Coursera Reviews 1,221

I have cancelled my subscription within the trial period however they have still charged me. I have contacted the customer service and they say I need to pay atleast 1 payment to get the certificate. So if you need at least 1 payment then why you are advertising yourself as 7 days trial ? Shame these guys are scamsters

WARNING TO ANYONE CONSIDERING COURSERA PLUS

**Coursera is refusing to honor its own refund policy and using fabricated information to deny legitimate refund requests.**

On April 24, 2025, I purchased a Coursera Plus Annual subscription under my account. Coursera's own published policy guarantees a full refund if you cancel within 14 days of purchase. I requested my refund within 2 days — well inside that window.

What followed was two rounds of deliberate runaround:

Ticket #06221622 — The agent completely ignored the details of my request and replied with information about a random email address that has absolutely nothing to do with me, was never mentioned by me, and does not belong to me. Pure fabrication.

Ticket #06221781 — Opened a second ticket hoping for a competent response. Got the exact same treatment. Same lies. Same made-up account. Same refusal to engage with the actual issue.

This is not a mistake. This is a pattern. Two separate tickets, two separate agents, the same fabricated excuse. This looks like a deliberate strategy to exhaust customers into giving up their rightful refund.

Coursera charged my account, refuses to honor the refund guarantee printed on their own website, and has twice responded with invented information to justify that refusal. That is not a support failure, that is fraud.

I am now pursuing a chargeback through my bank, filing with consumer protection authorities, and making sure every potential Coursera customer knows what to expect if they ever need to invoke that "guaranteed" refund policy.

Do not trust Coursera's refund guarantee. It is not honored.

I signed up for the free trial then had a few issues in my life that distracted me from subscriptions and it took me several months to realize that I was being charged $50 a month from Coursera. When I contacted them to see about a fuller partial refund or even a credit for some of the courses since I had not logged in a single time they just kept on repeating their subscription policy, which is too bad for you. You signed up for a free trial that becomes subscription so it’s definitely a buyer beware scenario and they have no leeway. I understand they don’t want to be taken advantage of, but if you can see a person that’s not logged in in a single time there should be a medium ground.

I signed up for the course “Managing Stress and Time” that is supposedly offered through Arizona State University. I say “supposedly” because most people posting on the course message boards are posting in Arabic.

I had to sign up for a free 7-day trial in order to begin the course, then pay $79 a month. It is part of a “series” that seems to be separate from the $59 per month Coursera Plus subscription. It’s unclear if it’s included in the Plus subscription or an additional charge.

I was very disappointed by the course content once I unlocked it. The “readings” in the module consisted of a few slides that I clicked through and completed in about five minutes.

The course also requires users to submit peer-graded assignments and post on discussion boards. Most of the discussion posts were posted two or three years ago, and many were written in Arabic! I’m not sure how someone can grade my assignment when they likely don’t speak English!

I feel that this course is a ripoff due to the lack of in-depth lecture notes, lack of engagement on the message boards. I’m not sure if there is even an instructor. Please don’t waste your money on this program.

Buyer beware. They only care about gaining new customers. Once you are a customer forget about getting help for issues. In addition, they run promos all the time but they only apply to new customers. So when you go to renew expect to pay the full price for the renewal even if they are running a 40% promo.

Every course I've taken I've encountered issues and one AI course I took the content was dated and not updated since 2021. Things change too quickly for courses not to be updated frequently.

I am a student. Coursera admitted they had my email address wrong (a typo), but they still charged me $20 because I didn't receive the 'trial ending' notice. Despite offering to give the certificate back, agents 'Cifer' and 'Jenna' refused to help. They are charging students for their own system errors.

course content was very elementary, took maybe 2-3 hours to complete a course. I was ok spending the $30 to run through a few classes in a month, but turns out you can only do courses you are enrolled in at the time you pay. Scammy. When i reached out for help (only option being email, red flag) they went ghost. Thankfully, my credit card company will handle the dispute.

They will charge you without notifying. Shady practices

Cancellation wasn’t enough to stop charges. Coursera Plus monthly was activated by mistake during a trial. I canceled on March 19, 2026, yet I was charged again on April 18, 2026 ($59). Support has been slow and the process feels unnecessarily confusing for something as basic as stopping a subscription.
I’m requesting a refund for the charge after cancellation and I’d like Coursera to make cancellation and billing clearer and more reliable.

Scam! They have constructed the perfect scam company: policies, payment and invoices they don't send to NOT make you aware that they are charging you for NOTHING! AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Victim of predatory Coursera trial tactics. Do not expect customer service, do not expect to have issues resolved. Expect to be charged and never see that money again. Lesson learned.

They are quite simply, a thieving organisation. SUbscriptions are charged automatically and it is very difficult to get a refund, there is no clear process for that.

Double check your subscription status. I thought I had unsubscribed, but apparently not. Months later I discovered that I was being billed over $50 per month. I don't know how I missed the charges on my credit card statements; that is on me. I was hoping Coursera would either refund the fees, or extend my membership given that the record was clear that I hadn't used it in months. Coursera showed zero interest. It felt very much like a money grab.

They charged me twice after I cancelled my subscription and were really rude when I queried this, refusing to refund the £72 they charged me for a platform I never used!

The Paradox of High-Quality Content and Poor Service

The primary takeaway from the experience is a stark dichotomy: Coursera excels at content production but fails at educational service. For a professional learner in the engineering and construction sector, the initial impression of the Solar Energy course is overwhelmingly positive. The recorded lectures are sophisticated, featuring subject matter experts who articulate the complexities of photovoltaic physics, irradiance, and system sizing with academic rigor. However, this high production value creates a "pedagogical trap." While the videos are informative, they do not constitute a complete educational experience. The platform functions more as a high-end digital library than a functional learning environment, leaving a massive gap between passive consumption of information and the active mastery required for technical certification.

The Assessment Barrier and the "Pedagogical Cliff"
The transition from watching expert videos to completing technical assessments is where the platform’s model collapses. In a field as precise as solar design—where errors in cable sizing or battery capacity calculations have real-world consequences—the lack of expert feedback is a critical flaw. Coursera relies on rigid, automated rubrics and peer-graded assignments. When a student fails a complex design task, the system offers no explanation as to why the logic was flawed. This leads to a cycle of "trial and error by exhaustion," where the learner is forced to guess what the rubric requires rather than learning from their mistakes. Without a teaching assistant or instructor to clarify technical nuances, the assessment process becomes a barrier to true understanding rather than a tool for growth.

The Failure of Automated Support Systems
Perhaps the most significant grievance is the total absence of human intervention. Coursera has replaced traditional academic support with an AI-driven chatbot system that is fundamentally ill-equipped for technical education. While these bots may handle administrative tasks like password resets, they are useless when a learner encounters a conceptual hurdle in a solar design project. The inability to escalate a query to a human expert creates a sense of isolation and professional disrespect. For a paying student, being trapped in a loop of generic help articles and non-responsive AI is a clear indicator that the platform prioritizes profit-driven automation over the actual success of its learners.

The Unreliability of Peer Review
Furthermore, the reliance on peer-to-peer grading introduces a level of variability that undermines the credibility of the certification. In a specialized technical course, having one’s work evaluated by other students—who may themselves be struggling with the material—results in inconsistent and often inaccurate feedback. This "race to the bottom" means that correct designs can be marked down by peers who misunderstand the math, while incorrect designs may be passed by students rushing to complete their own grading quotas.

Conclusion: A Misalignment of Value
Ultimately, for the professional learner, the "opportunity cost" of using Coursera is too high. The time wasted fighting an inflexible system and an unresponsive support structure outweighs the benefits of the video content. While the curriculum for the Solar Energy System Design course is brilliant, it is encased in a hollow, automated shell. Until Coursera integrates human expertise back into the learning journey, it remains an inefficient tool for those seeking genuine professional mastery in complex engineering fields.

I am extremely disappointed with Coursera’s deceptive billing practices and poor customer support. I signed up for a course with an explicit 7-day free trial (I have the confirmation email to prove it). Despite canceling within the trial period, I was hit with a $49.00 charge on April 6th.

To make matters worse, Coursera didn't even notify me about the charge until April 11th—five days after the money had already left my account. When I reached out to support, I was met with scripted "loop" responses.

The most frustrating part: Support agents (Cora and Alfred) flat-out contradicted my documentation. One agent claimed I was only in a "Preview Mode" and not a "Free Trial," despite my welcome email stating otherwise. They are now using the fact that I completed the course as a reason to deny a refund, even though I only finished it because I believed I was within the trial window I had already canceled.

They have now "closed the case" and refused to escalate to a billing specialist. If you use this site, watch your bank statements like a hawk. Their "Free Trial" is a bait-and-switch designed to trap you into a non-refundable "instant payment" without your consent.

I am currently forced to file a dispute with my bank to get my money back. Absolutely zero accountability from their support team.

Modern day scam artists. Stay away.

Buyer beware! This is a very fraudulent company. They charged me for a full month right at the end of the free trial, even though I made it clear that I did not do any of their classes, had already cancelled, and was unable to do any classes. They also charged me without any notification or reminder. They then refused to refund a full one month fee, and made it impossible for me to state my case with a real person. I’ve never experienced this type of situation before with any company.

From the outset the support has been shockingly bad. I cancelled my subscription because the platform is really poor. I have then been charged a monthly charge as a course was taken in the trial period so your company have continued to charge my CC after cancelling and refunding the plus subscription. When I requested a refund they refused outright and said it was my fault. Nothing in the guidance or the communications said this would happen. You are deliberately charging people unfairly by not making the T&Cs clear. Your company would never get away with this kind of behaviour in the UK thankfully. This is still unresolved as far as I am concerned and have approached my CC vendor to raise a dispute. Your customer service sucks and I will be posting this review wherever I can to raise attention to the fact you are conning customers out of unfair subscription charges.

I requested to cancel my subscription on March 7 and clearly explained that I could not access the account to cancel it myself. This is why I contacted support in the first place.

Despite that, the subscription was not canceled, and I was charged again on March 24.

Support later acknowledged my cancellation request date but still refused a refund, citing their policy about canceling during the trial period. This completely ignores the fact that I had already reached out for help and was relying on their support team to act on that request.

From my experience, the delay in handling my request directly resulted in additional charges. I did not use the service during this time.

It honestly feels like they purposely delay resolving customer tickets so they can continue charging, and perhaps even rely on this as an additional income stream.

If you plan to cancel, do not rely on support to assist you. Make sure you cancel everything yourself immediately, because delays can cost you.

Very disappointing experience.