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I see a lot of negative review, I wanted to share my view.
I used to be a member and I stopped my membership in 2015 since it was not as active. I came back this year after I got invited to an ASW event in Munich by my friend as a guest. Since then I resubscribed and, I have to admit, no regret, there is a lot more activity and event for a travel active like me now! Keep up the good work SmallWorld! Could you push more services on the business side?
Exclusive place to broad our networking, make connections and share experiences worldwide. Been a member since 2005 and have met many nice people.
I have to say, this site has gone a long way since 2005-2008 when it had good content and was generally relevant. The last few ASW meetups that I attended was merely a handful of socially-awkward people, and the content became garbage.
asmallworld.net / asmallworld.com used to be a great site prior to them opening the flood gates in 2009/2010. The fee you used to pay on the site was life experience -- it cost you life experience to get in. The original owner sold the site. Now, they have an actual fee of $110 to join, which anybody with no brains can do, and the site is no longer exclusive. Sadly, they bill you without permission, and they also shut down accounts without explanation, even when you have had little to no interaction on the site.
The site is garbage, and will probably close down or be sold again once the new moronic owners realize how far they've run the site into the ground. Definitely not worth wasting precious time on.
Do not give these people any access to direct or recurring billing. My ex had a recurring payment set-up that was supposed to be cancelled by ASW since the two year auto renew had expired. It was charged on my account for my ex's membership. When I contacted ASW to reverse the charge and bill the subscriber, they refused and told me to seek reimbursement from the subscriber directly. Terrible and unethical business practices. I'm disputing directly with my payment company and expect resolution.
ASW are scammers who steal money from people's credit cards with their unrequested automatic renewal. Avoid it like plague
ASW hidden auto-renewal policy sneakily took 2 years membership from me after I clearly asked them to remove my credit card and cancel my membership 2 years in a row! They do not want to give me a refund. Their community is empty, like a shell for a corrupt company... no valuable interactions. Stay AWAY!
In my opinion, A Smallworld does'nt adopts a fair commercial practice: f. E. they charged my cc without warning me for the automatic year renewal nor for other authorizations. Any serious company I know sends (at least) an email to remember the client of a service that a renewal act is in charge and they - in most cases - ask wether you want to confirm renew - if you're satisfied or not.
I received an email justification under the reading of their 'terms' that I have should done once and for all. Seriously? Any terms and conditions' changes should be notified before, in case they vary, and the renewal of any service communicated - as good practice prior to renewal, even if automatic.
Charged me without telling me they would or sending me a receipt for $110. I emailed asking them to refund this amount and they terminated my account and refused to refund me, what?!?!
Besides this their services are completely useless and require you to spend even more $ once you are subscribed.
You are a fool if you sign up with ASW, just look at EVERY SINGLE review online...
I had no notification of a 'renewal' charge of £90! On a service i never logged in for.
I emailed asking to refunded and to cancel. Their response was to cancel the NEW 16/17 MEMBERSHIP & Still not refund me! Saying i have no rights!?
Absolute bull and in discussion with Dailymail about launching a story to uncover the truth in these 'paid social media sites"
On a service note...
No one talk on ASW. Its all brag. No one helps or wants to know you.
If you don't live in London (which i don't) you cant use anything.
A total scam. I got tricked into it! But you don't have to!
Listen to my advice. Stay away!
ASW is a real scam! They had very limited things happening in my town and when my subscription expired they automatically renewed it, charging my credit card and when I said I wanted to quit they said they wouldn't refund me. Stay away!
Before even getting limited access you are forced to pay around 100 EUR.
Once in, there is really nothing special. It's an ordinary scam. Don't get fooled! Do NOT pay and be a member of this pyramid-game.
Similar to other users, I had signed up to the ASW not having paid attention to the small print and therefore not realising that they had an automatic renewal policy.
Never having used the site because the content is awful (they used to be good years ago) within hours of receiving notice that payment has been taken out of my account, I contacted ASW to cancel my subscription and request a refund which has been refused. Currently disputing via Paypal.
Not offering any grace periods for cancelling automatic renewals is unfair and disgraceful practise.
Same issue as below - never used website and saw a charge of USD$100 that they don't want to refund. Disputing it through PayPal now and if it doesn't work will sue them in small claim court.
I didn't use them as there was never anything worth while and forgot my logon. They auto debited £89 from my account and I wrote to them on the day asking to be taken off and refunded, after endless communication them trying to find my account with no one calling me as requested they refused the refund.
They refused to refund saying the terms and conditions state no refund, even though they could see I clearly had not used it the previous year. I had no intention of using it and askied for the refund on the first day of renewal as I saw the debit on my account.
How companies are allowed to auto debit is outrageous.
They only communicate by email and their support staff are rubbish.
I asked for a manger to call me and was ignored.
I'm currently not working and paying £89 for something I don't want or intend to use is pure exploitation of members initial trust in a so called exclusive outfit..
The Owner of the original Asmallworld will be sad to hear whats happened to his company in the hands of its new owners. This company doesn't give two hoots about their members. I got ripped off by their automatic renewal fee. I contacted them to ask why this is happening, they told me I should have read the small print and that I agreed to an automatic billing when I signed up. Fair enough, my bad for not reading that bit but my question is How many people read the small print? How many people still remember a payment that they made a year ago is coming up for renewal? And wouldn't it be ethical for a company to alert their beloved member a month/week/day in advance to tell them about an impending charge? After all they send users daily/weekly/monthly updates about people writing in forums and groups that have nothing to do with you, surely when it comes to member's money, they'd try harder. Especially for a site that is so boring, its like watching paint dry. To make matters worse, they don't send invoices or receipts so there must be many members on there right now, not knowing they are being charged because they haven't checked their statements. This company seriously needs to be investigated. I know that time is coming when more people start falling victim to this fraud.
Waste of time and money. Shockingly terrible customer "service". Stay away at all costs. I can't believe that this site is operational if they treat all customers/members the way they treated me.
It used to be good. Now it is bad, completely useless and boring.
They only content on the platform are DJs, club hosts and event promoters posting are titled: "Exclusive ASW Invitation Discount" (read, "This is me promoting my thing") from people that definitely see no harm in expending $110 annually for marketing reach.
Also, they promise some "benefits", but they have never delivered. They come up with excuses as to why they do not have "availability" for the benefit due to "high demand". There other more relevant social platforms elsewhere. This one became pretty irrelevant, once they changed their business model just a year ago.
Too many of their male members seem to confuse asmallworld with a dating website!
Terrible and nothing but a bunch of garbage... These try to make it private but we all know that there's good and bad inside their members so who are we kidding here. That's my opinion.
