Pianokeyz.com

We provide online piano lessons to many students and the vast majority of them enjoy the lessons and experience they get.  We do like to entice new students to try our highly rated lessons which is why we offer a 90-day money back guarantee.  Unfortunately in this situation, the buyer...

signed up over seven months ago and is now suddenly sending us communication for the very first time to try and go back entirely to get refunded.  We feel that in this case it is unreasonable to refund back that far, and because the buyer is well outside of our 90-day guarantee.  Attachments have been provided showing that the buyer actually created and setup a subscription off-site through paypal, who initiated the billing per the buyer's choice.  The paypal subscription agreement clearly showed the buyer the amount of the recurring monthly charge if the buyer continued to have an active subscription through paypal.  The buyer did not request cancelation through paypal until November 25, 2015 which is when they stopped further billing.  At this point, we can advise the buyer to open any billing dispute with paypal as the billing agreement was between them. Nevertheless, we have still offered the buyer at no additional cost a lifetime membership as well as any DVDs that they would like in hopes that they are still interested in enhancing their piano skills.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Thanks very much for the refund.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: this is not acceptable. I don't want the service. A fair settlement is refunding me the full amount. The service as advertised on their website was only for the trail as and no mention of subscription. This is a forced subscription and service which I decline to accept. 
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. There is now a record of their unscrupulous actions and other consumers can see by the numerous complaints to the TTB what kind of company they truly are.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

The buyer created a subscription with [redacted] off-site for our monthly online piano lessons.  The buyer did not cancel within initially discounted trial period and per the buyer's [redacted] subscription, had a charge initiated by [redacted] for the monthly membership amount.  The buyer opened a...

dispute with [redacted] and lost the dispute with [redacted] as the charge was within the buyer's own subscription that they initiated.  Per the agreed terms, the 30-day guarantee period was only during the customer's initial 30-day trial period. The buyer however should be able to still login now as they have been given one year membership access at no cost.

The customer's only payment to our site was a 30-day trial for 99 cents.  The customer mentioned a promised 9.95 price on our site.  This is not the case as it is clearly crossed out.  In fact, it's crossed out because our 30-day trial is only 99 cents which is what the customer...

charged.  We do not understand where the customer is assuming that we charge $270 - we never charged the customer this we do not charge that price for anything and no where is it listed.  The customer asked for cancelation and we promptly canceled their account.  We simply asked that if they would like to continue at an ongoing rate beyond the 30-day trial for $27/month, that they had that option. However, they did not apparently find that price valuable (even though traditional piano lessons often cost $50 per hour) and did not accept.  The customer continued Emails in an angry manner, and we mentioned again that the account was already canceled and that they would no longer be able to login to their account to continue our support message thread.

We are sorry that the customer did not enjoy or piano tutorials like our other customers.  A request for cancelation was not sent by the user until he was already into his second month of lessons and thus the charge was accurate.  It is clear after talking to the customer that he was only...

interested in taking advantage of our trial offer with no real intention of paying for any of our well-produced lessons.  We have checked and our team did in fact refund the user.  The user should wait a few days and check later this week as his bank/card likely takes a few days to process it out of the pending material.

Revdex.com:Do I need to tell my side of the story, in more detail? I have pictures and hard proof.
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:The business is misrepresenting the facts. Their response is outlined in {}:{The customer's only payment to our site was a 30-day trial for 99 cents.} This is true. I paid them $.99, saw how much the renewal was ($297!) and then promptly cancelled. {The customer mentioned a promised 9.95 price on our site.  This is not the case as it is clearly crossed out.  In fact, it's crossed out because our 30-day trial is only 99 cents which is what the customer charged.} This not true. The crossed out price says "Monthly Membership $9.95" which implies that the montly fee is $9.95. It does not say that the trial membership is normally $9.95. The sales page is completely misleading.{We do not understand where the customer is assuming that we charge $270 - we never charged the customer this we do not charge that price for anything and no where is it listed.} This is a half-truth. I initially stated that I did not want to be charged $270, the real number is $297 which is hidden on their website off the main page and definitely not on their sales page. {The customer asked for cancelation and we promptly canceled their account.} Not true. I asked for a cancellation, they offered me a price of $27 per month rather than the $297 price. They also responded with an incredulous attitude.{We simply asked that if they would like to continue at an ongoing rate beyond the 30-day trial for $27/month, that they had that option. However, they did not apparently find that price valuable (even though traditional piano lessons often cost $50 per hour) and did not accept.}  At this point it was clear that this company had a predatory renewal policy. By starting with a low rate and then having an extremely high renewal rate, they are preying on consumers that will forget to cancel their subscriptions. Initially I was willing to pay $9.95 a month for their service. I might have even been willing to pay $27 if it had been clearly stated in the initial pricing. However, due to their conscience effort to deceive customers I told them I wanted nothing to do with their shady business and that I wanted a cancellation. {The customer continued Emails in an angry manner, and we mentioned again that the account was already canceled and that they would no longer be able to login to their account to continue our support message thread.} Again, untrue. After receiving several passive aggressive and condescending emails, I responded that I wanted a cancellation and that if they continued to harass me I would take legal action. I feel that their website clearly violates California Law: The California Automatic Renewal Law, California Business and Protections Code 17600. This law requires more conspicuous placement of renewal terms including having the terms and pricing on the sales page. I asked for any further contact to be directed to my attorney, and gave them the attorney's information. They continued to harass me rather than just cancel the account, and never did they contact my attorney. They then "banned me" (their words) from their site so that I wouldn't be able to access the string of emails in case of a law suit.  All I wanted was to cancel my account from a business that I believe to be corrupt. Instead they continually harrassed me until I had no choice to threaten them with a law suit in order to get them to stop. They have horrible business practices and consumers need to be aware of the kind of business they are. 
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2015/10/27) */
Although traditional piano lessons cost $40/hr, we provide more on-demand content including popular tutorials to users whom can login online to view and go at their own pace. To allow potential users to try our lessons, we offer a 30-day trial...

before charging the normal monthly fee. Because we had not yet received a cancelation request from the user, the user was charged for the next month. We would've been happy to assist with any login issues, but we never received a support Email. Because we also offer a money-back-guarantee, we will provide this refund, and we wished the customer would have simply come to us first asking for it. We are also offering the customer an additional year of access to our lessons at no additional cost in hopes that they might be interested in continuing the lessons.

Despite our team already offering the buyer lifetime access at no additional charge, he declined and instead wanted a refund in an attempt to get our work and lessons at no charge.  Sadly, it appears his only intent was to gain access during the trial with no real intention of continuing to use...

our lessons beyond the discounted period.   This buyer has already been refunded.  The buyer also incorrectly stated the 10 dollar/initial month charge even though it is clearly crossed out with a lower 99 cent price for the trial period.  The "back end" of our site is also a very big misrepresentation as the buyer's IP address agreed to our terms of service during initial checkout; the price is also listed at the top of the FAQ page and his account after he signed up and when he logged in thereafter.  The buyer also sent an Email to which we promptly replied (within minutes) despite his claim that we ignored him.  The buyer was beyond his 60-day guarantee as he signed up on November 30, 2016.  Despite being billed for the first month after the trial, we have refunded the buyer so that we can focus on on real clients that partake with our lessons and learning community.  This buyer is not welcome to try and take advantage of our work at a discounted membership again.

The buyer signed up to our monthly piano lessons.  In our terms of use, we ask that members to Email our support team if they wish to cancel their account.  Because many students sign-up and finish payment off of our site with a 3rd party subscription (such as [redacted]), it is often not...

possible to cancel directly within the lessons account since the user would in that case need to cancel the billing subscription they created with the payment  provider they opted into off of our site.  In this case, the buyer quickly opened a dispute with their credit card company and we have not been able to transfer the payment back to him during this process.   As we just recently checked, the funds were recently released back to us (because the buyer lost his dispute as his credit card company agreed that the charge was accurate and per the subscription that he signed up to).  We have initiated the buyer's refund and he should expect it as soon as his bank processes it (likely within one week).We wish the buyer would continue playing piano, and unfortunately private lessons in his area are about $50/hr which provides less content than we provide.  It's quite clear that we offer great value and are saddened that he is unaware of the common pricing for hourly piano lessons.  We privately offered the buyer a discount to $27/month but it appears he only wanted to take advantage of our top-rated lessons at no cost.