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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
I too have been scammed by this very misleading company!! I applied for the FREE course decided it was not for me and cancelled 20 minutes later, to then discover they have taken two sums of £49.99 out of my account!! How is this company still getting away with this???? Fighting every day to get a refund!!!
I’m in the same boat, they charged me after I called to cancel my membership , just one day after I registered with them for a 4 weeks free Course. Anyone knows how do I get a refund?
I signed up for a free trial and they hassle you constantly via email and telephone call. After completing my first lesson they called asking how it went and would I be interested in any offers (mainly a full 12 month FULL subscription with all bells and whistles) being emailed to me and I said yes I enjoyed and they could email me offer. They then charged my account £199.95 twice. After calling they refused to refund stating I gave verbal consent on the phone all to this. Not only did they cancel my free month membership immediately and upgrade me, they charged me twice and offered me a full life time membership when I requested a refund stating it’s against their policy for refunds or to send me the said call that I accepted and that I’d ticked the terms and conditions (but couldn’t state where in the terms and conditions telephone consent is acceptable). He also told me that PayPal dispute will not give me my money back and then offered me £100 pound refund and I said no. He then said that the do not apply for 14 day cooling off period and tried to pressure me into accepting £100 and lifetime membership.
I am currently in active investigation with PayPal and my bank and have emailed them again. I have also contacted Apple as they are advertising this online learning scam and will be happy to comment all the people’s issues here and take this matter further. If not resolved I will go to the financial ombudsman for further guidance or small claims court.
DO NOT ANSWER any calls to them and ensure you’ve notified your bank if you want to cancel and they will block all payments to company or cancel any pre-approved payments on PayPal immediately if you do not want to be charged.
my card has been charged with 170 AED eventhough i am not an active member of Shaw Academy and they have fradulently charged it and not refunding my money. I had cancelled my free trial within 4 week for which i got their subscription cancellation email along with a statement that i will not be charged henceforth, inspite of providing this proof to them they claimed that since i did not cancel I was charged. BLOODY FRAUD company and James is a big FRAUD, We should sue this company jointly so that their investors and management are put behind BARS.
I also enrolled in Shaw academy and had problems from the beginning! I have never ever logged on except to enroll until 01/08/2021. I had already sent an email stating that I was cancelling and for no charges be removed from my card. I was emailed in response acknowledging my request and was told my subscription would be cancelled.
I’m in a battle with Shaw Academy for $69. I canceled my membership day before my classes started cuz I couldn’t afford the material and told that they charged my debit card $69 caused my electric payment to bounce my electric was shut off for Christmas for 5 days so my son,who is unable to walk and am I I’m a caregiver for, and I had no electricity Christmas Eve or Christmas all the food i just purchasesed for Christmas diner and the following 2 weeks had to be thrown out. I had to borrow money to order a pizza. This caused a ripple effect affecting other bills. A lousey $69 they still won’t give me my refund
This firm is run by James Egan. Shaw academy is a scam. I experienced the same issue. I habe filed complaints to paypal and Facebook.
The best thing you can do is to click on their ads to maximize their expenses.
I signed up for a free trial and then called to unsubscribe from their services but they still continue to try and charge my card going on 3 months now. Now when i try to cancel it they want me to give credit card info out which isnt happening. This place is a huge scam.
I signed up for the free Digital Marketing class. I was charged for course materials that I never approved. I called and canceled my membership immediately, but have now emailed Gregory in billing at least 5 times trying to get my money back. He keeps telling me that he has given me 3 classes free and I keep telling him that I don’t want anything to do with this sham of a company. I just want my money back that they illegally took from me.
I am aother victim of ShawAcademy. Same story as everyone: I enrolled a free course, I was paypal charged during my free trial, I paid for an e-certificate I don’t want, they refuse to refund me. I have cancelled my subscription on their site, I have also closed my monthly subscription to ShawAcademy on paypal. But it seems that they can reactivate one’s subscription at their own will, so I am afraid they will charge my paypall account in the future without my knowledge.
Any leagal measures I (or we, together) can take? Can’t we sue them? I see many bad topics about Shaw Acadamy but no one tells what leagal steps the hundreds of deceived people could do!