CengageBrain
Reviews and Complaints

On 14 November you withdrew my regular annual subscription via paypal. Then 10 days later you announced that you were closing down questia within the month.

Surely charging a one year subscription for a service you knew would only be available for a month is not right.

My email is. I am naturally disappointed to lose your excellent service. Can you please refund me for the payment I made to you on 14 November.

Yours sincerely
Robert Bud

Right from the beginning there were problems. There is not ONE thing about this product that is easy, user friendly, cost-effective, - not one GOOD thing about Cengage BIRD Brain. Honestly, if you know your professor is going to be using this- TAKE ANOTHER COURSE. Switch schools, skip town, relocate, do whatever you have to do to avoid this. It's absolute garbage. The fact that I paid $190.00 for this completely blows my mind. I purchased the bundle for my course, without receiving an access code. (Another note, between the access codes, course link, course codes, and God-knows what else... you don't know what's what. The sight is too busy, too many terms, very confusing. Not user-friendly AT ALL. Even for the phone addicted, socially inept millennial. ) I had to call customer service, be put on hold for over an hour, JUST to gain access to the products that I PAID FOR. After that, I thought everything was solved. I continued with my work, homeworks, etc... So last week I walk into class and see two young men at the front of my lecture hall. I find out they are representatives from Cengage because apparently a mistake was made and the entire course (multiple sections, 500 students in each) had been working out of the WRONG course on Cengage. So we had to migrate to a new microsite. So as these idiots are terribly explaining what they did wrong, students who were frustrated (like myself) wanted some questions answered. Some people were being asked to pay for the course again when trying to enter the new microsite. And to my absolute shock, these poor kids who just wanted answers, were being attacked by one of the cengage guys by throwing $10 Panera and Chipotle gift cards for the "inconvenience." Gee, thanks Cengage, this is really going to make up for the money and time you cost me this semester. $190.00 product that doesn't work, or a burrito? I'll actually just take a product that works, thanks. I had to call customer service AGAIN because they were asking me for an access code to enter the new microsite, which I wasn't given from day 1. I was so frustrated. I was on hold again for an hour and 37 minutes. You guys, one college student to another- please please avoid at all costs. Terrible, TERRIBLE experience. And I'm a senior so I've pretty much seen it all.

Trying to log in has been a nightmare! I was on hold for over 78 minutes only to finally get through and get a recording that stated that you were closed and go through the website which I already did and also led to NO answers.

copied and pasted from http://www.webassign.com/contact-us/
"Support Hours
Call us anytime! We’re here 24/7"

I've gone through circles with forget user name and forget passwords since it would not accept my log in info. I think I may have created a second account which I was able to get on but then I would have to repurchase the book with the access so that didn't help. I tried to link the account but that didn't work. I've filled out the online form for a paypal refund but I don't know if it will get done.

It has been very frustrating to have a lot of homework that has to be done on webassign spending all night just trying to log on and wasting over 78 minutes of my very limited minutes on my phone plan only to not get any help.

Case Number: [protected]

Absolute crap. Buggy, glitchy and laggy software that costs students of teachers that use this software grades due to the software's total inability to work on operating systems newer than Windows XP. And only to add to this problem, Cengage's customer service is absolutely terrible. Not only are the people who respond to your inquiries rude, unhelpful and nearly completely unable to do anything, they additionally take ages to respond to your queries. Do not bother with this service and simply find better alternatives.

June 6, 2016 trying to return a book. Book is 2 days late, and they won't let me extend the due date, trying to charge me full price for a new textbook at an additional price of $252.96. Book is currently being sold on Amazon for $36. I want to return the book, the site states you need a return label to return the book, but won't let me print a return label.

One of the worst scenarios that can happen to college students is shopping with these guys. They are professional scammers. I ordered a book for rent for a semester one year ago, I did choose the option "rental", but when I received the item, it said I "purchase" the book. So I was charged with the full amount for the book. I thought, alright, I'll just keep it. After the rental due date had passed, they "fined" me for not returning the rental. I argue for my standpoint of their mistake, they still forced to fine me, but they said I could keep the book, otherwise, I would need to pay the shipping myself. So I thought, alright, I'll keep it. One year later they still accuse my for not returning my rental. See the problem with Cengage Brain? They're EVIL. No need to put up with these guys, ask them to go to he!

So Im a college student, and i tried to buy an e-textbook from this website. But the software that they give to use it flat out dose not work. It was poorly designed and programed, and it does not work with updated browsers.

Im pretty computer literate and I tried for 4 days calling them to get tech support, but nobody had any idea how to work the software. So finally I just called and canceled my order. After wasting several hours of my life on the phone with them, mostly on hold.

Im pissed because they had no problem selling me a product that they obviously didn't inspect.

Any educators out there shouldn't use there products because dealing with them is an expensive nightmare. Can you afford to wast a school week on something that wont work?