Shaw Academy Reviews 286

Unlawful and disgraceful company. I truly think everyone at Shaw Academy belongs in jail, as it’s absolutely shocking what they are doing. Refusing refunds despite them having a “no quibble” refund policy as well as ignoring emails has pretty much summed up my experience with them.

Free Trial os not free trial.
I subscribed to the shaw academy through an instagram commercial. But i quickly found out that its not a free trail.

As soon as you login, they will make you click on a certificate which cost approx, 35-45 GBP.
These will be charged to your account immediately.
First of all why do you sell a certificate before anyone has enrolled in a class.

The idea is simple and obvious, they will make you enroll with a free trial, but then sell you certificates and other inputs immediately just to get some money out from you.

I've now tried to get my money back.
I can prove that i never downloaded the certificate, pressed purhcase, or approved any transaction.

I started free trial 4-week account few days ago and I decided to cancel it today. I tried to cancel my membership, and I noticed that €44.99 is taken from my bank account. I sent an email for a refund. I am going to write again if I get an answer.

They are fraud and total scammers. They took my money way before my free trial period could have ended. They are not refunding it now which is totally against their own policy. Their course content is not that great which couldn’t be found on YouTube and other academic sites. If someone really wants to study then I would suggest to join Coursera instead. I made a huge mistake for thinking them to be professional but instead they are a group of vultures who just want to snatch money from people.

This company is a scam. Cancelation is impossible.
You can call and try to cancel, but they lie about your account being closed/deleted/canceled.
Don't start. Save yourself the headache.
There *IS* no "FREE TRIAL"

April 2020: It was the middle of global quarantine...I was bored. I thought, "Why not? I will trial a class for 30 days..."
May 2020: Called to cancel, as instructed by the website. They begged me not to go...offered me 30 more days. I caved. I'm a sucker.
Two weeks later (June 1): I knew I wasn't going to log back in...things were picking up and we were able to go outside without danger of COVID jumping on us from a passer-by. Called again, resisted the automated begging this time. I figured this was over.
I WAS SO WRONG.
Two weeks later, I was charged $69.99.
I emailed and asked why I was charged when I clearly canceled. They "can't refund a charge" but will give me a free 6 months as a parting gift. I have an email confirming my cancellation.
Fast forward to last week (March 2021): I log in to PayPal and see that I have 3 charges of $69.99 from Shaw?!? Dec, Jan, Feb. I am currently in the process of disputing the fraudulent charges with PayPal.
I have contacted Shaw directly via email, so I have proof of our interaction. They tell me they need to call me to discuss. After 4 attempts of me giving them an hour window to call (including time zone) and them totally disregarding that window, I connected with Marcas. Marcas told me that no refund could be given, and stated that my account had been magically re-activated on [this] date in [this] town from [this] phone. Funny thing is, I wasn't even in [THIS] town on [THIS] date to activate it from [THIS] phone. So it must have been magical fairies who stole my phone from my pocket and reactivated my account and signed me up for a 4 week recurring transaction.
Or FRAUD.
My bet is on the latter.

This is a disgrace of an 'academy'!!! Please avoid at all costs! I signed up for a free trial in January and cancelled a couple of weeks after. Today (March 10th) I was charged membership fees *without notice* (the membership was cancelled almost two months ago). When requesting a refund, I was met with a very rude and blameful 'it is your fault, you must have clicked on a button and reactivated the membership. We will not issue a refund.' (the representative's name was Sonya). I obviously did not click on anything, nor did I open any emails or text messages from them as I am aware of their way of operating and scamming millions of desperate and hopeless people. I cannot believe they are still doing this after so many complaints! Please do not fall into this scam! Avoid at all costs!

I signed up, the next day someone called and offered me three months for free. They then charged me £100. I complained and they said to listen to the call. When I did, I hear the rep mumble about the price being £99 but I’d get everything for free, so I believed it was free! Apparently since they told me the price I can’t get a refund even though I’ve never used the service or agreed to pay! The rep who rung was rude and I'm absolutely furious, AVOID THIS COMPANY - IT IS A SCAM.

they take money from you without authorization! It’s illegal, it’s a scam

Giulia Tozzi

This is a scamming company, that robes people in this critical time period, when most of us are struggling to make ends meet, they use illegal ways to withdraw money from your bank account. Be cautious! they will call you, offer free subscription and then will charge you for that.

On the 24th February 2021 I received an email from Shawn academy that said:

"SAVE MONEY WITH UNLIMITED!
Did you know that with Unlimited Access you're actually saving money? You get 100% Cashback, learn a new skill or trade and boost your career!"

I then clicked a button that said GET UNLIMITED, as I was curious I opened the email and I immediately got charged £69!! I only found out because my credit card sent me a text message about the charges.
Shawn Academy charged me £69 the moment I have clicked on an offer email. No CVV requests, no questions or preview confirmation of the membership or card details required, before getting charged. I was not aware that by opening the email I would have got charged £69. NO information on the email states that I will get charged automatically just by opening the email.
I emailed Shawn academy straight away, which they got back to me on 27th February, saying that someone will give me a call back. The same evening a represenatice of Shaw Academy called me saying they have now deleted my card details, which I entered when I registered for a free trial back in November 2020. I used their website for few day but then realised I didn't like it so I never logged back in since the 24th February. The person on the phone said that I registered the card details in November so they don't have to ask permission to charge me. According to them, the moment I clicked on the email I was accepting the charges, and carried on explaining terms and conditions of the offer, and lying about the facts that the info where on the email, but they were not. He said the 100% cashback is actually an offer of over 90%off the value, it's a great deal and that Refund is not an option. There was no way for him to give option of refund of any kind, even if I sent a complaint. He suggested and kept interrupting me, saying that he was trying to get things clear quickly, that there was no way whatsoever that the company would ever give a refund back and that I should start using the Lifetime membership or give it to family or friends if I don't want to use it.
This company is a SCAM! Their messages are fake and misleaning. They stole my money withouth asking for permission! GO TO OTHER ONLINE SCHOOLS OR COMPANIES BUT DO NOT REGISTER WITH SHAW ACADEMY AS THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY WITHOUT ASKING FOR PERMISSION!!
After giving a 1 star review of Trustpilot yesterday, I received a call back by the same rude person, which was trying to ask me whst was the problem..again ,like we didn't discuss it, and reminded me that REFUND IS NOT AN OPTION WITH SHAW ACADEMY! I NEED MY £69 BACK, AND UNFORTUNATELY I CAN SEE MOST OF REVIEWS ONLINE ARE NEGATIVE FOR THE SAME REASON!

don't know where to begin but I think the best place would be to say if you think you might like to do a course in the free trial period, as you know you are bored, you've seen the pop up on Facebook, then don't.
Just don't.

Please go to the Open University where they have free courses and don't fraudently take your money off you. EVER.

This is the biggest fraud ever. I would say on par with Robert Maxwell but we won't be seeing any of the founders mysteriously jumping off ship anytime soon as the founders James Egan and Adrian Murphy believe they are above the law.

Shaw Academy are the biggest bunch of scammers in the world and I mean the world.

What started as something to do in lockdown with my time, has manifested into a crusade against a company with NO values. Not even a teensy bit of CSR. Not even fake values for their employees. Not even any scruples for anyone else who thought this during lockdown (just Google Shaw Academy, it'll save you asking your bank to do a fraud check on Shaw Academy to cancel your cards).

You can't even cancel online. You have to log in (remember this) and go through all the bits of don't go we'll give you this for free blah blah. Then you get the phone number to ring. You get through to someone (Brandon for my time) and he said yes absolutely I can see you didn't even do a course, I'll cancel straight away.

TBH I was so grateful as I had let a couple of months subscription slip by and I had felt really guilty telling my husband but it was so easy. Brandon said as a gesture of good will I'll chuck in something for a month. I said no thanks I don't need or want it but he said if you change your mind you can use it in a month. I remember saying to Brandon thanks for making my cancelling to Shaw Academy so easy!

That was Nov 2020. Let's go to my bank statement Jan 2021... so £49.99 had been taken out of my bank by none other, Shaw Academy.

I rang up by logging into my Shaw academy account where I noticed my account was still active... as you remember you can't just ring up you have to log back into your account. When you log back in online, you immediately get random texts saying you can get xyz courses. This time I spoke to Lerato and I was fuming. Apparently I had paused my account! Not on my nelly I said, and apparently there was nothing on my account to say that I had spoken to Brandon. All a bit bizarre if I had paused my account if there was no mention of me speaking to Brandon in the first place... I reiterated that this was fraudulent practice and she agreed to refund me and cancel my account. On the same day I got a confirmation cancellation email. I thought phew.

Fast forward a month and guess what? I checked my bank and there was another charge of £49.99 to Shaw Academy. How could this be? That is against GDPR and a fraudently taking monies from my bank account. So instead of ringing, I lodged a complaint online. After logging a complaint, I got a lady call Glenna ring me up saying that she can't do a refund but I've got free membership for life. I got an email back saying my account was reactivated. Not i reactivated my account but my account was reactivated - all so fishy. I have been sending numerous emails since and I still haven’t received my £100 back. I would like my interest back too as I feel people like me are crowd funding/bank rolling this awful outfit.

Actually, if everyone who has been done over by Shaw Academy put 10% in to a new online facility where we'd get awards, we'd have a better education facility than this shower.

There's loads more to this story but I hope you get the gist. The moral is - DON'T TOUCH SHAW ACADEMY WITH A BARGE POLE

they have charged me without my consent and refuse to give my money back.
SCAMMERS!

Going by the enormous amount of very bad reviews on this page, I'm surprised that Shaw Academy hasn't upped their game a little, fired their website designer and promotions manager and sorted out this problem, but I guess scammers will be scammers. Are they really so desperate for clients that they will deceive, trick, steal and then hound you some more for money? A company, especially an educational company like this one claims to be, cannot last long with these kinds of deplorable business practices. If they just gave back the money to disgruntled clients (or potential clients they stole from) no doubt they would have a lot more people subscribe to their courses and scamming wouldn't be necessary.

Total scam!
Total scam!!
I cancelled free trial before it was over cause I wasn’t able to do the classes with my job. And two months after cancellation they took the 50£ from my Credit Card. Called my bank and they sent me a list of transactions between me and Shaw. 60£ more wanted to take from account, but couldn’t cause its cancelled. Who knows how much more would they took if i didn’t cancelled Card. I have sent two e-mails and didn’t get any response.

Don’t get it how are they still able to do this all to us..

I created an account but cancelled it within four days of signing up as I found the constant emails irritating. My cancellation was done BEFORE the end of my FREE trial. I also HAD NOT ACCESSED any of the materials and I was not interested in accessing them in the future, however, five months later I received a notification saying that money had gone from my PayPal to Shaw Academy. They refused to refund me even though they were at fault and instead offered me an extended membership. Despite contacting them to say I was not interested and I was legally entitled to a refund, they refused to give me a refund and stopped replying to my emails. As far as I am aware, since I had not accessed any of the materials yet and have brought up the issue within 14 DAYS of the payment going through, I should be entitled to a FULL REFUND. I had not been previously notified that there was an outstanding payment, or that there weren't sufficient funds in my PayPal account, in fact, I have my PayPal records and I know this amount has been in my account for the past few months, so this transaction has come out of the blue. The website quoted their terms and conditions to me, however these only state that the membership charges will take be debited corresponding to the commencement of my PAID membership plan. I know that I had made the cancellation before the end of the free trial period and have the emails to prove this, however the website has completely stopped replying to my emails and I do not know what to do to get my money back.

Have been asking for a refund for weeks. they offered me free 6 months access but refused to give me a refund. Said he was sorry that it was not possible. I kept insisting that I did not authorise taking money fro me. As compensation he said that my bank details had been removed and that they wouldn't take more money. I persisted in asking for refund then he said coz i raised a dispute in paypal the money is locked. They cannot release. THAT IS A LIE. Paypal closed the case weeks ago as declined it. the money is not locked at all!
DO GIVE THEM YOUR BANK DETAIL
this is a nightmare

Screamed at early in the morning
I registered but pulled out when they asked for my credit card details.

Two days later (Today) I received a call 9ish in the morning from one of their employees asking me to complete my registration...He said it's a very good deal and today's my last chance to register....etc. I said I have decided to go with another provider, he kept pushing and I said I will consider again and make a decision this afternoon. He then literally screamed at me that he's not asking for my credit card details and something else...at this point I was too surprised at his attitude to say anything before he shouted 'Have a good day' and hung up.

What a waste of time picking up their calls which ruined my peaceful morning.

This is a fraudulent company. They simply will not stop billing after you cancel. We had to cancel the card.

ScamAcademy!!
ScamAcademy!!! I signed up for a free class a month ago but them immediately decided to cancel it because I do not have enough time for any class. I spoke to a customer rep, told me that she cancelled it already and I won’t be charged. But just today I was charged for subscription! During this pandemic when many people are jobless, why would you steal their money? Give me back my money!!!!

Trustpilot have a warning up about this company on another Shaw Academy page. There are at least three pages on Trustpilot for this company. If you've posted here please go and post on the one that the company have actually claimed where Trustpilot have already put a warning up about Shaw Academy. I've been hit by them too. £49.99 unauthorised payment taken from my account. Bombarded with popups after signing up for a free course in good faith that I would be able to cancel it and pay nothing at all as long as I cancelled before 3rd March 2021 but they have already taken this payment. Now trying to get a refund via Nationwide and get them blocked from taking anything else.