Scribd
reviews and complaints

Unlimited means, and I quote: “not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent. “

*Unlimited means: two audiobooks a month plus unlimited access to titles copied from Librivox. Librivox is super cool - a big catalog of 100% free audiobooks from the public domain. So yes, that means it’s perfectly legal for Scribd to copy them and use them to justify calling an extremely limited service “*unlimited”. Legal, yes. Fair to the consumer, however? You decide.

I’ve been a member for years. I’ve avidly recommended them to everyone I know. You used to get one audiobook and three ebooks for your 8.99 a month, with certain titles unlimited. You knew whether you were listening to something free or something that would use up your credits. You could preview a book, and then it would ask you if you wanted to use a credit to finish listening to it. I was fine with it. I would listen to free stuff, save up credits, and then binge on an awesome series. There used to be some cool stuff in the free audiobooks catalog too- some obscure British titles that I greatly enjoyed.

No more. Now it’s *unlimited. You can’t see which titles are truly unlimited (although It seems to be anything not a classic). You can’t save up credits to listen to an audiobook series. You get two, maybe three, sometimes one audiobook before your browse screen suddenly has nothing interesting in it. I’ve been an avid reader since early childhood. I’ve already read all the classics, and if I wanted to revisit them, I’d do so straight from Librivox, and support them.

The switch was nearly a year ago. I held on, hoping that they would return to the Scribd I knew and loved.

It isn’t happening. Maybe my account getting cancelled will send the message they need to hear.

When I first came across this application I signed up for the free month. I was so excited to finally find a subscription-based audiobook option.

I downloaded about a dozen audiobooks to listen to over the course of the month. (I listen to a lot of audiobooks.)

Almost immediately the audiobooks that I had downloaded became “unavailable.“

I was flabbergasted.

After contacting customer support, I was told that this happens when too many audiobooks are downloaded. That it triggers something in their application ... and that titles come and go.

I was also told that if you just save/bookmark the audiobook it will not do that.

A few weeks later I decided to subscribe again. Actually paying for it this time.

This time I only downloaded ONE audiobook so that I could listen to it without Wi-Fi - which actually doesn’t work. Begging the question, what’s the point of downloading a book?

Everything else I came across that I thought looked interesting I bookmarked/saved.

And yet again 95% of those books have been removed from my bookmarked section.

I find it very interesting that those books will become available to listen to THE DAY AFTER my subscription expires.

One of the books I was in the middle of listening to!

My impression is that the company doesn’t want you listening to more than two of the newer or more popular or serial books per month.

This is misleading and scam behavior. This is not “unlimited.“

I will stick with Audible and purchase my books in the future.

Edited to add:

Thank you so much for the AUTO GENERATED RESPONSE SCRIBD.

Currently I have no desire to listen to books that are in the public domain and available to listen via my library. And if I were in the mood to listen to those books, I would get them for free from the library and not pay you $9.00 plus tax per month

I got the free trial version of this service and decided to get a one month subscription after my trial ended. At first everything was great, but then I started noticing some shady activity. Apparently if you download several audiobooks but don’t start listening to them right away these titles magically become “unavailable“ after a few days. But no worries, I’m assured that these titles will become available once again conveniently 2 days after my subscription is due to expire (thereby forcing me to renew my paid subscription for another month if I want to listen to these titles). If this happened to only one or two titles then I would understand, but after this happening to five separate titles/authors over the month it’s obvious what they are doing. Also as a blind person I find this app very hard to use. I have several audiobook apps on my iPhone (Bard, Hoopla, Libby, Apple Books, etc.) which I have no problems using whatsoever being blind, but this app is definitely not blind friendly. For example: if you want to generate a list of all Stephen King audiobooks you have to wait for the voiceover to read the entire biography of his and then hit the “view all“ button just at the right moment when your voiceover reads it. If you don’t hit the button just at the exact moment then you have to listen to Stephen King’s entire biography again and then hope you hit that button at the exact moment otherwise you have to start all over again… This becomes very frustrating. I know making this app more accessible to your blind customers probably isn’t at the top of your list of priorities, but just know that us in the blind & visually impaired communities listen to A LOT of audiobooks. You’re definitely missing out on this revenue stream from our community due to your app not being accessible to us. But no worries, we’ll just spend our money with other audiobook apps that are more accessible to us.

I’ve been a longtime subscriber and lover of Scribd, but in the past few months things have gone seriously downhill with the app, to the point where I’m very seriously considering cancelling my membership.

Several rounds of recent updates seem to only be increasing the problems. The app frequently crashes upon opening or as soon as I select the title I want to listen to. In the past few weeks I’ve experienced multiple error messages including (but not limited to) “something went wrong”, “this title cannot be opened, try again later”, and “the Scribd servers cannot be reached”, all when I’m on a strong WiFi connection or trying to play an audiobook title I’ve already downloaded for offline use.

The audio functions have also become incredibly glitchy in several ways, such as repeatedly skipping audio (while playing downloaded titles) and frequently skipping forward or backward in the narrative after pressing play to resume a paused audiobook. I’ve deleted downloaded titles and then re-downloaded to see if it would fix the problem, and sometimes is does while others it doesn’t. I had to do that several times with the last book I was listening to. I’ve also uninstalled and reinstalled the app several times in the past few weeks and the performance is still not up to what it used to be, or should be for a paid subscription service.

I’m very diligent with keeping my iOS operating system and apps up to date, and I understand that sometimes when Apple releases a new iOS version there are occasionally a few glitches that developers need to work out. However, I can confidently say that no other app or service I use has had even a fraction of the issues that I’ve been experiencing with Scribd in the 2 months since iOS 13 launched. Very disappointing and I hope that Scribd does something to fix these issues immediately, not to mention take steps to earn back the loyalty of long time subscribers before we discontinue membership for good.

UPDATE 2: Scribd keeps responding and all their response says is “it’s Apple’s fault.” Take control of your business. You created the problem. I have a Spotify account and various others and none bill through Apple. I bought my first iphone in 2008 and have been using apps for this period of time. You’re the only app I’ve ever had a subscription to that bills through Apple.

You let them take control and then blame them? Don’t pass the buck.

I’m currently using iPhone 8 Plus and I live in Silicon Valley so the phone and reception isn’t the problem with your garbage audiobook feature. It just flat out doesn’t work. Also looking to place blame elsewhere with this junk feature.

UPDATE: 1) I have excellent reception, deleted app and re-downloaded it, and still audio books didn’t play. Not phone or user error as suggested by developer comment.

2) This is the only app I’ve personally ever used whose subscription is run through iTunes. Since developer is well, a developer, it would be easy to program an automatic trigger to cancel at the 30 day mark if my payment info wasn’t available in iTunes for auto-billing. Instead, 30 days elapsed, didn’t bill because my payment info wasn’t updated in iTunes, app didn’t work during this time so I figured Account was inactive, and when I updated my payment info in iTunes about 10 days later, Scribd STILL billed me for an active account.

If the 30 days were up and I didn’t have access to the app, why would I assume I still needed to cancel? Not logical.

As stated in original review, SCAM. Hide the ball tactics are scams.

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I signed up for 30 day trial and the book selection was acceptable but the audio book function rarely works. I live in the city with good cell reception and even then audio books rarely worked.

Worst part is 30 days ended and I didn’t sign up. When I updated my billing info with iTunes this somehow triggered Scribd subscription to renew. Now Scribd claims they can’t refund because it was done through iTunes.

Scam. Run.

3rd update: This is my 3rd and last time checking to see if this app has been resolved in last 6+ months. Im sad to say its not. Im starting to think the entire thing is being run by scam artists because they are not even trying to fix it or even pretending to care. Note all resposes are the same, automatic response. no actual explanation or promise to fix the issues. They all say to email and then when you do that you get the SAME automatic replies. They have obviously giving up on this and just trying to squeeze all the money theyvcan from it untill it dies out so i urge you not to fall for it. Read the actual reviews, not the fake 4-5 star ones that are so cliche its obviouse they are fake. Read the compaints..when that many customers say the same things for this long with no fix that says it all. Honestly its so bad even the free month is not worth the hassle. You get into a book then it vanishes. Wich is worse then not having started it. 2nd review: Dont be fooled by the rating, read the reviews. Most top reviews were written by them. They are clearly a cheap sleezy company and once you use the servuce and realize the way they work it wouldnt be below them to rig the ratings to keep scam going. This app did not get worse, it became useless. And the worst part is the way they trick you. And dont waste time reaching out to them they just quote same lines repeatedly. They really should be sued. I keep checking back expecting to find something get done or them shut down and I cant believe there still getting away with it. So its up to us to warn everyone. Scribd-you should be ashamed. 1st review: This was my favorite app! Is there a new owner!? You subscribe and after you save 1 or 2 audiobooks all the rest SUDDENLY become unnavailable for another 30 days! Its not unlimited! And the worst part is I thought it was a glitch and i deleted, redownloaded, even did it online and I just wasted 3 hours of my day!

Update: since this review years ago, seems this app has only gotten worse. It is a dead app. Never going to be fixed.

I waited a whole month for books on my list to be available ... And now after I’ve paid my subscription those same books are unavailable for a whole month. I literally had access to those books for a day. What’s up with that?

Beware whoever runs this site is Petty .! After I wrote this review no books were available. well anything by author that I like ,storylines that I like , it got personal !

If your looking for subscribe to this app I would take heed. They say that it’s unlimited... But its not ! You’ll browse through the catalog read the summaries (if you’re like me you pick out your books for the month) and save and download your favorites.

And then the entertainment Nazis take your joy from you and say that the book is not available until next month. Meanwhile friends with the Scribd app are reading the books that are not available to you .

Or my absolute favorite they will have part two but part one and part three isn’t available until next month .

Or you’ll start the book but then the next day the book isn’t available until next month.

Or you’ll say OK these books aren’t available , so I’ll just pick out some more books . Nope ... The entertainment Nazis step in again and those books move The books the next day to the not available until next month.

This app used to be my favorite. I don’t know if you guys are under new ownership or what! But this app isn’t great anymore! It’s disappointing and infuriating. Why say that you’re unlimited when , when you’re not .

Unlimited is putting a book on in your list and being able to read that book when you’re ready to read it!

Unlimited does not mean this title will not be available until next month !

Raise the subscription price or something ! Or just take off the unlimited In your advertisements ! Because that word unlimited has a definition ! Unlimited means unlimited ! Your app is the opposite of unlimited ! It has limits and it is infuriating !

And to add to it after I wrote this review all of the books are unavailable so not only are they entertainment Nazis but they’re petty as well

Scribd has great content, so many ebooks and audiobooks, with reasonable subscription fees. But after all this time I used their service (I have been a subscriber for more than 3 years), their app has little improvement and it's getting worse and worse

1. Audiobook player -
-Random jump/skip chapters:
The player jumps to a random chapter while playing

-Playback issue:
When you resume playing from the previous session, it doesn't save your process but instead jumps back several chapters and you have to manually forward to where you were.

-Lack of reporting function:
You would think that they have an option in the app to report a issue on a specific title but no. Not even a general report issue option in the app. You have to contact customers service.

2. The ebook reader
The ebook reader has no major improvement over the years. It's a painful experience reading using the iOS app.

-Highlight/ in book text search:
They use the iOS build-in context pop-up when you select words for highlight or search, which you will have to swipe through the list of actions to find the highlight or search option.

-Dictionary/ word definition lookup:
Same as the highlight/search experience above, they use the built-in iOS word definition lookup feature which is great in the sense that iOS build-in features have many different dictionaries in different languages, but it's painful to get the definition of a word as you have to select it then swipe through the list of actions to find the lookup option instead of just select the work and the definition auto show up (like the kindle app or their android app)

And this feature no longer works in the Scribd app on iOS 16

The ebook reader on the Scribd android app is better (still far from perfect) as it has features similar to Kindle and Libby apps.

For a service that is specified for audio and ebook, you should put some focus on user experience. I don't know why there is little improvement on the iOS app over the years. I like Scribd for its great content and affordable fee, but I'm seriously reconsidering it because the experience of using the app is getting worse over time.

I cancelled my subscription with scribd on july 29th 2021.

However you have started to debit my account again since november 2022 until now. I only realised this a few days ago and immediately contacted scribd

Your customer service confirmed the date of cancellation but would not refund my money as it was longer than 30 days. The website says that you will continue to debit an account unless the subscription is cancelled. I cancelled the subscription in july 2021 but now you have started billing me again. As I had cancelled my subscription, I checked my bank to make sure my account want being debited. There was transaction in august 2021, but since then, nothing was debited from my account. So there was no reason for me to check every month to make sure my account wasn't being debited. I didn't check my account until a few days ago, but it is apparent that your company has been taking money out of my account without my authorisation

The original card I used for this subscription has since been replaced so you no longer have those card details, yet are still billing my account. Customer support is not helpful. I have a 'ticket' for them to contact me, but as it has not been helpful, I wanted to have a live chat with someone or make a complaint, but I can do neither of those and have to restart the whole process again with another ticket. You took money from my account without my permission and now refuse to give it back. It seems the whole process on the website is not designed to help customers. Here is a list of the dates and amounts debited from my account:

02/08/2021 £9.99
09/11/2022 -£10.36
09/12/2022 -£9.74
09/01/2023 -£10.00
09/02/2023 -£9.84
09/03/2023 9.87
11/04/2023 £9.54
09/05/2023 £9.42

Original ticket number: (#4765056)
This is the what the customer service rep told me, she said the subscription on 29th july 2021 was cancelled:
"after reviewing your account I can confirm that the account was cancelled by you on the july 29, 2021."
A few days later she sent me another email stating:
"our records do not show that a cancellation was completed for this subscription,"
So either the subscription was cancelled or it wasn't. Your customer service rep has told me it was cancelled and then told me its wasn't. Your records show that it was.

As your records show that I cancelled the subscription, I have completed my part and therefore your company should not have debited my account. Another issue your company should be concerned about is, if my cancellation wasn't completed, why is it that you have only started started debiting my account since november 2022 and there is only one other transaction in august 2021. For over one year, my account wasn't debited by you and for some reason it started again in november 2022. This shows that the cancellation took effect and remained in place for over a year and then for some reason you started debiting my account again.

As your customer service rep makes conflicting statements and was unhelpful, I wouldn't recommend your website to others regardless of how much useful/interesting material you have on there as you take money without authorisation and wont refund that money.

I moved countries 3 months ago and was unable to cancel my scribd subscription. I got in contact with the support team who agreed to refund 3 months worth of charges back to me. I recieved 3 payments of 10.99, however, i was charged twice resulting in a total of 5 payments charged to my account. I emailed back with this information and included images but was ignored.

I was charged for a Scribd subscription even though I've never heard of this company before. I called my bank and they said the only way to prevent this is to cancel my card and get a new one. So I did. After a month of getting my new card, here we are again, another charge from Scribd! Kindly help me to cancel this subscription, which I never did. I have attached the pictures of my account statement with it. I blocked my debit card and app, that's why I can't attach statement of 07-05-2023.

Charging dates are as below.
04-01-2023
04-03-2023
04-04-2023
07-05-2023

In 12th April my credit card was charged 10,99€ by the company Scribd Schiphol NL. I don't have any subscription of this website. I had before, but they are both inative as you can confirme in the attachments.

I don't understand were this comes from and I want my money back.

I made several complaints in the website in the past month and so far I haven't had a single response.

i just use your service for free-trail subscription and after that i cancelled it. but this month i found that there's a transaction of my card but i didnt make it myself and i didnt receive any emails for inform me this charge. and i didnt use your service for this month.

there's also no delte account or delete payment on your website.

i need to delete my account perminantly and have a refund for no-informed charging from my bank account.

my account email is [protected]@outlook.com

Mi trovo un addebito sconosciuto per Euro 10,99 sulla carta di credito datato 07.04.2023 con la causale "Scribd Schiphol" azienda che non conosco, che non ho mai contattato e a cui non ho dato mai alcun dato.

Non capisco cosa sia accaduto e temo possano arrivare altri addebiti del tutto ingiustificati.

Gradirei una risposta direttamente da SCRIBD per ottenere la giustificazione (il servizio o l'oggetto) del pagamento e le modalità di acquisto del medesimo.

I am outraged. I was looking back at my banking history and I just noticed that Scribd has even double billing me every month since October 2021. I’m so mad that I didn’t notice this sooner but because they were doing it on separate days I didn’t notice it like I would have consecutive payments. It does not seem like I am the only one that has experience this. I have now overpaid them $381.00, which is outrageous. I will be filling a fraud complaint with my bank if this is not rectified in some way. I have proof via my PayPal and banking statements going as far back as the October 2021 statement. I can’t believe they got away with this for so long.

I've been billed an amount of 10,99 euros a month on my creditcard by Scribd Schiphol despite not having any accounts with subscriptions with them. I've check all my possible accounts and logins and none of them have an active subscription. Also I have no recollection of ever having signed up with this company. How do I cancel a 'subscription' for which I have no info, other than the creditcard info..? I've made a support ticket asking for their help, but I'm shocked by what I'm reading on complaints board so far..

I received an email offer from Scribd for a trial subscription. The offer stated I would be notified several days in advance before the trial subscription ends. Accepting this offer, I signed up on December 17, 2022 for this trial subscription. When it was brought to my attention on 2/16 2023 that I was still enrolled and being charged, I emailed Scribd more than once that day, saying the first time saying: I was told you would inform me before payment due date. You didn't do that. Why?

There was no response.

Later that same day, at 3:40 PM, I emailed Scribd again, writing: Repeated attempts to resolve this problem through this link are proving useless. I keep getting non-responsive responses. Therefore, given this waste of time and Scribd not informing me as they said they would prior to the date for paying money, please cancel my prescription and reverse charges. Then inform me you have done this.

There was no response.

Attempts navigate Scribd’s website proved frustrating. All I could get were Robo responses. The website offered no contact information sufficient to address my concern, and no telephone numbers for addressing a customer’s accounting and billing concern. Finally, then, on 4/2/2023, I entered this message on their refund page.

Inasmuch as I was never notified as promised that the trial had ended, and inasmuch as repeated attempts to get an explanation from you, and to cancel, have been neglected by you, I want a complete refund of all payments to you.

To date, there has been no response.

The compelling conclusion here is that Scribd is participating in deliberate fraud. People need to know of the contrived way Scribd defrauds the public. Many complaints against Scribd for this issue already exist online.

A few days ago, April 9th, 2023, I looked at my visa bill and noticed a payment I didn't recognize. A $8.99 USD charge from "Scribd Schiphol" on April 8th, 2023.

I went through my billing statements, and I have been billed monthly starting March 8th 2022 for a total of 14 charges (adds up to 125.86 dollars)

I never subscribed to this service. I checked all my regular email addresses and I have never received any mail from them except for repeated emails to START my free trial period and to verify my email address or that my free period is ending soon. However, I have never got any emails that they started charging me and that I subscribed to any of their services. I did visited their website in the past but did not subscribe to any of their services..

I have not been using their service and I have no idea what they are charging me for.

I want a full refund of all charges.

I can provide credit card statements for every affected month.

I registered for a one month free trial period and was surprised to receive an alert from my bank of a charge of 10.99€. There was no forwarding from Scribd that the trial was running out and I would be charged.

I have tried everything to cancel my subscription but couldn't even find a registered Scribd account under any of my email address.

Please cancel my subscription and this payment from now onwards and it possible, refund the money you have been charged to my credit card.

In any case, I herewith formally cancel my subscription and refuse any future charges.

Today's date is April 12 2023

Alert of 10.99 EUR received April 11 2023 at 21.55 CET by Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB)

Hello, I am so frustrated I have been double billed for nearly a year and I can't get help from your absent customer service.

Your website help: Receive an automated message about how you are too busy growing as a company to help existing customers but will try to get to them within 2 weeks.

2 weeks later, get a reply and start chatting with your customer service agent who takes days to reply to each email back. Then drops off with no resolution. Email after email, no response. Meanwhile getting double billed. Filed another ticket but it has only been 4 days.

So now went to our facebook:

Auto-reply says use the website help section, which doesn't work. Uses gaslighting language: get "FREE" support on your website. Like giving customers support is a gift. Customers PAY you. That is not free.

Facebook page says:

Always open

Replies in minutes

[protected]@scribd.com

All nicely next to each other implying you have great customer service. Your automated messages take minutes and resolve nothing.

So, I emailed [protected]@scribd.com: same auto-reply...getting too rich to have time to help you. hopefully within 2 weeks. Same as the other.

So now I find this complaint website. I see TONS of complaints by other customers who have problems similar to mine. I see you respond to one of them pretending to want to help. You gave them a new link to webform bit.ly/social-support-help that seems like you are finally getting help.

I just used it and it results in the exact same auto email.

Obviously there is an issue with the way you display sign-up or sign-in if so many people are confused and do not remember signing up with you. UI design is intentional. Are you intentionally tricking people to make more money?

If I do not receive real help, then it is time we band together for a class-action lawsuit. I am happy to lead that charge.