Hi everyone,
Do you consider ethical to offer half the course for free(to anyone) but no refunds if you buy the full course?
Anyone is welcomed to this discussion.
Thanks in advance
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Top comments (8)
If the purchaser has had the chance to review part of the content I think it's fair to not offer refunds, as long as the rest of the course keeps the same quality as the free part.
Still, it sounds like a weird flex. I'd probably be suspicious if half of the content was behind a paywall without any possibility to get a refund. I might pay if the free half is really good and it's just a few bucks, but I wouldn't pay any serious money for a course without any refund policy whatsoever.
Well, you can imagine if the first half is high quality the rest will also be.
On the other hand, I don't think that you would like after spending weeks to build a course or in your case to work on a project.
In the end, after someone got the project or the course.
They decide to issue a refund, because why not it is there.
All your work, your hard hours put in that course or project just feel like ........................(please replace with your favorite words the dots).
How would you feel @avalander ?
From my point of view real training that brings value, has become something that: all think they can do it (side hustle).
In reality, very little people understand how much work you need to put in to make others learn easily and achieve results.
The work of a trainer shouldn't be less paid then an actual project.
If someone doesn't believe me try it.
Thanks, @avalander for your opinion
As I said, I think that what you are suggesting is fair but weird. There are a lot of scam courses out there and I have no way to know how genuine or good they are before I pay. The fact that half of the course is free is irrelevant because I have no guarantee that the creator hasn't stolen that part to get people to buy the course and the other half is also stolen or utter rubbish.
I think you are blowing things a bit out of proportion here. I never said that buyers should be able to get a full refund after completing the course or that it is easy to create genuine good training material. You suggested a business model and I said I'd be suspicious.
Usually, refund policies don't let you get your money back after you have completed the course. In most cases, you have limited time to ask for the refund and you cannot have completed more than a certain amount of the course. Of course asking for your money back after you've completed the course is bogus, but asking for your money back after watching some of the material and realising it is not what you expected is completely normal.
After someone downloads your course using other methods, they can issue a refund.
There are a lot more points of view on this problem. Also, I think after you have seen half the course, you will know if that course and teaching style suit you.
Creator and consumer of the course enter into a business transaction when they decide to purchase a course. Consumer needs to decide and make decision whether to purchase or not depending on the available information.
There is no point in changing your mind after the transaction has taken place.
PS: I do not have any course now nor will I create in future. If I ever did, it will be for free as everything I learned are due to free courses offered by others.
Hi @kalaiarasanpushpanathan,
I agree with this part
That is why I wanted to offer half the course for free with all the perks.
So that the buyer will know as much as possible about the course and will not feel tricked after paying for the full course.
I think this is hard to say a lot of people may find value in a course but due to marketing and not being able to see more than a few videos you will discover that the author exaggerated what is taught( teaching) in the course.
I am trying to avoid this scenario, by offering what I said above.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on this topic, really helped get some new ideas and new things I should consider.
As long as it is clearly stated in the transaction contract that there will be no refunds, sure, that sounds ethical to me.
I think it would be important to clearly and accessibly state your no-refund policy, because most courses do offer a refund policy and you don't want unsatisfied customers who'd assumed they could have a refund because they didn't see your refund policy. But other than that, as long as you don't trick people into thinking they're getting something different than what they're getting, all's good.
After I finish my custom made training platform that should be ready in 2 months.
I will invite everybody to see the difference.
I will post here the link for the app and article for the official launch.
Thanks for all the participants in this discussion.