MeetupReviews 498

As a member, it's easy to join and is free. So far no really terrible experiences. I've used it for years.

However, I decided to become an organizer. What I didn't know before I hosted was they charge you a monthly fee. This is how they make money. However, they gave me a discount so I decided to test it out for six months. That's not my complaint though.

I had an issue with some members in the group. I wanted to ask the community of organizers on Meetup how they usually deal with general situations like mine. I couldn't find any other forums but the one on their site. I searched for a similar answer and found none, so I submitted my question to the forum.

I got a reply shortly after from their community manager stating that they couldn't post my question, but did not specify why. He just gave me a generic statement that this was a community forum for best practices. How was my question not about best practices? However, he continued to offer me some generic advice I found unhelpful.

I got the feeling that because my question was negative, I wasn't allowed to voice it. They wanted to hide it and didn't want to make others in the community aware of what could happen in their groups. What an incredibly discouraging experience. It made me feel isolated from other hosts, and unable to turn to anyone for support. What's the point of "meetup" if you can't turn to your community?

My thoughts about this company: be weary of anyone that tries to hide something from the community especially when it relates to safety. I'll be cancelling my account when my six months is up.

I would not recommend joining a Meetup group as the organisers can (and do) ban you for whatever reason with no recourse -daring to RVSP, changing your RSVP or even asking a question online and you're banned. Querying this with the organisers cuts no ice either as they'll ignore you and don't even bother going to meetup HQ itself as they'll point you towards the TOS which requires a law degree to interpret. You might do better if you've had to pay a subscription to join as then you'll have a contract with them but don't bank on it. A more un-user friendly association I've not met.

Meetup is arbitrary with the enforcement of their own rules.

I built two different Meetups and in both cases they shut them down and they were both legitimate topics that have plenty of other people doing the same thing (I wasn't setting any precedents).

And the worst part - they just shut you off without giving you any tips or suggestions on how to become compliant in their system if they determine you're not. Just "POOF", you're deleted. What a crock of@#$%.

Meetup has good facilities for organizing group members and events. It's easy to design your own page and set up events, even collecting money for them. Clubs who start using it need to be aware that it's really hard to stop using it, because if you stop paying fees, meetup will email everyone else in the group asking for another organizer to step up. So, if say you start a club called Harley Riders of LA County, but then decide to move to your own website, it's really difficult to take your meetup members with you. You need to email all the membership and then manually delete all group members, otherwise they will all keep receiving emails from Meetup that your club is closing down if a new organizer doesn't step up.

I've been a Meetup organizer for 4 years. I've started several free groups. People need to realize that they are dealing with human beings on 3 levels. 1. Meetup New York. 2. The group organizers. 3. The members. Most organizers are good people who work without pay. Most members are good people too, but expect to run into anything. Never carpool with someone you don't know well. If Meetup members didn't love their groups they wouldn't stay in them for years, and that's the bottom line.

You can't "rate" meetup.com.
It's just a website that facilitates peoples' desires to MEET other like-minded people.
If you are crazy, judgemental, paranoid or full of yourself DON'T JOIN A GROUP AND THEN COMPLAIN ABOUT YOUR WARPED PERCEPTIONS.

You can't rate the website, but you can rate a individual meetup group that you've been in, but what's the point? What's the likelihood that anyone using Site Jabber is going to be attending the EXACT SAME GROUP as you?

The few meetup group organizers that I have met and had the opportunity to chat with, always lament about the crazy people that join their group and then complain, whine, $#*! and generally wreak havoc in what is supposed to be a group of people that simply want to share an activity/interest with other like-minded people.

There ARE meetup groups for dating, just as there are for introverts, East-Indian singles 24-33... whatever you want, so don't join a group for over 40's and then complain that everyone is over 40.
Jeebus.

It is a stalker's paradise! There are so many obvious fake profiles; people who have been banned just rejoin with fake profiles, then show up to meetup events to repeatedly stalk, harass and terrify the person they are obsessed with. When Meetup is notified of these fake profiles, they do absolutely NOTHING about it even though they are aware through comparing the stalkers IP addresses. I have been told that I need to file repeated lawsuits against the criminal stalker before they will divulge the information. I had Organizers who repeatedly had to warn their membership to beware of this sick man and his repeated presence in banned groups in an attempt to protect me and keep me safe. Ultimately, I had to leave Meetup completely, while the sick, perverted stalker now has up to 8 fake profiles. All Meetup screams loud and clear is that they are a "Safe Harbor"... meaning they will take absolutely NO RESPONSIBILITY for any resulting harm. Meetup is a disgrace to the community.

I have attended many meetup groups and have NEVER been scammed. It is a free social service, similar to okcupid but offers more then just meeting singles. After each event members are able to comment and rate the events so if someone wanted to scam you they would have to make tons of profiles to make the group seem legitimate. Read the reviews for the meetup group, view the photo's of the events, contact the venue where the event is taking place. If your afraid of getting scammed (which is crazy) then do your homework to make sure the group is real. It cost money to start a meetup group, you need a paypal account, and members can easily contact the owners of the site to report any problems. This site is a great free service. I have started a meetup group, you pay a monthly fee & it is a TON of work. No one becomes rich for owning a meetup group, there are much easier ways to scam people out of money.

As for the emails you get, CHANGE YOUR PROFILE SETTINGS. It is so easy, I don't receive any emails from meetup.com because my profile setting are set where I don't get promotional emails. Also if you have google, make a social events folder. That way you can view the emails when you want to and they won't be in your main inbox. Meetup is such a great site, not every group is great, but that would be a little much to ask for.

Terrible customer service once they have your money. All friendly, charming and quick to help when you begin to set up a new meetup, but that welcome mat is gone once they got you in. A Meetup I had organized for after-school education in Technology (of course, the Meetup is technically for the parents as kids cannot be Members), disappeared with no warning or explanation, and so far they have not responded to all efforts I have made to contact them.

There is bad and good. If they don't like you or you don't fit in, you re just treated like dirt. Some of the organizers are very nice and others are ignorant. I already talked to organizer who had serious trust issues with meeting new people. Well duh! What are you doing on meetup? I guess it's like everything else. You have good and bad but I did meet some really cool people. There are better ways of meeting people. Oh and if you re new to a group and you re not liked, some organizers will delete the event!

There are some pretty good groups on it, but I was unfairly banned from a dating group recently. I didn't fill in the boxes properly because I was not sure what to write about, so I was declined. I did try to do a better job of things the next time I filled in the registration form, yet I got banned. The person in charge is clearly rude and obnoxious. I was reported to the police too, but I felt I just needed her to explain her reason. It totally could have ruined January for me.

The organizer Lorraine LIES!. This is a group for woman in there 20's and 30's and the organizer is in her 40's. She also lets men join in the Facebook page and and ignores members who don't pay the VIP membership. I was basically ignored at one of the events because I was new and not considered "Gorgeous" to be included. This organizer only cares about money and attention. Don't join GorgeousGirlsofSC (southern california) it will be a horrible experience if you are looking for real friends.In my opinion.