PDF Guru trial-to-subscription billing

Figure B.5 of the FTC's complaint shows PDF Guru's "Choose a plan to download your file" page, offering "7-Day Limited Access" for $0.99 and "7-Day Full Access" for $1.99, with fine print in small gray type below the plans.

In a lawsuit filed on June 2, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged that PDF Guru, an online PDF editor, asked for a payment, for example $0.99 or $1.99 for seven days of access, before a person could retrieve a PDF they had edited, while small gray fine print said "you will be charged $49.99/month unless you cancel 24 hours before the trial ends". PDF Guru's own blog lists seven-day access for $0.99 or $1.99 "and then $49.99/month"; the FTC alleges that consumers often find additional charges only later on their credit card or PayPal statements & that support representatives, when consumers can reach them, frequently deny refunds.

On July 2, 2026, the court entered a preliminary injunction, an order that, by its terms, remains in effect until a final judgment unless sooner modified or dissolved, against defendants including Lopofist Limited, the Cyprus company named in PDF Guru's terms, finding "good cause to believe" that the FTC is "likely to prevail". Gurudocs Limited, which the FTC alleges sold PDF Guru to U.S. consumers, & nine other defendants denied violating the laws the FTC sued under, and the case is pending.

Online PDF editing service

Gurudocs Ltd and Iryna Oleksyn, two of the defendants in the FTC's lawsuit, admitted in their July 30, 2026 answer to the complaint that PDF Guru is an online PDF editing product. PDF Guru's member profile on the website (pdfa.org) of the PDF Association, a membership organization for the PDF file format, lists PDF Guru as a full member that joined in August 2024 and says the service gives anyone "a complete, browser-based toolkit for working with PDF and 40+ other document formats". PDF Guru's blog says the service handles tasks such as editing, signing, converting or compressing PDFs in the browser on Mac, Windows and mobile, with no install needed, "though a free account is required to save and download files".

Checkout and pricing

Purchase flow described by the FTC

• PDF Guru's purchase flow as pictured in the FTC's complaint
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  Figure B.1 of the FTC's complaint, under the heading "PDF Guru Purchase Flow, Captured January 12, 2026", shows sponsored ads for PDF Guru offering tools such as "Split PDF [Free] - Extract PDF Pages", each listed under "GM UNIVERSEAPPS LIMITED".
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  PDF Guru's landing page as pictured in the FTC's complaint, headed "Combine multiple PDFs into one", asks the visitor to "Upload or Drag&Drop your file" and shows no price.
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  Figure B.4 of the FTC's complaint shows the PDF Guru pop-up "Enter your email address", with a "Download File" button, over the document being edited.
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  Figure B.5 of the FTC's complaint shows PDF Guru's "Choose a plan to download your file" page, offering "7-Day Limited Access" for $0.99 and "7-Day Full Access" for $1.99, with fine print in small gray type below the plans.
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  The enlarged fine print under the plan choices on PDF Guru's plan page says that after seven days "you will be charged $49.99/month unless you cancel 24 hours before the trial ends".
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  Figure B.6 of the FTC's complaint shows PDF Guru's payment page, listing $1.99 as "Total due today:" above the "Express checkout" buttons, with fine print below the plan's feature list.

The FTC's complaint, whose Attachment B includes a section headed "PDF Guru Purchase Flow, Captured January 12, 2026", alleges that clicking a sponsored search result or ad for PDF Guru leads to a landing page that immediately prompts the user to upload the PDF they wish to edit, with no price information disclosed. After entering their email address, the FTC alleges, consumers encounter a price for the first time, on a page indicating that payment is required to access or retrieve the edited PDF. According to the complaint, that page prominently displays a nominal one-time price, for example $0.99 or $1.99, for seven-day access. The complaint transcribes the fine print below the primary content of the page, which opens:

After 7 days, you will be charged $49.99/month unless you cancel 24 hours before the trial ends. To access your first document for free please click here.

The FTC alleges that this disclosure "is not clear and conspicuous" and that, on the download page, the fine print appears in small, gray text on a gray background, below larger and more colorful design elements and payment prompts. Depending on the dimensions of the user's screen, the complaint says, the fine print might appear below the fold; that is, the user would have to scroll down to see it. In that case, the FTC alleges, the user could click the large, purple "Continue" button at the top of the page and proceed to the payment page without the fine print ever appearing on their screen.

According to the complaint, the payment page repeats the fine print language below colorful "Express checkout" fields and other payment options. In a June 29, 2026 alert, the law firm Davis+Gilbert LLP wrote that PDF Guru's payment page also allegedly emphasized "Total due today: $1.99" while subscription language appeared in less prominent text.

Website prices

A post on PDF Guru's blog, last updated May 21, 2026, says that PDF Guru "currently offers" these pricing options: "7-day limited access for $0.99 and then $49.99/month", "7-day full access for $1.99 and then $49.99/month" and an "Annual subscription plan for $299.99". On its home page, PDF Guru answers the question "Is PDF Guru available as a subscription or a one-time purchase?" with "You can use PDF Guru on a monthly subscription basis."

Charges, cancellation and refunds

Billing problems alleged by the FTC

According to the complaint, consumers often move on after completing the task or concluding the output is not satisfactory, and only later find additional charges from PDF Guru on their credit card or PayPal statements. The complaint also alleges that the defendants often do not send subscription confirmations, advance notices of renewal, or instructions for how to cancel before those later charges occur.

According to the complaint, the website's cancellation feature is non-functional for some consumers, others are unable to locate one at all, & the site's "24/7" support is often unresponsive. If consumers are able to reach support representatives, the complaint alleges, the representatives frequently deny refunds & "continue billing consumers even after promising to cancel their subscriptions". The FTC further alleges that, at times, PDF Guru's systems have initiated charges even after customer service representatives told consumers that no active subscription existed & that they would reverse attempted charges.

Refund policy and terms of use

PDF Guru's Subscription Terms, last updated in January 2023, say that a user who does not cancel before the end of a trial "will be automatically charged a price indicated on the payment screen", & that the subscription then renews automatically at the end of each period until the user cancels.

In its Refund Policy, effective as of 21 November 2025, PDF Guru says that "to the extent permitted by applicable law" all purchases made through its website are "non-refundable and non-exchangeable", except as the policy expressly states or as applicable law requires. It gives errors or technical issues with the product as an example of when a user may request a refund, & lists "accidental purchase" & "insufficient funds" among the financial reasons for which it does not provide refunds.

PDF Guru's Terms and Conditions of Use, last updated on 8 April 2026, say that initiating a chargeback (in the FTC's consumer advice, a way to "dispute the charge" with a credit or debit card company) or reversing a payment through a bank or payment provider "may result in the immediate termination of your account" at the company's "sole discretion".

Under the terms' arbitration section, users and Lopofist Limited "agree to resolve all Disputes through binding arbitration", except for claims within a small claims court's jurisdiction that are not class action disputes and meet the court's jurisdictional and monetary limits, and disputes related to intellectual property rights; the terms' opening summary describes this as resolving disputes through arbitration "rather than in court" and says users "may opt out of the arbitration agreement by following the process outlined in Section 12".

Customer emails attributed to PDF Guru

• Alleged email exchange with PDF Guru, as transcribed by the customer
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  Alleged receipt email listing a $0.99 payment and saying "you will be automatically charged $49.99 per month" after a seven-day introductory offer.
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  Alleged support reply saying it could not provide copies of the exact checkout screen or a personalized record of how the subscription terms were accepted, and that the payment was not eligible for a refund.
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  Customer's email to PDF Guru, as transcribed by the customer, asking "whether, when and how I accepted a $49.99 monthly subscription" and which of three record options applies.
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  Alleged second support reply saying "I can’t issue a refund here" and that historical renderings of checkout pages are not provided by email.

A PDF Guru customer gave consumer advocate Louis Rossmann the text of emails they say they exchanged with PDF Guru in October 2026; the emails have not been independently verified. The customer says they paid $0.99 to compress a file, understood it to be a one-time purchase & did not knowingly agree to the subscription, and that on October 13, 2026, an unexpected $49.99 transaction appeared in their banking app as a pending hold.

The alleged receipt lists a transaction date of October 6, 2026 & an amount of $0.99, and says:

After a 7-day introductory offer starting from the 13 October 2026, you will be automatically charged $49.99 per month.

The first alleged support reply said:

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide copies of the exact checkout screen displayed during your purchase or individual screenshots of the checkout process. We also cannot provide a personalized record showing the specific on-screen interaction used to accept the subscription terms.

That reply also said the subscription terms "are presented during the purchase process", that under PDF Guru's Refund Policy "this payment isn’t eligible for a refund", & that "the subscription is canceled".

In their reply, the customer wrote to PDF Guru: "My question is precisely whether, when and how I accepted a $49.99 monthly subscription." The customer asked PDF Guru to confirm which of three options applied:

• "You hold records supporting my acceptance of recurring billing and will provide the relevant information."
• "You hold such records but decline to provide them — please explain why."
• "You do not hold records showing my acceptance of those recurring terms."

The same email said:

I acknowledge authorising the $0.99 Apple Pay payment. I dispute knowingly agreeing to the recurring subscription.

A second alleged reply said "I can’t issue a refund here." It also said:

We do not provide internal system data, such as IP addresses, backend logs, or historical renderings of checkout pages via email. The subscription was created through the standard checkout process, where the pricing and recurring billing terms are presented before the payment is confirmed.

That reply does not say which of the customer's three options applies.

The customer wrote to Rossmann that PDF Guru had not supplied the requested evidence, and that this "does not establish that no such records exist".

Background

PDF Guru's terms and conditions say they govern the user's relationship with Lopofist Limited, "a company incorporated under the laws of Cyprus". The FTC alleges that Lopofist is a wholly owned subsidiary of Universe Group; the complaint names that company as GM Universeapps Limited, a Cyprus limited company "also doing business as Universe Group". According to the complaint, since May 2024 and continuing to the time of filing, Universe Group and the defendants it groups as the "PDF Defendants" have marketed and sold two online PDF editing products, PDF Guru and PDF Master, which are "largely identical in functionality and consumer-facing flow". The complaint calls the two products collectively "the PDF Products".

In its consumer advice, the FTC explains that a negative option is when "you're automatically billed for something when you didn't specifically say not to bill you". The complaint also alleges that Gurudocs Limited, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Las Vegas, Nevada, has advertised, marketed and sold negative option offerings, including PDF Guru and PDF Master, to consumers throughout the United States. Answering the complaint's paragraph on Gurudocs, Gurudocs Limited and Oleksyn admitted that Gurudocs Limited is a Delaware corporation with a Delaware address and a Nevada place of business and that "Gurudocs Limited resold subscription offers to consumers in the United States"; they denied the paragraph's remaining allegations.

FTC complaint

The FTC's complaint is dated June 2, 2026, and was filed that day, in federal court in the Northern District of California. The case is Federal Trade Commission v. GM Universeapps Ltd., 4:26-cv-05232. The Commission vote authorizing the staff to file the complaint was 2–0, and the FTC announced the case on June 17, 2026.

The complaint alleges that since at least 2020, Vladimir Mnogoletny and Vasily Ulianov, operating through a company doing business as Genesis Tech, have built and run a broad portfolio of misleading internet-based subscription schemes. Genesis Tech, the complaint alleges, operates as a common enterprise through a sprawling network of entities it controls, including a series of subsidiaries incorporated in Cyprus and operating in Ukraine, and the Cyprus subsidiaries, it alleges, market to U.S. consumers and access U.S. payment processing through counterparts incorporated in Delaware.

From early 2023 to mid-2025, according to the complaint, the five illustrative product lines it focuses on (Wisey, the PDF Products, Lumi, Nebula and the Amo Products) together accounted for nearly a quarter billion dollars in global revenue. For PDF Guru and PDF Master alone, the complaint alleges that from March 2023 to August 2025 the PDF Products collectively brought in over $6.5 million from U.S. consumers through PayPal.

The FTC brought the action for what the complaint calls the defendants' violations of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a), and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 8401–8405. Under Section 4 of ROSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 8403, headed "Negative option marketing on the Internet" (Pub. L. 111–345, § 4, December 29, 2010), it is unlawful for any person to charge or attempt to charge any consumer for goods or services sold in a transaction effected on the Internet through a negative option feature unless the person:

• "provides text that clearly and conspicuously discloses all material terms of the transaction" before obtaining the consumer's billing information;
• obtains the consumer's express informed consent before charging the consumer's credit card, debit card, bank account or other financial account; and
• provides simple mechanisms for a consumer to stop recurring charges.

The complaint pleads five counts:

• Count I, "Failure to Disclose Material Terms of Offer";
• Count II, "Unfairly Charging Consumers Without Authorization";
• Count III, "Failure to Clearly and Conspicuously Disclose Material Terms", citing Section 4(1) of ROSCA, 15 U.S.C. § 8403(1);
• Count IV, "Failure to Obtain Express Informed Consent", citing 15 U.S.C. § 8403(2); and
• Count V, citing 15 U.S.C. § 8403(3), "Failure to Provide Simple Mechanisms for Cancellation".

The Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian news outlet, reported on June 19, 2026, that Genesis Tech "has not publicly commented on the accusations" & had not answered its request for comment by the time of publication.

Court proceedings

Temporary restraining order

On June 4, 2026, the court entered an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO), finding "good cause to believe" that "the interests of justice require that this Order be granted without prior notice to Defendants".

In the TRO, the court found "good cause to believe" that, in numerous instances, the defendants had violated the FTC Act & ROSCA.

Section I of the TRO stated that the defendants, "in connection with the advertising, marketing, promoting, or offering for sale" of any goods or services,

are temporarily restrained and enjoined from: A. Failing to Clearly and Conspicuously disclose all material terms of a transaction; B. Failing to obtain the consumer’s express informed consent before Charging the consumer’s credit card, debit card, bank account, or other financial account; and C. Failing to provide simple mechanisms to stop recurring Charges from being placed on the consumer’s credit card, debit card, bank account, or other financial account.

At the June 18 hearing, the court extended the TRO "in all respects by 14 days" until July 2, 2026.

Preliminary injunctions

On June 29, 2026, the FTC & 10 defendants, among them Gurudocs Ltd. & Iryna Oleksyn, "stipulated and agreed to the entry of a preliminary injunction" through their counsel, & the court entered that order on June 30, 2026. The parties agreed to the order "to remain in effect until the final resolution of the matter". The stipulated order records the FTC's assertion:

The FTC asserts that there is good cause to believe that Defendants have engaged in and are likely to engage in acts or practices that violate Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, and ROSCA, and that the FTC is therefore likely to prevail on the merits of this action.

The order defines "Clear(ly) and Conspicuous(ly)" to mean that a required disclosure "is easily noticeable (i.e., difficult to miss) and easily understandable by reasonable consumers". Both preliminary injunctions add that in any communication over the Internet, a mobile application or software, "the disclosure must be unavoidable", & that it "must not be contradicted or mitigated by, or inconsistent with, anything else in the communication".

Under an asset freeze in the stipulated order, the stipulating defendants, & others in active concert with them who receive actual notice of the order, are restrained from transferring, selling, spending, concealing or "otherwise disposing of" assets in the categories the section lists.

The court received no written response to the TRO or to the FTC's motion for it from Lopofist Ltd. & the other defendants that had not stipulated, & they did not appear at the June 18 hearing, either in person or through counsel. They "again did not appear" at the preliminary injunction hearing on July 2, 2026. That day, the court entered a preliminary injunction as to the non-stipulating defendants, a group the order defines to include GM UniverseApps Ltd., also doing business as Universe Group, & Lopofist Ltd.

In this preliminary injunction, the court found "good cause to believe" that these defendants "have engaged in and are likely to engage in" acts or practices that violate Section 5(a) of the FTC Act & ROSCA, & that the FTC is therefore "likely to prevail" on the merits.

Section I of this order restrains the non-stipulating defendants from the three practices listed in the TRO.

Defendants' answer

On July 30, 2026, Gurudocs Ltd, Iryna Oleksyn & eight other defendants filed an answer to the complaint. To the extent a response was required, they admitted that the FTC "purports to bring this action" under Section 5(a) of the FTC Act & ROSCA, but denied that they violated the FTC Act or ROSCA or are liable to the FTC.

In the answer's "PDF Products" section, they replied to each of the complaint's paragraphs 78 to 83 & 85 to 93 that they "lack knowledge or information sufficient to admit or deny the allegations" & therefore denied them.

The sixth defense states that "Any monetary award must be reduced" by all amounts previously refunded, credited, reversed, charged back, or otherwise returned or provided to consumers. The tenth says the FTC's claims are barred in whole or part "to the extent that consumers assumed the risks of payments", including where consumers consented to clear subscription terms.

Case status

As of October 15, 2026, the FTC's case page listed the case status as "Pending", & the copy of the docket on the court-records website CourtListener gave September 30, 2026 as the date of the last known filing.

Consumer response

Better Business Bureau complaints

As of October 15, 2026, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), an organization that takes complaints about businesses & rates them, showed Pdfguru.com as "NOT BBB Accredited". BBB gave the business an F rating & listed a failure to respond to 31 complaints filed against it among its reasons for the rating. The same day, BBB's complaints page counted "157 total complaints in the last 3 years" & "120 complaints filed in the last 12 months". The page carries BBB's own caveat: "The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB."

Warning letter from a German consumer group

The Centre for European Consumer Protection (Zentrum für Europäischen Verbraucherschutz e. V., ZEV) is a German consumer association that describes itself as taking "action against unlawful business practices by companies in other EU countries". ZEV wrote that consumers reported to it that they had been "unwittingly signed up to a paid subscription via PDFGuru.com". According to ZEV, its investigation found that "the order button was not clearly labelled", the price information was misleading, & the legally required cancellation button was missing. ZEV called this "a classic subscription trap" & wrote that it issued a warning letter to "PDF Guru (LOPOFIST Limited, Cyprus)".

See also

• Dark pattern
• Click-to-cancel