I received an email from Chaos.com yesterday saying ‘Thanks, your order #________ is complete’.
At first I thought it was a scam because I hadn’t placed any recent order with Chaos.
But the email was legitimate and informed me of my purchase of the ‘V-Ray Solo’ license even though I never placed this order.
I installed VRay a month ago solely for the purpose of being able to convert VRay scenes to Corona. Since this conversion can be done without having a VRay license, I never considered buying a VRay license.
Yet yesterday Chaos informed me that my order had been processed and payment was underway…
I hate these business practices that consist of:
_ not CLEARLY indicating that at the end of the 30-day trial period, the software automatically switches to commercial mode, effectively resulting in the automatic purchase of a license. I imagine it’s written somewhere in the terms and conditions, but why not mention it clearly when installing the software?? This is an information of utmost importance.
_ automatically withdrawing money from the customer’s account WITHOUT warning them a few days earlier that a transaction will soon be made on their account: we receive loads of useless promotional emails, but nothing about upcoming transactions??
I call this kind of practice forced selling. I know it’s unfortunately common among big companies like Amazon etc… but until now the graphic arts sector had still escaped it. When a software trial period came to an end, you were invited to go buy a license on the publisher’s website. It was a voluntary purchase decision. It was ok. Today Chaos forces its users to pay without even asking them whether they need the software or not: it’s very disappointing.
I’d try to get the money back, not letting you know that you’re purchasing software ‘automatically’ is.. illegal? Especially since demo mode means exactly this - fully functional within a certain time period, and not functional anymore after that period expires.
It happened to me last month, but since I put a 0 balance paypal account they never charged me and the order was cancelled.
In my case I did wanted to use V-Ray as trial, but when the period was over I too got confused with this.
I attach the answer they gave me.
Even If you want to just install V-Ray for scene convertions theres no need to get a trial period, so you can avoid this mess.
Altough this is good info for all users who wants to get V-Ray with trial period.
You should report it in V-Ray forum as well or chaos help center.
I remember when i had Vray trial installed years ago, after trial period expired nobody tried to charge me. I wonder when and why this policy was changed. I don’t think you can win many loyal customers that way.
So does this mean… any trial automatically extends into a paying product after 14 days and you need to actively cancel within 14 days if you’re not intending to buy?
In my book, purchasing a product must never be the silent part when agreeing to install a demo. It is illegal, it looks like they’re aware. Nice.
It seems quite inspired by the best in the field, Arnold trial has the same kind of “automatic renewal”. I think only Octane and Fstorm still have an unlimited demo mode.
Now as much as I hate this kind of shitty shady practice, it’s written front and center at the top of the trial page for V-Ray and Corona.
But I guess if you’re already a customer you may get a trial without ever going on this page ? Or just not paying attention as the concept that the trial could automatically be converted to a paid annual subscription is just too nuts to be considered.
Man I miss the good old days when softwares companies were not defaulting to milking their customer with non-sense dark patterns.
I don’t remember I landed on this page.
I’m already a Corona customer, so I just went to my dashboard, then ‘Products’ > VRay and hit the ‘Download’ button, that’s all.
So I heard back from Chaos, here’s what they say (see attached - 1). So they are refunding me, which is good.
But reading the email confirmation I received from them, I don’t see anywhere any mention of a 14-day cancellation period (see attached - 2).
The screenshot - 3 is an email I received from them back in 2022, when their current policy was not in place yet.
The situation was exactly the same: I installed VRay for the sole purpose of converting VRay scenes to Corona.
At that time, their policy was much more customer friendly, as they clearly warned you few days before the trial period is over, and clearly stated if you want to keep using the software, you must purchase a license, which makes sense. But in 2025 things have changed …
Good to know they refund you, this need to be known, even when they clarify this, its a bad practice, hopely they will delete this absurd process, its a demo.
I got forced into an annual corona subscription in this exact same way!
They wouldn’t refund me too I was fucking fuming. All they offered was a 6 month Vantage license of which I had little need for since it’s not really working great with Corona yet.
Strange they didn’t refund you. Did you start using your subscription? As if you did, it’s less surprising they didn’t refund you.
In my case, I told them I didn’t want to use VRay the very first day my subscription started. They’re more inclined to refund you in that case.
