What is a review on the Shaw Academy? Shaw Academy review2022

 Free course

Like a lot of people, I saw a Facebook ad for a free course and the one that pinged up for me was on sound engineering, which is something I’d like to get better at. The UK is currently in lockdown (again) and I thought why not - it’ll give me something to do. It was a late evening decision after a few drinks and I should have checked out some reviews before I signed up.

Registering is a nuisance

The problems started immediately - had problems signing into the mobile app and they started bombarding me with texts and emails. It tells you that you NEED the mobile app (why?!). They also kept telling me I hadn’t registered for a course (I thought I had). Not once, by the way, but multiple times through both text and email, so I went and tried again and registered for the course.

You then need to pick times for your classes. This is stupid because the ‘classes’ are not live. One of the pros of online learning like this is you can learn at your own pace and work around other aspects of your life, but I duly booked in my weekly slots.

The course isn’t free

This is when things REALLY began irritating me because then you get a pop up asking you to download course materials (which they call ‘Tool Kits’). The way it’s phrased makes it sound as if these are essential to the course, but really they’re just a way of getting money out of you (£50 - not cheap either). If you click on this it will take you to the payment screen (even if this is your free course as part of the trial). I thankfully realized before I went any further, but it would be SO easy to accidentally buy these through PayPal one-click. The wording is very misleading.

You will also get pop-ups (and texts and emails) asking you to get your certificate (which you can get before you’ve even started the course, which is stupid). Note that the certificate is not part of the course - it’s another £50. This is stupid. Your free course isn’t free at all.

Further note, these ‘offers’ of the course materials and certificate comes bundled with countdowns, which makes you think that these are limited time (classic FOMO, fear of missing out, manipulation). They aren’t, because they will pop up again and the same offers will be emailed to you (again, with countdowns). It preys on impulsion.

Canceling is a real chore

I gave up at this point and started to see everyone else’s negative reviews, and before I’d even taken a class I decided to cancel.

You know how with Netflix or another similar service if you want to cancel you can just click cancel on your account page and it just does it? Easy peasy. With Shaw Academy, nope.

After you spend what feels like an eternity trying to find the right page for cancellation, you click on cancel and you get led through a series of screens that beg you not to (the buttons that you actually need to click on to cancel are tiny and grey - easy to miss; the big green buttons that it wants you to click on will just stop the cancellation process).

It really is quite something just how many pages you go through to finally get to the cancellation bit. It will encourage you with more offers and deals and what not to stop you canceling, plus the emotional manipulation (will get to this in a sec).

THEN it turns out you haven’t canceled at all, you need to ring a number to cancel properly. This is designed to add an extra inconvenience/barrier to make you give up and just continue. The wording is again misleading, because it says it wants you to talk things through with your course supervisor (I don’t have a course supervisor - I’ve not taken a class yet) to see if they can sort out your problems, and that their business hours close at 5pm, and I was doing this after 5pm.

This is a lie. Small mercies, but you don’t have to talk to a human and be subjected to the hard sell, and you can ring whenever you like.

You call up and you have to talk to Robot Woman. She goes on and on and on and on about how doing this course is essential for your future - according to my phone log the call was 3.5 minutes, and 99% of this is just waiting for Robot Woman to shut up so you can cancel.

So anyway, I did eventually cancel, but the emails haven’t stopped. It’s telling me I missed classes and trying to entice me back with billions of offers.

Emotional manipulation

This has really sealed in my mind that Shaw Academy is run by crooks.

The supposed Head of Education is a guy called William (apparently) who looks like he’s about 25 and has a haircut that screams ‘douchebag’. In one of his emails, this is what he wrote:

You started your diploma because you knew that upskilling is the best way to protect your future.

When I missed my first (pre-recorded) class, I got this email:

We understand that it can be frightening in this uncertain time. Thousands are becoming unemployed daily and we are all fast approaching a recession. The only way to secure and protect your future is to upskill now before it is too late. The only way to protect and secure your future is to upskill. You made the right decision by coming to us to start preparing for the unknown, however you missed your class.

I don’t know where to begin with this. We’re approaching a recession, which is why we’re doing everything in our power to make more money from you without you realizing it. Take our courses or face unemployment.

Just…wow. They’re so manipulative. I’m thankfully insecure employment; lots of people are not. For those people, stressed and anxious, I can see how they’d be hooked in by this.

They’re a deeply unpleasant company and should be avoided. Try Skillshare instead