Meetup

I joined a group on meetup in April 2021 called Hiking Friends & Fun located in Flower Mound, TX. I attended at least 70 events with the group. I became personally involved with the organizer who had only recently become the organizer ten months prior. Whenever he decided to end our "dating/using", I attempted no further contact with him. I continued attending the hikes for another month as usual. After attending a hike on Sat 01/14/23 I received an email that I was removed from the group. In the meantime there was hearsay from a mutual friend of ours which was negative. I never attempted to contact the organizer after we were involved. I left it alone. I attempted to contact the organizers of the group for an explanation & the main organizer who is Ravi had blocked me on meetup. The co organizer who I had attended hikes with several times was very short with me claiming he was not aware & never offered to find out or anything. There was allegedly a post on social media about the organizer which I was never privy to. The organizer & other members (personal friends of his) slandered me after I was removed from the group & attempted to get me kicked off of meetup simply for not wanting me in other shared groups. I am still thinking of filing legal claims against this organizer.

Meetup LLC (meetup.com) is an unsecure website, app, and platform. They sell your personal information and leak your private information, including your personal email address. As an organizer, I have the right to decline members who are incompatible/unfit for my group. Recently, a declined member got ahold of my PRIVATE email address and aggressively emailed me. I contacted Meetup's Trust & Safety Team to no avail; they suggested I did not checkbox "hide my email address" when I declined members. HOWEVER, there was never this option on the apps (regular and organizer app). And they claim that it's only available on the website/desktop version, and the app doesn't have it because they don't release personal email addresses. THIS IS BS. Meetup is LYING and/or has an unsecure network.

Another recent incident involved reporting harassment from members to no avail. Their generic response? "We can't do anything... Or, "Contact your local authorities". There is NO ACCOUNTABILITY from Meetup! Myself, other organizers, and members have stopped filling out reports. And we no longer feel safe using Meetup.com.

I don't know what happened. I'm an organizer for a group with almost 500 people, have to pay them $200/year, and I don't get any notifications! Not by email or push notification. The programmers have completely tanked this site. There are so many glitches, the UI is abominable. We have resorted to building a website specifically for our group.

The third owners of this website are compensating for sales losses...in the most greedy way.

They invest in PR that first purports you only pay $12.71 for a basic tier charge then when getting to the actual site it says $17 and some change.
Then, when it comes to check out, you've paid $23 without even getting a free trial.
Lastly, I gave in and signed up for basic and decided to cancel after only thirty minutes.

There is NO refund option at the time of this post.
And look out for thee ludicrous "you must step down as organizer" stipulation to further distract you from "officially" divorcing your $#*! from these creep site owners.

I'm out $23 for having a membership that lasted only 30 minutes.

I don't have time to snapshot the website lingo, but I strongly encourage you to upload any absolutely greedy entrapment this site exercises.

Because of the networking disposition of Facebook groups, you get significantly more value than this dump and although they're siphoning all of your face data for Meta AI, it's free.

I looked to meetup to get out and meet new people, do different things etc. It's been over a year someone took over Meetup. I can't see meetups outside my groups. If I do a search by location (NY), I get meetups from all over America. Everyone I talk to about this agrees: Meetup sucks. Bring back the previous managers. They ran it effectively. I find it sad because Meetup was my go-to place to get out and do something different. Not anymore. SAD.

There is no live telephone or chat support. Requests for support via their help ticket system can be very slow to respond. Responses are often minimally informative. Requests to cancel service are met with responses offering reduced fees and sending a response with specific text to proceed with the cancellation. Meetup service offerings are often confusing, it is often unclear whether the service refers to Meetup Pro, standard, or groups and the roles or administrators or organizers. Meetup Pro services are quite expensive for the added features 2-3x standard fees and are not refundable despite paying for six months in advance.

I been to over 700 meetups, and how many friends have I made? Zero. At least none that lasted, as our value systems are very different, and our habits are too. I am not into drinking at least not all night long. Nor can eat restaurant food as it does me havoc to eat after 6 p.m. I had met a group of women who would go drinking and one night they went to a "cougar bar" and I almost vomitted at the way they were throwing themselves at guys that could be their sons. I do not find men who drink a lot appealing, but I can see why the boys would want to be sloshed if they were taking home their Mommy. It is hard to meet friends at any age, but it gets worse later on. As well as our idea of right and wrong in the context of dating people. If you are younger, you might meet someone but be careful, as I have heard from a young girl in her 20s that met a man from another country who thought she was "asking for it" when all she wanted was a gentleman, who liked weekend trips and I guess he was stuck in the 1950s and thought it meant she was going to spread eagle for him. I find that if you're not the right age demographic or have the right socio-economic means to get out to all the events (so you tend to pick and choose) then you can't be considered "one of the crowd" and get thought of as being "cheap" or "that you don't like them". So you get one chance to impress people and if you're not as gregarious and hoppy-like a little robin bird is, you'll not be considered a "group player" and don't get invites to go places outside of meetup. It's hard to convince people you actually have value as a human being after one outing. In fact it's a tad high-school-ish as even at our age (over 50) that the women are clique-oriented, and I find that hard for me, as I disdain "group think". I thought I was "spiritual" but the leader of a very popular meetup got miffed at me for telling him I am not into The Power of Now and boy that guy got pissed off. Nor am I into this movie group that another guy organizes that lords over you in the movie lineup when you're buy a ticket and after the movie tells everyone bye...and that's it. No socializing or movie critiquing afterwards? I guess I am going to blame myself, mea culpa, mea, culpa. I'm not "trendy". I tried a Beer Group because one time I got invited to it from another meetup group. Only to see a bunch of people smiling but not smiling and all they wanted to do was drink lots of beer and eat friend foods. All the meetups that seem fun and that I haven't been to, are very far away. As a city person, I decided to forgo owning a car 5 years ago. Big Mistake. I now spend weekends at home. That too is the crux of the problem with getting out among a more possibly healthily-oriented crowd. Sometimes drivers will refuse to take you because they say that they've had it with people who don't contribute enough money to gas or act like they shouldn't have to pay or they claim the person is too chatty or he or she doesn't get along with the passenger at all. Maybe we need a list of do's and don't for talking to a driver? Why upset the poor driver eh? Maybe we need more social skills? Or maybe we need to do as the Romans when in Rome more, after all, we are here because it is a great place to live. Why bring your old school social rules here? Learn to be more respectful of women, and not judge them by the paleness of their skin or V-neck Tshirt that's a tad too low... as this is not a signal that we are more "easy" access to sex. We are not all alike you know? Also, there was a Canadian born and raised coordinator to a hiking group, an old guy, and I over heard him talk about a woman who claimed that after she fell he quickly ran over to pick her up (before anyone else could) and he pretty much copped a feel as he lifted her up. He claimed she was Bipolar and that she had accused him of purposefully coping a feel. I remembered the conversation because I had just joined the group and it stood out in my mind and yet about 3 years later, I fell and he did the same thing. I wrote him a very long polite note acting like I was stupid, and not letting him know I was there that day that he had bragged about having to deal with a bipolar woman...and I told him instead that when he lifts up a woman who falls that he not to do so by holding on to her chest as some women have had their breasts removed and it would be inappropriate for him to put his hand on her scar. I am totally thinking that Meetup is for Socially Depraved people who lure in Socially inept people and often, neither of us is happy about it. That coordinator is still in Meetup and sadly, no one has reported him to the cops. I think my note to him though, may have given him a different take in how to pick up a person who falls on a hiking trip. I am so tired of not finding any groups that I feel like people do not have an agenda or want any connections outside of that group activity at all.

I have been wanting to cancel my subcription but you all are not responding at all! 3 months. $37 Each

A week ago I signed up for Meetup Pro free trial by mistake. I immediately noticed what I done and have been trying to get help ever since. The first two days were responses that didn't apply to my issue whatsoever. There's no customer service phone number. I'm just out of the hospital with a fractured hip and a broken wrist yet need to get this done. Over a week later it's still not done and they're telling me you can't get the 30% off because you're Meetup isn't new. It is brand new, immediately after signing up for Pro by mistake I asked to be switched to Organizer subscription. How a company with such poor customer service can be so greedy is beyond my comprehension. The fees aren't cheap and I make no money from the meetup.

As the member of a MeetUp group, I received notice that my group was losing it's leader, and that the group would be closed if someone did not step up to take over. I could not see any notes from the prior leader, and sent a note of inquiry to SEVERAL MeetUp email addresses listed on their pages. No response, other than receiving additional notices that the group was closing because there was no one stepping up to take over. Hmmph. They were willing to let me pay some ~$60 fee to transfer responsibility, but were not willing to answer questions about previous group activities. I finally got an email response, but he was unable to answer my query about the group BEFORE IT CLOSED. I was then referred to another person, who told me the group was closed (DUH) and why didn't I start another group. WHY WOULD I START ANOTHER GROUP? They don't or can't support the groups they already HAVE. Took myself off their stupid platform, I advise that NO ONE start ANYTHING with these folks, they don't deserve the attention.

Meetup.com will tale your money as "Meetup Organizer" then approve your groups and then without notice once you have invested time inspiring members to join your groups and register for its events them disable your account for "spam" -- and they have no formal appeal process.

They don't bother with warnings or temporary measures like Facebook.

I AGREE WITH THE "ONE MAN'S OPINION" AS I WAS DROPPED FROM MEETUP FOR NO REASON AT ALL; NO REASONS GIVEN, NO PLACE TO FIGHT, NOTHING. I THINK THAT MEETUP SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED BY THE GOVERNMENT FOR RIPPING PEOPLE OFF.

I organize two meetup groups myself, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to find any link anywhere to even contact meetup for help, it is so extremely frustrating! Shame on them for selling their subscriptions but never providing any help at all!

In my opinion Meetup simply SUCKS. In my opinion they don't care about anyone either. I wish the State Attorney General would investigate Meetup's practices and find enough evidence to indict those who own and/or run the LLP. I believe they are incorporated in the State of Delaware but any States' Attorney General's Office could take them on, and I wish they would. Just my opinion though.

I have been a Meetup organizer paying dues of $200/yr for the past 13 years. As of this writing I have 5,048 members and 1,949 5 star reviews.

Meetup support sucks and is one of the worst companies I have ever dealt with, very poorly managed, and the Meetup.com platform has bugs as far back as I can remember. I have complained at least monthly for years.

In the past 2 weeks I have received complaints from three people who have joined my group, but I am not receiving notices from Meetup of said members request to join, so that I am unable to accept said requests to join my group. It is my policy to require interested parties to be accepted by me before they are able to become official members of my Meetup groups. If there are 3 people who have joined but not received by me to be accepted, I can only assume there are others. These three have notified me personally. It has been at least 2 weeks since these members asked to join and be accepted.

Before and since these three people have notified my of their completed registration, several have joined and been accepted by me. However, these three have not been received by me. I do not accept nonmembers to attend my hiking and kayaking events due to the inherent risks for safety purposes. However, since these three people notified me directly that they joined, I had no choice to make an exception, since the problem is with Meetup, not the members who join.

If I stop paying dues, Meetup shuts me down. The only leverage I have is to complain to Meetup support and post negative online reviews.

I wouldn't run a group on this site now even if it were free it is so crap. A million and one tech issues and no customer service you just spend weeks talking to people who would be better off pretending they are bots than admitting they are real people which I am still not sure if they are. If they are they must be purposefully trying to sabotage people from complaining as no one can be THAT stupid. Each online only "customer service" representative is more gormless than the last and they have less access to the Meet up site than even you do making them completely pointless. Even after a month of dealing with them your issue will be nowhere near resolved and they will be asking you the most stupid questions and making you jump through hoops. Avoid at all costs

I was banned from the room for no reason whatsoever! Don't even think about getting mental support!

I joined a wine and lunch/dinner group and was nervous and excited to go. I had not gone out in almost 2 1/2 years and told the group so. I was at a 2 hour meeting that went for 4 hours. I thought we were having a great time. The leader told the group I had no filter. I thought later that her comment was rude. I had been having such a good time. I am a woman and the group had women and men. One man made a sexual joke which the leader did not hear. A couple got drunk. The leader saw this. The next day I noticed I was kicked out of the next event but not the group itself. I looked up comments on meetup.com, some of which mirror my own concerns. So, I was going to pull myself out of this group because of the leader, not because of the members. Unbelievable. I thought she could have pulled me aside if she had concerns. I will make friends the natural way at my health club.

The fee's for organisers are overpriced.
The members complain about paying $5 for an organisers time, value and organisation? Pathetic.
Too many low quality males everywhere.
The messaging system is poor, no option to delete message, the "event chat" is messy, confusing, unnecessary, not private and horrible.
The site itself is often crashing, glitching, not loading.
The site support is selfish, focused on their own wants and needs.
The RSVPs are mostly lonely indian and arab men with poor communication skills, add no value for others in terms of growth or connection.