Pimsleur Language Programs Reviews

This is really sketchy. Somehow I ended up with two subscriptions on the same day using the same email address. I emailed to cancel both and they only cancelled one of them. Even though I provided email proof that I cancelled in March, they won't give me back the money for the duplicate subscription that's still being charged. It's been going on for months now and I haven't even used the second one.

I paid upfront for a year-long subscription at a discount. I only used it for three months and then stopped, which was fine since I'd already paid. Then I noticed they charged my credit card again for another full year without my permission. I checked their terms and they're supposed to send you a reminder email before renewing. I never got that email. When I complained, they refused to refund me even though they violated their own agreement. Don't waste your time with these people.

Their marketing tactics are misleading and deceptive. I got promotional emails for deals I was actually interested in, only to find out later I didn't qualify because I'd been a customer before. When I asked why they sent me those if I couldn't use them, they never replied. Another time I thought I was signing up for a $10 first month deal but got charged for a full year up front. I should have looked more carefully before hitting submit, but I also expected a company like Pimsleur to be straightforward about pricing. I trusted the process and assumed they wouldn't play games. It's disappointing because their actual lessons are really good. It's a shame that such a quality product gets tainted by these sketchy sales practices designed to confuse people.

Customer service won't respond to me after charging my account without permission even after I cancelled. Just avoid them.

I signed up for a free trial and dropped the ball on canceling before it expired. I didn't even use the service, but they kept charging me $21.42 every month from June through now. That's $147 total. They don't send any reminder emails either. When I called today they confirmed they cancelled it now, but they said no refunds for the 7 months I wasn't using it. Look, I know it's on me for not watching my credit card and keeping track of deadlines. But there's something to be said for just doing the right thing. They chose profit over decency. It's a shady way to run a business.

The cost is high and canceling your subscription is needlessly complicated. You can't even see your subscription details in the app or through Apple's store - you have to log into their website to manage it, which seems intentionally designed to make canceling harder. Plus they auto-renewed at an even higher rate for a longer period than my initial sign-up. Check out other reviews and you'll see charging problems are common here. From a teaching standpoint it's okay, but the playback stutters when I'm on the go, and when I reported it they blamed my device even though this is the only app that gives me trouble. For this price I'd honestly be better off paying for actual lessons with a tutor. I finished all three Arabic units and don't feel like I've made real progress.

Years ago I purchased their program, and apparently if you don't use it for a while they delete your lessons. Now that I want to go back to learning the language, they claim they can't find my original purchase despite me sending them multiple screenshots proving I bought it.

The app runs slow even on a fast connection. The speech recognition misses what I'm saying about 15 percent of the time, which is way worse than something like Google Translate. There's basically zero customer support available. I've been sticking with it for two months thinking it might get better, but no luck.

The course material itself is just average and they don't honor their 30-day money-back guarantee like they claim. I gave it a fair shot but wasn't satisfied with how the lessons were structured. They advertise this hassle-free refund policy, but that turned out to be false. I got minimal responses when I asked for my refund and then they just stopped getting back to me altogether.

I reached out to customer service before buying to ask about the price, and they gave me one number. Then I got charged over $100 more than what they told me. Since January I've tried calling them multiple times. Two different reps responded but then just stopped answering me. They won't refund the difference, so don't believe what their website says about pricing. Stay away from this company.