Extremely disappointing and misleading…
Extremely disappointing and misleading experience with Collective. I signed up after being told I was receiving a 30-day free trial of their services. I quickly realized the service was not what I needed. In my experience, it felt no more than a dumbed-down version of QuickBooks, with far less value than I expected and certainly not something I wanted to pay $349 a month for. I cancelled a week before I understood any payment would be due for the following month, yet Collective still charged me $349. When I requested a refund, I was told they require 30 days’ notice to cancel. This makes absolutely no sense to me in the context of a 30-day free trial. If I have to provide 30 days’ notice to avoid being charged after a 30-day trial, I would effectively have to cancel the day I signed up. What exactly is the purpose of offering a free trial if a customer can't use that trial period to decide whether the service is worth continuing? I repeatedly asked to speak with somebody other than the same person I had dealt with about the situation since we only went around in circles and my requests were ignored by Shazeb, the Enrollment Manager who also refused to issue a refund. I was not given a meaningful way to escalate the issue to someone else. I signed up believing I could try the service before making a financial commitment considering this is what I was told by the salesman. Instead, I cancelled before the trial was over and was still charged $349 for a service I explicitly said I did not want. Based on my experience, I absolutely would not recommend Collective. If you're considering signing up for their “free trial,” I strongly recommend getting their cancellation requirements in writing and asking them to explain exactly how a 30-day free trial works alongside a 30-day cancellation-notice requirement. As for the service itself, if you're already familiar with QuickBooks, I personally found Collective's platform to be a simplified, less useful version of functionality I already had access to. I expected a more hands-on accounting service. What I got was another platform to learn, another subscription, and ultimately a $349 charge I specifically tried to avoid.