I’ve had a free profile* at Classmates.com for several years now, but never felt the need to upgrade to be able to read other people’s profiles. I was unpopular in school and didn’t have any friends, and the whole thing was one big nightmare, so who would I want to look at? Well, I get an email the other day telling me that I have a Comment on my profile. Huh? After all these years? Who the hell would be leaving a Comment on my profile? But not only can I not read it, I can’t even see who it’s from unless I upgrade (minimun 3 months subscription). Fuck you Classmates! If I knew who it was from, maybe I might want to upgrade just to read it. There actually were some people in the school I liked, even if they didn’t like me or even know who I was. But what if I upgrade and it’s spam? I can report the spam, but will I get my money back? Fuck no.
They’re counting on me being so intrigued and curious that I just have to give them money to see who actually remembers me.
Assholes.
*I know, why even have a profile? If anyone was interested, to let them know I was still alive, I guess.
You will get your money back, as you get a “trial” period of about a week before they charge your credit card. All you have to do is then cancel before the trial period is up (at least that was how it was up until last month; perhaps it has changed since then).
THANK YOU - you just saved me some money. I, too, have an high school history similar to Equipoise, and when I saw the email notifying me that there was a comment left, I came close to reaching for my credit card. However, upon discovering it was in the other room, combined with the fact that I’m lazier than an orgy of sloths, I quickly gave up on the idea. But I have to admit, there was a part of me that wondered if it was that girl who was always nice to me, the one who liked my nail polish. Or maybe it was the guy I walked arm in arm with for graduation. He recently got married and we’ve always been fond of each other, and I had wanted to wish him well. Or… or, maybe it was my ex, a bitter, nasty monster, rising from the dregs to call me, after six years, a filthy whore.
I love classmates.com. How else would I find out that people who graduated from my high school over a decade after me had signed up there? It’s obvious that I give a shit.
I got one, and I don’t exactly remember how, but I managed to respond in such a way that I sneaked my email address into the subject line, or maybe as my name. I forget. Anyway, it worked, and the person who was looking for me emailed me directly. Maybe you can’t do that anymore because of scofflaws like me . . .
How hard is it to find somebody without sites like this?
I’m not even sure why we’re getting e-mail from them – maybe I signed up back when I first got on-line and signed up for everything. Damn, those were fun days. I had Weatherbug and that Bonzi-Buddy thing that bounced around the screen, and all the e-mail emoticons. It’s lucky that first PC lasted as long as it did.
But really, if someone wants to find you, how hard is it? My daughter’s heard from several friends who found her via Google. My husband heard (briefly) from an ex-girlfriend in California, from when he was in the Navy in 1963.
I was trying to register for a free membership to see who has made it there in the last bunch of years, and it seems to be stuck on demanding a profile from me. I tried to upload a picture (of “Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate!” - it seemed fitting, somehow), and now the danged thing’s stuck. Oh well. If I really wanted to get in touch with anybody from 22 years ago, I probably would have by now.
A worthy pitting, but a might light. Classmates.com sucks mightily. They sucker you into signing up for free and then you get bombarded by this dishonest, manipulative emails. And then they give you a trial if you pay, but with a negative option. No, no thanks. They are mired in the past. If they were smart thay would give people 3 months or a year for free (sans negative option), get people actually using the site, let them get addicted and then charge. Whatever I get from them now, straight to the spam folder.
And thank you AuntiePam, that’s what I thought. Now I know.
I have no idea. Most, if not all, of the “links” on my page are either “dead” or ask me to “create”, meaning no one from my old high school was “suckered-in” yet. There are no pop-ups that my browser detects, and the ads are obvious enough to ignore (ie, don’t click on them). Maybe enough people are enticed to subscribe and forget to cancel after the trail period is over?
I had a one year gold membership and it is nice to read the full profiles of those that paid. But what I hated was that you can’t post your email address so that if someone wanted to write directly they could do so. I tried and it automatically erases the address with asterisks. So I didn’t renew but I check in now and then.
Not hard at all. I keep getting invites to sites like WAYN from people–well, mostly one person–I knew in high school If you have my e-mail (which you obviously do) and you want to get in touch with me (which you seem to) then just SEND ME A DAMN E-MAIL ALREADY.
Now, if I got one from someone who I actually cared about talking to again maybe I’d join.
I have had both positive and negative experiences with Classmates.com. I did have a gold membership for awhile and was able to get in touch wih friends that would otherwise have been difficult to track down (one is living abroad).
However, I am very strict with respect to anything that “auto-renews” and always hunt for any such feature, since some places auto-renew as the default setting. Originally Classmates had no auto-renew, I was careful to search that out. Months after my membership expired (possibly even a year or more later) I received an email “confirming my renewal”. There was suddenly a new charge on my credit card, re-newing me for three more months.
I then logged in and found an “auto-rewal” feature. That hadn’t been there before. I changed my settings to “NO auto-renewal”, deleted my credit card data (on a page that looked rather new to me as well), and for good measure I occasionally go back to make sure it still says “no credit card on file” and I have instructed my credit card company to deny any future charges from Classmates.
I was not charged during those months after my membership expired.
Hey, classmates.com helped me get back in touch with the HS girlfriend that I’d broken up with after she threatened me with a butcher knife! You can’t put a price on rekindling memories like that!
Thanks for all the responses, and thank you Auntie Pam for confirming my paranoia.
Oh god, I got an email from an online acquaintance inviting me to join up and I thought, what the hell, might as well. I went there and did some signing up, then it brought up a screen that asked me for my Yahoo password (because I had used my Yahoo e-mail address to join). At first I thought it meant the passwrod I’d just put in. I never use the same password for a signup. I got an error message and the screen asking me for my password again. It had my Yahoo e-mail address in one box and right under it an empty box to type in the password. Again I put in the password I’d just given them. Nope, it brought up the screen with the two boxes again. Then it suddenly dawned on me in horror that they were wanting my personal e-mail address! To double-check I opened up a new browser window and went to WAYN, and typed in my brand new user name and password, and was logged into the site! So somehow, a bogus page was generated that was collecting e-mail passwords. GOD DAMN! I know enough never to give my e-mail password, but I wonder how many people were fooled and gave it. I closed all the WAYN windows, real and fake, then ran every sort of anti-spyware software I have. I will never ever ever go back there.
It turns out that the acquaintance hadn’t been to his account at WAYNs for months, and wasn’t the one who sent me the “invite.”
I just got another “Somebody visited your profile!” email from Classmates this morning; is this the same thing as the “Comments” y’all are talking about? I’ve gotten five over the past month or so, none of which were names I recognized. It thought it could be simply people running across my name and looking at my profile to see if they knew me, but I’ve been highly suspicious that it’s Classmates trying to get me to fork over some money for a paid membership, and even more so now.
If you have my e-mail (which you obviously do) and you want to get in touch with me (which you seem to) then just SEND ME A DAMN E-MAIL ALREADY.