Classmates www.classmates.com

Was billed $96 without notice or authorization. Refused to refund saying they had a strict no refund policy. Looking at the reviews on multiple sites, including The Better Business Bureau site, there appear to be thousands of people they have ripped off using these practices.

My profile states I have an account code of 24 month. Two years ago I enjoyed using Classmates when planning for a high school reunion. Classmates charged my financial institution $18.00 for what I thought was a manual renewal at one year. Classmates charged me $36.00 on September 24, 2021 that I did not authorize period. Twenty four months later on September 24, 2023, I was charged $96.00 a recurrent payment from September 24, 2021. ACCOUNT INFORMATION

Account type: 24 Month

Expiration date: September 24, 2025

Renewal option: Manual

I do not understand why a 24 account would last from 2021 to 2025, four years. There is NO WAY to cancel the subscription online. Other reviews state users called to cancelled their subscriptions; however, their account is never cancelled. I paid on Pay Pal; therefore, Pay Pal cancelled my subscrition from there. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH CLASSMATES. They are breaking Federal Trade Commission laws for recurrent payments.

On this board, I have read all the comments and was concerned with a recent $39.00 fee for an automatic renewal at Classmates. I took this number (**) from another "Sarasota" poster, however, and they had no issue with withdrawing the fee, but it was prorated. And they say they have to wait up to thirty days, but that seems legitimate. To everyone, good luck. By the way, we all need to be careful that the one-time discount balances out with the recurring income from people who skip the fee when using cards for multiple transactions.

When it started in 1995, it seemed like a good place to find friends from schools. That ended in 2015, when it was acquired by PeopleConnect, which uses Classmates.com to generate subscriptions for its other company Intelius.

Here's the user experience: You enter your schools, and they will display the classmates from your years there. The problem is that Classmates does not have your classmates in their database unless those classmates have registered on classmates.com. I listed 5 of the schools I attended and less than 2% of my classmates were in the database.

You can do an extended search for unlisted classmates, and it returns "0" results, with prominent CLICKBAIT to "find them using the Intelius service". You will wait at least 5 minutes while watching progress bars telling you that the service has found them, and compiling their criminal record, family members, residences, financial history, social media. AFTER 5 MINUTES OF WAITING, you get a screen to sign up for Intelius subscription service.

THAT IS THE REASON CLASSMATES IS STILL ONLINE, TO SERVE AS AS CLICKBAIT FOR INTELUS.

CLASSMATES.COM IS USELESS, and is FULL OF OTHER 3RD PARTY CLICKBAIT under every button, and on all sidebars, and pop-ups. . If they ever get your email, they will bait you weekly with "one of your classmates says hi"

This service is a joke! Not only was there limited access to records, they put in very fine print that the payment is set up to automatically renew from your account and the payment is nonrefundable so by the time you find out that you have paid for yet another month of unwanted services, you are stuck paying $30+ for absolutely nothing.  I'm honestly surprised they are even still in business. I highly recommend to AVOID using their services at all costs.

After noticing a billing from Classmates on my AmEx statement, I contact AmEx to dispute the charge because I had cancelled my membership in June 2016. AmEx did credit my account temporarily for the amount in dispute. However, AmEx suggested that I contact Classmates to cancell this billing and all future automatic billing and get a cancellation reference number because my credit for the amount in depute maybe rebilled. I called Classmates and they said that they would cancell my membership immediately but would not refund my $35.00 fee because they don't refund billed fees.

If Classmates has you on automatic renewal (billing) BEWARE.....If you plan to cancell your membership, do so before your membership renewal.

How many other members have been billed and not given a refund.

BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE but good for corprate bottom line $$$$$$$$$!

I will contact AmEx regarding Classmates business practice and my displeasure with the results.

I joined several years ago and then let it go. Just joined again and now I see why I quit. Difficult to follow. No current photos. NOT user friendly.

Darla Joyce

DO NOT sign up for a paid classmates.com membership!!!

Regardless of what initial deal they offer, they automatically enroll you to renew, and once billed there are no refunds. As soon as I saw the renewal charge, I went to log into my classmates account, but my password had "mysteriously" changed. I clicked on the link to receive a password reset email, waited 15 minutes like they said (even though the rest of their emails get to my inbox in less than a minute), but it never arrived. Chatted online with a customer service rep (chat.classmates.com) who supposedly changed my account back to manual renewal so that I would not be billed in the future, and said he sent the password reset email to me from his side - still never got it. Finally got a phone number from him for customer service (206-301-5900). The first rep I talked to spent approximately 15 seconds with me, told me to add the password email address to my contacts because it was probably hung up in spam ( it wasn't ). The next rep I talked with was more helpful, actually spent about 10 minutes with me trying to resolve the issue, but the password reset email still did not come through. Finally at my suggestion she checked with her IT people and found out the outgoing emails for password resets were hung up on their end; she asked me to call back if I had not received the email by the afternoon. Got back from lunch and the emails finally came through. I went and checked my account to confirm it was set to manual renewal.

***IMPORTANT!***

I took another step to ensure they cannot bill me again - I went to my paypal account, clicked on Profile, then on the bottom right under Payment Settings -> Preapproved Payments. Then click on Classmates, Inc., and click Cancel to revoke their pre-approved status.

Do NOT sign up for Classmates services unless you want to be charged for unwanted services for the rest of your life. Calling them to cancel does no long term good. The services are fine - their business practices are deplorable.

Foolishly, I ordered a reprint of an old highschool yearbook for $75,00...I NEVER received it!