expire, but there was a notice that I still had '1 day left' - so, assuming I had until the end of the 7th (as it was at that point evening on the 6th), I decided to leave it until then, so I would have a chance to look at the courses.

However, the next morning, I already had two charges taken from my account - both of £69.99, and it was unclear exactly what these were for, as this is more than the membership fee stated on their website. I had decided I wanted to cancel my membership, and tried again to do so on the website, which now told me to call a number to confirm. I tried and the line was down, so I emailed Shaw on the 8th of May, explaining the situation and asking if they would cancel my account and refund the charges. This was within 24 hours of the day (time as noted unclear) that the course was due to expire.

I received a response on the 12th May (I followed up in the meantime), and they confirmed that my account was now cancelled (email attached here). However they initially refused to refund either of the charges.
After further discussion via email, they agreed to refund the membership fees (email attached). They only issued 69.99 out of the 138.99 total taken from my account, on June 3rd. Adding insult to injury, they then took a third charge from my account, the following day June 4th, without any notification, and after their email on May 12th assuring me that "no further charges will be taken" (in the attached).

When I contacted them asking for the first May 7th charge and the June 4th charges to be refunded, I received very unhelpful responses, stating that they could not find these charges under my account. This then changed, after I provided proof of the PayPal transactions (attached here), and they said the charges were actually linked to my account (though I had not been invoiced for them). I then asked when I could be expecting these further refunds and they stated that they are "unable to process subscription refunds unfortunately after the trial expiry, as per the terms and conditions". This does not address the issue or the evidence supplied, so I am coming to you for help in resolving this matter with Shaw.

From looking online, it also seems that they are under investigation for fraudulent practice.

This company is a fraud. I did not authorise this payment and want a full refund.
I requested a full refund this morning from Shaw Academy but was refused. This organisation is a scam. I rang Shaw Academy on 26th May 2020 to cancel my account with them. I was fobbed off several times by a representative, but at the end of the phone call was under the impression that my membership had been cancelled and that I would not be charged. I was then shocked this morning to find that I had been charged 49.99 by Shaw Academy for a service that I have not used nor wish to use. I feel it is completely unacceptable that I should be given the runaround by a fraudulent company, of which many others have also complained about online regarding the seeming impossibility to cancel their membership or receive a refund from Shaw Academy. I have attempted to contact this company by phone several times today but these numbers are all invalid. I did not authorise this payment and as such would like to be refunded the 49.99 which is due to me. I do not feel that I should be disadvantaged due to Shaw Academy's refusal to process my request to have my membership cancelled.

Scam Institution seeking Revenue instead of Education
It is with a heavy heart that I'm even writing this complaint for an educational institution but seeing that there are so many complaints compared to large companies then it is no surprise why we are all here. This is a scam education site with lots of expensive additional items to conduct and complete the course.

I started a four week free trial and cancelled right away after accidently clicking on finding out more information for the Toolkit but was charged $39.95 for it instead of finding more information of what's in the Toolkit. Finding out this is just more of a scam and wanting a refund for the Toolkit, I cancelled the free trial and did not use the Toolkit at all.

Immediately after I cancelled, I made sure that my cancelation was in order and see how I could receive my refund. The assured me by saying, 'Rest assured we will action your request...If you have been charged for the Toolkit or Certificate*** and it is not activated in your account or you are looking for a refund, please reply to this email with screenshot of the payment receipt or bank statement."

I provided both Invoice and Bank Statement but they changed their response saying that they will not honor my refund request which they stated; 'We cannot offer a refund in these circumstances as the revenue has been recognized as per our revenue recognition policies which we cannot alter.' I emailed with responses multiple times to request a refund but they would still not honor their word to provide me a refund.

They only offered to provide me with more Certificates, Toolkits and Hard Copy Diplomas which they provide better offers as I continued to respond. Noticing that they are just in it to make money and don't really care about being transparent on the site right in front of you with the programs/courses/additional fees within the class, customer service and offering other incentives so you can stay and pay more money so they can gain additional revenue.

I also requested this issue be escalated to their upper management and said that I would file a complaint at the Revdex.com website. They did not escalate the issue and bring in their upper management.

I was charged$69 last week however I did cancel my services via phone the same day I subscribed 3 months ago.cant reach them
I am writing this in regards to their customer service. I was charged the amount of $69 for 3 months, however I did cancel my services via phone the same day I signed up. I wrote them email to get this all figured out and got nothing in return. I called and got nothing. So,I am at the cross roads as to what to do.They might be good at teaching, however , dealing with the student's issue, not so much

Refund for false advertisement of £39.95 e-Certificate, alleged to be free, as well not cancelling my account and charging me £25 for another month.
Hi,

I wanted to brush up and learn some new skills during lockdown and came across a free trial at Shaw Academy. I started my 28-day free trial and a few days before it was to expire, a notification popped up on the app saying 'click here for free e-Certificate' which I did and nothing happened after that.

A day or so went by and I thought maybe it was an error on Shaw Academy's behalf to state that it was free and thus it didn't go through, however, when I checked my bank I noticed that I had been charged £39.95 on 03 June for the e-Certificate. I couldn't quite believe that I had been charged for what was stated to be free, and I quickly engaged in discussions with Shaw's billing team in hope of a refund, but these were quickly squashed. I have had several discussions now and they simply swerve the fact that they broke regulations involving mis-leading information. Their terms and conditions does state that it is a one-click purchase, but it doesn't say that they will lure you in by noting that it is free.

From that point onwards, I paused my account for 10 days thinking that it would get sorted during this period, plus if I did cancel my account then I thought my money would definitely not be returned.

Well, as this period came to an end, I decided to cancel the account on 13 June, going through several pages only to be told I needed to phone up and quote my student number of XXXXX. I went through this phase and believed everything to be cancelled, despite not receiving a confirmation email but I thought this was normal from a company that didn't even supply any verification on an e-certificate for £39.95. I shouldn't have been surprised when I received another charge from Shaw, £24.99 this time on the 15 June, which suggests they didn't process my cancellation and instead intended to keep hold of my bank details for as long as possible.

This was the final straw and I wrote once more to Shaw, requesting a refund for the £39.95 and now the £24.99, to which they brushed off. They obviously won't consider my claim or the fact that they are quite clearly breaking several regulations to better their own economy. In regards to the cancellation process, my account is still active for some reason, and I'm don't know where I stand. I'm going to try and cancel again, fingers crossed I will be successful this time but judging by their willingness to rip people off, who knows. This company is a joke, I thought it was designed to better peoples life's, now I know that it's the opposite.

At a time when the world is heading into an inevitable recession, company's like Shaw should have the decency to earn money the right way and not by trapping people on the other end. I'm current off work, not earning money, so to have £64.94 stollen and told I won't get it back, is frustrating and I have been left with no choice but to contact the Revdex.com. From previous claims, it's clear to see that I am not the first person to have fallen into the trap and I'm sure I won't be the last.

I have attached proof of charges but I can only provide one files, so I am more than happy to evidence emails between Shaw Academy and I if required.

Kind regards

I have never signed up with Shaw Academy, however, on the 21st February 2020, £49 was taken from my account.
I have never signed up with Shaw Academy but £49 was taken from my account on the 21st February 2020. I have been trying to resolve this with my bank, to no avail as Shaw are saying I created the account. I have no interest in the service they offer, so would not have signed up. I am incredibly disappointed that a company would allow fraud like this. I can not login to cancel anything as I do not know the log in details, emails go unanswered and the phone number online is not working. I expect a full refund with immediate effect.

I have signed up to the free 28 days trial of Shaw academy, and was billed after
I signed up for 28 days free trial for Shaw academy, due to schedule didn't have time to avail their services and didn't even receive any services from them yet after 28 days finished they automatically took 69$ dollars from my credit and billed me. Which I didn't get any notification at all. Since I cannot log in to their website coz my the email that I have provided wasn't working on their site. if you can pls help me on these situation thank u.

Cancelled my "subscription" before the free trial ended, credit card was still charged.
I signed up for the "1 month free trial". On my Shaw Academy account, it said they will email me reminders before my credit card will be charged. I never received such email.

Yesterday, June 16, my account said there was 1 day remaining in my trial, so I cancelled it, and also took a screenshot of it.

My credit card was charged 69.99 today.

As soon as I signed up for the free trial, I felt harassed by all the constant emails, text messages, and phone calls multiple times everyday. I even received calls and messages at 3am. After 3 days I was finally able to get them to stop calling me (there was no way to opt-out of this from my end, I had to "submit requests" to Shaw Academy).

Information on the website say it is easy to "cancel online" before free trial ends. After I click on "cancel subscription", it asked me to call a long distance number with limited office hours in a different time zone. After calling the number during their "business hours", turns out it was all an automated machine that asked the same questions repeatedly (at least 3 times) "are you sure you want to cancel, you are giving up your goals etc etc". After going through prompts to "cancel subscription" about 4 times, it finally said I will receive email confirmation of my cancellation. But I have yet to receive an email.

Sent an email to Shaw Academy, and submitted a "request" on their website regarding this issue but have not received any response. Could not find a phone number either to speak with anyone at Shaw Academy.

Please refund 69.99 and close my account with Shaw Academy.