I wish I read the below reviews before I signed up, not only do I very much regret it but had my money effectively stolen. Im so angry that if they don't respond to my emails I will go as far as possible to report them wherever I can, this is how furious I am right now

Meetup customer service is very poor and that is being nice. They overcharged me, marked the invoice with a 'credit' when I asked for a full refund' ( with not even partial credit received). Even if I did receive the credit I still should not be paying anything more than originally charged, which meetup made look like this was the case by marking the invoice with 'credit' when they charged me a full amount. They didn't address my queries, made me write to them multiple times by completely ignoring me and closed queries without addressing them or even a courtesy of a response.

EDIT as of 8th April - after multiple emails they refunded me for the PRO subscription but also CANCELLED STANDARD ONE AFTER 1.5 MONTH DESPITE CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS, SO THEY EFFECTIVELY STOLE MY MONEY FOR THE REMAINING 4.5 MONTHS. AND NOW, 2 MORE EMAILS LATER THEY ARE OF COURSE STILL SILENT. AN ABSOLUTE SCAM ORGANISATION. NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I BEEN TREATED SO BADLY AS A PAYING CUSTOMER. I HOPE PEOPLE READ THIS REVIEW AND DO NOT SUBSCRIBE!

Ps.on top of that they cancelled the subscription 1 week earlier than when they said they even would, as if this company is emplying sociopaths to be as mean and difficult as possible and ignoring you multiple times on purpose, as if they are entertained by it. I can't tell you how p***ed I am at the moment.
I also asked them twice to remove my card details from my account (as there is no option to do it yourself) which they, of course, to date ignored

Meetup.com has become a complete joke. I used to attend and organize events all the way from the early 2000's up until around 2013 or 2014. At that point it was still somewhat decent, in terms of actually being able to connect with people and make friends. By 2020 meetup.com became a totally abysmal company, and had lost all of it's authenticity in being a way for people to genuinely connect with one another.

By the mid 2010's, meetup had already changed massively from what it originally was. In the early days of meetup.com, one could type in many different things into the search function, and often come up with real opportunities to simply hang out with like minded individuals. If you liked Elvis, you could go to meetups with fellow Elvis enthusiasts. If you loved a certain breed of dog, you might be able to hang out with fellow lovers of that breed.

By the early 2010's, meetup had changed radically into something that was much, much more oriented to PAID EVENTS, mostly in the form of classes and teaching. There's nothing wrong with paying for an event, but there's a huge difference between paying a nominal fee to participate in a group meditation, and paying absurd fees for meditation "classes". I used to actually run a meditation meetup in the old days, where we would have 30 or more people show up for group meditations at a place called the Metaphysical Research Society. People could come in and donate a small amount or not, and join with many others in very powerful group meditations.

Now, if you're interested in meditating with others, for the most part you will not find that on meetup. What you will find are all manner of meditation classes and "meditations" that cost $20 or more so someone who has read a few webpages on meditation can "teach" you to meditate. The same is true of shamanism. Type that word into meetup today, and you will find many "teachers" hosting "shamanism" meetups which are nothing more than some idiotic and very rudimentary "shamanic journey" which consists of a very basic guided visualization or meditation.

The point is that terms like meditation and shamanism, or in fact just about any facet of spirituality, are thrown around loosely all day long on meetup as if they represented groups that are there for genuine enthusiasts of such things to join in and participate in. This is overwhelmingly not the case. They are mostly there for profit, not for bringing like minded people together.

Further, the people who run meetup these days are truly abominable in terms of any actual customer service or any real commitment to be of genuine service to the community. They, like most of the people hosting meetups these days, are there to further their own agendas, and very little else. Also, they do not accept genuine, sincere, constructive criticism. At all.

Last year I sent them a letter. A very, very heartfelt letter, spelling out in painstaking and honest detail how my experience of meetup had deteriorated since the early 2000's. I explained every aspect of how it had changed, passionately and from the heart. Guess what their response was: NOTHING. They didn't even bother to respond AT ALL to a letter which took me the better part of an hour to write.

And to make matters worse, this morning during meditation I thought maybe, just maybe, I would try meetup again, on the off chance that just possibly they could have found their hearts and high consciousness again. NOT SO! Just an hour ago, I tried to sign up with meetup once more. I attempted to sign up using two different email addresses. In each case, I received a message saying "sorry, you are blocked from registering. Your email address has been blocked". Well, in both cases these were email addresses I had NEVER used to sign up with meetup. Therefore, they literally must have programmed their software to block my IP address from registering, presumably because I had the GALL to share the honest truth with them about what meetup has become. I used no profanity or anything that should have gotten me blocked. Yet I am now blocked from meetup and couldn't join again if I wanted to!

There is a LOT more I could say about the travesty that this "social meeting" tool has become. But I doubt anyone would keep reading long enough to hear the rest of the details. Just be it known that I am very, very sincere in everything I am saying here, and I in no way wanted this to happen to meetup. On the contrary, I am phenomenally sad that this has happened, and that the world has lost what was once a genuinely useful, helpful, and legitimate way to meet people and make friends.

It's time for us to create something new, something better. Meetup isn't a shadow of it's former self, it is the complete opposite of what it once was. And the obstinate fools who run it seem to be proud of this FACT.

I been to over 700 meetups, and how many friends have I made? Zero. At least none that lasted, as our value systems are very different, and our habits are too. I am not into drinking at least not all night long. Nor can eat restaurant food as it does me havoc to eat after 6 p.m. I had met a group of women who would go drinking and one night they went to a "cougar bar" and I almost vomitted at the way they were throwing themselves at guys that could be their sons. I do not find men who drink a lot appealing, but I can see why the boys would want to be sloshed if they were taking home their Mommy. It is hard to meet friends at any age, but it gets worse later on. As well as our idea of right and wrong in the context of dating people. If you are younger, you might meet someone but be careful, as I have heard from a young girl in her 20s that met a man from another country who thought she was "asking for it" when all she wanted was a gentleman, who liked weekend trips and I guess he was stuck in the 1950s and thought it meant she was going to spread eagle for him. I find that if you're not the right age demographic or have the right socio-economic means to get out to all the events (so you tend to pick and choose) then you can't be considered "one of the crowd" and get thought of as being "cheap" or "that you don't like them". So you get one chance to impress people and if you're not as gregarious and hoppy-like a little robin bird is, you'll not be considered a "group player" and don't get invites to go places outside of meetup. It's hard to convince people you actually have value as a human being after one outing. In fact it's a tad high-school-ish as even at our age (over 50) that the women are clique-oriented, and I find that hard for me, as I disdain "group think". I thought I was "spiritual" but the leader of a very popular meetup got miffed at me for telling him I am not into The Power of Now and boy that guy got pissed off. Nor am I into this movie group that another guy organizes that lords over you in the movie lineup when you're buy a ticket and after the movie tells everyone bye...and that's it. No socializing or movie critiquing afterwards? I guess I am going to blame myself, mea culpa, mea, culpa. I'm not "trendy". I tried a Beer Group because one time I got invited to it from another meetup group. Only to see a bunch of people smiling but not smiling and all they wanted to do was drink lots of beer and eat friend foods. All the meetups that seem fun and that I haven't been to, are very far away. As a city person, I decided to forgo owning a car 5 years ago. Big Mistake. I now spend weekends at home. That too is the crux of the problem with getting out among a more possibly healthily-oriented crowd. Sometimes drivers will refuse to take you because they say that they've had it with people who don't contribute enough money to gas or act like they shouldn't have to pay or they claim the person is too chatty or he or she doesn't get along with the passenger at all. Maybe we need a list of do's and don't for talking to a driver? Why upset the poor driver eh? Maybe we need more social skills? Or maybe we need to do as the Romans when in Rome more, after all, we are here because it is a great place to live. Why bring your old school social rules here? Learn to be more respectful of women, and not judge them by the paleness of their skin or V-neck Tshirt that's a tad too low... as this is not a signal that we are more "easy" access to sex. We are not all alike you know? Also, there was a Canadian born and raised coordinator to a hiking group, an old guy, and I over heard him talk about a woman who claimed that after she fell he quickly ran over to pick her up (before anyone else could) and he pretty much copped a feel as he lifted her up. He claimed she was Bipolar and that she had accused him of purposefully coping a feel. I remembered the conversation because I had just joined the group and it stood out in my mind and yet about 3 years later, I fell and he did the same thing. I wrote him a very long polite note acting like I was stupid, and not letting him know I was there that day that he had bragged about having to deal with a bipolar woman...and I told him instead that when he lifts up a woman who falls that he not to do so by holding on to her chest as some women have had their breasts removed and it would be inappropriate for him to put his hand on her scar. I am totally thinking that Meetup is for Socially Depraved people who lure in Socially inept people and often, neither of us is happy about it. That coordinator is still in Meetup and sadly, no one has reported him to the cops. I think my note to him though, may have given him a different take in how to pick up a person who falls on a hiking trip. I am so tired of not finding any groups that I feel like people do not have an agenda or want any connections outside of that group activity at all.

I can't even begin to describe the hell that has been working with this company. At this point I am convinced that they have meetings to figure out how to be the most inconvenient money pit they can be. I signed up with this site in spring 2021 because they had a 50% off deal. I had wanted to start a women's group for my business and so I decided to just go for it while they had this sale. Worst decision I've ever made. To start I have a black women group that meets to socialize. Within a week we received racist neo-nazi threats of harm. When I brought this up to meetup I was either: ignored, dragged through multiple customer service representatives, or told to call the police. No representative cared (if anyone responded at all). I wanted to know at the very least that the lender would be banned or investigated. Nope. So they are out there potentially hurting other members. The matter was never handled. Then there is the matter of charging dues from group members. This company uses a third-party to actually collect dues (Stripe) while collecting event fees from PayPal. The whole system is just a cluster. The third-party for collecting dues, is a mess in and of itself. I signed up to collect dues six weeks ago and have yet to see any of that money. I have an event in two days that is expensive that I was counting on having this money. I'm not going to have to pay out of pocket. Stripe is very friendly but they have yet to resolve my issue. My account is just never ending in pending review. Meetup of course knows nothing about this and just refers you to Stripe. So basically you have to pinball between businesses where no one knows what the hell is going on. And yet, they both have got their high AF cut of the money. By the time you pay Stripe, Paypal, and Meetup a nice chunk is gone. The way the handle the transition to dues is pure trash as well. I built up my group to 189 members in a few month which was a huge feat. When I decided to start collecting dues the way they handle this is to kick everyone out of the group. Some members got an email letting them know of the change a week before, but most members did not receive the email and everyone was unceremoniously kicked up out of the group. From a marketing and business standpoint this is ridiculous. It would be helpful if members were prompted, and given the option to stay and pay, or leave the group. Most members don't even know they're not in the group anymore. So, I am having to message each and every single one because there is no option to email all of them. While messaging each and every one meet up tells me every fifth or six members that I'm typing too fast because I'm cutting and pasting to try and write these 180+ members individually. I know this is for spam, but I'm so frustrated at this point I wish I could leave and probably will. The frustrating thing is establishing a group again. Not looking forward to the work of moving and losing members. If you're on the fence, DON'T DO IT.

I had a very terrible experience with Kevin the host of a meetup group called NBH- Natural Born Hikers. I have reported this to meetup several times but despite all my follow ups, they are just ignoring my messages.

As unreasonable as it may sound, the meetup point of a walk was inside Stratford underground station itself. I travelled there all the way from Edgware road and arrived early, so I left the station. I didn't even realize that the meetup point was inside the station itself until 15 minutes before the meeting time. The meeting point was very illogical because some people might have travelled by bus or people might have arrived early and just left the station like me, and meeting inside the station meant that I needed to tap in again and pay another fee. I stood inside Stratford bus station outside the underground and started texting the organizer in the group for over 20 minutes explaining the situation and asking him where I can join the group when they exit the station, but he didn't bother to respond to any of my texts. Then when I called him and explained where I was, he kept asking if I see any flowers and a ship which I didn't. Stratford is a very large station and the organizer didn't know where he was nor did he have a clue where I was. He just didn't know the place and didn't bother to try and help me out, so he just said I am sorry you need to walk to the stadium yourself! This really annoyed me. I am not local. Didn't know the place and had been waiting there hoping that he would reply to my texts. This had happened because of his mismanagement, but to my surprise, as soon as I started to criticise him for this mismanagement, all of a sudden, he hung up on me! Instead of helping me out, he hangs up on me and diverts my calls to his voice mail. I was abandoned in the bus stop with tears in my eyes. The organizer was very rude and irresponsible. Instead of taking responsibility for arranging a meeting point inside the underground station, instead of apologizing and helping me out to find my way to join the group, he hangs up on me! When I reported this in the group, he accused me of shouting at him which first of all was not true. He hung up on me only when I started to criticise him for the terrible organizing point and for him not answering my texts in the group. Even if I had shouted at him, which I didn't, he was responsible for what had happened and ought to have guided me to join the group which were in the same location where I was. Before hanging up, the only response I heard from him was that other people have found the meeting point!

I reported this very rude and irresponsible organiser to meetup and sent follow ups several times, but meetup has not replied to any of my messages. This was not my first meetup walk. I am doing these walks regularly and I have never seen such unacceptable behaviour by an organizer, and I have never been offended like this.

And he actually called me a liar when I said I had arrived early and left the station when he said "I was here all the time." I had travelled a long way and I have proof for everything. I have my Osyter card which shows the time of my traveling, I have screenshots of all my messages asking him to let me know where I can meet them outside the underground station, and I have history of dialled numbers which show how he offended me and hung up on me, and how he abandoned me in the bus station instead of helping me join the group after having waited so long outside the station.

I was a group organizer for a Meetup group and I had an overall negative and exceedingly frustrating experience with Meetup for multiple reasons. They are highly over-priced and the use of their platform is not at all worth it; it is not designed well and can only do very basic things, like post a one-sentence, character-limited comment to a thread, or make an event post. Their customer service is horrid and they lack any form of organization whatsoever: I would receive emails from 4 different people about the exact same issue within two day's time, it was clear that none of them are communicating internally and that it is automated. Finding a way to get a hold of a real human being instead of an auto-response was a nightmare and near impossible. Once I did manage to get a hold of a person, I would receive another 4 emails from 4 different people, responding to my response to the auto-response, and it was clear none of them knew what I had even asked about in the first place, and each of them gave me a different answer with conflicting information. A day would go by and I would receive yet another un-helpful response from a separate person and the conversation would start all over again. If for some reason your organizer subscription payment does not go through, they authorize transactions several times over the course of a few days, charging your card again and again. After deciding to stop paying for this horrible service (lack of service, rather), I tried to delete the group that I had created (and spent much time developing, writing original creative content for, etc.), both the website and the employees via email informed me that I would need to select another member to organize my group and "step down as organizer". As in, I had to designate someone else to keep my Meetup group active, instead of deleting it, or they would automatically select a random person from the group member list for me, even though nearly everyone that joined the Meetup group had never once made a single comment, participated in any way, helped formulate the group, attended a single event, or contributed whatsoever to anything I had built and spent so much time on. Their first response to someone wanting to leave their website is to hand all of your work over to someone else who has not once demonstrated any interest or ability in running a group. Meetup allows you to put in time and effort to build a group, and does not inform you ahead of time that you do not actually have any control over your group or content, and that they will give it to someone else at random to try to convince someone else to pay your organizer fees of nearly $30.00 a month. They are only interested in your money, not in protecting your creativity or facilitating meetup events and interactions with other humans. When I tried to delete my original content, the textbox required a certain minimum of characters and so I had to fill it with nonsense in order to escape. In summary: Meetup is disorganized, over-priced, confused about how to respond to a simple email request, and they steal your hard work and give it away in order to continue getting paid. Not only would I never recommend to anyone that they join Meetup, but I would go far out of my way to actively discourage anyone from using it and advocate against it. Find another website. Build your own. Connect with people at a coffee shop hosting a music event or something. Do not give up on connecting with new and interesting people and making a group with a shared interest or passion that you care about. But do not use Meetup. It is a frustrating, soul-crushing waste of your time if you want to organize a meaningful, creative group and facilitate positive interactions with new people in your community. Their platform is not required for you to make something wonderful happen, and instead it nearly always hinders any creative or social progress. I am personally an optimist and someone who has never written an internet review for any reason for any company, positive, neutral, or negative, and I have gone out of my way to create this account specifically to post this one Meetup review because I feel so strongly about how poorly the Meetup company and website is run.

It is an unfortunate time in history.
Or perhaps it has always been it just wasn't tweeted about.

When it is not uncommon to be scammed, exploited or in some cases lured to your death or perhaps raped. Sad but true. I have now had the displeasure of being solicited through my partners own meetup. A (will not say gentleman) has used a clever ploy to insinuate himself into meetups by playing the ' little lost and wounded animal ' that no one loves or understands. This ploy is used to achieve what he really is about. Luring unsuspecting people to 'adult photo shoots in the woods for
Modeling purposes'. He plays a game of being ostracized by people who misunderstand him, and refers to himself as a 'computer geek' thinking self deprecation will put people into some kind 'awe what a nice guy' mode of thinking. He gives a link literally in the first exchange to an art site called Deviant art. On this site you will see anything from him urinating while covered in mud to women in bondage in what I have come to realize is his fetish, in isolated forested areas. Do I care? NO not really. But, as accepting as I am this is using a feigned facade to do darker things on a public site that was initiated as a liberal place to effect positive change. This man in subsequent conversations brags that he makes thousands of dollars a month selling photos. This man is on the wrong side of town. On meetup's site there is plenty of room to stretch out on a nice comfortable rack or placed in an iron maiden or hanging bound and blindfolded upside down from a tree or... And that place is clearly marked 'Adult.' Predators come in many forms and there are far too many. He also said that he is a member of various fetish sites so why the F is he trolling on a site that is clearly about progression for a better world? It might be conjecture but all the evidence points to someone that is not to be trusted. Meetup has deigned to not address this issue and ironically doesn't even seem to know it's own policy regarding this obvious crossover of intentions. Meetup as anyone can read is rife with dysfunction and in general ineffectual. To end, I strongly suggest that you vette people much like you would in any social circumstance. This guy is the equivalent of someone who 'innocently' yet nefariously orders a pizza and when it arrives 86's the delivery boy/girl. Meetup is a mess and if you start one my heart goes out to you. People have no desire or convictions and much like FB the only people that you will meet and connect with will be out of hundreds 2-3. And they will be in some other county or will not participate. I have started 3 sites. Each one just abysmal and life sucking. 'Buyer' as they say 'beware'. By Meetup's refusal to take this man down they only encourage fellow miscreants to act as they see fit. In further insult to injury this B------d had the gall and arrogance had the b--s to erect his own site taking a shot at my partner's site starting with the words, 'Some people call themselves progressives. Progressive doesn't mean being solicited where it's not invited or warranted. Clearly this clueless a-- didn't get the memo. By Meetup ignoring this they will only proliferate further, others abusing their site for their own selfish and potentially
Harmful agendas. If it walks and talks like a predator um, it's a predator.

Peace and positive change,
B5F

I've had problems with meetup that were rectified eventually, but this recent one is much more serious. Started a progressive social activist group for volunteer work, protests, etc, and got 9 members pretty quickly. One was a man who started out seeming to be a person aligned with the liberal ideas of the group--environmentally conscious, focused on sustainable living, pro-Bernie Sanders. Then, in the first message, he started telling me how he had no friends that could accept his lifestyle... and directed me to look at his photos on deviant art. Well--he's got pictures of himself naked, covered in mud, peeing in a swamp, bondage photos of women in the woods, tied to giant metal spiderwebs, etc. So--I wanted members. I'm open-minded. I felt sorry for him because he said he had no friends. I told him I didn't judge. In my mind, I thought, yeah, maybe he doesn't know about appropriate boundaries when he first gets to know someone, and I'll let it go. Boy, was I an idiot. For a guy who has no friends, suspiciously enough, in his next message, he starts telling me that he is a member of Fetlife, and the "local fetish club." He also starts telling me that he makes "extreme" porn videos on sells them on Clips4Sale. Says he makes $3000-$6000 a year, but "this is not a sales pitch." Bullsh*t. He was giving a "woe is me" story because no one was interested on attending a "camping trip" he planned--this is code for porn photo shoot--many of his photos are taken out in the woods. I blocked him and reported him to Meetup. Guess what? They did NOTHING! In fact, he started his own group, and insulted me right there on his intro, calling me a "fascist" for blocking him. Meetup did nothing when I reported that. Didn't even contact me. Another female member of mine who runs a group of 250 people messaged me and said she also had issues with him. Meetup did NOTHING. What are they waiting for? This guy is a predator--he saw that my group was liberal, and assumed that referred to sex, when clearly, we're not about that. Meetup's policy is cut and pasted it below He skirted around the first 2, but he definitely violated the third one. Also, I googled him--he owns a "videography" business and he's advertising for "adventurous" adult actors... basically, he's using meetup to solicit business for his porn business, and they don't care. I REALLY wish I could post his business link so I can prove what I am saying, but it's enough that I already sent to to meetup. They ignored me.

Meetup's Policies:

Content and Nudity
Pornography is not allowed on Meetup. Publicly shared photos must be appropriate for general audiences. Nude or sexual photos are not allowed in public spaces.

Nudity
If nudity or sexuality is part of a Meetup's identity or lifestyle, organizers must keep the group Private in order to limit access to this content to members of that group. Meetup expects leadership teams to monitor this content.

Sex Solicitation and Prostitution
Meetup prohibits groups that, or individuals who, use Meetup to proposition for sex, or to promote or engage in prostitution. For policies on Meetup groups that may contain such content, please see Sexual Interests and Adult Interests and Identities in Meetup Group Policies.

So, this guy continues to go unchecked. My group is clearly NOT in the sexual and adult interests category, and I am not the only person who reported him.

No custmer service, period!
No custmer service, period!
No custmer service, period!
No custmer service, period!
No custmer service, period!

Still send me emails though i deactivated them...