The Fall of OnClick Academy

Ever purchased a lifetime deal for it to disappear from existence within months of buying it? With so many deals out there it’s hard to spot a good one. This article highlights the rise and fall of OnClick Academy. Although the intentions may have not been to deliver the service but to extract as much money out of their customers. We will never know!

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This is an extension of my recent monthly gripe on lifetime deals being worth it featured in November’s Hot Web Dev.

A few years ago I purchased a Udemy course and not long after I started getting emails from the creator about a new platform, called OnClick Academy which I was entitled to a free limited account.

I joined it but never actually did anything with the account. I received email updates with very tempting offers such as upgrading to our pro package to receive all the courses available for life. I purchased a plan and started doing the lessons.

Every week I received emails with further plans and other deals which I declined to take up. In fact, the spamming of the messages started to annoy me so I opted out of receiving any communication from them which was a simple form on their website. The emails kept coming, probably breaking a few privacy laws along the way! Alarm bells started ringing!

At the beginning of November, I noticed their site had gone down. Nothing unusual until soon after when I received an email begging for a donation to keep the server alive. Obviously, times are tough right now and costs are rising so if you donate $10 you will receive 5-lifetime plans for family and friends to use. Again I dismissed this after all I only purchased the plan in February. Victor Bastos made one vital mistake when sending his email. He emailed all the people that had bought plans which created a chain of replies.

OnClick Academy Email

The Replies Came Flowing

As you can imagine everybody that received this email suddenly had a few words to say. Here are some of the email replies. I’ve kept the name out to preserve the privacy of the customers. Credit can be given if required.

It seems wrong that if someone would purchase a lifetime account you would not honor that.  Why not make free users pay for the service instead of punishing loyal customers who have paid money for a service which you are now blocking from them?  I have only been on the platform for a year and it feels wrong to pay again when I paid for “lifetime”. 

I just purchased a Golden Pass for all Udemy courses from you and I have paid for at least 5 other offers over the last two years from you as well, as every week you have some sort of promotion going to try and rake in more money or add just something a little bit extra … and now your platform isn’t working? I suggest that you hire someone else to run your platform for you as clearly this issue is affecting a community that has been financing you for years and this issue is due to poor management.

I’ve paid enough already, sit down with your brother or cousin, the cofounder and figure out if you two are still capable of running this platform yourselves or if you need to bring in people with more experience, as you did have a good thing going but that looks as if it has come to an end.

So now I’ve just thrown money away, right? Not impressed.

What happened to all these sites… I used to have lifetime subscription to all of the following sites:

onclickacademy pro

onclickacademy.com

onclick-mobile.teachable.com

get-digital-school.teachable.com

Drop shipping Store

Dropshippers

onclickacademy mobile

This is what many would call a GRIFT…

I suggest every one cut their losses and not chase good money after bad  DO  not send Victor another penny.

There are plenty other platforms  one can learn what they want 

For those that bought the Udemy Golden Pass   , Did ANYONE  Really get full access to the 250,000 plus courses Udemy has?  

I didn’t  Udmey offer many courses for free anyway  along with Youtube 

freecodecamp.org

is one of them 

What may have started out as a great thing  sure turned sour 

I have experienced a LOT of empty  promises from Victor

Quick to send out a promo email but VERY non responsive to queries 

For those that paid by Paypal.   You can file a claim within 180 days  for a refund 

Best Wishes all  I’ve taken my training elsewhere 

Id be curious to see the P and L of Onclick academy business  because it isn’t really that expensive for hosting  and domain in the grand scheme of things   

Where did the money go Victor?

Is there some reason why Udemy wont let people buy your courses anymore ?  If so, can you share with us the juicy details ?  

I’m going to go out on a limb and ask, though I probably would not get an honest answer BUUUUTTTTT 

you didn’t just change the DNS settings with your registrar (Launchpad.com) to point away from the onclick academy.com site in an attempt to Grift money from people did you ?

though I haven’t done it to grift money from people,  I’ve change the DNS settings to  point away from websites I own when I found  it necessary..

Your domain will expire in 2 weeks btw Registry Expiry Date: 2022-11-21T14:59:42Z

How much is that to renew for the year ?      $12.95?    ( current Launchpad.com Rate)  That’s a LOT of money Isn’t it ?

I have to say that for a very long time I thought I was supporting the platform by getting all the offers repeatedly – and I believe they also

Managed to get me banned from my proper Udemy account for which I had purchased a huge amount of  courses without any help from these people (I think somehow they created a business site and added my email but I managed to get PayPal refund for that and eventually regained access to my own personal account – it is surprising how easy someone can start using your email in an illegal context and cause you so much pain…)

There were other ones slightly more recently that I suspected afterwards were scams masquerading as proper offers – I dare not raise the issue now after the pain I had and accusations of illegal use of Udemy etc.. and yes none of those previous offers of Udemy gold status every came to anything..

Should have gone with my gut feeling and blocked these and other links to the teaching platform – so disappointed.

How are you out of money after taking $450.00 of my money (and obviously all these other people) and failing to provide the services purchased?

First there was Udemy Golden Pass for $200 which I purchased and you said the the payment didn’t go through and that I should pay via PayPal to your personal PayPal email and the first payment would be refunded. Well, here we are, several months later, lots of excuses but no refund or Golden Pass. Poof, $400 into your pocket.

Then there was GALE for $50. Me, believing in you, bought into it because I trusted you. Unfortunately, you found a real sucker in me because again excuses and no product/service. Poof, another $50 in your pocket.

And now you are whining that you have no money to keep the site up? Maybe you should have used your ill gotten gain from me and others to pay your server bills.

Yeah, I was a sucker because I believed in you. I’m not a sucker anymore. I see you for what you are. How you evolved to this I don’t know, nor do I care. Because you are what you are defined by your actions. This shit is sticking and it ain’t coming off.

But I really do thank you for creating this email thread because I always wondered about the others you were taking advantage of. To all those people, all the best to you and hope you win Powerball. To Victor, you definitely aren’t.

As you can see many users vented their anger in disgust. Was this a promising platform or simply a scam? Many victims have been left out of pocket and it’s clear that Victor Bastos doesn’t really care. He never replied to one single email. Shortly after this flurry of emails, Victor sent out the following.

Hello,

1) The site onclick academy will be available in the next few days, since we are preparing a new server with all your accounts without any lost data. Nothing has been lost regarding data since we backup everything each day.

2) Regarding products or services that you didn’t receive or you still don’t have access to, please let me know so I can deliver them to you asap.

regards,

victor  

An hour later he sent out another email offering a Giant Bundle for just $19.99. I truly hope nobody paid him any more money. As it stands we are currently into December and Onclick Academy is still offline its hundreds of paying customers are out of pocket. Shame on you Victor Bastos.

Preventative Measures

If you purchase a course through a company like Udemy and start receiving emails from the creator you should not jump into it, even if it sounds like a bargain. Always do your research on who is sending you the email before proceeding. If you have paid Victor any money in the past 180 days with PayPal you can file a dispute to get this back. Now that Victor has a lengthy contact list of our names he may come back with a new company and/or under another name.

Conclusion

Have you bought into OnClick Academy or purchased a lifetime deal only for it to dissolve within months of buying it? If have you had a similar experience with another company and want to publish your story, please feel free to get in touch.