Hi - I thought Mumsnet might be a good site to post about this as it has such a big reach. Domestika deletes any comments on their social media trying to warn people of the scam. There was a Facebook group called Domestika Scam, later renamed Exposing Domestika which was supporting (I think?) 1000s of people who had been scammed but Domestika started lawsuits against the admins and the group has been shut down (this is what I understand to have happened anyway - I'm not on Facebook so wasn't part of the group)
Domestika is an online learning platform, lots of art/craft/design courses etc. I did quite a few courses with them over the last few years. I really enjoyed the courses, teachers are great, they were only a few pounds each. It was a lovely online "place".
But over the last year Domestika have started using dark patterns. They are selling courses for say 99p but people unknowingly also get signed up for a month's free trial. I think it might show somewhere when you pay for the course you want but it's very deliberately hidden and you don't get any email notification or anything to say you're on the trial and you don't have to click anything to sign up for it. Then after a month they take the cost of a year's membership from your bank with no warning or without you consenting to it (around £100). They just send an email say a day later confirming membership. Even people who actually did mean to sign up for the trial are finding that even if they opt out of membership well before the month is over the money is still taken from their account. It's impossible to talk to a human in customer service and people just get an automatic reply saying they chose to do the trial so there are no refunds. I found a way to get a refund but I think I must have been lucky as most people don't seem to be getting one.
Have a look at reviews of Domestika on Trustpilot - you can see that 1000s of people all over the world have been scammed in this way. Some stories are very sad as people very much couldn't afford to have this amount of money unexpectedly disappear from their accounts.
Just wanted to warn people - if you are buying a course from Domestika just be careful to check that they haven't added the free trial (unless you want it of course) and maybe you can delete that part. I mean obviously we should check what we're paying for online anyway - I guess I just became trusting and negligent as I'd bought so many courses from them over the years with no issue - lesson well and truly learned! If you have bought a course from Domestika recently, keep an eye on your bank account.
Also just to add that people who did intend to get the trial found they didn't actually get access to that many courses with membership anyway.