Academia Reviews 832

Doubled the premium subscription cost from $249 in 2024 to $498 in 225 without notice.

This is a complete rip off. Very expensive, no value, no refund. Avoid at all cost. For me, never ever again

I had the really bad experience of finding out that over £200 had been taken from my account without warning. On closer inspection, in what looked like junk mail entitled "Update on Academia Premium" received 4 days before my money was taken, there was a mention towards the bottom that my fee would now be rising from £69 to over £200.
This isn’t just bad practice — it’s likely to be against UK consumer law (Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the CMA’s rules about fair auto-renewals). Hidden notices and big surprise price increases are not allowed, and terms saying "no refunds" can’t override consumers' basic legal rights.
If you get caught out by this scam you can dispute the payment with your bank (chargeback / Section 75); or otherwise to report the matter to Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Fortunately for me PayPal returned my money.
Ignore the 'customer service' responses to reviews. I will update this review if I ever see or hear of such assistance that is sincere and actually helpful. Those in actual academia can sometimes tend to assume that we can trust organisations that purport to support learning. Sadly that isn't always the case. Avoid.

This is a scam website. I innocently and now realise naively paid the £1 fee to view a publication on their website and didn’t realise that buried within the labyrinth of their terms and conditions was a trap to lock you into an expensive subscription. I have been to their website to try and release me from their subscription but the mass of conditions and obligations are purposefully designed to confuse and cheat you of your rights. I have been to PayPal and stopped any payments to this company in the future. I live in England and will refer this company to the appropriate authorities.

I subscribed for a month free trial a couple of years back. I cancelled my subscription, but they charged me anyways. The charged 100$ last year, and 300$ this year and they are not willing to refund. When I tried to cancel, you have to go through 2 or 3 different sites a reaffirm your choice of cancelling, which is deceptive enough to imply that the customer cancelled, without them actually doing so.

Absolutely appalled to find I'd paid £200 for something I didn't ask for - this 'company' is a complete con.
And ignore the ‘so sorry’ drivel - I have filled in the form and got nothing except ‘unfortunately …’ This money was stolen from me. It’s a criminal act. Wish I could give a negative star rating.

I was not using it and subscribed trial for 3$ . next year i was charged $89 which i didnt know in 2024 but yesterday i was charge $449 Invoice Number 785D4864-0003 . First the price difference . Second I dont use it anymore . Please refund .

I cancelled my subscription and was charged the annual fee anyway.
The articles in my field of interest are of very poor quality.

UPDATE: Received my refund without any questions asked.

I got charged for 1 year, and i did not want that, i just forgot to cancel the subscription. I made a request for a refund and it s been 3 days and no answear just a mail that my request has been received, i want to know when i can get my money back because i have the 30 day refund eligibility and it s my first year.

UPDATE:
I got my money back after like 6 days, even tho it was Easter when i made the request so maybe for other people it might be faster. They followed the rules on the site so it is a big tumbs up from me.

Poor customer service. Poor selection. Don’t waste your money

Stay away! You will receive a lot of spam emails and furthermore they will charge you for a yearly subscription in a very non transparent way.

I canceled my subscription almost 2 years ago and they kept taking money from my bank account on 2024 and 2025. I just realized this today! Avoid this site!

Sudden unexpected change in subscription from £70 to £202. No warning for why subscription should change, despite this being contrary to their own terms and conditions. This is a SCAM. If you write to them you get an automated response ignoring the questions asked.
UPDATE: Proved that Academia had broken their own terms and conditions. PAYPAL refunded everything within 1 day. EXCELLENT SERVICE PAYPAL

I would like to give zero stars but this is unfortunately not possible. Similar to most of the posts I see here, I all of a sudden need to pay 356 euros instead of 79 last year. I asked to cancel my subscription per direct, and a refund. Cancel yes, but no refund was the answer. Do not subscribe !!

Similar to others, I was a victim of Academia.edu’s unethical business practices. They auto-renewed my subscription from a “50% off” promotion rate of $74.50 in 2024 to $499 this year. I contacted their support team the same day the renewal processed (while it was still pending) requesting cancellation and received a reply stating “we are not offering refunds for any Academia Premium renewal payments at this time.” I fully intend to dispute this transaction and strongly discourage anyone from using this service.

Another avoid at all costs. I took out a subscription 2 years ago. No email received about massive price hike, and automatic payment taken. I've not used it so they are not out of pocket, I don't want it and they won't refund me. AVOID.

Avoid at all costs. I took out a premium subscription last year, it’s been a waste of time. They have also just taken £279 off me when I was expecting £69. I found an email from them from 7 days ago with no clue in the header about price increases (they send constant spam emails anyway). The email was pages of “benefits of a premium subscription” then at the bottom in tiny letters it said “we’re taking £279 from you”. Totally disreputable and not even worth subscribing to. Avoid at all costs.

You download the file that you want, only to see that you downloaded a bunch of other files that are 'related' to yours. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO THIS WEBSITE, IT IS A SCAM

I signed up for an account with them in 2014 and then cancelled that same year. After I was mistakenly recharged by them several times. In 2019 I signed up with them again for a few minutes by mistake and then cancelled the service a few minutes after sign up, I received an email saying it was cancelled. Today I discovered in March 2025 I had been charged 202.80 GPB again without any notification. I asked my bank to look into it and they discovered they also charged me in March 2024 82.80 GBP and in March 2023 69.00 GBP, despite never corresponding with them again since the full cancellation in 2019 (but blocking Paypal payments to them in 2023 after the above). I received no notification that they were charging me in 2025, 2024, 2023 or that the service had been re-activated after the cancellation in 2019.

Updated: the reply provided by Academia. edu below does not resolve the issue. I also then received an email from support, stating the sum had already been refunded, which was not true, My subsequent emails have got nowhere and their responses are ever more ridiculous. The company should not be in operation and is a scam.

Like many others, I have had money taken from my account without any notification or explanation. A pattern emerges from the many Trustpilot reviews of Academia.edu hiking subscription fees and then just taking the money out of our accounts without any notification of the increase and the withdrawal. Academia.edu appears to be operating illegally, stealing our money, and therefore, it is right and proper to inform people of this corruption. Unfortunately, I don’t have the expertise, but if others do, please put out a global note on social media platforms that Academia.edu is a corrupt organisation.