Meetup

After using it for 5+ years it seems to be that latest interface (Dec 2017) changes were done without any consideration for ease of use, enhanced presence and needs of users or organizers.

It is equally difficult for paying organizers as it is for free users, to organize things, communicate or find events of interest.

It is time to move on to new platform for us as they have destroyed everything what made it worth using it.

It is hard to understand why meetup.com management decided to gamble their position this way.

Guys, organizers are paying for your services and it is likely that we'll walk out and use other platforms now.

No reason to stay.

I am shocked and surprised at the number of negative reviews. I have been a member for years, and an organizer for one year. I charge my members a small fee (dues) just to cover meetup dues charged to me. Met lots of new friends and its great for networking as well. Maybe the bad reviewers have joined shady meetup groups and had a bad experience. Not the situation here at all!

I signed up to host a group for one month on Meetup.com, for $14.99. While checking my credit card statement the next month, I noticed that I had been charged again for another month of hosting. I did not sign up for this, or if I did, it was because something was snuck in with fine print. Anyway, I wrote to them and asked them to refund the second month. No reply. I just wrote to them again today. The next step is that I'll have to contact my credit card and file it as a fraudulent charge. This site is a waste of time and I suspect they expect people to not notice these recurring charges. Shame on them. Besides this, many people on the site never actually go to meet ups.

All Data Engineer's Groups consist of "professionals" who talk for hours on end promoting their sponsors. Best case scenarios are that they would have some freebies from their sponsors and promotional from recruiters to desperate job seekers. That's right. It isn't a group designed specifically for data engineers, no no. It's just bull$#*! marketing. I thought I was going to learn something special. Data enthusiasts are talking of working in Japan, building Rasberry Pis or self driving cars and $#*! is better use cases but these morons cannot stop talking. It's literally tiresome. If you are intelligent, just get your ideas from interest groups on the internet and start your own project to showcase your passion. Don't join groups, there's nothing there.

Zoom business info/entrepreneurship classes are truly excellent, taught by various experts each week. 100% Free, last an hour, with a presentation and a Q&A. Ability to network at the same time with those around the US & other countries as well.

Yoga/meditation classes via Zoom are sometimes 100% free and other times bait & switch $$$. Free ones thru Dignity Health are outstanding with a top certified instructor.

Meetup org does NOT get involved when there Organizers try to scam members in any way. Some Meetups are presented as social groups or info classes and in reality are attached to high pressure MLM or cults. Beware.

Meetup org also won't get involved if there's any illegal activity. Only tell you to call your local LE. Sad as this ruins Meetup overall rep. Meetup groups have even been banned from venues for wrongful actions.

I've tried giving them a chance but despite the many concerns raised, their recent update has absolutely ruined the experience for my two groups. Functionality on the website is now awful, and members have to hunt to figure out the most basic things thanks to the total overhaul. Meetup seemingly couldn't care less! I've somehow been an Organizer for almost 9 years now and what used to work just fine has been trashed. It's clear they do not listen to feedback, as I find it difficult to imagine anyone was in favor of the new version. We are now looking elsewhere and will quit Meetup as soon as possible. I'd give them zero stars if that were an option.

As an organizer, I cannot be less impressed with the recent (Dec 2017) changes to the Meetup platform. So many helpful features and organizational functionality is being removed that its just another FB or twitter feed (discussions of 140 characters? Really?) We can no longer post documents, our 'pages' were full of resources and information, our discussion threads were great, our sponsors were listed on our homepage, (as was the full name and thumbnail of my awesome co-organizer)... and the response time from the support team which used to be in 24-48 hours, is now significantly longer or not at all. Disappointed and looking for alternatives that get us back to where we were! Who is this being 'improved' for anyways?

***Adding to this review a week later after seeing other posts... what exactly ARE we going to do here fellow organizers? Meetup is essentially unusable in its current form, and its a total time suck to try to make it work... but if we bail, where do we bail to?

Went downhill dramatically. Been organizer = member also since 2007.
After 2016 lack of help or protection from web master.or AI and NYC group
That ran/owned it responded with ' canned email bots'.
Pushed out good reliable people and do to bad organizers chased
Off good women and men over 35 yrs. Many flakes no show hosts.
Non-user friendly, and dangerous. Cannot post photos, calendar gone
Rvsp all screwy. Expensive and paypal gone?//

The third owners of this website are compensating for sales losses...in the most greedy way.

They invest in PR that first purports you only pay $12.71 for a basic tier charge then when getting to the actual site it says $17 and some change.
Then, when it comes to check out, you've paid $23 without even getting a free trial.
Lastly, I gave in and signed up for basic and decided to cancel after only thirty minutes.

There is NO refund option at the time of this post.
And look out for thee ludicrous "you must step down as organizer" stipulation to further distract you from "officially" divorcing your $#*! from these creep site owners.

I'm out $23 for having a membership that lasted only 30 minutes.

I don't have time to snapshot the website lingo, but I strongly encourage you to upload any absolutely greedy entrapment this site exercises.

Because of the networking disposition of Facebook groups, you get significantly more value than this dump and although they're siphoning all of your face data for Meta AI, it's free.

Being a member for one year I came to the conclusion that meetup ain't what it used to be. A social network for like minded people. Sadly it started after the website changed their layout. Also by coincidence more and more groups got infiltrated by non serious members. Meetups where you can practice a foreign language or discuss a book dried up because some members visited for reasons best left unnoticed. My Gf and me both very socializing people got into a situation where another member was pushing himself towards her. Not a nice experience. The leader just solved the case by telling us we were extremely worrying people. Never mind in the beginning it was nice. Now we say avoid

A week ago I signed up for Meetup Pro free trial by mistake. I immediately noticed what I done and have been trying to get help ever since. The first two days were responses that didn't apply to my issue whatsoever. There's no customer service phone number. I'm just out of the hospital with a fractured hip and a broken wrist yet need to get this done. Over a week later it's still not done and they're telling me you can't get the 30% off because you're Meetup isn't new. It is brand new, immediately after signing up for Pro by mistake I asked to be switched to Organizer subscription. How a company with such poor customer service can be so greedy is beyond my comprehension. The fees aren't cheap and I make no money from the meetup.

I have been a member of several meet up groups for a few years but "Toronto Vegan Meetup" has to be the worst. It consists of badly organized events, with no one to greet you, no music, terrible food options and a young demographic enthralled with their smartphones lacking in the social skills that would enable them to meet new members.

I have witnessed organizers try to moderate discussions by taking sides, ganging up and berating individual members for voicing their opinions.
This group is more interested in their socials than animal welfare. Please dont wast your time

It's hard to believe that a company cares so little about the customers--the folks who write the checks--as to perpetrate such a mess. But they know we hate the changes--and them--and yet persist in disingenuous comments such as "we want our organizers to love the application" and "we made the changes to help the organizers." Nonsense. Email not getting to members? They don't care. Strip away the ability to put a note on the calendar? Apparently not a problem to them, after all the web app doesn't even have a calendar. A fixed aspect ratio for photos in the event descriptions that trashes many photos? Who cares. Maybe it's time they cut all the bull$#*! and give their true vision for MEETUP. Apparently, a smartphone-only app that has no group organizers, just folks who post ad hoc meeting notices open to anyone nearby.

A few years back i use to be a part of a groups that brought the cultures of black and Asian together, while having fun and making friend. I've only been to three meet-ups and there less than amusing, there were huge age gaps more men are older than the women in the group(some are teens! Ew). Most the women act slutty around the already pervy, socially awkward men, everyone's shallow and kinda jerks, thinks its for dating. I waited some years later and wanted to re-join to see if there any changes, and i was denied because i didn't have a profile pic(for privacy reasons), this group is a joke! I never any friends in that group and if your not thin or pretty they treat you like crap and ignore you.One of the Asian male organizers were really rude to me for no reason. They think their challenging stigma or some crap.

I was on MeetUp for a few years but then one day MeetUp just deactivated my account with no warning and would not give any explanation as to why. However I am quite sure that the true reason behind this was because I have had mental health issues, even though they had never caused me to act badly. I just get very anxious sometimes because of traumatic experiences that I have been through, which sometimes people even mistake for being on the autistic spectrum (since the two can apparently get confused).

I also suspect that it may have been related to something that happened on there before when one of the group organisers deliberately spread lies about me to people in an attempt to make me unwell (as far as I can tell). But when I tried reporting this to MeetUp they did nothing about the situation, only to later delete my account instead because it was easier. Making it even harder for me to be healthy by going out and doing stuff.

Now that you have introduced event chat, we don't need a comment section. I am an organiser and spend so much time flipping between the two and then going into DM's! For goodness sake make your mind up. Also when I wish to edit an event this is extremely hard to do and wasn't before the changes were made. Not exactly an improvement as soon as I'm concerned and needs adjustment now!