“I'll tell you what I don't love, I don't love a $75 subscription service that renews itself unless you intervene to stop it- my wife started crying when she realized she'd got the cancel-by date wrong & you'd taken our money again for something we don't want anymore, she bought me the first year as a one-time gift to watch Alan Moore. Now you've charged her $150 for it. You suckered us into a second year but we will never get tricked again & I have warned all my friends on social media off of checking out Maestro due to this underhanded money grab. This is a Donald Trump-style move & the BBC should be ashamed of themselves for adopting it. Maestro auto-renew has definitely soured us on the supposed integrity of the BBC.”
Hi Kennedy,
My name is Rebecca and I work at BBC Maestro - I'm sorry to hear you're unhappy with your subscription renewing for another year.
After an annual subscription starts, your subscription is set-up to renew the following year. This can be switched off by you in you account, or by contacting us at any point up until the renewal is due. Our full terms are laid out here: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/terms. You should have received a couple of emails informing you that your subscription was approaching renewal, can you let me know if these were received? If not, I would like to investigate this further, as we want to ensure customers are given adequate notice so that they can decide if they want to renew or not.
I can see your wife bought the subscription with an offer, making it $75. This only applied to that initial purchase, and so the renewal was full price at $120.
We offer 30-day refunds for all purchases, including renewals. This information is included in our terms also. I'm happy to go ahead and action a full refund for you, but you will lose access to BBC Maestro if I do this.
Otherwise, I can process a refund of $45, honouring the discount you received the previous year, if this is preferred, so that you can still use BBC Maestro for another year.
Please let me know what you'd prefer, and once again, I'm sorry you experienced issues with the renewal process. We value every customer's experience with BBC Maestro, and so it's important we rectify this for you.
Best,
Rebecca
“I have done about four of the BBC Maestro courses now and each one has been excellent with different content and really useful information and motivation for writing”
“The lessons that a present are great, but there is very limited choice compared to similar services. The interface needs some work with a very small player unless maximised to fill the screen (not ideal if you want to make notes).
Overall if it's worth the yearly cost if there is a specific lesson you want to take, but there isn't enough to justify a renewal right now.”
“I love the course I am taking with Julia Donaldson. The lessons are tiny nuggets of gold; short, but each with just enough information so you can learn one step at a time without the overwhelm of long, dense lectures. Very positive. Gets the creative juices flowing. And a great price!”
“I have used the CADuffy poetry writing course for the enjoyment of the lessons, to ignite my writing and to create discipline and structure to my writing efforts. Her examples and recollections demonstrate why she and others are great poets. I have also dipped into other courses to which I havd returned or plan to return, e.g authors, chefs and dog training and look forward.to a photographic offering soon. Of note is how compelling Marco Pierre White is in his delivery and content - he oozes intelligence and passion which has made me return to the classics of cooking - his style reminds me of childhood and learning alongside family without realising you're learning.”
“A wonderfully diverse bunch of characters that give their take on methods to be successful in their chosen professions. I have completed three courses and am on my fourth I have enjoyed every one also I feel I have gained some insight that I could not have attained without this series.
Thank you to the BBC and all those who have imparted their hard-earned knowledge.”
“Love it as its great for learning new stuff and super entertaining . I also fall asleep to one of them, in the nicest possible way . This is possibly as I've listened to it soooo many times its comfortable and calming”
“I bought the yearly access and, boy, am I getting my money's worth! I tend to listen when I'm cooking or tidying so it doesn't take up loads of time but I'm still learning. The courses, like Julia Donaldson's writing, aren't particularly on helping you to write as such but more discussions of how she does it I'd say. But they're helpful nonetheless.”
