Academia.edu Predatory Billing Practices And Unfair Refund Denials

I am writing this to warn other researchers and students about the deceptive billing practices of Academia.edu. In January, I used a Premium trial only to download six specific research papers. Since then, I have not used any Premium features and have had no intention of continuing the service or purchasing an annual subscription. Despite this, on 22 February 2026 I was suddenly charged 145,000 KRW for a “first-year annual subscription” via KakaoPay (Transaction ID: t99a623d56141e5215c4), without any prior notification or invoice. In my account settings, the “payments for Academia Premium” notifications were clearly disabled, yet the payment was processed without any explicit consent or clear warning. I see this as a serious lack of transparency in how Academia.edu handles billing and communication. What makes the situation worse is the way customer support has handled my case. Academia.edu’s own policy explicitly states that “first-year subscription payments are refundable within 30 days,” yet I keep receiving the same copy-and-pasted template response about renewals being non-refundable. They are not acknowledging that this is my first year of being charged, not a renewal, and it is clear that they are not properly reading or addressing the content of my emails. I requested a refund on the same day the charge occurred, but I feel my legitimate rights as a consumer are being ignored. I am demanding a full refund of 145,000 KRW for this first-year annual subscription and the immediate cancellation of any Premium plan and automatic renewals associated with my account. I also expect Academia.edu to properly review my case in line with their own refund policy and to improve the clarity and transparency of their billing and notification practices so that other users do not experience the same issue.