Unsurprisingly, I find myself in the company of many others. I recently found out that, without any explanation or forewarning, I was billed $299.00 for an unrequested 2025 subscription to academia.edu, while on Jan 19 last year I paid $99.00. It cannot be because I chose a higher level of subscription: in fact, this is what I am asked to do whenever I open the site. Nor did I ever request an auto-renewal (for good reasons I never do that). The increase from 99 to 299 feels like highway robbery and I am very offended that this occurs at a site touted to be for a professional academic community.The fact that this has happened to too many, clearly supports the suspicion of a widespread scam and loudly asks for the intervention of a customer defense entity or law agency.
