I had been eyeing that freebie in Fido XTRA for many weeks now on the free 3-month access to Shaw Academy's online courses. I grabbed my promo code a long while ago but didn't make an account at Shaw Academy until only a few hours ago. I've never been to this website before, and I was immediately enticed with their free 1-month trial offer.
While signing up, they asked for my credit card info. Normally, I would do quick research to see if a business is really trustworthy—but I didn't. The promotion that led me there was provided by my phone company. Fido wouldn't affiliate themselves with scammers, right? Wrong.
After my account was created, I quickly tried to cancel the auto-renewal on my membership so I wouldn't get charged once the trial's up. During my attempt, Shaw Academy offered me a promotion in hopes I wouldn't proceed, but I still did. Then they offered me another one, then another one.
Shaw Academy offered me a new and more generous promotion every time I clicked on that "I want to end my membership" button.
Six screens and six fruitless attempts later, I finally land on a page telling me I need to call a phone number if I really wanted to make that cancellation (open only weekdays, 9–5). Several red flags were already raised the moment I hit that third screen.
It was then that I finally Googled "Shaw Academy scam" and, lo and behold, I got umpteen results of people's feeble success with "cancelling" their memberships only to be charged again, among several other horror stories. There are even threads on this very forum cautioning people about the sham that is Shaw Academy.
I'm now gonna have to spend my Sunday figuring out how I can step away from this inevitable train wreck as quickly as possible. Oh, and did I mention Trustpilot investigated this company and found out they manipulated their Excellent rating?
Fido, I was really looking forward to seeing Fido XTRA's new look two weeks from now. But not anymore. You can celebrate on your own. You can keep all those other discounts and "free" stuff you were planning to give out, too.
