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Shaw Academy is facing an investigation regarding Trustpilot reviews amongst booming student numbers during the coronavirus lockdown.
Online courses rapidly gained popularity when the global lockdowns due to COVID-19 commenced.
However, Guardian Money reveals that one of the biggest players in the online course game has been receiving massive numbers of complaints from upset customers, many of whom are requesting refunds. Shaw Academy is being investigated by the reviews website Trustpilot.
Shaw Academy is one of the biggest companies in online education and states 12 million students have “graduated” from its many online courses, with a huge spike of students who joined during the lockdown.
The diverse collection of courses ranges from digital marketing and web design to music lessons and wedding photography. Most courses are free for four weeks and then cost £49.99 a month.
In order to sign up for Shaw Academy, users have to enter their payment information, and some students have criticised the company, saying it makes it complicated to cancel the free trial. Many students claim they cancelled before the deadline, and yet the funds were still taken out of their account.
Guardian Money claims to have seen emails from Shaw Academy asking customers to delete unfavourable Trustpilot reviews and replace them with positive ones.
Many customers state they have been pestered with emails, texts, WhatsApp messages and phone calls that try to persuade them to buy more services.
However, Shaw Academy tells Guardian Money that “99.5% of customers have zero issues,” adding that its global ratings were “exceptionally high.” While the coronavirus pandemic has been a difficult time, Shaw Acadmey said, “we have worked tirelessly to make improvements.”
Despite its alert about the investigation, huge numbers of Trustpilot reviews are still being written. Guardian Money counted about 25 in the space of one hour. Of the 25 Trustpilot reviews, nine were one-star ratings.
As of 18 June 2020, Trustpilot announced a warning on the Shaw Academy review page that the company has been persuading customers to leave biased reviews, namely, selecting only students that were happy with their services. According to Trustpilot, Shaw Academy has asked students to delete negative reviews or change them to positive reviews.
These actions directly breach Trustpilot’s guidelines and have the potential to mislead customers.
Veronika Solnickova, 33, told Guardian Money she signed up for a sports nutrition course with Shaw Academy. She later wanted to end her €179.95 (£162) yearly membership and thought the process would be a simple one.
She says opted to be notified one day prior to the subscription end date, but she was never notified. She was stunned to find she had been charged £162 for another year.
Solnickova states she should have been notified before being charged for another yearly subscription and claims the activity is in breach of the company’s contract. She was forced to file a grievance with PayPal.
After she posted a negative review on Trustpilot a couple of days later, Shaw Academy emailed to say her refund would arrive shortly.
As seen by Guardian Money, the email states: “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind removing your review or giving us a good rating on trustpilot.com, just until I have the chance to rectify the problem for you.” A follow-up email with a similar message was sent a few days later.
Solnickova refused to change her review and eventually received her refund.
“I assume Shaw Academy gave the go-ahead to PayPal to proceed with the refund,” she told Guardian Money. “I consider myself to be lucky. Many people all over the world are being taken advantage of during the pandemic. They make it impossible to cancel and keep charging people.”
When asked about the alert on the Shaw Academy page, Trustpilot told Guardian Money: “We take the integrity of our platform extremely seriously. Should we become aware of any company breaching our guidelines and trying to mislead consumers, we will take action. Our investigation continues but we have already issued formal cease-and-desist proceedings and if we don’t receive a satisfactory response we will take further enforcement action.”
The UK’s CPD Standards Office, an accreditation service for training and learning, announced in March that anyone looking to pursue an online course should choose one that has been externally verified, to reduce the risk of purchasing a course that has misleading adverts or contains incorrect information.
Have you purchased a course from Shaw Academy? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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85 thoughts onShaw Academy Facing Investigation, Calls for Refunds
This company needs to be fully investigated. I was scammed out of £49.99 for course materials AFTER I cancelled my membership! I didn’t authorise payment, just found an email saying I’d bought it! Absolutely disgusting.
Same thing happened to me!! I cancelled before my trial finished, and I got tricked and apparently I just ‘extended’ my free trial.. next thing I know they charged me £49.99!!!!!!
I subscribed to the “free” trial and cancelled in the 2nd week yet they took $36.99 and $69.99 out of my account then were messaging saying that their terms and conditions don’t allow the refund of the money they took out, which I NEVER AUTHORISED. Pmo.
I was scammed twice, once after agreeing to do online course, and after I complained and cancelled all dealings with Shaw Academy, I was charged second time out of the blue. when I emailed them, they replied with two different versions: the first one stated that they by error didn’t cancel my subscription and for unknown reasons charged me two months later. Transaction showed that I have bought a gift card from them 23 of August, the second mail next day tried to convince me that I have renewed subscription myself on 10 of September.
So I was begging them to charge me on two different occasions occurring on two different dates. Jokers. PayPal refused refund and did not recognize this transaction as fraudulent.
My daughter subscribed to free course yesterday. Today I realized that my credit card was charged 39.99€ for the Toolkit that she neither ordered and “unlocked” as it said in the confirmation email, nor used. Email about “successful” purchase came in the morning, when she was taking her exam and physically couldn’t make any purchase. This is unauthorized sale. They not only providing misleading info to the customers, but also applying Illegal and manipulative technics of one click sale. Unfortunately I’ve seen all these negative reviews about them too late.
We cancelled the subscription immediately, before starting the course. But I am puzzled how actually to get my money back from them…
I am a another person who’s been scammed by this company.
It’s disgusting that they blame everything on Covid19 and pretend to be an honest company after all…
They’ve been stealing and they keep on stealing to this day!!
How can we stop them?
I had signed up to the shaw academy for the FREE TRIAL for 4 weeks, however after not using any of their service I had noticed a few days ago that a sum of £49.99 had been collected on two occasions (who knows it could be more I will find this out with the scammers themselves). Anyways, once I had seen such a large sum of money go Out of my account to Shaw Academy, I decided to email them immediately as anyone would do. Once explaining that I have used absolutely none of their service and for them to charge me is completely out of order- the assistant by the name of Paddie had first told me that there’s nothing he can do as it would break their terms and conditions; PEOPLE, do not fall for it when they try and use legal talk- every situation is circumstantial and company’s should refund you if a service isn’t used by you, ESPECIALLY because I never knew I was getting charged each month.
Once I emailed again demanding a refund, this ‘Paddie’ had told me he has forwarded my issue further and I shall receive an email in 1-2 business days. LIES. It has been over 2 business days and now the Shaw Academy is completely ignoring me- they will do this in hope that you stop chasing your money. I WILL NOT STOP. I am going to make sure ALL of my money returns back to me as the level of negligent behaviour towards their customers is absolutely disgusting. The Shaw Academy is a scam and all they want to do is take Large sums of money out of Your account without you knowing. Disgusting that they are doing this at a time of struggle and distress for everyone financially as we have been struck by COVID-19. Shaw Academy must be shut down.
I am shocked that despite all the negative reviews, many customers are still enrolling only to find later on , they are a scam.
Like me, many enrol coz on their website it says ‘Excellent rating’ plus it’s also 4 week free trial. Unfortunately during those 4 weeks they try all sorts of scams to make you pay ( many examples on Trust Pilot, All reviews) and then it’s a battle to get refunded.
I feel sorry for international students with poor english who gets scammed as they cannot understand their accent over the phone when they cunningly sell their products under pretence of ‘checking how you are getting on with your studies’
I signed up for their month trial and cancelled after the first week. They charged me for it even though I cancelled before the trial was over. Then they charged me again when someone signed up using my credit card information. I called to tell them that this was fraudulent activity on my credit card account but they charged me anyways. This company not only has low quality classes, but they will charge you even when you cancel before the trial is up and even if it is fraud. I disputed the first charge through my credit card and was able to get it refunded because they did not respond, but they had “proof” I did not cancel the second sign up in time even though I had told them that someone was signed up for their services fraudulently using my credit card. I had to cancel my credit card to prevent anymore unauthorized charges. Don’t sign up for any free trial because they will continue to charge you even if you cancel before the trial is over, and apparently they’ll charge you even if your credit card information is stolen and used. There classes are low quality and not worth it. That is why I cancelled during the first week.
I was charged £199.95 2 weeks into the 4 weeks free trial. I requested a refund which was refused. I left them a scathing review on Trust Pilot, pointing out that the positive reviews are all from ‘Invited’ reviewers and therefore probably fake. I also mentioned in my review that I would issue Small claims court proceedings and report them to trading standards if they chose to ignore my complaint. Only after that did they call to offer a refund. That was 4 days ago and it hasn’t come through yet. I also called Amex to report the charge as fraudulent. Amex is raising a dispute.
In my experience you really have to go hard with these thieves. Any request for a refund is answered with a standard refusal. Don’t take no for an answer.
Same story. Signed up for trial. Tried to cancel before 4 weeks. Was asked 6 times if I was sure on the website, then told I had to call a representative, who continued to try to keep me to stay. Made it clear I wasn’t interested. At some point she told me I had already been charged because I allegedly upgraded my subscription. I asked for a refund and they gave me an email. The representative had the nerve to offer more “free” products after all of that. I then got charged again presumedly because she didn’t cancel my account after all the trouble I went to to do just that. Filed a complained with the BBB. Got a response saying I would get a refund, but the same morning got an email saying I would not. Either way, I had already canceled my debit card so they couldn’t keep charging me. I see no way to get a refund because I for sure won’t be giving them any more of my Information. Scam.
I filed with BBB as well. There were many complaints about Shaw Academy. Yesterday I opened BBB again and the rating of Shaw Academy was around 4.7 and there were 0 complaints. Today I couldn’t even find Shaw Academy on BBB. I guess that website is not very reliable.
My daughter was scammed by Shaw Academy. Same pattern. She signed up, and cancelled. They took £49.99 from her account. We’ve had every excuse under the sun why they can’t refund her. I’m furious. They are scam artists