IAI Reviews 

I subscribed to the IAI on 16 April 2026 on the Standard tier (£9.99 per month). On 4 May 2026, I sent a clear written request to cancel my subscription to Subscriptions Support. The support team replied once on 5 May 2026 (Zendesk ticket VZZGVZ-2J77Z), asking me to confirm the account email, which I did on 8 May 2026.
I have heard nothing from them since. I sent further follow-up emails on 12 May and 20 May 2026, the latter a formal Letter Before Claim citing the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. As of the date of this review, more than a month after my cancellation request, my account page at IAI still shows the subscription as active. One further £9.99 charge was taken after my cancellation request on 16 May 2026, and a further £9.99 was scheduled for 16 June 2026, which I have now had to block at the card issuer.
There is no self-service "cancel subscription" button on the account page. The only available cancellation route is by email to a single support address that has now stopped responding to me. I have instructed my card issuer to block the merchant in order to prevent further charges, and I have filed complaints with Citizens Advice / Trading Standards (ref CCA-7650655), the Competition and Markets Authority (ref CMAE2600964), and the Advertising Standards Authority.
Separate from the cancellation issue, the "Subscribe to IAI — Get this course free" call-to-action on every IAI Academy course page is misleading: none of the three subscription tiers IAI actually sells (Library, Standard, Premium Live) includes free access to Academy courses. As a Standard subscriber, my IAI Academy token balance is 0, and the account page itself prompts subscribers to upgrade to access any course.
Using the "courtesy" tokens that came with my initial subscription, I was also able to confirm that what IAI markets as "courses" on the IAI Academy are short, condensed videos of under 40 minutes in total, containing generic introductory-level material on the advertised topic — not what a reasonable consumer would understand a "course" to be. So the underlying product is also significantly oversold by the marketing on the site.
The intellectual content on the IAI player may well have merit. The way the subscription is operated, the way cancellation requests are handled, and the way the "courses" are described in marketing copy are, in my view, not acceptable.

They are a scam, plain and simple. DO NOT SUBSCRIBE.

Never provide your financial details to this company it is a scam.

Do NOT subscribe to The institute of Art and Ideas. They do not allow you to cancel your plan through their website, but ask you to send them an email for them to cancel subscription. However they do not respond to this email at all. I ended up having to get a new credit card, because The institute of Art and Ideas simply ignored my request to unsubscribe. Many others have experienced this before. Although their content is good, their payment model is a literal scam. Enshittification at its shittiest!

Do not give your credit card to iai.tv. It's impossible to cancel your subscription since no one responds to your requests. I'll be replacing my credit card.

No way cancel subscribtion, no answers on e-mails, no phone number nothing

Never ever provide your banking details to this company. It is an absolute nightmare to cancel your subscription. Customer service is far below standard and, to be honest, the content is also not that great. Had a subscription for a while but found it to be little added value to the discussions on youtube or other platforms. interface also not that great.

Website for HowTheLightGetsIn is so poorly designed it is almost unusable. It took two of us hours of stress to get tickets.
Despite expensive ticket price, organisation seems haphazard.
Physical programmes I ordered - only some came, and those that did were damaged.
Given I'm paying hundreds of pounds for this, they seriously need to step up their game

I’ve been trying to cancel my subscription for two months now and no one is replying to my emails. Avoid subscribing to this platform at all cost.

This company's operating standards are unacceptably bad. The company ought to be sued and disbarred. Extremely difficult to unsubscribe. No unsubscribe button. Had to email and phone multiple times and then was ignored and had to cancel my card.

I can't cancel my subscription. They don't respond to emails for weeks. No other option for cancellation. Do not subscribe.

No click-to-cancel button. This group wants to take your money by accident, not by earning it.

I can't unsubscribe, I sent many emails with no response. AVOID

Scam: Opt out by mail. Their ability to process card payments should definitely be reconsidered. Might also explore legal options to address this issue.

DON'T SUBSCRIBE. It's impossible to unsubscribe, no option on website, customer service doesn't respond. I had to block my card because of this, ridiculous.

You'll never be able to unsubscribe if you subscribe. You'll have to cancel your card. Avoid at all costs.

I’ve had exactly the same experience the others have had here. For many months the IAI was taking subscriptions payments out twice from my account. After chasing for a response, I got one membership cancelled which meant I was no longer able to attend the monthly events or access any of the online content, which was the reason I’d joined. No offer of a refund and no response after several months so had to block them from using my credit card. Awful customer service. I feel really ripped off and for something that I would rejoin if they could sort their admin out and refund the duplicate payments. I don’t have any confidence that the could do this so I won’t rejoin.

Do not give these people your credit card number.
I had to consult my bank and block online access – next step is to cancel my card.

You cannot cancel your subscription,
which of course is one type of a scam.
Please do report the site too, it's the only way to stop online scum like this.

Hilary Lawson started this. Perhaps he's the one to put pressure on. I have emailed and messaged social media. I am about to cancel my credit card. It's been months of IAI taking money from TWO Accounts: one which I had used to go to the festival. It's a shame this is such POOR management.

No unsubscribe button, only through mail and they don't reply even if following the formalities described in the terms and conditions for unsubscribing via mail. I'll have to contact my bank to deal with this.