Be Careful of the hidden pop ups on the platform/website

I think most of us, well I know I did, realized that we will have to better educate ourselves if you want to move closer to our dreams and while most off us are still in lock down and working from home, we have more time to study and help our dreams become reality.

While we are excited to learn more we are also restricted in our finances and so some of us, like myself, get caught in these honey traps that pop up on various social media pages.

The ads may say, “you can now study for free” or something catching like that, it is always best to read the terms and conditions. This time I did not. I have seen Shaw Academy ads all the time and my friends like and share their ads and so I just jumped at the first opportunity I got to try out the platform. I have done courses on, udemy.com, so I wanted to see how the platform is and with the “free trial” I saw a great time for it.

You have to give your card details for payment but they say that they will not deduct anything as this is completely free. You can choose your study time 1, 2 or 3 times a week, no more than that and only one hour each time. I did the first lesson without any study materials but at least there was wording on the screen to correspond with the lecture.

The next day I wanted to do another class, I logged in and clicked on continue course, I received a pop up block that asked if I want to do the next class of module one, I click yes, At that moment a sms came through, payment of R399 pending for Shaw Academy. I checked my email, no invoice received. Right there I did not know what that amount was for. And did not even continue to do the next class. I logged of and received an email saying that there was an error with the payment but it has been resolved. The amount on the email was R499. Half an hour later another payment goes off R299.99, again no email received of and invoice.

I emailed the support team, they assured me that they do not do any refunds and because of the inconvenience they will open the toolkit for the remaining modules, give the certificate for free and not charge a monthly fee until August 2021.

Still not knowing what the payments was for, I thought that it is a good offer and not wanting to loose this opportunity, I left the issue.

The next day I wanted to see if the toolkit is available already and I only logged on. Another sms, R200 deducted. Again not a single email or any authentication.

I emailed support and asked them to please just cancel everything and give me the money back because I can not trust that platform. I express my concerns and again, they refuse a refund.

So now I had to cancel my card, pay for another, I have all the international cost for each time they deduct their amounts, they also deduct a small amount to test your card, they say you get it back, and then the three another amounts. Add it all up and you have my food cost for the month.