Meetup

While the service that Meetup.com provide is excellent, their Privacy Policy is not. It's hard to believe that an established internet company in this day and age would engage in sending unsolicited emails... but that's exactly what this company does. And they have quite a reputation for it.

Top tip: If you sign up -- Use an email address that you don't check!

It's very disappointing indeed that they have such a large disregard for their customers. You thought Facebook was bad? It's nothing compared to this company!

Guys to gals ratio super unbalanced. Can be as bad as 20:1
Organizer simply does not care. Only concern about profit making; the more the merrier. Feedback from some gals they are targeted and disturbed by organizer (male). The whole thing feels like a scam -> organizer use this entirely to his own benefit. That is, to get both gals and income AT THE SAME TIME. The RSVP list also seems to be faked up.

Avoid, avoid and Avoid!...

Or

Enter at your own risk!

Or

If you simply has nothing better to do

The organizer, Kat, doesn't read her emails, can't accommodate those that got accepted as attending the event, and can't handle feedback when told that she's not reliable or responsive. She accepted 19 attendees for a trip to Moab and later limits the number of available spaces to 8 for the tour. She doesn't respond to the ones who signed up first for the trips until 15 days later. What a joke. Worst Meetup I have ever run across.

Meetup is expensive and in-effective considering the benefits it provides. I have been a meetup organizer for many years, pay a lot of money and receive very little benefit.

Most people on meetup belong to a large number of groups and are not committed to attend meetings. My observation is even the most popular meetup groups usually only have a few people showing up. $24/month or $200 a year is way too much for what this brings to organizers who end of spending a lot of energy, attention, and money, for no effect.

It is a good concept, but really need better management and consideration for customers.

I went to a number of events, the organizers seemed more concerned about making money more than anything else, or inviting members to well orchestrated 'setup' events just to attempt to put the person down and then take advantage of them. In particular one event organizer in Toronto Sarah demanded money for events one failed to attend even when the emails were unsolicited. Now I am not saying that all the meet up groups are the same, but I would say there are quite a number that only want to take advantage of new members.

Terrible customer service once they have your money. All friendly, charming and quick to help when you begin to set up a new meetup, but that welcome mat is gone once they got you in. A Meetup I had organized for after-school education in Technology (of course, the Meetup is technically for the parents as kids cannot be Members), disappeared with no warning or explanation, and so far they have not responded to all efforts I have made to contact them.

Our meetup for a club was not getting much, if any response. I swear I set my profile/account to NOT auto-renew. I figured when the renewal notice came, we could evaluate whether or not to continue. I just got a notification that I was auto-renewed and billed for another six months. I have been searching the web site to see what I messed up. Apparently, they have changed there methods, and all subscriptions auto-renew. This must be something new, since they mention they will not refund if you failed to turn off auto-renew. Which you can't turn off any place I can find. So, if you were foolish enough to sign up, make a note on your calendar to cancel before the six months ends. Believe me, you will want to cancel.

They refuse to cancel the subscription or even acknowledge cancellation. NEVER give this scammer your bank details. I now have to go through disputing their illegal charges with the bank.

The only reason I paid to start my own private group is because their platform does nothing to protect you against stalkers.

Poor site functionality, counter-intuitive workflows and dated EVERYTHING.
I read that Meetup.com is just a group of Investors trying to get their money back at this point.
The free site is OK.
I see no point in getting the Pro Membership & when you try to cancel, there is no button. (b/c they know the product is $#*!.)

This site has the worst user experience. There needs to be a way to directly contact hosts via phone, while also obscuring the real phone number, when you don't know what someone looks like when you are meeting up with them.

The new app is horrible, confusing, can't post a meetup from my phone, have to go find a computer. I know many, many people who have emailed them to tell then that their app sucks, but they are just ignoring everyone. They know they're the only game in town, so they do whatever the heck they want to. Eventually, they won't be however, and everyone will flee their site immediately! I heard they are going to load the new version on-line as well. If they change the computer access to look like the app, I'm going to stop being an organizer and drop out of meetup. I'll just use Facebook to create invites to all the people I met on meetup, and abandon meetup until someone else comes along who does a better job of listening to their customers.

By and large it has turned into a way for businesses and people to make money off members who are looking to expand their social circle. Service businesses hold "learning" sessions to sell their services. Restaurants advertise "social events" to get you to come in and buy food and drink. Trips are advertised at rates that are higher than if you did them on your own. "Self-help" and "self-improvement" retreats are offered by individuals to make money that prey on lonely, desperate and troubled people.