Rosetta Stone - Reviews and experiences

I grabbed this app last month for some speaking practice on my commute. At first it seemed fine, but pretty quickly my AirPods barely picked up my voice — I had to shout answers and that wrecked my pronunciation. Tried to get a refund but ran into a strict 30‑day, no‑exceptions policy and support wasn't helpful. Ended up switching to Duolingo and Babbel, which work fine with AirPods.

I was clicking through the sign-up on a slow Tuesday night, pretty unsure about a month-to-month plan and whether I'd be stuck. I started using the service right away — a few weeks ago — and at first it did what I needed, nothing flashy but solid. My real worry was cancelling, and that worry turned out to be justified. The cancellation page just keeps loading. I tried the same step three times over a month, called support and got nowhere. Kind of annoyed and a little resigned. So my doubts didn't exactly disappear.

I bought the old CD boxed set years ago, moved on, then decided to use the software again as a supplement to the twice-weekly tutor sessions I pay for. The lessons themselves? Still solid. I surprise myself by saying a sentence in Chinese at work and people actually understand me — so it did stick, which is the weird nice part in all this chaos.
But here's the thing I want to harp on: the login/renewal loop. Click renew, it logs you out. Try to buy a new subscription, it recognises your email and asks you to log in. Log in, and you’re back where you started. I probably tried this more than I should admit. There’s an odd feeling — like the site is playing keep-away with your money. Even worse, the program remembers my old progress (levels 1–5 saved), yet somehow expects me to pay again to "continue". Greedy? Glitch? Who knows. Resetting progress is impossible; you can't easily tell where you left off, which makes using it alongside my live lessons clumsy.
Customer support is basically a myth. When you do get a person, it's not terribly helpful — apologies, but no solution. That’s frustrating because the content is useful during my commute and actually helped with pronunciation (speech-recognition surprised me a few times by being helpful). So there's potential here, real value, but the account/subscription experience is the part that ruins it.
If they fixed the login flow and made progress management honest, I’d come back in a heartbeat. As it stands: useful product trapped inside a maddening sales/account maze. Use it if you already have it, but buying fresh? Think twice.

Please take heed! Do not spend any money with Rosetta Stone!

If it was possible to give negative stars, I would!

They are quick to take your money, but if you have any problems, they will just fob you off!

They bought a company named Livemocha, and now refuse to honor their commitments. Livemocha's product activation webpage now points to Rosetta Stone. I bought a Livemocha lifetime Spanish course. When I go to activate my course, it points to the Rosetta Stone website. There is no way to activate the course I have paid for. When I contacted their support department, I was told by Sarah that they no longer support this product and I needed to purchase a new one from Rosetta Stone.

I explained that I had already paid for this lifetime product and should not have to pay again. I was told the same thing, they do not support it. I was told I could have a 3 month free trial which is available to anyone.

I explained I was not happy with this response, and wished to log an official complaint. I was told I would have to write a letter to their legal department! I wrote back asking for their email address, and got sent the same email again from Sarah as if I was some uneducated fool, saying I had to write a letter and send it via post to:

Rosetta Stone
Attn: Customer Complaints
Case Number: 08497339
135 West Market Street
Harrisonburg, VA 22801

I explained that they must be on email, otherwise how else do they communicate with the rest of the company. Below is the response:

Dear Learner,
Thank you for contacting Rosetta Stone. We do not have an email for Formal Complaints. Yes, they are just contacted via letters. This is the only channel to communicate them
Thanks
Sarah

Rosetta Stone are very happy to take your money online, boast they are an online language site, yet when you have a problem, all of a sudden they live in the dark ages and need to be written to via a letter because they do not have email.

These people are nothing but charlatans with no ethics or morality. They will happily take your money online within seconds, then leave you high and dry if you have a problem.

There are plenty of other more ethical language learning sites to choose from. Do yourselves a favor, and steer clear of these thieves.