Summary: Stay away from Classmates.com and do not fall for any of their tricks to get you to sign-up as a gold member.
Last year I upgraded my Classmates.com subscription from the free one to the paid one simply to see what the difference was for paid members. As we were building the VendorCity service and business model, it was useful to see freemium models from other services.
It was immediately apparent that the subscription was a waste of money. No one was actively using it and the additional features were useless.
Today, without any warning or notice from Classmates.com, I received a $39 bill on my credit card. Apparently, when you sign-up, there is so small TOS that states they will enable automatic annual billing. However, did they mention they would do it without any warning or option out? Of course not, because they are already going out of business and are using nearly illegal tactics to try to keep cash flowing.
I called Classmates.com and they refused to refund the money so I am contacting my credit card company to dispute the charge. I’ll follow-up when I get a resolution one way or another.
So, my suggestion to you is simply stay away from Classmates.com. They are dying and dying companies do desperatethings.
