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Copyright & Safety

Fraud & Scams

What counts as fraud, from stolen cards and chargeback abuse to self-dealing and scams, and what follows from it.

Last updated on October 25, 2026.

Fraud is taking money or access you are not owed by deceiving someone: us, a bank, an instructor or another member. A scam is trying to take it from another member. Paying with a card that is not yours, charging back a course you finished, buying your own course, faking referrals, running a second account, selling access outside ACADA, or pretending to be us all count. Any of them closes your account at once, earnings from them are withheld, we may report you, and we may pursue what it cost us. If you think you have been scammed, tell us within a business day and we act within one.

This summary is for orientation only. The sections below are the operative terms.

1. What this covers

This policy is what ACADA L.L.C., a Tennessee limited liability company (ACADA, we), treats as fraud on acada.ac and what follows from it. Every other policy that says something is fraud means fraud as defined here, and every consequence here is carried out under the Account Enforcement & Appeals policy, which also gives you the right to appeal. Threats, harassment and the other conduct rules are in the Community Guidelines; attacks on the platform are in the Acceptable Use Policy.

2. Payment fraud

The rule. Pay only with a card or account that is yours to use. Every payment goes through Stripe, which runs its own fraud checks on it, and we may decline or reverse a payment on Stripe's signal without saying why.

Example of a violation. Enrolling with card details bought online, or with a family member's card without their permission.

Consequence. Access ends the moment the payment is reversed, the account is closed, the sale is reversed for the instructor, collaborators and affiliate, and we report it as section 10 sets out.

3. Chargeback abuse

The rule. If something is wrong with a charge, ask us first: a refund request in Billing is faster than your bank and puts nothing at risk. A chargeback on a course you have completed, or on a charge we have already refunded, is fraud. A chargeback opened while your refund request was still open, or on a renewal you could have cancelled, is abuse of the process and goes up the enforcement ladder.

Example of a violation. Finishing a course, downloading your certificate, then telling your bank you never bought it.

Consequence. A chargeback ends your access to the course at once, as Purchases, Refunds & Subscriptions says, and we give the bank our records. Where the course was completed or the charge already refunded, a person closes the account within 1 business day of the dispute arriving; if the bank later decides in our favour, the closure stands. A dispute the bank decides in our favour restores the sale to everyone paid on it.

4. Refund abuse

The rule. Refunds are for purchases that did not work out, not a way to take courses for free. After 3 refunds granted to you in 12 months, every further request is reviewed on its own and may be declined. This does not touch a refund we owe you under section 8 of the Purchases policy, or a right the law where you live gives you.

Example of a violation. Buying a course, working through most of it in the refund window, refunding, and doing the same with the next one.

Consequence. The request is declined with the reason; a pattern of it goes up the enforcement ladder.

5. Buying from yourself

The rule. You may not pay for a course you created or work on as a collaborator, or have anyone pay for it on your behalf, to earn the instructor's or collaborator's share, an affiliate commission, a completion discount or anything else. The checkout refuses your own course; doing it through another account is fraud. An affiliate may not refer themselves, their other accounts, their household, or anyone paid to sign up.

Example of a violation. Opening a second account, buying your own course through your own affiliate link, and refunding it after the commission cleared.

Consequence. The account, and every account involved, is closed at once. Earnings from those sales are withheld whether or not they had cleared, as the Instructor Agreement, Collaborator Terms and Affiliate Agreement say, and what the sales cost us is deducted from anything left.

6. Fake accounts and manufactured activity

The rule. One person, one account, under Account & Identity. No accounts made to buy, review, refer, vote, message or earn on behalf of another; no bots; no bought or scripted clicks, sign-ups, reviews or completions.

Example of a violation. Ten accounts that each leave a five-star review on the same course in the same afternoon.

Consequence. Every account involved is closed at once and the record is linked. Reviews, referrals and earnings that came from it are removed or withheld.

7. Scams and deceptive offers

The rule. Do not try to take money, access or personal information from another member by deceiving them. In particular, do not:

  • ask a student to pay you, or anyone, outside ACADA for a course or any part of it: every payment for a course goes through our checkout, and money paid elsewhere buys nothing here;
  • promise a job, a grade, a qualification, a licence or an income that a course cannot deliver, or sell "certificates" that mean anything other than completion;
  • run a pyramid, a recruitment scheme, an advance-fee offer or an "investment" through courses, rooms or messages;
  • send links that pretend to be something they are not, or messages that pretend to be from someone they are not;
  • collect passwords, card numbers, identity documents or other personal information from a member.

Example of a violation. Messaging students of a course to offer them "the full version" for a payment to your own account.

Consequence. The account is closed at once. The Community Guidelines already send a scam straight to the top of the ladder; this section says what a scam is.

8. Impersonating ACADA and phishing

The rule. Do not present yourself as ACADA, its staff or its support, or as an "official" anything of ours, to a member or anyone else. For your own protection: we never ask for your password, a card number or a payment by message or email; our emails come from an address ending in acada.ac; and nobody from ACADA will ever message you on the platform to ask you to pay or to "verify" your account. A message that does any of those is not from us, and we want to know about it. Our own accounts carry the label "ACADA staff" beside the name, on the profile and in rooms, and no other account can; the Verification Policy says so.

Example of a violation. A direct message from "ACADA Support" saying an account will be closed unless the member confirms their card details.

Consequence. The account is closed at once and we report it as section 10 sets out. Impersonating a person, rather than us, is dealt with under Account & Identity and the Community Guidelines.

9. Codes and promotions

The rule. A discount code we issue is for the member we issued it to, once. Do not share, sell, trade, publish or automate the use of codes, or try codes you were not given. Affiliates' obligations on codes are in the Affiliate Marketing Guidelines.

Example of a violation. Posting your completion code on a coupon site.

Consequence. The code is cancelled, a purchase made with a code that was not yours can be reversed, and a pattern goes up the ladder.

Regional prices. A regional price is for people in that country. Making your connection appear to come from another country to pay its price is misuse. We record where a regional price was set for and where the payment came from; a sale where the two disagree stands, and the first one is noted. A second one restricts enrolments under the Account Enforcement & Appeals policy, and a pattern goes up the ladder.

10. What we do when we find fraud

  • Closure. Fraud closes the account at once under Account Enforcement & Appeals, with the appeal that policy provides. A role closure alone is enough where the fraud is confined to that role.
  • Money. Earnings from fraudulent sales are withheld whether or not they had cleared. While a closure for fraud stands, nothing is paid out automatically; we separate what came from genuine sales and pay it by hand. Chargeback fees and other losses the fraud caused us are deducted from anything we owe the person; beyond that, we may ask for the amount and pursue it, as the Instructor Earnings policy does for uncovered reversals.
  • Reporting. We may report fraud to Stripe, PayPal, the card networks and law enforcement, and share the account and payment details they need. We answer valid legal requests about it.
  • How we look. To link accounts and spot patterns we compare payment details, devices and network addresses, alongside Stripe's own signals. What we hold and for how long is in the Privacy Policy.
  • Records. The record of a fraud decision, and the payment records behind it, survive the deletion of the account, for as long as a dispute or a legal claim about it could arise.

11. If you were scammed

  • A purchase through ACADA follows the Purchases policy: a refund request within the window, and the refunds we make ourselves when a course is removed.
  • Money paid outside ACADA to another member is not something we can refund; it never reached us. We act on the scammer, keep the records, and help you with a report to your bank or the police where we can.
  • Your account, if it was taken over, is handled under Account & Identity: tell us and we sign it out everywhere and reset the password with you.

12. Reporting fraud

Report a course, a profile or a message with the reason "Scam or fraud", or write to support@acada.ac with what happened and any screenshots. A report of a scam in progress is reviewed within 1 business day; every other report within 3. We tell you when your report has been handled, not what we did.

13. Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we change the date shown at the top. If a change adds a rule or a consequence, we post a notice in the app at least 14 days before it takes effect.

14. Related policies