Classmates.com = A Deceptive & Misleading Website? - Brokerblogger

Click to enlarge photo, and see the transparency of the clear water of Rainbow Springs in Florida.  Transparency in marketing seems to be a buzz word right now.  With the advent of the Internet, more people want upfront disclosure of nothing but the whole truth.  This Thesaurus.com definition of "transparency" uses words like "clarity", "comprehensibility", "conspicuousness",
"directness", "openness","perceptibility", and "unmistakeability".

Before I left for my vacation in Florida two weeks ago, I did a post on "Sometimes Deceptive-Misleading Websites Say "FREE".  This topic is discussed in the "FTC GUIDE CONCERNING USE OF THE WORD `FREE'".  Classmates.com uses this word on their home page by saying "It's Free!", and then says at the bottom of the next paragraph below: "Reconnect with the past and build friendships for the future."  Let's see what someone who has tried their service says about this.

[Here Are Recent Classmates.com, Reunion.com, MemoryLane.com, and MyLife.com problems, complaints, and reviews:

3/15/10 UPDATE:  "Classmates Sued Over Content-Sharing Arrangement"

2/21/11 UPDATE:  "Suit Says MyLife.com is Classmates by a Different Name"

3/6/11 UPDATE:  "1995-2011 Memory Lane, Inc., d/b/a Classmates.com"  It appears that Classmates.com is now part of "Memory Lane".  Here is a link to a  Memory Lane web page to possibly cancel your membership in Classmates.com since that is what the link address denotes:  http://www.classmates.com/search/help/article?articleId=4384&keywords=delete+account

3/10/11 UPDATE:  "The suit does allege that Classmates.com was run by Tinsley and subsequently renamed as MyLife.com -- which was in fact formerly known as Reunion.com. Classmates.com has since been rebranded as Memory Lane."  See 3/2/11 "MyLife.com Accused of Running 'Spam-and-Scam' Scheme"]

3/16/11 UPDATE:  On 10/9/10 - "The Classmates.com class action settlement rip-off" and on 1/13/11 - "Victory: court rejects Classmates.com settlement"

Rather than the Rainbow Springs, Fl. clarity of this underwater (60 feet distance) photo, Sherry of San Ramon, CA. (4/1/06) told on ConsumerAffairs.com of the lack of clarity on Classmates.com:  "I am not a paid member of Classmates.com, but have logged on and was given the option to email to a friend.  After writing the email & pushing "send", I was told it would not be sent unless I paid or the person I was emailing would have to pay."  I think Sherry would say that she was mislead into thinking that their service was entirely "free", because she then said: "There was a "cancel" option in the bottom left corner, that I used."  

Sherry also complained:  "There seems no way to communicate directly with them."  I don't know how big their customer service department is, but they sure have a BIG DATACENTER!  They need it since on 12/9/02 this USA TODAY article entitled "Web makes it easy to find old friends, colleagues" says "In September, the most recent month available, Classmates had 16 million unique visitors. That's huge!"  I don't know what the numbers are today, but Alexa's Traffic Rank is #525 (913th on 1/12/07) which is very high up.  They also ranked 3rd in ClickZ's Internet "Top 50 Advertisers by Media Value in April, 2006" by investing $10,915,000 in Internet advertising.

That same USA TODAY article says "One caveat: I have received complaints from people who wanted to be deleted from the service but could not find a way to do so. According to Classmates' privacy section, you can delete your registration at http://www.classmates.com/user/remove/. Classmates says you can get further help at Member Care."  It looks like Classmates.com might have removed that page to "delete your registration"?  I could, also, not find out if that page moved somewhere else?  Amazon has a 10/7/05 "Customer Review" that warns "BEWARE OF AUTOMATIC RENEWAL FEATURE".

1/12/07 UPDATE - I blogged on "Automatic Renewals" with a link to another complaint about Classmates.com in "Auto-Renewal" Complaints May Lead To FTC Rules".

I, myself, had an "almost bad" experience about 5 years ago with Classmates.com, but I never gave them my credit card (I would have used a Virtual Credit Card Number anyway), as there were too many "clues" that something was wrong ("free" not totally true, and they got my e-mail address under false pretenses, in my opinion). However, there are many different kinds of complaints to be found about Classmates.com by just doing a Google search for Classmates.com complaints.  Two specific sites are "classmates.com Boycott Called Over Business Practices " and "RipOffReport.com".

There are many websites that say their service is free, or "free to join (or register)" (like Classmates.com), but many times this is just a way of misleading you to give personally identifiable information like your name, year of birth, last name at graduation - which discloses any maiden names or changed names, and e-mail address. The really good (what many or most people want) parts of these services are NOT FREE. But, you don't know this until you register first.  What's interesting is that on 5/24/06, there used to be a "tour" on the home page of Classmates.com that takes you to an audio presentation of some of "what's inside" the site, and ends by saying "What have you got to loose?".  It is not there today?

While there are privacy policies with many of these sites, most people don't take the time to read them carefully. If they did, they would find that there are ways for these misleading sites to give your personal information to "third parties", which increases your risk no matter what precautions are taken. They can also sell their company, and not be responsible for what happens to your info after the sale.  It's also posssible for a company to loose your personally identifiable information somehow. It just happened with "Thief Steals 26.5 Million Veterans' Identities "

My opinion is to stay away from this site and try to find old friends by just using Yahoo! People Search.  That was suggested in Ask Yahoo, or just check with your former school's website (like UVic, Victoria College, and Provincial Normal School (Victoria), or University of North Texas)  You can, also, Google the classmate's name by using "Google Search Tricks, Tips and Hints".  In any case, before you give away any personal or financial information about yourself, STOP, THINK, RESEARCH (a little, at least), and then CLICK.

 

Comments

[OGHG]

I have had many problems with Classmates.com. Most recently I was charged $15.00 after I declined the autorenewal and it cost me an extra $25.00 for the overlimit fee from my bank. I did some research and found the phone number. I would like to share it with everyone :)

Please see info below:

Corporate Address:
2001 Lind Ave SW Ste 500
Renton, WA 98055
Phone: (425) 917-5000
Fax: (425) 917-5001
Website URL: www.classmates.com
Year Founded: 1995
Number of Employees: 175
Business Description: Online Directory of High School, Workplace & Military Alumni