I love education and the process of teaching. It’s the foundation of knowledge sharing and such an evolving industry. I’ve been a teacher myself and sharing knowledge, stories and lessons learnt with students and watching them have those ahah moments and seeing their growth, is an honour and a privilege.
Online services like udemy are so good because they’re global, multilingual and allow creators to build the courses. It’s a win-win for students and teachers across the world.
And so it’s really disheartening when one of these services taint the experience with a sneaky revenue raising model with no possibility of refund. It’s just not fair play, and goes against our foundations of encouraging creativity, exploration and the furthering of knowledge.
To get to the point, if you sign up with https://www.domestika.org for their Domestika Plus service, they offer no refund. There will be no communication with you for 6 months prior to renewal. And no warning of any upcoming charges.
Be warned or you’ll be caught as I have.
Domestika offer free trials and a discounted entry into the subscription, for me it was a $159 AUD entry for one year. I got busy in life and didn’t use the service at all during that period. When the renewal date came around, I was hit with a $559 AUD charge for the year. So essentially, I handed Domestika $718 AUD for no return and no possibility of a refund.
Customer service 101 and the use of AI, would easily enable Domestika to identify those users who have not used the service and a refund could be offered as an automated process. As a user, I likely cost Domestika a few cents or less during that one year to host my account with no service consumption.
Unbelievable business model and ethics.
Surely there would have been reminders, communications warning me like other services do, that an upcoming charge ($559 is a significant amount of money) is nearing. But no, after checking the last communication from them was 6 months ago.
I contacted support multiple times, and there was only an automated response saying it was in the terms, with no option to speak with a human.
They even have a prepared option in their AI assistant linking to the help article explaining why they don’t refund. Clearly many have been caught out.
In my time using Domestika, I completed a total of one course prior to signing up to plus. And at the time had thoughts of becoming a course creator.
Not now, never. The people who make your business profitable are awesome, as a business you suck big time, Domestika.
You can read more about their practices in TrustPilot – https://au.trustpilot.com/review/domestika.org and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/domestika
How to get a refund
- Immediately cancel your plus subscription on the Domestika website
- Contact Domestika support and ask for the refund (they won’t of course)
- Contact your bank and dispute the transaction
- The banks are well aware of this scam and will refund you immediately, even though you may have to be issued a new credit card
My bank was amazing in this instance and refunded the transaction on the spot.
If you’ve been caught by this scam, I hope you get the refund you deserve.
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