How Active.com Became the Most Hated Name in Race Registration

Yup. Their business model is simply scamming people into memberships.

Here's an idea for everyone. Mail your registration in! Pay the 48 cents or whatever and be done with it. No convenience fee and the race gets more of the money.

I'm confused. I have never been charged any kind of active.com membership fees. Right before I would click "submit payment" (or some other varying verbiage to signify the acceptance of charges) it tells me EXACTLY what the charged amount will be. Just like amazon.com, it shows tax and shipping and everything before I click "buy"...

Who actually pays for something online without seeing that final "total tally" screen of what charges are to be assessed on your card? Also, I always get instant emails after every purchase of anything ever online so to avoid any surprises from my bank/credit card.

Am I missing something?!?

ekw wrote:

I'm confused. I have never been charged any kind of active.com membership fees. Right before I would click "submit payment" (or some other varying verbiage to signify the acceptance of charges) it tells me EXACTLY what the charged amount will be. Just like amazon.com, it shows tax and shipping and everything before I click "buy"...

Who actually pays for something online without seeing that final "total tally" screen of what charges are to be assessed on your card? Also, I always get instant emails after every purchase of anything ever online so to avoid any surprises from my bank/credit card.

Am I missing something?!?

Yes

Yes Man wrote:

ekw wrote:

I'm confused. I have never been charged any kind of active.com membership fees. Right before I would click "submit payment" (or some other varying verbiage to signify the acceptance of charges) it tells me EXACTLY what the charged amount will be. Just like amazon.com, it shows tax and shipping and everything before I click "buy"...

Who actually pays for something online without seeing that final "total tally" screen of what charges are to be assessed on your card? Also, I always get instant emails after every purchase of anything ever online so to avoid any surprises from my bank/credit card.

Am I missing something?!?

Yes

Care to elaborate? Or are you just a douche?

“I do online marketing for a tech startup,” she says. “I’m ultra-aware of legal language and hidden fees.”

You're fiwered...

....for sheer incompetence.

Some races don't offer this option.

ekw wrote:

Yes Man wrote:

Yes

Care to elaborate? Or are you just a douche?

That douche comment was not me, but an imposter. That being said, I am honestly curious what I am missing.

not only does active blow for registration, but they suck at results. No guarantee your results will still be up in 2 years, when you look back to see what you ran last time at a race youre about to do

lord how I do hate active. I try to avoid them if i can. Going analog and mailing the .40 stamp is worth the little bit of extra hassle (IF that's an option.)

Yes, the reason nothing else shows up in the charge is because they have thrown in a 1 month free membership with an automatic charge when the month is over. They know they are running a scam; if you call their customer service number the first thing that answers is an automated response for the $64 charge.

Yeah France wrote:

Yes, the reason nothing else shows up in the charge is because they have thrown in a 1 month free membership with an automatic charge when the month is over. They know they are running a scam; if you call their customer service number the first thing that answers is an automated response for the $64 charge.

As the article explained, for many races you have to uncheck a box to not get the membership, which like Frenchy said, does not show up on the race receipt. The email confirming your membership comes after your receipt email and looks like a standard spam.

I had it happen to me. I actually unchecked the box, but there was an error when I submitted the entry and when I went back and fixed the error it apparently autochecked the box for me. I was not aware of the scam at the time and didn't notice my membership until I saw the charge on my card statement a couple months later. They refunded it with no hassle, but it's an intentional scam.

oldschool mail wrote:

Here's an idea for everyone. Mail your registration in! Pay the 48 cents or whatever and be done with it. No convenience fee and the race gets more of the money.

+1

In fact, its actually cheaper than doing it online considering half the systems charge a "service fee" of $3 or more depending on how much the race actually is. If I'm given the chance, I will mail in registrations over doing them online.

While I hate active.com like everyone else does, this Christy chick needs an internet learners license ASAP.

The few times I registered for races via active.com, it stated very clearly what I signed up for. I always make sure to only opt into what I really want.

Poor Christy Mack (btw, there is an adult star with the same name - is that her?) probably also has 100 credit cards at home from all major retailers because the box was pre-checked.

What an idiot.

I signed up for one race at active.com. I did read in their fine print if I did not cancel my 1 month free membership I would get charged. I could not figure out how not to accept the 1 month free and I usually can find those things during registration.

Once I cancelled it, the email started rolling in. at least 5 day, and I got so annoyed I cancelled my subscription, which stopped but then they started coming back again, so I cancelled that subscription, and finally they stopped getting sent to me.

If I sign up for a race and its registration is on active.com, I might start questioning the race directors because they must get a number of complains of it year after year.

People fled coolrunning the day Active took over. There's tumbleweeds floating through them message boards.

My bad experience with Active.com was slightly different, maybe it was an older business model. At the end of my registration process the gave me the offer to receive a free copy of up to three magazines. I'm sure I read what was clearly presented me well, found no obvious traps and took them up on their offer. After receiving my free copies I continued to receive every subsequent copy from each publication. I later saw a yearly subscription fee foe each publication show up on my bank statements. I then had to go through the hassle of cancelling the subscriptions and the canceling just ended my subscription after the year as opposed to ending it there and then and me getting my money back. I'm sure the wording was some where really small that this would occur, but I found it really low for a company as large as Active to take my payment info that I had used to sign up for a race and apply it to another service that was very unrelated.

It's the spam, the endless spam that's so annoying. I unsubscribed several times and had to complain by email to stop the madness but a few weeks later it started again. A few weeks after a second complaint it finally stopped.

Thank God for nycruns.com

My guess is that some of you will be paying Active.com membership fees and not even know it.