Change.org is taking money from campaigners for petition promotions, only to strip away the core features of petition pages "supportive comments" left by petition signers immediately after taking our money due to a system update- We are calling on platform's leadership to stop erasing vital community data, address hidden subscription traps, and fairly compensate all affected users.

THE ISSUE:

Over the last 2 years I have paid change.org over £1,600.00 in promotions as a investment in our campaign for justice, which helped our petition gather a strong supportive community of supporter's comments on our petition- Though recently I paid this platform to promote our public campaign, immediately after taking my money, change.org permanently stripped away vital features, content from our visible  petition page- change.org customer services admits due to a system update they altered the layout and cannot restore the original service features that we paid for to build our signature comments. Change.org state I could request a refund, which I did do- since my request for a refund, change.org have not responded to any of our further messages or issued us a refund?

By systematically removing the entire comment framework from the user interface immediately after accepting my financial payment, change.org materially degraded the core features and layout of the advertised service we previously paid for.  This administrative change directly sabotaged the conversion metrics of our previous paid traffic, meaning the service has not been delivered as originally contracted.

Thousands of individuals invest their hard earned money- sometimes thousands of pounds over several years to promote critical human rights, disability, and accountability campaigns on change.org. A fundamental part of any successful campaign is it's social proof, the visible public comments, personal testimonies, and words of solidarity left by previous supporters that inspire new visitors to take action- campaigners have effectively paid premium rates to broadcast hollowed-out petition pages stripped of their community voice because of a system update right after accepting the campaigner's money.

Also hundreds of standard reviews on Trustpilot highlight a deeply concerning financial patten targeting well-meaning members of the public- supporters frequently report making what they believe a one-off chip-in payment to boost a petition, only to discover that change.org continues to withdraw unauthorised monthly subscription directly from their bank accounts. When affected consumers attempt to rectify these hidden recurring charges, they are met with a wall of total silence- change.org repeatedly fails to answer customer support messages, ignores formal cancellation requests, and refuses to issue refunds for these unauthorised direct debts, which leaves vulnerable everyday users with no choice but to instruct their banks to block change.org entirely and close their change.org account.

THE CORE HYPOCRISY OF CHANGE.ORG:

It is deeply concerning that change.org brands itself as a global champion of justice and public accountability, yet actively operates with the same lack of transparency they encourage the public to fight against. They profit by giving everyday citizens a voice to challenge corporate and institutional misconduct. However, when faced with legitimate consumer complaints regarding their own platform failures, hidden billing traps, and devalued digital services, they resort to the exact same corporate stonewalling, administrative silence, and deflection tactics  used by most obstructive public bodies- change.org is behaving like the very corporate entities they profit from letting others expose.

WE DEMAND THAT CHANGE.ORG LEADERSHIP

1. Restore all historical comments and public comment counters to all affected active user petition's layouts immediately. 

2. Issue automatic, transparent financial refunds to all campaigners whose petition page elements were permanently altered or removed after making promotion payments.

3. End the subscription trap by ensuring all one-off promotional chip-in are entirely separate from recurring monthly membership options.

4. Overhaul the customer support infrastructure to guarantee responses, transparency, and timely refunds for users.

change.org owes me over £1,600.00 for doing a system update immediately after I promoted our petition, deleting our entire supportive comments left by all our previous supporters, resetting our comment count back to zero, completely damaged our campaign & our financial investment- I will now no longer fund this petition after change.org destroyed it's progress.

I will be setting up other petitions regarding this matter on other petition platforms which I will update further down the line.