Anybody have experience with Classmates?

[chromotone]

I joined about 5 years ago but really haven't done much with it. There have been a few guestbook signatures by people I don't know (don't understand that), but recently a familiar name did appear. I responded with a "thanks" for signing my guestbook and gave a short bio about me to let her know what I've been up to.

Now there's something called a "friends request." What's that? And what does it entail? :shrug:

I mean, the standard message is something like "you've been invited to be friends with this person." I feel like Bart Simpson confronting Ralph Wiggim on an episode of "The Simpsons."

[triguy46]

1. Much negative press about their marketing tactics...

for example, "You've got a new message!!!! Join Gold to find out who!!!" and they suck you in only to find out you have no idea who the person is. Plus they do the automatic renewal on your credit card and you cannot for the love of Christ figure out how to turn that off. Add to it non-existent human voice customer service.

That said, after 8 years or so I did have one long lost friend show up via classmates. Small world deal he was a fraternity brother of a guy I met a few years ago who is now my BF. On the other hand, its been no help finding my jr high girlfriend....

[chromotone]

2. The website seems rather cumbersome to navigate...

It seems like it takes a long time to come up or to respond to your mouse clicks. Then it has frozen up on me a few times when I tried to post on its political message board.

A couple of times I just said, "Ah, the hell with it" and logged out.

[triguy46]

3. At best you could look and find names of those who you knew who had registered.

But if they ain't there at this point, chances are they aren't gonna pop up. That would be the only way I'd ever join again, if I saw "her" name on there.

[Stevenmarc]

4. Facebook pretty much made Classmates unnecessary

[hippywife]

5. I'm signed up but only at the free level.

They sent an email that they are going to start sharing information with outside companies, so I went in and wiped out all my pics and stuff.

[chromotone]

6. Really?!!

...they are going to start sharing information with outside companies

I'd better check into this...

[Kat45]

7. I only do the free membership, but I did find out about my class reunion there

Then after the reunion, someone posted a lot of pictures from it. But I still can't find out who signed my guestbook; you have to pay to do that. :shrug: