classmates.com

ladybear says: Ditto, Ditto, DITTO....to all the 1 star reviews listed....if only we could give zero or negitive stars!!!! These guys are scam artists. If you want to look up old classmates...go to myspace or facebook for FREE. The automatic renew is a joke and hard to cancel. They have charged me 4 times for the membership I did NOT want renewed. The last time was 2 days ago for the next year. They will NOT REFUND money. They also mysteriously have no managers you can talk to about your refund...why b/c they don't give them under any circumstance!!! BEWARE! The site is all ads and is completely useless!!!!

Beware of autorenewal in classmates.com. Apparently they must understand the poor value of their site and service because they are very sneaky with their autorenewal process. (I guess they have to be sneaky because I can't imagine many people would actually want to pay for this service again after trying it out.) I notified Classmates.com on the day of the annual autorenewal that I had not intended to sign up for autorenewal. They didn't care and took the money anyway. My recommendation is to be smarter than I was: don't waste your money at all on classmates.com. It is just a gimmick to push cheap ads at you.

I received two solicitation emails from Classmates.com within one week of signing up with them, even though I had opted out of any email subscriptions. When I signed up, I understood from their web site disclaimers that I might receive a "service" announcement from Classmates.com from time to time even though I had chosen not to receive any offers or other solicitation-type emails. That's fine, I understand companies need to reach their members about technical, support and policy issues once in a while. But emails with an invitation to upgrade my registration to their Gold membership or to post pictures on my profile (which I believe can only be done when you are a Gold member) are NOT "service" announcements, which makes their web site disclaimers misleading. They are solicitations aimed at increasing their revenues, and they clearly are using this tactic to get around members who opt-out of receiving email solicitations under the guise of "service." As the e-commerce business analyst for a Fortune 100 company, I find this practice reprehensible and consider it one no respectable web site would use. I would advise anyone using Classmates.com to drop their subscription and would strongly suggest anyone thinking about signing up with them to avoid them at all costs. If I could have given them no stars, I would have.

The interface is poor in terms of adding background/profile information (categories/responses are VERY limited). They stick you on autorenewal WITHOUT telling you when you initially register. My advice, avoid them like the plague and if enough people do it maybe they will just fold-up and go away.

Yep, even when you're a "Gold" (read: "we suckered you into paying") member, Did you know that 75% of the screen realestate of any page on this site is for ads?

Why would anyone pay for this site when there are other sites out there that offer the same thing for free wiithout as many ads. Doesn't make sense to me, iv found tons of classmates on myspace and even friendster and those services are completely free.

I joined Classmates because it advertised "e-mail your classmates". I found no email addresses at all. When I tried to email a classmate, a message window appeared. I had to write my message THERE and WAIT for THEM to deliver it. He never got the message. So I sent a message to MYSELF, in order to test the system. I NEVER got it. When I COMPLAINED to Classmates, they just asked me if I wanted to cancel my membership with NO REFUND. So Good Luck. It's your money. Guillermo.

Yes, I was naive enough to pay for a gold membership. I was not intending to renew with Classmates, but they renewed my membership AUTOMATICALLY, without! my approval using my credit card information that I had entered for the initial membership. You must beware and change your user options if you are dissatisfied (as I was) with this site. Remove your creditcard information, and change your renewal setting to "manual." Unfortunately, now, I am stuck with a membership till 2006, and a charge on my credit card. BTW, I never signed up for the AUTO renewal option in the first place...

Classmates should really do some better marketing, because you can find lots of people - not just folks you went to high school with. As a matter of fact, none of the people I've found on classmates.com were in my graduating class in high school. One was a classmate at the same elementary school, but I found long lost friends that went to school in different states all across the nation with this site. My less than perfect rating is for a couple of reasons: 1.) The search should be right there on the first page - you shouldn't have to click on search when you get there. 2.) Paying for a Gold membership does not kill the ads - and they are ANNOYING. Pop-up ads, flash ads, all kinds of ads, everywhere. Being a gold member should count for something. The only reason why I became a gold member (makes you think of Austin Powers, doesn't it) is so I could use their system to e-mail long lost friends, since they don't publish e-mail addresses. They offer all sorts of benefits - discounts on goods and services, but nothing I'm interested in. They are always adding a new feature here and there, but the site needs a serious usability makeover and a policy banning blinking ads, especially for people who buy an annual membership. The cool thing is that signing up is free, so you can post your info, including your own Web address and people can contact you from your Web address without having to buy a membership - not a loophole that they advertise, but it's there.