DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF SIGNING UP FOR THE FREE TRIAL

WARNING: DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP OF SIGNING UP FOR THE FREE TRIAL.

A friend of mine used Shaw Academy a few years back and was quite happy with it. Classes were set up at specific times and there was an actual person on the other side conducting the classes.

In December 2020, I came across an ad for a Photography course of 4 weeks for free. Having a friend that spoke well of Shaw Academy, I thought I would give it a try.

Soon after signing up, I realised the Photography class is more than 4 weeks long and I need to purchase course materials. Disappointed, I wanted to cancel my membership. After going through several pages, each page trying to convince you to stay, I eventually ended up on a page where it stated that I need to call a number to cancel my subscription.

I called the number and a person, who instead of assisting me cancel my subscription, managed to convince me to stay on as I will receive an extra free 30 days and some other free stuff. At first I thought I could make it work and started with the lessons.

Note that classes are now just pre-recorded videos, and most of the quizes have so many errors, or some links doesn't even work at all.

The website is so broken it's not even worth the effort. And it's such a hassle to get out of the membership. There was an option to pause the membership, but that's gone now too. You will need to contact support to pause your membership. And you can only pause for 30 days, so you will be in the same boat the next month.

Why do I need to go through such a hassle to cancel? Why don't you spend the money and time on building a better platform instead of putting all these blockers to convince people to stay? If the platform was better, I might have stayed until my free days has run out (I still have 58 days left), but frankly, it's not worth it.