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Ask HN: Impossible to get a refund from Pieter Levels?
I am a resident of Germany. Which means according to the EU’s Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/EU) I have the right to a refund within 14 days of the purchase of digital goods and services.
I recently bought a PhotoAI subscription. I wanted to buy a a 1 month subscription but I didn’t understand that it would charge me for a whole year. I am not a native speaker and to me the design and text was quite misleading. It says 9$ per month, and next to it, in a much smaller font „6 months free billed yearly“. I am not a native speaker and assumed that means that I get 6 months for free if I buy a yearly plan instead. I realized just after the payment was completed that I got charged for 99$ instead of 9$. I decided to not use any feature of the site, hoping to get a refund. In the TOS is written that photoai doesn’t give refunds due to the costs of AI picture generation.
Well, I haven’t generated any pictures. In fact I didn’t use a single feature of the subscription, I didn’t even create my first model, so I didn’t cause any cost to the business.
Since there is no customer support on the site (which is alarming to me) I tried to contact Pieter Levels in every way imaginable. Never got a reply. I also wrote an email to his lawyers at legal@photoai.com 3 days and got no answer.
How can I reach this guy? Why is there no customer support? Does this guy ever reply to his customers? To me this is unacceptable. You’re basically printing money at this point, but you can’t pay for basic customer service?
Did anyone ever manage to get a refund from this guy?
- CaliforniaKarl 2y agoDid you pay using a credit card? I think you should initiate a chargeback through the credit-card company. You should cite the relevant EU regulation and provide copies of all communications, showing you attempted to get a refund, but received no response from the vendor.
- Holzlappen 2y agoYes, I paid with Visa, but through stripe. Sad thing is I didn’t create a stripe account before paying, so I can’t refund through stripe. Seems like Im gonna have to contact my bank…
- solardev 2y agoIn the US, most banks let you charge back a transaction from their website transactions list. Not sure how it works in Germany. I doubt you'll have much luck enforcing EU rights on a service hosted elsewhere, so a chargeback is probably your best bet.
- colesantiago 2y agoFile a chargeback dispute with your bank immediately. You are guaranteed your money back and since he hasn't responded he is unlikely to fight it and he is in the wrong. As long as you have the documentation attempting to contact him and he said nothing + this is within the 14 days EU’s Consumer Rights Directive, he must give your money back.
- Holzlappen 2y agoThank you for the advice!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- MarcelOlsz 2y agoExact same thing here but from Canada. No way to get in contact with him or get a refund.
- Holzlappen 2y agoThat’s too bad. I‘m pissed that he ignores all communication. I mean he could at least pay someone to talk to his customers. If he can brag on X about $139K revenue a month from photoai, he can afford to pay some guy to do that. Hope you get your money back.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- luxpir 2y agoHe blocked me on Twitter for a very moderate counter point/alternative offering type post. I'm typically a reasonable person and not rude as a rule, I didn't feel like I'd said anything untoward. From that event I realised that there was an ego at play here. Good luck. I'd agree with the card company advice.
- decide1000 2y agoI followed him since he published music on YT years ago. I wasn't very good at social environments and platforms. Once I asked him a friendly-critical question and he blocked me. Still makes me feel weird lol.
- Holzlappen 2y agoMan honestly, don’t worry about it. From your story and all the other stories I keep reading about this guy blocking people for the slightest amount of criticism, I’m convinced he has some serious self esteem issues. You didn’t do anything wrong, he’s most likely just a narcissist.
- paulcole 2y ago> I have the right to a refund within 14 days of the purchase of digital goods and services. Congrats. In this case, you’re going to get it by contacting your bank/credit card not by contacting the company. This is like the Pinboard twitter thread where he says German customers write to him demanding an invoice (which he doesn’t provide). So he sends them a blank one and tells them to fill it out themselves which just makes them madder.
- ta_u 2y agohttps://x.com/levelsio/status/1853203803513995718 https://x.com/levelsio/status/1853203803513995718