Perplexity Pro subscribers are reporting a frustrating loop: they believe they've canceled, then get charged again, and when they contact support they get routed to an automated AI assistant that won't escalate to a human or process refunds.
The complaints center on two issues. First, the cancellation flow isn't always clear about when the next billing cycle ends, so users think they've canceled but the charge still hits. Second, Perplexity's support system uses its own AI to handle disputes - which is fine for product questions, but falls short when someone is trying to recover money from a billing error. When the AI assistant can't resolve the issue and there's no clear path to a human agent, users are left cycling through the same unhelpful responses.
Perplexity charges $20/month for Pro and has raised over $1 billion from investors including Jeff Bezos, SoftBank, and IVP. The company hasn't commented publicly on these specific complaints.
If you're in this situation, the fastest resolution is a credit card chargeback. Call your card issuer, explain you were charged after cancellation, and they'll typically open a dispute within days. This bypasses Perplexity's support loop entirely. Filing a complaint with your state attorney general's consumer protection office is another route - AI companies face increasing regulatory scrutiny, and formal complaints build paper trails that matter.
Using an AI chatbot to deflect billing complaints about your AI product is a trust problem. It signals that the company has optimized the support layer for cost reduction rather than resolution. That's a choice that tends to show up eventually in churn rates and, increasingly, in regulatory attention as consumer protection agencies catch up with the subscription-model AI sector.