Gaia Online

Signed up for the trial and once signed up I could not cancel, cancelled twice and they still keep on auto-billing me. I am fed up with companies who offer a free trial in order to get your CC info and then proceed to perpetually bill you even tho you have cancelled and NOT used their services at all, effectively they are stealing. Nothing but thieves.

Today is it they took 8$ from me after not paying back the 6$ they took 5 months ago this website is a thief STAY AWAY

When they caught me repeating the same mistake, which was overdued by 5 months prior to the ban. They gave no warning or whatsoever before giving the ban hammer, resulting in wasting tons of hours wasted grinding the items inside of the site.
Before the ban I was also talking bout my past banned acc, so the only clue I had was this.

This site has devolved into a cesspool of predators, and it needs to be exposed. I have had run-ins with cult-like groups who meet on other sites where they can discreetly post pictures of people they got from GaiaOnline, then hack, blackmail, and harass them. I've had their victims find me and reach out to help them, and they told me things that correlated with my encounter with the group. I have never had a stalker till I joined the site. I must stress, please do NOT give out your real name no matter how friendly you've gotten.
A relationship was destroyed, my safety was threatened, and I felt trapped because I was found offsite, having to threaten to call the police. Everyone I've met on there is horny, aggressive, or looking to stir up trouble with strangers. There is nothing rewarding to the site for me now. Please exercise discernment with everyone you meet and don't give out your personal information.

I tried them 4 months ago and after 1 trial month of. 99 and then one for $9.95, decided to cancel. Fine and no billings for 3 months, then out of nowhere they hit my paypal with a random bill, which went to a checking account I no longer use and bounced. I can't reach anyone because of course there is no phone number. Only an email complaint system. I just filed a paypal case so hopefully that will work. But who does that months after a cancellation?

Once you give them your bank information they will continue to deduct for years. There is no way to reach them! This is a predatory scam service. Do not sign up and give your banking information!

A total rip off! Was very dissatisfied when after the free month trial, was not charged a monthly fee, but for a yrs worth. Did not want a yrs subscription and there is NO customer support when I signed into my acct to try to resolve this issue. Theres community support and automated responses. I have emailed several times and only received automated responses. They are hoping that you wont persue the headache towards resolution.

Well. Gaia has hit a new low. I didn't believe was possible... Even for them.

I saw with my own eyes an GaiaOnline Administrator on Site Feedback, of all places. The section of the site where your suppose to be allowed to give criticism of ideas users submit. And they decided to reprimand users for speaking out against wanting proper pronouns to be placed on the forums.

My only advice to anyone that is left who is still using this site and you have conservative views, or you just don't lean left when it comes to things like political correctness? Get out! Just leave now! Because there is nothing left for you here besides head aches, heartbreak, and disappointments.

The website itself is sub-par(garbage really) quality and for the amount it costs, the "content" is definitely not worth it! Don't waste your money and end up like me, locked into a second year(so $200 total) with no refund for a site I've used less than 5 times.

Pathetic Service
Still I have not received my order

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They take your $ under false pretenses and refuse to refund, or even respond to Better Business Bureau.

Beware

I am only here writing this review tonight because two of my accounts were banned OVER FOUR YEARS AGO, and just tonight I received some groundbreaking info about it, but not really. I was initially banned for using my over 9,000 IQ hackerman skills, but since I'd made it clear it was a joint throw-away account, I've been reminded that this breaks ToS. That's all well and good, except would this then not null my ban for hacking and open an entirely new investigation into account sharing, in which case, the other party did not receive a ban for their part in it as they were anticipating? I appreciate the lack of additional information included in the support, and the years it took your team to come up with a well-thought out response as to why they gave an unreported, unsolicited ban. Though I once saw great potential in your growing art forums, I now look forward to the imminent collapse of your site as your greatest demographic is 40+ year old men still living in their mothers' basements messaging teenagers. Have a splendiferous evening, and arigato for nothing, Gaia Online.

Literally the nesting ground for ignorant children and young teens.
A place founded by a few comic book artists looking to create a place for anime/manga lovers to meet and discuss said topics. Now a germ ridden site filled with people eager to bully you, scam you out of real money, let alone the moderators do absolutely nothing on there.
I was a member since its opening and im sadden to say I'll never log in again.

The average user on this website has a woke cult-like mentality which is perpetuated by moderator bias. T.O.S is selectively enforced. If you present a woke ideology that moderators deem "reasonable", then you can get away with harassing people, making "name drop" threads (which are against T.O.S), and more. If you do not have a woke ideology you're open about, then you will be banned for various reasons, be it twisted things from the T.O.S or just random reasons. They frequently ban people for "disrupting general flow of the community", which can be something as simple as making a thread about your support for a republican candidate, if that thread generates hate from other users, even if it is innocent in nature, YOU are punished. Please understand I am not a user who is complaining because I go in screaming slurs like the "n" word and advocating for Nazi's or something...no. It's really as simple as, if you present a right-leaning opinion, and the woke community shuns it, you are to blame. If you go against ANY woke ideology you are harassed, abused, and ultimately banned by moderators. You cannot engage in ANY political talk unless it is following a far-left ideology. The website boasts it's for children 13+, and yet they continue to pump out items which are extremely sexual in nature (large breasts and items that remove clothing from those breasts, stripper poles, masturbating poses, and more). At the same time, they are extremely strict when it comes to "joking" about being a user under the age of 13 (such as "I'm 12 someone explain this meme to me", which is a satire comment popularly made when something complex is presented, and does not literally indicate being underage. Even if you say "disclaimer: i am not 12" the mods will STILL ban you for even joking about it). It's very contradicting. They are strict on anyone advertising OnlyFans content, or sexually-driven threads, which makes sense for a site aimed at 13 year olds, yet at the same time contradict themselves by having incredibly sexual items. The average userbase is actually well over the age of 18, but the overall vibe is confusing. My very first ban on that site was a screen shot I shared from the game "Yandere Simulator" - a really gory (cartoon gore) off the wall and almost comical anime-influenced game. Meanwhile, if you search "yandere" or "blood" or "gore" in the Gaia marketplace, you see endless gory items ranging from decapitated limbs to mutilated and burning bodies. I was a paying user when my ban was enforced. I had never received any warnings, or anything. They will just throw down permanent bans on a whim, based on their feelings at the time, and you are especially at risk for this if you do not present left-leaning/woke ideologies. Lanzer (owner of the site) made a thread where he joked "here are some spicy nudes", where he dropped a nude photo of his newborn baby. This is, I admit, absolutely innocent in nature, however had ANY user have done the similar, they would have been banned on the spot for even kidding about it. It's also strange to post a naked picture of your newborn to a site KNOWN to be ramped with pedophiles. It's just not tasteful. I still post there but admittedly I now just troll. The account I lost I had since I was 11 (now 30), and it was lost unfairly at that. I lost all respect for the site, but that aside it IS concerning how they love to say they want kids to come, and still actively to this day promote high-sexualized content. Politics aside, the woke movement is also rather terrifying. In the last week I've seen many threads aimed at promoting sex changes in CHILDREN. I don't care what you do as an adult, but children?

I signed onto Gaia in 2017 for one year and enjoyed the classes. At the end of the year I tried to cancel my subscription and it was very difficult. Three tries and I finally extracted myself. Fast forward to 2021 and I just discovered that Gaia has kept me on auto renewal all this time! I tried to cancel again, and was told that I have to provide a transcript of the 2017 cancellation (it was a phone call), and though a customer support chat assured me that my subscription has been permanently cancelled (once again), the "finance team" will have to contact me by email to discuss returning $. I am appalled. Beware-there is no phone contact available, and one portal actually tried to get me to sign on to customer support with my credit card! Not very zen at all... I will be following through with every kind of complaint, including a legal complaint, as I'm able, if only for the benefit of other scammed customers.

I've been a member since 2006 and in the last month I've spent over $300 because I saw that the site was picking itself back up from the crash it had a few years ago and I wanted to support them. And then they suspended my trading pass / marketplace store because of "Suspicious payment activity". Fair, it's to prevent fraudulent payments and a possible hacker. But it's been over three days, the charge on my card has already gone through and I've already paid for it. My pass is still suspended. I've emailed customer support and have not gotten a single reply. That's so rude, especially to a supporter. They try to shove premium items down your throat so that you'll keep shoveling more money, and then they block you and refuse to reply to you. I'm not supporting them anymore.

In January 2019, I purchased a year's subscription to Gaia. After two months, I requested to terminate my subscription, by which I meant to pay the full per-month price for the first three months and have the balance, approximately $70, returned to me. Gaia has indicated that they will not refund the money, and that I am forced to retain the year's subscription.

Last month the devs were literally asking their members for money because they feared that they'd have to shut down the site. At the 93% donation goal mark, they reduced it to 75%. After members realized and pointed it out, it was brought back to 93%.

Don't waste your time or money on this garbage website. The people who run it are absolute idiots, it will take them a year AT LEAST to respond to ANY kind of ticket. I was banned for stating that they had inappropriate/lewd items of Japanese high school students and in their terms of services, it clearly states that lewd/explicit avatars are NOT okay. I've submitted a ticket about 7 months ago and they have still not responded.

Began in 04-05, spent so much money. Husbands account gets hacked. He reported it and was never responded to. Someone was going around doing/asking for explicit things for art with his account apparently. Not once was any proof given on behalf of Gaia to my husband. Next thing all three of MY accounts are banned and I am being accused of the same thing because our IP address was the same. I don't know if that is even legal. I couldn't find any emails/warnings of the ban. I just one day couldn't log in. I had to make another account to try and figure this out WHICH by the way, has also been banned and I am accused of "Ban evasion"! I HAVE to create another account in order to deal with the previous accounts lol. All convo's are conveniently on the freshly banned account. The mod knew I had made the account to try and figure things out. I was purposefully targeted. It makes me wonder if they just go after all of the old accounts and find lame-$#*! reasons to ban them. You can't get a hold of ANYONE for support. The site they have is trash. Links don't work and you don't actually get directed to anyone. Just a ticket to file. Well, I have filed 2. Nothing has been done. I've been fighting this since 2018. I made a complaint with the BBB not that I expect that will do anything either.

Only got to watch one video and decided to cancel after my trial. I canceled my subscription but they still charged me, I assumed I did it wrong so I canceled again and took the payment as it was my fault. Eventually I figured out it STILL didn't work so I contacted their support, which is BS, took them forever to reply and they replied with how to cancel I informed them I did that twice. Then I recieved no reply after that. So I tried to cancel again! Still it was. Charging me! Attempted to reach out AGAIN and nothing, I eventually had to report them for FRAUD to my bank and get a new debit card! RIDICULOUS! So I give them a one star for being so MONEY HUNGRY and ignoring my many attempts to make it right!

I was abused by both the staff and a role-play group on this site. The staff tried to tell me they, and this group role-play, weren't abusing me. Uhm. That's not what my psychologist said when I told her what was said about me and I think she would know more than the staff that was trying to mistreat me. No, this is not one of those "you deserved what they said, you just had a hard time admitting it" situations. I was tired of people telling me I wasn't bright enough to do anything. And to accuse me of not writing more than 6 sentences is an insult to my IQ. So I failed in school completely, according to them? So I didn't get an A on the some page essays I wrote in High-School or college English? Yes, I have writing credentials. That's BS. First, I didn't get any warnings. But they didn't handle a situation I brought to them like they should have and my psychologist has a thing or two to say about it. Mind you, I was very honest with my counselor at what was said and she replied with, 'so you were abused.' Telling me I can't write more than 6 sentences is an insult, it's condescension, and condescension is a form of emotional abuse and all of this can be proven. Then it's humiliation bringing that up in front of everyone. Not to mention, if you honestly think I don't understand what the reason was before you explained it, you really don't think I'm bright and that's disrespectful. If you're telling me things my abusers told me in the past, it's indeed abuse. I'm just choosing not to go into too many details on this review. But I'm willing to share on an individual level with people who want to know. People shouldn't have gained up on me like they did without knowing what really happened. I was tired of being told I wasn't bright enough to do stuff and I can prove that.

0/5. Things are different from how they were years ago. They will ban you even if you didn't break ToS, some people have been banned for expressing ideologies because the mods don't agree with them. They beg for money and support instead of offering up anything new. What's worse, they will NEVER get back to you. The wait times to hear back from moderators is 3+ months, and you will be sent the same automated mails, never hearing from an actual person. If you attempt to contact a mod, you will be led on a wild goose chase of who to speak with, and sometimes, they will get snippy with you, even if you conduct yourself kindly and professionally. I wasted 5 years of my life on this website beyond 2013; one good thing did come out of it, as I met my fiance on there. Dreadful people, I really hope the site shuts down so they stop scamming people out of money in order to fund their new porn site. If you make art for people on the website, you will be expected to negotiate offsite, or only accept their digital worthless currency. All that's on there now is thirsty, "Am I pretty?" Crying teenagers, and perverts.

What was once a great anime discussion/dress-up doll site from the early 2000s has now devolved into a wasteland of begging and lootboxes. The magic that this site once held has long since faded. Rampant inflation, multiple changes in management (each worse than the last) and the loss of a large percentage of its userbase has led to Gaia being on its last legs. Only the most hardcore fans and nostalgic users are still around any more.

Unfortunately, this has also lead to a dip in moderation and safety on the website. Gaia is a 13+ website, but it's well known that younger users frequent it. These two things, combined with the aging population of older users, has lead to some very obvious, very dangerous situations. Certain faster and less moderated forums will often see open sexual activities in large topics, with the offending posts drowned out from obvious view by a handful of users bumping the threads for money.

To call Gaia a breeding ground for pedophiles is to call carborane acidic. The only positive here is that the site itself with its dated appearance, hyperinflation and hostile forums will keep some of the more vulnerable users away. Still, it is definitely not a site that you should let your children access. Be extra careful if you see them using Gaiaonline.