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Scribd Reviews Summary
The company's reputation is significantly marred by widespread customer dissatisfaction, particularly concerning its subscription model and customer service. Many users report unauthorized charges, difficulties in canceling subscriptions, and a lack of responsive support, leading to perceptions of deceptive practices. While some customers acknowledge the potential value of the service for avid readers, these positives are overshadowed by frustrations with the platform's functionality and the quality of customer interactions. Overall, the feedback indicates a pressing need for improved communication and more transparent billing practices to restore customer trust.
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Scribd is the worst company I have tried dealing with in my whole life! They are scammers & dishonest! I have cancelled my subscription many times (they have records of at 4-5 "expired" subscriptions), but after all these years, they are still taking the monthly subscription out of my bank account! I cannot get it Canx or My Requested Refund because I cannot get any of my communication with to go thru on online! They WILL NOT accept phone calls and online cancellation is next to impossible! I keep getting the same runaround every time I try! Finally, they have now sent me three me 4 times to a "technology expert" who "without a doubt, get my problem resolved" even though I clearly state DO NOT SEND ME TO THAT EXPERT!
THAT EXPERT turns out to be communication with some company called Just Answers (if I remember correctly! Who tell me they ARE NOT affiliated with Scribd and cannot help me. Three times I was forwarded (automatically) to this dead end! All in all, no way to get help from Scribd! As your expire, they just automatically renew them and continue to "steal" your money every month! I never used them for anything, so I don't know what would have happened if I had actually tried to buy something. Scribd is just a low, dishonest company! Do not get mixed up with them! In the meantime, they are still charging me $10.91 a month with expired subscriptions on their records! Stay far away from them!
Customer service do not reply, money was charged without subscribing and using any of their services…… If you do not want your money "DONATED" to this company, DO NOT register at all. Absolutely ridiculous
Hello, we are sorry to hear you have not heard back from our support team. We would love to look into your invoice inquiry! To better assist you, please update your review, to include your ticket number and we will get it assigned to a specialist. Thank you! - MR
I, too, signed up for a free trial month. I canceled my account BEFORE the 30 days was up. Then I got charged anyway. I tried to email them but I can't contact them without signing into my account, which I canceled. I am lucky in that I signed up with my Paypal and could go in and cancel the recurring payment. I'm still out the $10 bucks they already charged me, though. Such a pain.
I see the responses that Scribd has made to similar complaints. Your response is worthless, you can't do anything without signing in and we can't sign in if we've canceled the account.
We apologize for any confusion. You can absolutely contact us without an active subscription. If you need to email us, please do so via this link: https://scr.bi/assist otherwise, thanks for your time and have a good day -EC
Beware! They steal your card info and deduct payments for non-existing memberships. I had to cancel my card in order to get them off my back. The US is full of crooks like them. Don't fall for any of their afvertisement.
Please be aware that we cannot charge a canceled subscription. It sounds likely that you may have a duplicate account and our support team is more than happy to help you. To email our support team, please use this link: https://scr.bi/assist and one of our agents will help you as soon as possible -EC
After being charged for 2 consecutive months because I actually have no idea that we need to confirm and press the unsub button from friggin 4 pages (never saw another company does that btw). This is utterly deceptive to trick ppl this way. I just signed in for the free trial to see what book they offer and after finding out that I don't even have time to read I felt it's a waste to subscribe. Yet they charged me twice already. I feel scammed.
We apologize for any trouble you had canceling your subscription, Leo. We recommend checking out our cancelations guide here: https://bit.ly/3gxxTVT and if You need any help with refunds or cancelations, please be sure to reach out to our customer support team here: https://scr.bi/assist and one of our agents will help you within 24 hours - EC
Great customer service, they refunded a mistake I made and got back to me within a day. My bad, I saw these complaints and thought it was their fault, but I had an email that I forgot that I had made and it was my fault. Emily has great customer service and handled everything immediately
Thanks so much for updating your review, Sabrina! I am glad I was able to help you out. If I can be of any additional assistance in the future, please od not hesitate to reach back out to us and we'll be here to help, otherwise, thanks again for your time and patience. I hope you have a great rest of your day! -EC
Scribd claims they will remind you when your trial is over, which I only used because I needed a piece of sheet music, and then they don't send any more emails so you end up forgetting about it and then you end up paying for months of service you didn't use. Paypal doesn't help you get your money back because of the terms and conditions. Very unhappy with their services, which you cannot get a hold of them by phone and do not respond to emails.
However, I could see how the site would be useful for an avid reader, which I am not.
Hi Perla,
We apologize for the difficulty you have experienced with your subscription. We can assure you that reminder emails are sent out although most of the time they end up in users' junk mail or spam. That said, we are always happy to help with the cancellation of your account and refund inquiries as long as it is within the refund policy. If you are still needing assistance, please submit. A ticket to our support team here: https://scr.bi/assist. Thanks! - Mr
I have had scribd for a week last year, then cancelled. 6 times I have been charged and re cancelled. I swtich credit cards and they still bill me. Super frustrating. Worst subscription service of all time. I hate scribd.
Hi David! We are sorry for the difficulty you have experienced. Once a subscription is canceled, our system should no longer bill your account. We would love to look into this for you and make things right! To better assist you, please submit a ticket to our support team here: https://scr.bi/assist. Thank you, we look forward to getting this resolved. - MR
They set user up to keep charging. When i register and use by the phone mobile. I tried to cancel it it said theres no active membership. I thought i was done. After that i noticed they ketp charging me. When i figured it out my membership wasnt actually cancelled while my app said theres no active membership. THEY SET PEOPLE UP TO TAKE PEOPLE'S MONEY.
Will never use them again
Thank you for informing us, Ngoc, and we apologize for any confusion or frustration! Scribd is a monthly subscription service, so if you sign up for a subscription and do not cancel, it is expected that you'll have ongoing charges. That said, no worries! Our support team is available to help you. Use this link to email us https://scr.bi/assist and one of our agents will help you within 24 hours -EC
Jerry G. The Scribd Representative on Site Jabber, responded to my complaint that my copyrighted material on Scribd has been massively violated (by a so-called hacker with complete access to my Scribd files) in an apparently criminal manner while Scribd profited on that content, prevaricated by assuring me my issue would be accelerated for response by Scribd, so I should communicate with Scribd by email. Weeks have passed without the promised acknowledgment, therefore I shall have published an exhaustive, detailed exposition of the matter in hopes that other Scribd providers will take steps to protect their rights.
CORRESPONDENCE
Hey David,
Jerry G. From Scribd wanted to reach out to you personally about your review:
"Hi David,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
We do not provide customer support over SiteJabber, but have located your existing report to our Copyright team. We've escalated your case and you will receive an update shortly from one of our specialists. Please continue to correspond with us via email should you have any further questions or concerns.
Thanks again, and have a wonderful day! -VG
David W. Wrote: -------------------------
UPDATE: Most of the complaints about Scribd here are about its subscription policies. My own concern is that of an author who discovered a massive and apparently criminal copying and distribution of my work with a false certification of copyright to copies. Scribd has not responded recently. I sent this request today.
14 January 2022
Jason Bentley
Copyright, Abuse, and Privacy Manager
Scribd, Inc.
Hi, Jason, Scribd may have been aware of the massive copying and unlawful distribution of its providers' content for several years. The platform certifies it owns the copyrights. That is probably a violation of Title 18 Criminal Code. Please advise whom I may verify what SCRIBD knows about this and what it did, if anything, to help its providers except to deny, as your department does, any relationship with the apparently criminal operation.
Here is a link to the Lumen's record of the 2017 Court Order:
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/*******
Thanks!
David Arthur Walters
UPDATE: Most of the complaints about Scribd here are about its subscription policies. My own concern is that of an author who discovered a massive and apparently criminal copying and distribution of my work with a false certification of copyright to copies. Scribd has not responded recently. I sent this request today.
14 January 2022
Jason Bentley
Copyright, Abuse, and Privacy Manager
Scribd, Inc.
Hi, Jason, Scribd may have been aware of the massive copying and unlawful distribution of its providers' content for several years. The platform certifies it owns the copyrights. That is probably a violation of Title 18 Criminal Code. Please advise whom I may verify what SCRIBD knows about this and what it did, if anything, to help its providers except to deny, as your department does, any relationship with the apparently criminal operation.
Here is a link to the Lumen's record of the 2017 Court Order:
https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/14521289
Thanks!
David Arthur Walters
Dumb me. I posted work on SCRIBD just for the traffic for several years, and did not realize they were sharing it with other platforms, e.g. an outfit called docsharetips which seems impossible to identify, does not respond to its messages, and claims it owns the copyright to its massive copies of SCRIBD posts. In any event, I DID NOT GIVE permission to SCRIBD to mirror my work on other platforms. I notice that docsharetips is showing traffic numbers different that what is shown on SCRIBD, and I have some information in my file from SCRIBD that it was inflating its numbers some time ago to induce more writers to post. I complained to SCRIBD this week and then it denied me access to my posts, holding my work hostage--otherwise it allows work to be removed or kept private. To make matters worse, it appears that subscribers pay a fee to view, and I get no share of it. SCRIBD has not responded to this latest communication I sent after its representative mentioned LinkedIn and MSF as previous owners and referred to slideshare instead of docsharetip :( "After posting for several years on SCRIBD, I discovered my work was without my permission being mirrored on a platform called docsharetips, so I tried to notice that platform on several occasions to remove my work, which they wrongly claim to own the copyright for, and they did not respond. The owners of that platform cannot be identified through their webpages. I contacted SCRIBD to complain, and they denied me access to my SCRIBD pages and gave me some blah blah not about docusharetips but as follows: "Scribd acquired SlideShare from LinkedIn and Microsoft on 24 September 2020. This erasure applies only to information held by the current SlideShare, and will not erase information held by LinkedIn and Microsoft". What they erased is not what I complained about, exact copies of my work but with different traffic numbers (docsharetips) but my Scribd pages, although I clearly identified the link to the violative displays: https://docshare.tips/authors/David+Arthur+Walters/5 I could care less about the public documents, but I did not intend my work to be displayed by anyone but by SCRIBD.)
11 January 2022 My Latest Communication - My experience thus far with SCRIBD employees is they have reading comprehension issues, and may be robots:
I have extensive correspondence with SCRIBD. The latest communication to them being this one:
"Jason and Delaney,
At no time did I complain about SlideShare, yet Scribd notified me that account was being deleted.
After receiving that notice, I discovered that I could no longer access my Scribd.Com files to either delete or privatize them.
My work, however, is still accessible via Google at such links as this one:
https://www.scribd.com/document/26788138/Reforming-The-FLorida-Bar-by-David-Arthur-Walters
The DocshareTips files are apparently copies of Scribd files, and such copying appears to be in violation of federal law. The pages are identical but the files have different traffic numbers then the Scribd traffic numbers.
That particular Tips operation claims it holds the copyright to my work. That is a lie. No one at that platform responds, and the identity of the operators is unknown at this time.
I have discovered a predecessor operation to that Tips platform duplicating my work, and it identifies itself with your Scribd company. For example, see this link:
https://docu.tips/documents/span-classvisuallyhiddenscribd-span-5c117c2a31a44
I have not researched my files, but I recall some years ago some irate Scribd content providers complained that Scribd was taking advantage of providers by charging subscription fees to subscribers who were accessing their files, yet were not paying the providers.
The content providers who were not charging for the sale of content, considered traffic benefit enough, for at least it's advertising value, and said they were surprised they were being taken advantage of since subscribers were paying Scribd to access their work. It was at about that time that Scribd said that it's traffic numbers were grossly inflated, reduced those numbers accordingly, and stopped providing data analysis graphs.
I received an email from Scribd that I had a small amount of money due to me, but I do not believe anything was paid. I was not very concerned at the time with the allegations being made, yet in retrospect I suppose that, if they were true, millions of dollars might be of concern overall.
My personal concern at present is the fact that a company has duplicated my files from your platform. You say you have no relationship with that company, so I would expect that your executives would definitely want to cooperate in an FBI investigation of what might be a massive criminal operation.
Also disturbing is the fact that I can no longer access my Scribd files, yet, as mentioned above, they are still displayed on the internet with Scribd links.
Please advise,
David Arthur Walters
I have sent my service request number to you several times without my account being reinstated as promised. Still nothing! What more can I do? #*******
Hi Bettie,
We are sorry for any difficulty you have experienced. After further review of the ticket number you provided, it looks like one of our billing specialists followed up with you on January 26,2022. Unfortunately, you will not be able to create any other account or reactivate your subscription with Scribd moving forward due to the previously filed PayPal dispute for your subscription.
That said, should you have any further questions regarding the dispute filed, please direct these to PayPal.
Thanks again. - MR
I accidentally subscribed to Scribd twice. When I contacted the company to ask for a refund on the one subscription they did refund me but also closed my account. Now I can't get in at all! I've sent numerous emails and they've given me my account information but the account does not recognize my email so I can't get any further. Originally I was enjoying the service but after trying to deal with them for this long and getting no where I can't give a positive review. I've lost my $70 and have all this frustration instead.
I have been charged 4 months now and I don't even remember signing up for anything remotely close to this website. My CC company is not being useful either. How can I locate my account when I didn't even sign up for this site!?
Hi Greg,
We are sorry for any confusion you have experienced. We can definitely look into this and see why you are billed, as well as make sure you are no longer billed going forward.
To better assist you, please create a ticket support team directly using this link: https://scr.bi/assistThank you! - MR
I've been trying to unsubscribe for months! I've sent an email, as instructed in the bank info. I have unsubscribed using their website. I don't use their service at all, for many months! And still, they keep charging me! Do not subscribe! You won't be able to leave it!
Hello, we are sorry to hear you are still having difficulties. We are happy to look into this for you. To better assist you, please update your review to include your ticket number so that we can have it assigned ASAP to one of our specialists. Thank you. - mr
I don't have any accounts or business with you guys
Why would you simply charge 10$ for no reason? Ticket #******* kindly check n refund
For god sake respond to the emails
Hello, we are sorry for any difficulty you have experienced. After further review, it looks like one of our specialists responded to you yesterday. If you have any further questions, please respond to the representative directly. Thank you, have a wonderful day. - MR
They said they would send an email before the trial ended and did not. When I tried to get on to the site to cancel, I could not get on the site and had to call my bank to stop future payment. I will be watching closely for future unauthorized charges.
We apologize if you did not receive a notification email and our support team is available to help with cancelations and refunds. To email us directly, please use this link: https://scr.bi/assist and one of our agents will assist you within 24 hours -EC
Hi, so I actually really enjoyed your service when i used it for school purposes, but since I no longer need it for school I cancelled a few months back. And yet I still see you guys charge me every single month. I cancelled and deactivated my account, can you please stop charging me? I have a pending charge for the 31st, this Monday when I don't even have an account anymore let alone an active subscription
Thank you for letting us know! We're so sorry for the trouble with those ongoing charges and, as we cannot charge someone without an active subscription, something must have gone wrong here. So we can assist you, please use this link to email support: https://scr.bi/assist and one of our agents will help you out within 24 hours -EC
This company is a fraud. Do not fall to the free subscription trap.
They kept charging on my card even after the end of subscription.
There is no way you contact them, their only support contact does not respond.
They do not have any customer care.
Money eaters they are.
We apologize for any confusion or frustration, Namrata, and for the delay from support. To clarify, we cannot charge someone after they cancel their subscription and our support team is available to help. At your convenience, please let us know your ticket number and we can use that to escalate your case -EC
Obvious scam. The kept charging for 6 months after canceling. I contacted credit card company to report fraud. They will likely reply to this post with a fake apology to make it appear as if they are correcting. EDIT: they are now claiming I have a "duplicate" account that is being charged, but the only other account I made with an email account I own was never completed (I clicked out of the browser without adding credit card details), so there is no credit card on file, and under Payment History it reads "You do not have an active Scribd membership. Join today to get access to books, audiobooks, documents and more!" This account therefore cannot be billed, and the company is playing dumb.
Hey John - please be aware, we are not able to charge the monthly subscription fee after you cancel. If you have ongoing charges, there has to be a duplicate account causing the charges. If you would like assistance from our customer care team, we can be reached via this link: https://scr.bi/assist otherwise, thank you for your time and have a great rest of your day -EC
Even after I "paused" my subscription they keep on charging. That's another £10.99 that's gone from my account today. I'm concerned that even now I've fully cancelled, they will keep on helping themselves. As far as I can see there is no usable customer support - certainly not an email address to which you can send a complaint. I'll have to go to my bank and try and cut them off that way. Really annoying and time I could spend doing something useful.
Thank you for reaching out about this -- We're sorry for the confusion here regarding the "Pause" feature! Our pause feature is not intended for long-term use, so you can pause for a maximum of roughly 3 months, and should generally be used sparingly. We will not charge you while your subscription is paused. We built this feature for folks who (for whatever reason) may not need their Scribd subscription for short durations, but also do not want to fully cancel during that time either. If you "End" your membership, we ensure it remains active until the end of the current month that you've paid for, but will not bill you again after your subscription expires and your membership ends completely. Once your subscription fully expires, you will no longer have access to our premium membership content libraries. If you're having a hard time finding where to reach us for help, you can click this link here and someone will be able to respond within 24 hours: https://scr.bi/assist -AR
Received a gift subscription and was unable to use it. Tech support is a minimum two weeks delayed. Refunds require you to login but it doesn't allow me to login. What a joke.
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention here. Our general support team is encountering a high amount of requests after the holiday season, however, we would be happy to get this escalated for you. Please update this review to include your support ticket number and we'll get you a response within 24 hours. If you haven't been successful in creating a support ticket, you can do so here: https://scr.bi/assist -AR
From the business
Explore over 170 million documents and counting from a global community of users. Find and upload text on every topic and niche, including research papers, official government documents, user manuals, and more!
Our monthly subscription starts at just $11.99 USD and automatically renews unless the subscription is canceled at least 24 hours prior to the next billing date.
A Scribd monthly subscription also includes access to Everand (ebooks, audiobooks, and more) and SlideShare (presentations and professional content).
Please visit our Help Center for answers to frequently asked questions and the option to connect with our support team for further assistance: https://support.scribd.com/hc/categories/360005188511
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Hi Dusan, we apologize for any confusion here. It sounds like you contacted an organization outside of Scribd, as our platform is not in any way associated with Just Answers. Our Help Center (https://support.scribd.com/hc/en-us) and Contact Us (https://support.scribd.com/contact) pages do not redirect to that site either so we're not quite sure what happened here.
That being said, while we don't provide phone support, our team is happy to help get this resolved for you ASAP via email. We don't show any previous tickets from you in our system, so we'll need to get you connected with our support team. Please use this link to create your case and a specialist will respond right away: https://scr.bi/assist
You will receive a confirmation email with a support ticket number as a record of your successful case creation. Feel free to update this review with that number so we can escalate your ticket for an even faster response as well. Thanks so much! -VG