Lumosity.com / Lumos Labs review: caught trying to take unauthorized funds from my checking account 39

Does Lumosity train brains or think you are stupid? This company auto-renewed my membership even though I had auto-renew turned off. They don't care, as "customer service" pointed out today, they have my credt card info and they feel they have the right to use it as I would. Of course I'll time spending time and money to fight this. You trust Lumosity to help you brain train and they screw you. Shame on you Lumosity!

I am very upset. I am an attorney. I NEVER set up an auto renewal for this firm. I tried to use the site. Played some games while on vacation. I am disappointed and angry and I want my money back. I have found that no one has returned my call. I am so outraged that Paypal let them steal from me I have closed my Paypal account for allowing this to occur. Paypal refused to credit my account. Luminosity site states that there is NO account when I put in my email. It is JUST plain theft.

I want my money back.

I am upset that I signed up agreed for a paid for 2 years subscription. Because I saw nothing letting me know you would AUTO RENEW after the 2 year period. On your website it says that you can cancel your account and be REFUNDED within 30 days of canceling on a 1 or 2 year subscription. I canceled within 30 days and have sent NUMEROUS emails for a refund, but get an AUTOMATED response. I can not speak to anyone on the phone and it is going nowhere. To make matters worse, the charge was not even on my card, it was on my ex husbands card. Can anyone give advice? Now it is a matter of principle and I want this corrected. And http://www.lumosity.com/contact/ask is a dead end as well. You can not use that link to get anywhere. I am appalled.

As a result of the inability to cancel my credit card I have had to cancel my existing credit card with my bank and reissue a new one so they can no longer bill me. As such, I will have to set up a whole bunch of recurring transactions again and update credit card details on a host of online services that I actually appreciate.

See the attached photo: clicking the link, which clearly says 'cancel auto renewal', does nothing and fails to update my account status to show a cancelled yearly subscription.

Thank you Lumosity, that was wonderful.

I find the billing practises of this company deplorable. Numerous times, over numerous years, I have tried to cancel my service with this company.

First of all, their records show invalid credit card details for my account, which makes me wonder how they ever managed to charge my credit card in the first place.

Secondly, when attempting to cancel my subscription, you go to 'Account Settings', click Cancel Auto-Renewal, and then go back to 'Account Settings' and the account status still clearly shows a recurring subscription.

Despite my best efforts, I have not managed to cancel my account with Lumosity. As such, I have contacted the fraud department of my credit card company. I am adamant I cancelled 2 years ago, but only just noticed a transaction from last August that indicated my account was still active.

To express how I really felt about this outfit would require a lot more profanity.

I wish I'd read all this before I signed up with Lumosity ...

I was actually quite happy with the site itself, in terms of the training regime. My problems began when I tried to find out the cost of a family plan. When I try to look at the family plans, I end up at my account page. I note that I'm up for auto-renewal. I want to check out the details of the auto-renewal, but I can't find a link on the account page that would let me do so.

OK, off to the FAQ, which helpfully includes a section on turning off auto-renewal, which directs me back to ... my accounts page. There should be a link in the Billing Information section - Manage Billing. But guess what. It's not there. I've tried three browsers on my Mac, two on my iPad, and even good old Internet Explorer on a Windows system. And nowhere, nowhere, nowhere is there a Manage Billing link.

I'm beginning to think the worst. I'm waiting to hear back from Lumosity, but at this point am rather infuriated by the opacity of the whole process. Just for starters, if a vendor buries their plan pricing deep inside a website my alarm bells start to ring. When I can't even access, let along manage, my own billing details, I'm starting to become deeply concerned.

I'll be deeply disappointed if this turns out to be an elaborate scam.

Sorry for any confusion, LarryChair. When you subscribe to our site, you are signing up for a subscription with automatic renewal, which can be cancelled at any time. You can find this information on our Terms of Service, our purchase page, under "your account" after logging in and in the purchase confirmation we emailed you.

You can cancel auto renewal via your account page after logging in. Just click on your username, at the top right hand corner of the screen, then "Accounts." There you'll be able to cancel auto renewal or delete your account. Accounts cannot be deleted while they still have active billing but they can be once renewal is cancelled. Here's a direct link to your account page: https://www.lumosity.com/app/v4/settings

If you search "auto renewal" or "cancel subscription" in our help desk the first result should be How Do I Turn Off Auto-Renewal." Sorry if you had trouble finding it. Here's a direct link to that help desk article: https://help.lumosity.com/entries/22421477-How-do-I-turn-off-auto-renewal-
It includes all of the links you'll need to cancel renewal on your subscription.

If you still need more help you can always contact us via the help desk by clicking "Submit a Request." If you've already been charged for auto renewal you can request a refund within 30 days. Just select "Payments" and "Getting a Refund" under "Inquiring About."

Sorry again for any confusion, please let us know if we can help with anything else.

I signed up to this site a year ago.
After about 3 months I got bored of it and was just waiting for my membership to expire. Fortunately I logged into my account today to close it as I was still getting the training reminders on a daily basis.

I saw my account was on an auto-renewal with Paypal set to renew in 3 days. I certainly don't remember selecting auto renewal. I searched the help section on how to cancel the auto renewal and close my account. While there was documentation on how to cancel the auto renewal, the link did not appear on the accounts page (screen shot attached). I also could not see any link to delete my account. Looking at the help section I don't know if this is possible.

From Lumosity help page -> Click the "Delete Account" link at the bottom of the Account Page. (If you do not see the "Delete Account" option, it means your account has full access and is therefore not deletable.)

I sent them in a support ticket asking why the "Cancel auto renewal" link is not on my account and why I cannot delete my account.

In fairness they cancelled their renewal subscription with Paypal ~30 mins after I submitted the support ticket (I received email from Paypal). They then emailed me to say auto renewal is disabled and I can re-enable again if I want. They also said I can delete my account after my year is up.

I am still very angry at Lumosity for:-
a) Not making it very apparent when signing up that it is an auto renewal service
b) Not having the functionality on their site to cancel that auto renewal service as described in their help documentation.

Sorry for the delay in response from our customer service team. Unfortunately we're experiencing an unusually high volume of requests this month and there is a slight delay in answering while we hire and train new support staff. It does look like Ragan got back to you earlier today - did you receive her message? If you're still having trouble just respond to the email Ragan sent and she'll be able to help.

Hi Hallie,

I notice you are responding to this. I am a paid 2 year subscriber to lumosity and you have several tickets from me assigned to you. Look at #464733, #472973, #477307. If you don't respond promptly I will have to take legal action, beginning with the better business bureau with your name on the complaints. My user name is joydeepmitra

Joydeep

Sorry for the delay purpurka! As long as you contacted us via the help desk within 30 days you are absolutely eligible for a refund. Our customer service agents respond to all requests as fast as they can in the order they're received. If you'd like us to check on the status of your request, just let us know your username and we'll check.

Hello there!
I have recently subscribed to Lumosity.com full access. I paid yearly subscription. Now I was requesting to get a full refund of the sum I paid, just for personal reasons. It is stated on the website that refund is possible for full year subscriptions, if it is requested for within the first month of subscription.
However, few days have already passed since my request, and still I havent heard from Lumosity team.
I am getting really mad about them, as this seems to be terrible customer service, especially considering it is a paid service.
Hence I would definitely NOT RECOMMEND this website.
Does anybody have similar experience? Any kind of information would help!
Thank you very much!

Sorry for any trouble siyamak! There are a few things that could be keeping you from receiving full access. The only way to figure out what's going on, and help you access your account is to contact us via our help desk. Here's a direct link: https://help.lumosity.com/home. Click "submit a request" to send us an email.

I think Lumosity is fake, I just purchased a 47$ a year access to Lumosity, but it doesn't appears in my account!

Sorry for the trouble Ram - unfortunately our payment processor can only take payment via Visa, Mastercard or PayPal. If you don't have one of these credit cards, you may want to create a PayPal account. You can do this by clicking "Checkout with PayPal" after choosing your product on our purchase page. For more specific advice contact us via our help desk by using this link and clicking "submit a request" https://help.lumosity.com/home

Hi
This is Ram from Bangalore, I tried to pay through Credit card, but it is denied. I've already purchased many items out side INDIA and it was working fine. What could be the issue, how to pay the amount? Please reply to my mail too. Thanks.
-Ram ramrishie@gmail.com

Thanks for contacting us e1ivan, and sorry for any confusion. We actually only have one plan that bills monthly, our monthly plan. Our yearly and two year subscriptions are listed as price per month on the purchase page for comparison but are billed as one sum up front, then you receive access for the next 12 or 24 months accordingly. It says "billed as one payment" on the purchase page but I know it can be easy to miss.

If you subscribe to the monthly plan you can cancel renewal at any time, and your access will run till the end of that billing cycle, then end. We do not offer refunds on monthly subscriptions. We do, however offer full refunds on yearly, 2 year and lifetime subscriptions within 30 days of purchase. You can see all of our pricing options here:
www.lumosity.com/purchase

If the promotion code you'd like to use expires before you have a chance to purchase a subscription, just contact us via the help desk and our customer service agents will give you an equivalent code to use. Thanks and let us know if you have any other questions.

So I'd like to subscribe to the two years plan, but what I don't understand is will you charge me on a monthly basis (which I prefer) or will I have pay a one time amount. Please do reply asap as I want avail the discount plan that ends tomorrow.

So I want to subscribe for the two year's plan, but i don't understand, will the money be deducted on monthly basis from my account (which I prefer) or will I have to pay a one time amount ? Please do reply as soon as possible as I want to avail the discount plan that ends tomorrow.

Just to follow up I believe I found your customer service request in our help center. If you haven't already gotten Mark's email response here's a fix so you and your wife can both train:
to purchase your wife's subscription, she will need to delete the app from the iPad and then re-download it from the App Store using her Apple ID. Then, she should be able to log into her Lumosity account in the app and purchase a Brain Trainer subscription through the Upgrade page. You will be able to log into your account and access your subscription in the newly downloaded version of Brain Trainer as well, so there should be no worries on that front.

Sorry for any confusion ercable! Just to clarify, you've downloaded Brain Trainer onto an iPad that you and your wife share, and you both want to have separate, paid accounts. The prompt that tells you that you've already purchased a Brain Trainer subscription (on your account) can be ignored if you want to purchase a Brain Trainer subscription on your wife's account. That just pops up to protect users from purchasing 2 subscriptions on their own accounts. Then, to switch accounts on the iPad, just logout and have her login.

If you're still having problems just contact us via our help desk. Here's a direct link: http://www.lumosity.com/contact/ask

My wife and I are sharing one iPad and we both established individual lumosity braintrainer accounts to track our own BPI. However, the 'upgrade' option for her account, insists that she must purchase the app separately in order to upgrade as the original app was purchased through my Apple ID. With that said, we have signed on to itunes with her Apple ID and then tried to purchase the app again, but it shows the app as having already been downloaded. Can somebody please instruct us on how to work this out?

Sorry for any trouble ravikishor gandi, unfortunately we don't currently offer phone support which is why you weren't able to contact us via phone. We are working to implement it for billing questions but it it still in the development phase, so you will have to bear with us. The quickest way to contact us is through our help desk. For the vast majority of customer service emails sent through our help desk we can guarantee a response within 2 business days. For requests submitted through our billing support form we guarantee a one business day response.

Here's a direct link to our contact form: http://www.lumosity.com/contact/ask
and to our billing support form: www.lumosity.com/contact/billing

Thanks - Hallie

hello Hallie, thank you much for helping me out. One of the online reviews of lumosity says you have a bad customer service. I mean to say, no body answers the call when they give you a call to your company and it always goes into the voice mail. I did not believe this in the first place as I had a good impression about your company. However, when I gave a call to the phone number you mentioned on your brochure [protected], phone interactive voice replied me back saying that voice mail box is full and it can not take further messages. That gave me an indication that no body is bother at your company even to "listen" to the customer problems through phone. Also, I wondered when interactive voice did not mention even the name of the company while it was answering back to customer. If your customer service is this bad and automatic billing process is not very effective, how can I recommend your company product to my colleagues and friends? pl clarify.

Sorry for the delay! I looked up your question and I see that it hasn't yet been answered. We don't currently have a protocol in place for what you're requesting, so we aren't able to give you a quick answer. However I see that the customer service team is working with our business team now to get you a quote and more information. Thanks and sorry again for the delay in answering.

hello Hallie, thank you for your quick reply. I checked my spam folder but I could not find the correspondence. Here is my lumosity user id: ravikishorgandi@yahoo.com please send reply for my questions and send me the quote for bulk purchase. thank you.

Sorry for any delay Ravi, have you checked your spam folder? Some times our emails can get stuck in there :( It's also possible that your email provider has blocked our communications, however it's hard to tell without more information. Can you let me know your Lumosity.com username? With that information we'll be able to look up your communication. Thanks!

hi this is Ravi from atlanta, Last week, I sent one email requesting a quote for bulk memberships but I did not receive reply in spite of 2 business days have been passed. Or you guys are still active in this business. pl let me know. thanks

Hi Nicholai, if you're experiencing a problem, please let us know. You can also contact us through our support center for more help: www.lumosity.com/help

Hi Kclady - the best way to contact us is through the contact form on our help desk. Here's a direct link:
http://www.lumosity.com/contact/ask

If you contact us using this form and the email address linked to your Lumosity.com account we'll be able to access your account and give you much more information, and help :)

Thanks and let us know if you have any questions.

Hallie

Thank you for your willingness to make restitution.My suggestion is this:
Rather than a cash refund I would be willing to accept 90 days of full use of Lumosity to compensate partially for the actual dollar amount that was taken from my checking account without my consent, partly for my out of pocket costs to change my debit card, and partly for the trouble involved with changing my debit card number and then having to notify other creditors of the change.
Should we reach an agreement that is amenable to both parties, I will advise the California Attorney General of the new development.Does Lumosity now have a way for customers to contact the company?

Hi Udai - Currently our system can only accept payments via credit card or through paypal. If you don't have a credit card, you may want to create a PayPal account. You can do this by clicking "Checkout with PayPal" after choosing your product on our purchase page:

https://www.lumosity.com/purchase?hide_express_checkout=show

If neither of these options will work you can still play many of our most popular games for free by logging in and clicking "Games." You'll have unlimited access to any game without a lock :)

hi this is udai from Chennai,
let me know if any other way to pay the amount to you. because i don't have ATM service..

Regards,
D.Udai

Since in reality I have made so many unsuccessful attempts to clear this up by trying to deal directly with Lumosity, that I have lost count-and since I have read so many accounts of other customers who keep having very similar experiences with Lumosity-I am very comfortable with my decision to ask outsiders to investigate.
"When words and actions disagree, I believe the actions."

Hi kclady48, sorry again for the trouble! We look forward to clearing up this problem as soon as possible in any way you feel comfortable. Thanks - Hallie

That is pure bunk, with all due respect. That is exactly what I did BEFORE one of your employees tried to withdraw more funds from my account two more times, and was successful one of those times!
Any further correspondence about this matter needs to go through the outside parties who I have asked to look in to the matter.

Hi kclady48 - this is Hallie from Lumosity.com. I'm very sorry to hear that you've been having trouble canceling auto-renewal on your account! I assure you that it is NOT Lumosity.com employees who are using your card information to make these withdrawals and your payment information has not been compromised in any way.

All subscriptions to Lumosity.com are set up with automatic renewal, like a gym membership or Netflix. However renewal can be cancelled at any time by going through "Your Account" (in the top right corner of the screen) after logging in. Here's a direct link: https://www.lumosity.com/account/edit.

Look under "Membership Details" for "Cancel Auto-renewal." After canceling, your subscriber level access will continue through the end of your current billing cycle and then end. Your progress will not be lost, so you may resubscribe later on the same membership account.

If you do not see the "Cancel Auto-renewal" link, it means automatic subscription renewal/recurring billing has already been turned off for this account.

Since the help desk form was giving you trouble, why don't you let me know your username. With that information I can go in and cancel renewal on your account and look up the messages you sent us to see what happened that kept us from being able to respond to you.

Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions - Hallie

Despite having been instructed in writing not to do so, on 12-15-11, a Lumosity employee again used my debit card information without my consent, and forcibly withdrew (approx)$15 from my checking account against my will.I did not use Lumosity between 12-15-11 and 1-15-12, because I had not yet realized that Lumosity had illegally taken unauthorized funds from my account thus I didn't know I had access to Lumosity during that time.

On 1-15-12 I received yet another correspondence informing me that a Lumosity employee had again attempted to help themself to an unauthorized cash withdrawel from my account, using my debit card information. This time the bank had stopped them from withdrawing the cash.

On 1-17-12 I again attempted to e-mail Lumosity twice using the "contact us" information on their web site. Both times the e-mail was again bounced back undelivered. I then tried to access my Lumosity account but the password wouldn't work.
Lumosity lists two phone numbers.One([protected]) goes completely unanswered. The other([protected]) leads customers to a "brick wall" telling customers to go back to the web site and contact Lumosity via the e-mail that doesn't work.

On 1-17-12 it was necessary for me to report my debit card to my bank as compromised, resulting in my paying a bank fee, as a direct result of Lumosity's misconduct.
Various web sites list numerous customer complaints by people who have been swindled by Lumosity employees in ways very similar to the way that I was. Lumosity's other victims consistently report that they are also unable to contact the company.
This time I sent copies of documentation to the San Francisco Police Dept. and to the California Attorney General.

Hey kcstrawberryblonde this is Hallie from Lumosity.com. Sorry for the trouble! I'm not sure what could have cause you to be billed 2 weeks into a monthly subscription. Do you have a second subscription with us linked to another account?

If you'll let me know your username I can look up your account and see what's going on. Or you can write into the help desk and we can clear up what's going on there. Here's a direct link: http://www.lumosity.com/contact/ask

Thanks and sorry again for the trouble!