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The Shady Business Practices of Classmates.com
eldavojohn writes ""Some of your classmates are trying to contact you!" reads one e-mail. Attempts to remove yourself from the mailing list may only result in more mailings from the site of ill repute. Well, Ars Techica brings us news of a suit against Classmates.com. You don't need to look far for anti-classmates.com sentiment spreading like wild fire across the tubes." Good next target: ads that say "you've already won" some expensive toy.
OK, bla bla bla, social networking, bla. Classmates.com, facebook, myspace, and everything else like it exist for two purposes: Selling advertising, and collecting aggregate data. We all know this. All pretense of "keeping in touch" is nothing more than the carrot to collect your information. No big deal, although it does bear repeating now and then.
However, the people behind classmates.com have gone one step farther--they're actively lying to get people to (a) sign up, and (b) pay for a "premium" membership. This is absolutely clear fraud on their part, and I hope they get kicked to the curb for it. Being a sleazy company operating within the law just wasn't enough for them.
Hopefully "eCrush" is next. The fact that they keep getting in trouble and keep popping back up with the same crap is reason enough to throw them in jail.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Your self-esteem should be low if you paid money to use Classmates.com as it does what MySpace and FaceBook do for free.
Classmates did come out before MySpace and FaceBook but they made a mistake in trying to get money out of their customers before they had a reasonable userbase. They could have started out a completely free service(by completely, I mean allowed all features for free and not have to pay to contact people like dating sites...and even dating sites allow you to see somebody's complete profile without charging!) and then charged small fees as necessary.
I can't stand when Classmates sends me mails telling me how many people viewed my profile, only to find that it was only a ruse to get me to build a profile in the first place! Reminds me of trillian when I always had annoying AOL or Yahoo(can't remember which) mail notifications which served no purpose but to nag me into signing up for the respective mail service.
AS part of my job, I get calls from angry card holders who've have been billed fraudulently by websites such as this one.
Another scam is when websites require a CC for their "Free Trial" and all you have to do is cancel before 30 days so you don't get billed. Well, in most cases, folks who do cancel somehow have their cancellation "lost" or "never received" by the company. And those are the folks who actually remembered to cancel on time. Unfortunately, there wasn't much the CC company would do for them. Call your own company and see - some will back their card holders a bit more than others. Credit Unions are the best in my experience. Big monster mega banks are the worst.
Never give a CC for a "Free Trial". Take your business elsewhere. As a matter of fact, I knew an operator that counted on most people forgetting and then when they get their bill the following month, canceling in writing, and then being billed for another month because they were already in a second billing period. He made at least 2 months of revenues off of those people. He was actually honest. When you canceled, he canceled you.
And for the very few legitimate businesses out there that use that technique; well, find another method to limit free trials.
If you do have a problem with those cheating assholes, file a complaint with your State's Attorney General's office of consumer affairs, your bank, the FTC, and if your bank gives you a hassle, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will kick their ass. The BBB is worthless.
Except for all these 'Ride a pony!' apps requests my friends keep sending me..
We can stop dancing around the obvious... Facebook/Myspace=GeoCities
Close....the real formula is Facebook/Myspace=GeoCities/AngelFire