Classmates.com sucks
These bastards suck. If you sign up, your email box will get flooded with messages -- not from long-lost friends, but from the service itself trying to get more money out of you.
And then, just when you think you're finally done with the sons of bitches, they send you one of these, with no advance warning at all, stealing another US$59 out of your pocket:
Thank you for your renewal! As you requested, your Classmates Gold membership was automatically renewed on January 24, 2007. The credit card on file for your account was billed US$59 for another 2 years of membership without interruption of your Gold member status.I signed up because I was organizing a reunion two years ago, but being involved with Classmates.com was of negligible help.
My recommendation is to stay away from this service. And, hey, to any entrepreneur out there, you want to find the next big business niche for a social-networking site? Make a replacement for Classmates.com that's fun, free to end users, and easy to use. Classmates is awkward, rapacious, and won't even let you post or access email addresses -- everything must go through them. Bastards.
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Posted by Rob on Wednesday, January 24, 2007
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19 comments
19 Comments:
Have you asked them for your money back for the automatic renewal? I'm interested to find out how much success you've had.
I haven't yet; I'm just too swamped getting ready for tomorrow's trip.
And, actually, I'll be doubly angry if the renewal actually went through. My credit card expiration date changed since I first signed up for Classmates.com two years ago, and they shouldn't be able to process any charge to my account with the wrong expiration date. But it'll be three days before my credit-card company posts today's transactions to my online account listing.
I hate, hate, hate auto-renewals; I think defaulting to them should be illegal.
I've had good experiences with Linked In as a social networking site. It's free to use, shows you your contacts' email addresses, and doesn't spam with a lot of unnecessary messages. I like the user interface too.
I got fed up with all the spam from classmates too. Most of my old class contacts have migrated over to gradfinder.com - it's free and has some okay basic features.
Point of interest: A company can charge an expired card in cases like this, where your membership renews automatically. Basically, a charge that's set to renew is authorized under the first charge, so that your credit card company's computers read it as "No new charges on this card, but this one's OK because we've seen it before."
I used to work for the credit card disputes section of a bank, and a lot of our calls were from people who didn't want to go through the trouble of calling AOL to cancel their accounts and would just either cancel their cards, report them lost or stolen, or wait for them to expire. None of these methods works, though.
It seems shady, but the justification is twofold: (1) If your card expires or is lost or stolen, do you want your AOL service/hosting plan/etc. to be canceled the next time the charge comes around? And (2) under the terms and conditions of companies like Classmates, they give their cancellation policy and explain that membership will renew and that you have to contact them to cancel.
It is annoying, especially when a company's customer service is hard to reach or, as in the case of AOL, you just want to call and cancel and they keep badgering you to stay with them for three free months or whatever, but it's on the up-and-up.
You can still dispute the charge with your credit card company and see what happens. Keep in mind that if you do dispute it, a requirement is that first you make a good-faith effort to resolve the situation with Classmates on your own. It doesn't sound like they're gonna just process a credit, but you gotta try!
(Note: The above applies to Visa/MasterCard and probably Discover. American Express offers more, from what I hear, in the way of customer protection and service, although I suspect the renewing-charges part works the same with them.)
Call your credit card company and refuse the charges.
Roibert,
they got me too. half of the emails listed of my clasmates came back unreturnable.
Rob - I've also found classmates a royal pain - but more frustrating is that there's a site out there called www.graduates.com that is 100% free, allows you to post all kinds of contact info for schools, companies you've worked for, etc.
But the only thing is that unlike classmates, it's much harder to find. I guess the catch 20 on this is that since they don't rip people off they likely haven't invested in advertising the major way that classmates has, because every where you turn you see classmates ads.
Sigh.
Yup, Yup, and Yup!! I sent a MONEY ORDER in for the 3 month deal..$39.00 Still a complete rip off.I asked when I signed up if being a GOLD member ment that I could send mails to non paying members. Of coarse,sure they said,The hook they told me over the phone(after no one answered any of my mails) is, yes non paying members can answer mails. ONE TIME for free!!!! Most people use that up the first time they sign up just for fun. Thank God I didn't let them get my card number!!!! That place should be busted. Big Time...
The other major problem with Classmates.com is that they take messages (e.g., to your "guestbook" or personal messages) and then hold them hostage until you pay the ransom to read them.
On top of that, after you DO pay the money you have to put up with ads.
I wish I had read this one month ago. I too was surprised by a charge for $59 for some unreadable code but it did have the "classmates" name and a telephone number that tells you that you are SOL (sorta out of luck) (or something that means the same thing.) I went to my account settings and changed it so that I won't be automatically renewed next time. I sent a message to them and got an automated response back that said I could ask for more informatin by replying to their message. Uh huh... I replied but their email manager thought that there was some script code and blocked it. The message says they will review it and if my message is safe then they will forward it to classmates. Classmates was free when I started using it then it went to $8/year and now it's $29.50/year? Not worth it in my opinion. No wonder there are no more appends to the message board, etc.
Jim
You must remove your credit card info from Clasmates. If you only set the renewal for "manual" it will still change it to "auto".
I found this out the hard way. It took them charging me 2 separate times before I realized I had indeed set it to "manual".
Thanks. I couldn't even find my class photo, anyway. And there was no way in HELL I was going to pay for some crappy website that will steal money from me!
:)
If you guys are tired of classmates why not join an alternative that's free (not to mention better)? Check out www.hostmyreunion.com. The site is a brand spankin new free alternative to that horrible site.
I think classmates should be free or a lot cheaper than $39 a year. They get tons of money from advertisements.
Ray
Owner
http://www.BusinessReporter.net
I agree, they do really suck. I should have known by how their sign up forms are set up. They gather information from you and then make it difficult to remove your info. Total scam.
I was wondering if anyone is able to get to that screen where we have all, regrettably, paid for the stupid gold membership? I was looking for a screenshot maybe.. so I could see for myself the fine print that I missed about the auto renewal. Man what a pain. I changed my renewal to "manual" right away (AFTER seeing the new $15 charge to my account) and then deleted my credit card info... sheesh...
ctually, that's what I had to do; CANCEL my Visa Card & get a new one. I'm thinking it'll be smart to continue to change them periodically ...
You folks have mentioned several alternative sites that are free. That's all well and good but each and every one of these "free" sites eventually begins to charge a fee once they become successful.I've joined several and they all follow the same pattern as Classmates.com. Classmates is just one turd in a bowlfull.
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