Coursera Reviews 1,220

I mistakenly signed up for a trial subscription that I thought was free. It expired and Coursera charged a credit card that was on my account that I was not aware of. I noticed the charge right away and contacted them to request a refund in the amount of $51.94. I cancelled the subscription online after I realized my mistake. Coursera is refusing to issue me a refund. I admitted my mistake and contacted them the day after the trial ended but they are unwilling to grant me a refund. I have notified my bank and another consumer institution to ask for help in obtaining a refund.

Coursera uses AI, not humans for all customer communication. Coursera doesn’t have phone, email, or chat so here goes.

Coursera debited my bank account for 17 months after I canceled my subscription.

I tried to contact Coursera with their contact form five times, but Coursera closed all five of my inquiries without a response. I also learned that Coursera IS NOT accredited by the Better Business Bureau.

Coursera doesn’t have a customer “support team” that’s been available to me unless you consider an AI Bot that goes by the name of “Cora” their “support team.”

“Cora” doesn’t do “her” job, except to email me a question about the type of subscription it was after I submit the contact form, and then “she” emails me a two question survey asking me how my experience was… after “she” closes my ticket without the courtesy of providing me a response to my issue. Apparently those two functions are all that “Cora” was ever programmed to do.

Coursera management needs to issue a warning to Cora for “her” performance, and outline expectations and corrective actions.

The only way I could figure out how to reach Coursera is on social media. After I posted my story on a Coursera LinkedIn post they finally sent me a message stating that they are only willing to refund 6 of the 17 months I was wrongly charged – because their program won’t allow them to fully refund the charges.

I’ve contacted the State Attorneys Office.

Terrible experience with this platform. Their customer service is trash. They are unhelpful and not understanding. Do not waste your time with this company.

Very disappointed in the customer service. I was interested in what the courses offered, signed up for a trial and then decieded to cancel. I cancel the trial and then because I had enrolled in a course they charged me for the course seperatly and talking to there support they just flat out said no and disconnected. No discussion.

Please don’t make the same mistake I did and give this website a chance, they are awful, most of the new content is pure ai trash, the customer service teams stinks

Be careful with Coursera subscriptions.

I signed up for what I thought was a free trial, but was charged for a subscription without the billing terms and strict no-refund policy being clearly presented in a meaningful way. I reached out immediately after the charge and explained that I hadn’t used the service, but support refused to help and kept repeating their policy.

What’s frustrating is not just the denial, but the lack of accountability. My concern about unclear disclosure was never actually addressed — they just closed the case.

This feels like a system designed to rely on users missing small details and then refusing any flexibility afterward. Definitely read everything carefully before signing up.

I’ve been using this platform for over five years, but recently experienced a disappointing turn. They now promote a “free first month” coursera plus subscription, yet still charge you for that same month. The course I even enrolled in featured an instructor who was extremely hard to understand.

Requesting a refund is impossible. There’s no real customer support, only an automated bot named Cora that offers no meaningful help.

I strongly recommend avoiding this platform. There are far better alternatives available today, such as MasterClass and Udemy.

I had an extremely disappointing experience with Coursera that I feel others should be aware of before signing up.

I enrolled in a course using their 7-day free trial, only to cancel it the very same day after deciding it wasn’t for me. Despite this, I was unexpectedly charged a week later. When I contacted their support team to resolve the issue, the situation only got worse. They claimed they could not even locate my account—despite having taken payment from it—and proceeded to close the dispute without offering any meaningful investigation or resolution.

This kind of behavior is deeply concerning. Charging customers after cancellation is bad enough, but refusing to acknowledge the account and dismissing the issue entirely feels incredibly dishonest and unprofessional. It creates the impression of a system designed to take money first and avoid accountability later.

I would strongly caution anyone considering Coursera to think twice before entering payment details. Based on my experience, their billing practices and customer support are unreliable at best and deliberately misleading at worst

Issue 1: Coursera is not clear on pricing when you land 1st on a Specialization page. It doesn't clearly state that you do not have access to all content. It's confusing when you are paying a large amount of money and can't access most of their content.

Issue 2: Once you do by their Plus subscription, they do not tell you up front (probably is some very fine print somewhere) that you still won't have access to all content until after this arbitrary "14-day refund" period.

Issue 3: Like most businesses trending today they use AI bots for Chat Support. However, even if you finally get a "live" person on the chat, and you are waiting for the "live" person to update you as they are investigating - the chat disconnects you and sends you back to an AI agent. This is HORRIBLE and should not be the new standard for customer support experience.

Many courses are outdated and no longer relevant. I was looking for an Azure AZ-104 prep course and got through the first module when the video finally stated it was recorded in 2022, 4 years ago... The supplementary materials they reference on docs.microsoft.com no longer exist because Microsoft updated their site to learn.microsoft.com. On top of that, there is no way to tell when a course was uploaded. A quick look shows that requests for this feature go back to 2021 but no updates as to when or if it would be implemented as of 2026. For $59.99 / month I would expect at least relevant materials or the ability to at least know how old courses are. Luckily I'm still in the trial period so I'm able to cancel before the subscription begins. I would recommend steering clear of Coursera. It seems to be a scummy business practice and blatant cash grab to at the very least not show when a course was uploaded to make sure the materials are still relevant.

I joined Coursera and subscribed for the sole purpose of Google's Data Analytics course. I got a few certifications, but at about the 3rd chapter of the entire course, the links to learning materials were broken and I couldn't continue learning. Coursera refused to refund me until I mentioned that I'd sue the pants off of them for failing to render services as advertised.

I would give them 0 stars if it were possible. They continue to charge my credit card after I cancelled my subscription (which is pretty much impossible anyway).
I am forced to dispute these charges with my credit card company as Coursera will not stop charging me.

Fraudulent business practices. Failure to disclose information up front and gave factually incorrect information to justify not processing a refund and closing the case - and then not responding to follow up communications.

Accidentally clicked “subscribe to Coursera Plus” when paying for my course and had no option to go back and change it so I immediately cancelled the subscription. They refused to refund me or give me access to the course that I paid for, saying that the payment I made was allocated to the subscription so I need to pay again to do the course. Unbelievably bad experience. I feel as though they’ve stolen from me when they could have simply let me do the course that I paid for and I would have been a return customer and advocate of the company.

I enrolled in the Google AI course with Coursera.
I started the course and 5 minutes in was prompted to apply for free access to Google Gemini - an essential part of the course. For some undisclosed reason my application was declined (possibly because I am in New Zealand) so I was unable to continue with the course. I immediately cancelled the subscription and requested a refund - which Coursera declined.
Coursera are very difficult to work with - there is no "person" you can deal with. Every email is from a "no reply" address and they try to put everything thru their AI robot. As far as I am concerned they have stolen my money. DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS ORGANISATION.

I signed up for a "Free Google AI Certification" course and wondered why they needed my credit card, but there was no information explaining it. I spend about one hour looking at the course and then forgot about it. One week later, I received a notification from my bank that $41 had been charged to my card by Coursera. I had no idea that the Google AI course was even related to them, as I knew already what scumbags they are. I immediately canceled my account and then wrote to request a refund. After several back-and-forths with a stupid AI emailer, I finally heard from a "human being" who tried to be polite when he refused to refund, "according to our Terms of Service". Coursera is not an education company. It's a get-rich-quick scheme run by Silicon Valley tech assholes. Don't buy anything from them, and don't ever give them your credit card information. They won't even give you a reminder. They just steal your money in the middle of the night.

Scam. Silently take payments and the AI won't let you cancel. Avoid at all costs

Far from the only one, I requested a refund within the 14-day window permitted by EU consumer regulation but for slapped with Coursera's arbitrary refund policy.

STAY AWAY: Not worth the stress. Customer service does not exist. There is chatbot, Cora or whatever, that is so annoying. States it is trained, but very inadequate, GhatGPT it much more sophisticated, Money was taken from my subscription, but my course disappeared and now it is telling me to take another subscription. No way. My bank will deal with them.

Coursera is truly a scam! I’m not sure how they’re still a functioning company. The certs are BS. And customer service is terrible.