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Classmates.com does it again (and not in a good way)

Not only does the company make it hard to cancel your membership, but also it still sends you spam.

Kent German Former senior managing editor / features
Kent was a senior managing editor at CNET News. A veteran of CNET since 2003, he reviewed the first iPhone and worked in both the London and San Francisco offices. When not working, he's planning his next vacation, walking his dog or watching planes land at the airport (yes, really).
Kent German

Last year I ranted about how Classmates.com nickels-and-dimes its users. While every other social networking site (at least that I've seen) doesn't charge its members to read messages, Classmates.com does. If you have a free membership (as I did), and some long lost high school friend decides to contact you, you can't read their message until you pay up for a "gold membership." As if. After thinking about it, I decided to cancel my membership. Here is where it gets really good. While there appeared to be an online option for canceling, I kept getting an "internal service error." I tried canceling online a few times. I was successful only after I e-mailing a representative. However, "gold members" can only cancel by asking the Classmates customer service team to do it.

To me, none of these policies make Classmates.com customer friendly, or easy to use. I contacted Classmates' media representative in November for comment, but I have not received a response. To top it off, I received spam from the company today. Nowhere in the e-mail did the company give an option to "unsubscribe." Argh!