Meetup

So the past couple years I'd become a bit of a shut-in. I was looking through the Google App Store and I came across this. Decided to take a chance on us a little over a year ago and I don't regret it one bit.

Meetup is basically an app it helps to connect you to public events that may fit in with your particular set of interests. It helps me find a board gaming group in my area that meets up once a month. Once every couple of weeks we have a community clean-up, this popped up on my feed once the trashtag challenge started to become a thing. So it really helps me to get out of the house every now and again and it's connected me to some pretty cool people.

The only reason I put up a four-star review in lieu of a 5 is because of the fact that I do live in a rural area oh, so the fact that I have anything coming up in my feed at all is quite astounding. I would recommend this for anybody looking for activities so long as you live in a slightly more populated area.

If you're curious, go ahead and give it a shot. It's free and it definitely helps if you're looking for something that's out of your daily routine.

I have been a Meetup organizer paying dues of $200/yr for the past 13 years. As of this writing I have 5,048 members and 1,949 5 star reviews.

Meetup support sucks and is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with, very poorly managed, and the Meetup.com platform has bugs as far back as I can remember. I have complained at least monthly for years.

In the past 2 weeks I have received complaints from three people who have joined my group, but I am not receiving notices from Meetup of said members request to join, so that I am unable to accept said requests to join my group. It is my policy to require interested parties to be accepted by me before they are able to become official members of my Meetup groups. If there are 3 people who have joined but not received by me to be accepted, I can only assume there are others. These three have notified me personally. It has been at least 2 weeks since these members asked to join and be accepted.

Before and since these three people have notified my of their completed registration, several have joined and been accepted by me. However, these three have not been received by me. I do not accept nonmembers to attend my hiking and kayaking events due to the inherent risks for safety purposes. However, since these three people notified me directly that they joined, I had no choice to make an exception, since the problem is with Meetup, not the members who join.

If I stop paying dues, Meetup shuts me down. The only leverage I have is to complain to Meetup support and post negative online reviews.

I AGREE WITH THE "ONE MAN'S OPINION" AS I WAS DROPPED FROM MEETUP FOR NO REASON AT ALL; NO REASONS GIVEN, NO PLACE TO FIGHT, NOTHING. I THINK THAT MEETUP SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR RIPPING PEOPLE OFF.

You can't "rate" meetup.com.
It's just a website that facilitates peoples' desires to MEET other like-minded people.
If you are crazy, judgemental, paranoid or full of yourself DON'T JOIN A GROUP AND THEN COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR WARPED PERCEPTIONS.

You can't rate the website, but you can rate a individual meetup group that you've been in, but what's the point? What's the likelihood that anyone using Site Jabber is going to be attending the EXACT SAME GROUP as you?

The few meetup group organizers that I have met and had the opportunity to chat with, always lament about the crazy people that join their group and then complain, whine, $#*! and generally wreak havoc in what is supposed to be a group of people that simply want to share an activity/interest with other like-minded people.

There ARE meetup groups for dating, just as there are for introverts, East-Indian singles 24-33... whatever you want, so don't join a group for over 40's and then complain that everyone is over 40.
Jeebus.

Meetup keeps taking organizer tools so you'll have to pay for the Meetup Pro App! I'll move to another site before I pay them more money!

I have nothing nice to say about Meetup. Let me just give you the #Facts and by stating the facts with Meetup will automatically place in you on their $#*! list bc your words are Conservative. I have created harmonious and enjoyable events and there were ppl who did not RSVP but had the intention to bring their negativity to a sophisticated party. I had reported accts that had vile nudity as their profile pic and Meetup attacked me by banning me instead of solving the issue. Meetup allows bad behavior if the acct appears to be liberal left. I have not brought politics into until now. But Meetup has shown me prejudice bc I hold a higher standard and support those who enjoy class and sophisticated events. This is why when you decide to sign up with Meetup. The members do not attend or engage in discussion bc they are silenced when they have done nothing wrong or never went against these policies. https://help.meetup.com/hc/en-us/articles/*******532-Usage-and-content-policies-Rules-for-using-Meetup

Is Meetup insane? What twisted logic causes an internet company to create and enforce such hostile policy against paying customers?

On Tue, Oct 11,2016 at 11:58 AM, Meetup HQ <*******@meetup.com>­ wrote:

Hello Bill,
We are writing about your Meetup group, Makers of Phoenix, because we noticed you are hosting online events. Meetup is committed to bringing people together in real life to do what matters most to them. Thats why Meetup groups that are primarily about online interactions are not permitted.

In order to comply with our policies, more than half of your groups Meetups should be local, in-person events. You may host a webinar or online discussion as long as, overall, at least 50% of your Meetups are in-person.

Please review your upcoming Meetups and make sure at least half are in-person. If necessary, remove online Meetups or add in-person Meetups. If you cancel any upcoming Meetups, please issue refunds to members who paid you. You do not need to alter past Meetups.

In 2 weeks, we will review your group again. If your Meetup continues to focus on online interactions instead of in-person activities, it will be closed.

Please see our Help Center information on these recent policy updates. You can also read our Community Guidelines. We reserve the right to remove groups at our own discretion per our Terms of Service.

Thank you for your commitment to Meetup.

Signed up to attend this "Advanced Intermediate" meetup group. The co-organizer, Brad is the person who puts down the lines for these courts located at Twin Dolphins, Huntington Beach, CA. Well, this organizer is not very nice. When potential players RSVP to play, they go into his waiting list and from there he cherry picks which players he wants to allow to play. Now, in concept one would think Brad is recruiting only the best advanced volleyball players, right? Well, not exactly. Brad is one mean and hypocritical person because in his group there's players who cannot meet the minimum skills to play even regular intermediate volleyball level, let alone "advanced intermediate" as he calls his group. To me it's interesting how can get away with treating people in such a rude and ugly manner and still be allowed to have a meetup group. If you're looking for a place to play fun volleyball with friendly people, DO NOT sign up to play with Brad's "Advanced Intermediate" volleyball group in Huntington Beach, CA on Saturday mornings at Twin Dolphin courts.

I am disappointed in Meetup.com's ethics. This week I 'stepped down' as Organiser of my group, handing over the leadership to a lovely woman in the group who I know will be enthusiastic and continue to nurture the group:-) I had already paid Organisers Dues (fees) up until 23 September 2013. I also ticked the box that asked me if I wanted to transfer this payment over to the new leader. She accepted the position as Organiser, but was charged $42! I was alarmed at this charge, but several emails between myself and Meetup.com to clarify this, just resulted in their 'apologising' for the "confusion". There shouldn't have been any confusion. They were double-dipping, and would not refund the $42 to my friend. They obviously didn't 'transfer' my payment (til September) to her. They then told me that any payments made relate to the person (Organiser), not the Group. Had we known this upfront, I probably would have remained as Organiser until my payment had expired in September. Up until this time, I have had good experience with Meetup.com. I have thought it to be a good networking site. But they have now lost my vote by their dishonesty and sneakiness.

I was an organizer of a few groups for a few years and hosted around 100 events with 95% having great reviews. When a few female members who were psychotically jealous of me because they were desperate cougars and the men were attracted to me and not them decided to start ruining my events meetup kicked me off the site (claiming that I was barred for life). After what I went through dealing with the mentally unstable and desperate people of New York City that are a part of meetup (had to call the police twice, strangers started yelling for no reason at events, adults over-drinking and puking on others, stalkers, people not paying for their meals, really sleazy and creepy men, etc. etc. You wouldn't believe what I've witnessed) there's NO WAY IN HELL that I would ever want to be a part of this site ever again. Not one employee at meetup ever asked for my side of the story- what a horrible business with extremely poor customer support. Back in the day... crazy people like this were sent to lunatic asylums... now they all belong to meetup.com.

As an organizer for many years, unfortunately I can only say that the experience has been a bitter one... forget about the occasional weirdo that might join the group you're paying for as an organizer, it's the complete and utter lack of touch and empathy from Meetup HQ towards us their paying customers. Over and over they don't get tired of making the point that they don't care a bit about and understand what you have to say and what truly works to run a succesful group for adult people. The feeling you get is that Meetup HQ is run by a psycopath together with a bunch of teenagers. All they care about is that their website looks good, hiding and many times disappearing the many complaints organizers have posted. For instance, organizers used to have a forum to post questions, concerns, etc. but due to the fact that lots and lots of organizers were posting complaints about their platform, website, constant changes, etc etc etc, Meetup HQ had the brilliant idea to silence everyone and got rid of that forum... instead of perhaps listening for a change to its paying customers.

As a member, it's easy to join and is free. So far no really terrible experiences. I've used it for years.

However, I decided to become an organizer. What I didn't know before I hosted was they charge you a monthly fee. This is how they make money. However, they gave me a discount so I decided to test it out for six months. That's not my complaint though.

I had an issue with some members in the group. I wanted to ask the community of organizers on Meetup how they usually deal with general situations like mine. I couldn't find any other forums but the one on their site. I searched for a similar answer and found none, so I submitted my question to the forum.

I got a reply shortly after from their community manager stating that they couldn't post my question, but did not specify why. He just gave me a generic statement that this was a community forum for best practices. How was my question not about best practices? However, he continued to offer me some generic advice I found unhelpful.

I got the feeling that because my question was negative, I wasn't allowed to voice it. They wanted to hide it and didn't want to make others in the community aware of what could happen in their groups. What an incredibly discouraging experience. It made me feel isolated from other hosts, and unable to turn to anyone for support. What's the point of "meetup" if you can't turn to your community?

My thoughts about this company: be weary of anyone that tries to hide something from the community especially when it relates to safety. I'll be cancelling my account when my six months is up.

I have attended many meetup groups and have NEVER been scammed. It is a free social service, similar to okcupid but offers more then just meeting singles. After each event members are able to comment and rate the events so if someone wanted to scam you they would have to make tons of profiles to make the group seem legitimate. Read the reviews for the meetup group, view the photo's of the events, contact the venue where the event is taking place. If your afraid of getting scammed (which is crazy) then do your homework to make sure the group is real. It cost money to start a meetup group, you need a paypal account, and members can easily contact the owners of the site to report any problems. This site is a great free service. I have started a meetup group, you pay a monthly fee & it is a TON of work. No one becomes rich for owning a meetup group, there are much easier ways to scam people out of money.

As for the emails you get, CHANGE YOUR PROFILE SETTINGS. It is so easy, I don't receive any emails from meetup.com because my profile setting are set where I don't get promotional emails. Also if you have google, make a social events folder. That way you can view the emails when you want to and they won't be in your main inbox. Meetup is such a great site, not every group is great, but that would be a little much to ask for.

I set-up a meetup group and was notified I need to add more details. I continued working on it and spent a few hours calendaring upcoming events. I thought well I'm using the meetup group okay and hell a member just joined so I guess I'm cool. Guess again! WITH NO WARNING AND NO ABILITY AT ALL TO CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE (NO EMAIL, NO SUPPORT FORUM, NO PHONE) I GET A NOTICE THAT EVERYTHING IS DELETED AND REFUNDED! AHOLES. NOW I HAVE TO START ALL OVER! THANKS A BUNCH MEETUP. WHERE'S THE MONEY GOING?

They will charge you for nothing, then the support will tell you it's ok and deny any refund... It's such a scam website, you better avoid it.

I set up a Meetup group, and many people joined at first, but only one or two people would ever RSVP and actually show up. I started getting rid of members who hadn't looked at the page in four months. Members would complain about where the meetups were, and I would change the event to a place they'd go to, and no one would go. I was open to suggestions, and held several meetups at places members suggested, only to have one person show up. Then there are the weirdos. Some of the members just did not make me feel safe to be around based on their comments, and I realised that Meetup doesn't do anything to really check to see who these people really are. I'd love for them to have something that verifies the person's identity and make sure these people are who they say they are. I would get so many new member requests from people with pictures of their room, a cartoon, or some weird name. I would clearly state that they had to have a picture that shows their face, and first name and last initial if they wanted to join, but no, I still got requests like that. I shut it down recently because I was tired of paying per month for no one to show up. I really think if you had to pay just to join Meetup in general, about $5 a month, or were charged a certain amount for each group you join, people would go to more events and take joining groups more seriously. I thought Meetup would be a great way to meet people, but I haven't had a good experience in this area.