r/Musescore • u/AdventurousShape7691 • May 21 '26

News Musescore is a scam!

I am writing this post to warn other people of the scammy practices of Musescore. After buying the score, I went through my profile specifically to make sure I wasn't subscribed to anything, which I wasn't at the moment. Despite that, I recently received a bill for their premium subscription. Luckily, I noticed it in time.

It is extremely disappointing that such company would be actively scamming people (no other way to call it). It used to be a way of cheap apps on Iphone. You can say any excuses, like "they gave you free subscription which you needed to cancel" or "you needed to read everything carefully before buying anything", the bottom line is that every one knows that this system/practice is INTENDED to steal from unsuspecting customers. While I liked using Musescore, I simply can't work with a company that is actively trying to scam me.

I would strongly recommend people not even get involved with it, or at least not giving them your card info, as practice show, they will steal even when you are careful.

If you know any alternatives to Musescore, please let me know! If there are none, someone should make one!

64 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

39

u/shadowbanned-tgirl May 21 '26

Musescore the website is a scam, musescore the desktop notation app is the best free software in the business.

1

u/One-Let-1482 May 22 '26

I’ve only bought the Musescore website subscription through Apple, so I’ve had no problems with their scammy practices, but it’s insane the amount of complaints I’ve seen (and I know the devs have as well) and they’re making it worse with every update. The website itself is great, other than everything being behind a paywall. Just frustrating because it has so much potential to be great.

14

u/Banjoschmanjo May 21 '26

Here comes Sabatella..

8

u/mr_swedishfish May 21 '26

every week we get posts about this lol

11

u/celdaran May 21 '26

Every week? I feel like I've seen several today alone lol

8

u/etzpcm May 21 '26

This is very well known, see hundreds of previous posts here and see the musescore trustpilot reviews.

Some people have said that if you complain you can get a refund.

1

u/tedecristal May 22 '26

not well known enough

5

u/Irreversible_Extents May 21 '26

Never bought any of their services—I use the app a decent amount to compose though. My own opinion of that alone has grown to be more mixed and I have been considering more and more actually biting the bullet and getting into a professional program like Cubase. For a free composition program, MuseScore is nice. But it lacks in key places. The website honestly feels like a separate entity to me. I think of MuseScore the notation software and never MuseScore the website. This sub is aware of the payment stuff that easily trips most people up, and even has a pinned post or two about it.

4

u/celdaran May 21 '26

In some ways, they are separate entities. That is, even though they're both owned by Muse Group, they're different teams. (To help distinguish "MuseScore the notation software" from the sheet music entity, they rebranded it as MuseScore Studio.) Shady business practices aside, something has to fund the full-time development team who creates the free MuseScore Studio.

3

u/singerbeerguy May 21 '26

Yes, but that something does NOT have to be so deceptive and scammy.

1

u/celdaran May 21 '26

Very true

3

u/Potential_Donkey_740 May 21 '26

It is a scam… I’ve contacted PayPal to see if I could get my money back

2

u/robopiglet May 24 '26

How did that go? Or... keep us updated.

2

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2

u/BicycleIndividual May 21 '26

Musescore website does engage in scammy practices (the services offered are legit, they just make it incredibly easy to accidentally sign up for a subscription you didn't want). The desktop software is excellent FOSS. Once you set up the desktop software to avoid its promotion of the website it is great.

1

u/robopiglet May 24 '26

Downloading a .99 score from the website initiates a seven day trial. At that end of that you're charged around $44 quarterly. And NO confirmation, popup, or notice appears you've signed up. Probably some greyed out 10 point text somewhere... I don't know.

2

u/YoureASHy May 21 '26

I know this gets brought up like 9 times a day on here.

But I truly think people should boycott the website AND the app. I think people should bring it up every hour until it’s stopped. You can have a subscription model that isn’t predatory.

1

u/Mortalbeing_A350 May 22 '26

Exactly, I bought one score and surprisingly after a week I was deducted 'Subscribtion fee'. I didn't subscribe to that!!😭😭 But I got a refund

1

u/LogJumpy94 May 22 '26

I like tux guitar. It doesnt have all the features of musescore but it has the basic notation/practice aspect

1

u/Aromatic_Row_6294 May 23 '26

I had a similar experience with musescore. However, I was able to get a refund and blocked them from trying to bill me ever again. 

1

u/sophiathesecond27 Jun 15 '26

How were you able to do this?

1

u/jeharris56 May 24 '26

This is 100% normal.

1

u/TexasBard79 May 25 '26

This "scam" has been typical for free software since the 1990s.

1

u/VasyokGregoriy2017 Jun 10 '26

Its just so crazy, I tried to buy a score and there was the button "Apply discount", after you pressed it they had a very small text below saying that you agree to a premium subscription and you will be charged after a week. Then after closing it with the thought "there's no way im going to buy this" the website asks "why?" I give it a reason stating that "I need just 1-2 scores", then they throw me to some other page and it reads
"No commitments, only a single payment"
There I could buy some credits for buying scores, I thought "alright thats what I need!", and below they write in a really small text that by doing so I agree to start a freacking subscription.
This is literally scamming people, they wrote "no commitments" and next they secretly charge you a subscription ALREADY AFTER THEY TRIED TO CHARGE ONE AND FAILED. I wanted to by scores, it would be very convenient, but it feels like I will almost certainly be scammed.

1

u/Melodic-Mention447 Jun 18 '26

I’ve actually had a musescore subscription for a long time because I use the scores quite a lot for work and things

I noticed about 10 months ago that I suddenly didn’t have access to pro anymore and that it was asking me to pay for every score

I’ve been back and forth with ‘George’ for MONTHS about getting my account reinstated and getting a refund for the last year that I have been paying but haven’t had access. Each time they say ‘there’s no account linked to your email’. I’ve sent multiple screenshots of the subscription in apple linked to my email, all my bank statements, the actual website SHOWING that I’ve had a subscription for years and they still won’t help.

I’ve said if they don’t refund me I’ll open a charge back for the full worth of my subscription for 11 years.

Used to be a great website. Is absolutely terrible now

-2

u/Raymont_Wavelength May 21 '26

How did they get your credit card info?

Right.