Playster
Reviews and Complaints

I have been trying for 1 and 1/2 month to pay my last installment to cancel subscription.

I have never used playster for movies/ audiobooks/ books. There is nothing on that I want to watch/ read/ listen to.

I have emailed them, chat online, I have tried to pay by card/ phone etc. I have tried 3 cards, unable to update details on website/ in app.

Can this please be sorted?

Thank you.

Playster Corporation is knowingly and repeatedly defrauding its customers by offering unlimited premium audiobook content with a higher cost subscription, then removing the premium content after a month or two and limiting you to a poor selection of titles. They do this to people over and over - it is a known issue and widely discussed online. They simply cannot afford to deliver on their promise of premium unlimited titles, so they throttle you.

If you complain, they will tell you content was blocked based on your "geographic location." To test if this was true, I started a new account. All of the blocked content is there, but it says I'll have to pay for a premium account to get it. I already pay for a premium account, and it doesn't give me access.

Despite showing them this evidence, they refuse to allow the blocked content. They will instead cancel your subscription and give a refund for a month's service. But they continue to scam other customers, and their obvious goal is to sign up many premium subscribers and count on most of them being too lazy to complain or cancel.

I have gone through the lengthy and unfortunately unsuccessful process of filing a formal complaint with the BBB. I have also reported the issue to the Google and Apple app stores. No one is doing anything. Today I filed a complaint with the FTC and I encourage other victims to do the same at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/?utm_source=takeaction#crnt

I will not go away on this issue. If the FTC is of no assistance I will start looking into what it takes to file a class action lawsuit. I want this company to stop scamming people or I want it shut down.

This is an ongoing incident. I cancelled my account in March. It is now June, and I'm still being charged for your product. I complained once already via E-mail, and I was assured I would no longer be charged. 2 Months later, still being charged for a service I do not want, nor have any desire to pay for. Their service was worth it when I was paying $13.99/month for unlimited audiobooks, and much less so when they put all the novels in their collection that were worth listening to behind a "premium membership" business model

I would gladly use their app if they improved some things, but it won't happen, I think.
Anyway, I should tell you about the most important one, in my opinion.
Each time I start reading the same book I don't remember where I was and it's impossible to bookmark it. Well, actually they have this option, but it doesn't work.
I gave up. Couldn't use it anymore. It's stupid. The most important things are non-working...

I contacted Playster back in April 2017 had an issue with the product I received and they said I was one day two late to cancel without paying a big fee I made many emails attempts and no one responded I asked for an extension on my billing date and all they offered was two day which is ridiculous I have made every payment on time for over six months I am about to start a new job and don’t get paid until the end of the month and need an extension

I did not register for any premium services or bought anything special from playster. However, I am being charged SGD 12.99 each month for about 2 to 3 months, or since when I first signed up for playster. I did decline the free 30 day premium trial. I tried to cancel it by the bank but to no avail, and it keeps giving me problems when I try to log in by Internet.

hi my name is jessica frigault im sending message regarding money your website took from my account wich im not a member i try the website to see because it said free trial create acount didnt like it never return such as you could probly see my login atempt or date i would just like to get refund and not be charge again for this website as ill have to check my bank statement to see if there any other amount that was taking from my bank just to make sure the bank acount number would be [protected] name is jessica frigault
email would be [protected]@live.ca or also [protected]@hotmail.com that could be related to your website account if you need any more information contact me thank you

I looked on my tracking number over my tablet and headphones it said it was delivered and it not here afraid someone stole my packages is there any way you can send me another one and check where it went we have been having problems with people stealing our things if you can please find out where it went or send me a replacement one it was going to be a gift for my son who is handicapped and has a traumatic brain injury it was going to help him read please

Playster - Criminal Copyright Abuse Concerns - Philip Keezer + [name removed] - Misleading Advertising - Fake and Bogus Websites for Profiting in Bad Faith

Playster in hand with their questionable affiliates make many bogus websites, numbering in the many thousands, that abuse thousands of authors copyright rights, in order to profit in bad faith and deceive people in signing up for free trials using the bait of PDF downloads.This is bait and switch.

Playster are prolific spammers, filling up the web with bogus websites (which host their banners), and continue to do so knowing it is wrong. There are also concerns about criminal copyright issues, defined as:- Criminal copyright laws prohibit the unacknowledged use of another’s intellectual property for the purpose of financial gain. Violation of these laws can lead to fines and jail time. Criminal copyright laws have been a part of U.S.

laws since 1897, which added a misdemeanor penalty for unlawful performances if "willful and for profit".

Criminal penalties were greatly expanded in the latter half of the twentieth century, and those found guilty of criminal copyright infringement may now be imprisoned for decades, and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.Because the violations are wilful, clearly have an architect (or architects), blessed and paid by Playster, and is clearly for financial gain at the expense of authors.

There is evidence that Playster affiliates operate with the blessing of [removed] and Philip Keezer (the architects of the scam) and utilize so called 'black hosting' or DMCA immune websites, meaning their affiliates can abuse DMCA with impunity. See screenshots.

A shockingly unethical company.

Playster and its affiliate partners are complained about for dishonest affiliate behaviour. The problem, which is very large, includes Russian based DMCA-immune affiliates creating masses of fake websites advertising authors books, in order to rank highly in Google.

The purpose is to drive a bait and switch scam, which involves substituting a promised free trial in exchange for unexpected credit card charges (of which many people complain) and the unavailability of the authors book in question.

The DMCA policies of Playster affiliates are highly dubious, and one site (as in the screenshots) asks complainants to agree to 'whining'.

In any case, such DMCA requests go ignored.

The team leader of Playster who is named [removed], presumably second only to Playster CEO Philip Keezer (who founded the failed company JoMedia implicated in advertising fraud some years ago) received many complaints about the behaviour.

The company is based in Montreal and they have a US office. This is presumably because a US based company could be fined for bait and switch abuse.

A legal cease and desist letter was ignored and many websites remain live.
His company admits on their website:-

"...We work with a number of performance advertising networks, and are aware that, occasionally, third-party sites we don’t own or control might refer to intellectual property in their advertisements for Playster that we do not actually carry in our catalogue. While we do our very best to police this, our advertising network is vast, and sometimes unscrupulous advertisers can go unnoticed..."

Occasionally is a poor choice of word when the internet is riddled with false PDF adverts that sprout up again like mushrooms after a summer rain just days or weeks after a mass DMCA initiative on the part of the author.

The truth is that Playster have a very small PDF collection and somehow have utilized the Amazon database to create a scam that involves third party DMCA-immune off-shore affiliates (presumably with fake identities) publishing false PDF advertisements for almost every book that exists on Amazon, whilst offering it for download in PDF format in exchange for a free trial (which is then hard to cancel).

There are many hundreds of disgruntled authors and consumers having suffered loss or detriment at the hands of Playster, and they do not have a handle on the situation.

There is also evidence on the web to show that dishonest affiliates are not terminated. If they are, nothing is turned over to the complaining authors.

The unethical side to the behaviour for authors is that Playster are ripping off consumers using their copyrighted books and images.

Independent authors suffer loss by way of unfair SEO optimization by Playster affiliate partners in order to divert sales of their books. Consumers are then disappointed with the Playster experience and poor support, and then are put off the authors works.

Playster is a new company formed in 2015 that prides itself on values and working with independent authors.

However, they have a serious problem that they appear not willing to address, namely that a lot of their revenue comes from Russian based affiliate marketing agencies that refer people to them to subscribe to a membership where they can supposedly download unlimited E-Books in PDF form.

The affiliate agencies engage in false and misleading advertising that involves creating vast numbers of websites, sometimes using hijacked domain-names, or using affiliates that create multiple Google Blogspot blogs hosting scraped descriptions of authors copyrighted titles. The websites often contain download buttons which then redirect to Playster.

The websites rank high in Google and proport to offer free downloads via Playster. The scam is that usually the book is not available, but one only finds out after signing up for a free trial, which many consumers report difficult to cancel and incur charges on their credit cards

The internet has many complaints of such activities.

The scraped websites are always in violation of DMCA regulations and Playster get around it by claiming it is their affiliates that are responsible. Many of the websites cannot be delisted with Google, as they contain hijacked domain names that imitate real ones and when clicked on lead to Playster affiliate banners. Because of this, Google often cannot locate the original infringing content and such websites rank highly in Google for months, even if the affiliate banner is deactivated.

I personally have filed over 100+ DMCA complaints with Playster. I have also filed complaints with web hosts, one problem being that the hosts are in Russia and there is a lot of red tape to file a DMCA takedown, including translating the DMCA complaint into Russian and having it notarized in Russian and English. Given the number of infringements, this is beyond the standard means of many independant authors. Thus it can be said such affiliate marketing agencies are DMCA immune and thus removing affiliate links is close to impossible.

In December 2016, Playster were sent a cease and desist letter in relation to my book, but did not cease and desist the behaviour. Even if one can clear the web, it is only a matter of days before fresh blogs appear with new affiliate advertising.

This does a great disservice to independant authors and Playster clearly profit from the behaviour which is wrong.

Some of the affiliate marketing also utilizes FB 'comment farms' where apparently fake users post comments about how good the book is, or how they read the book, even though the book is not available.

This constitutes false and misleading advertising, using copyrighted images of authors books.

The problem is prolific and as yet Playster do not have a handle on it. The problem is admitted on their website, althouh is downplayed in contrast to the reality of the situation:-

We work with a number of performance advertising networks, and are aware that, occasionally, third-party sites we don’t own or control might refer to intellectual property in their advertisements for Playster that we do not actually carry in our catalogue. While we do our very best to police this, our advertising network is vast, and sometimes unscrupulous advertisers can go unnoticed.

The publishing manager who is [removed] who appears to be the one that takes DMCA complaints, blocked my email, presumably because of the large number of valid DMCA complaints, and because I asked him to expunge infringing links from Google, which has not been done.

Since then, fresh links have appeared, necessitating further work.
They also dishonoured a US $10, 000 bill from my company for DMCA admin work that necessitated making 180+ DMCA complaints to clear up the web AND ignored a legal cease and desist letter, and continue the behaviour.

They do it to many authors and there are many complaints online about Playsters activities.

Independant authors are advised NOT to publish their work with Playster.

Signed

One Unhappy Independant Author

I've signed up for a 1 month trial, only wanted to try Playster but after one month of using I wasn't satisfied and decided not to extend.
For some reason these people from Playster decided that I wanted to extend my account so they charged me again next month and took $12. I contacted customer service and asked for a refund but receive no reply back. One month passed and they charged me again. No matter how many times I've tried I wasn't able to contact someone from Playster.
After that I contacted my bank and asked them to block Playster.