Meetup Reviews 728

Looked at joining a new group starting out and organising their first meeting. To sign up for it you have to join Meetup. You can join Meetup as a free trial but only if you put your credit card details in and cancel later which, looking at other reviewers experiences, is not reliable

In the meantime they scrape your data to sell multiple companies so look forward to vast amounts of spam and you details appearing in the dark web

This is how to cancel your meetup account so that meetup never bills you again:

1. Call your bank and CANCEL YOUR CREDIT CARD.
2. INFORM THE BANK THAT THEY ARE NOT TO PROVIDE THE NEW CREDIT CARD NUMBER TO ANY MERCHANTS YOU HAVE SUBSCRIPTIONS WITH.
3. Delete your groups.
4. Delete your meetup account

Note: If you only cancel your credit cards, there is a possibility that your bank will give Meetup the new credit card number and they will continue billing you for the subscription.

So, make sure to tell your bank to NOT give the new credit card number to any merchants!

Absolutely awful - they have charged me twice and there is no way to contact customer services as the emails get undelivered.

The concept sounded great but in reality it is not!

Meetup was once great, but is now a disaster. In 2024 it was acquired by an Italian technology company called Bending Spoons. They immediately ruined the website and the app, making navigation and use very difficult, then they jacked up the fees for organizers and users. Paywalls everywhere. Misleading usurious screens and barriers to get casual users to buy unwanted subscriptions. This is a classic case of insane greeed and idiot ownership causing enshittification of the Internet. Don't waste your time with Meetup -- it is a dying platform and I hopr the current Italian owners lose every penny they paid for it. Disgusting.

They are sending advertisement about gay events to your email which can cause a huge problems if someone notice it accidentally

I am not a gay and I don't wish to receive any messages about gay events

Meetup doesn't enforce their community standards. If an organization doesn't like an attendee meetup allows them to ban the person whether or not they have done anything deserving of any response and if the victim complains that the organization has banned Meetup community standards by not being welcoming, as required, meetup doesn't do anything.

Who do these people think they are? $9.99 a WEEK just to learn about events in your town? Outrageous. Lol, no wonder the platform is dying.

They’ve really ruined Meetup through greed!
Now at £25 per month to have a group, there are far less groups around
As an ‘attendee’ they’ve limited functionality unless you also pay a fee.
Searching and finding groups/events in your local area feels unnecessarily difficult.
I feel there’s still the demand for a decent platform… a good time for a decent model and a new company to take the gap Meetup have created through their own downgrades!

It´s not acceptable for any business to have a customer service that takes more than a month to reply (and even then, without any meaningful or helpful response). Membership for group organisers is not cheap, and if we can find a good alternative, we will.

Very toxic and I would personally feel unsafe platform, full of very toxic people. And very poor behaviours that are not in any way, managed as they should be by the platform, in my opinion.

Impossible to unsubscribe and they keep trying to deduct money from my creditcard. The “instructions” to cancel a subscription are nonsense as what they describe we should be able to see and request and do is not there as an option. I want to unsubscribe from this terrible app and I want them to leave me alone and it is impossible!!! Don’t get the paid version every

Title: Hostile Community & Zero Accountability

I joined Meetup specifically to meet new people in San Diego, and instead I ran into one of the most unwelcoming and exclusionary experiences I’ve ever seen on a social platform. A group called “Fun Times in San Diego” is run by organizers who block, gatekeep, and dismiss people without explanation — and when I tried to politely ask for clarification, I was met with a rude, hostile message telling me not to show up at events unless I was “approved.”

This was not based on behavior, safety concerns, or any legitimate reason — just arbitrary exclusion and power-tripping. Meetup provides no meaningful review process for this kind of conduct. I submitted multiple reports, and instead of investigating, Meetup blocked me from filing further tickets, effectively silencing the complaint rather than addressing it.

This app claims to promote community and connection — but in reality, it allows event organizers to treat people however they want, with zero oversight and zero accountability. If an organizer decides they don’t like you for any reason, you are simply shut out — and Meetup does nothing.

If you are someone who cares about safe, respectful, inclusive social environments, this platform will disappoint you. Meetup has completely abandoned its responsibility to ensure fair treatment and basic respect among its communities.

Avoid this app unless you are comfortable with cliques, hostility, and absolutely no recourse when things go wrong.

Had a bad experience too. They make subscription and payments so opaque! I signed up for something that was supposed to cost around £2.99 then £7 / month. Then I discovered I was charged £7 PER WEEK! Why? What's the use. It only allowed me to message people on meetup, which wasn't useful at all!

This company is too greedy, I unsubscribed, and now I get promotions and OFFERS all over the website and app. ALWAYS ASKING FOR MONEY everywhere you look. Despicable!

Seems so many others are having the same issue as myself. Fraud website, absolute scammers.

I literally LOGGED IN to the website ONCE to see what it was about, back in September. Years ago I did have an account on the website, but it looks like it updated or changed hands as it looked very different. Upon signing back in, my phone must've auto filled in my bank details, because now in October I noticed a subscription payment come out.

I haven't used the service at all.

I went to unsubscribe - it was impossible to do on a mobile due to the website nav and popup that comes up. And very difficult to find on desktop, but got it done.

I went to delete my bank details - IT DOESN'T LET YOU. Completely illegal.

I searched up getting a refund, and their help page states this can be done up to 20 days after payment for monthly charges.

I couldn't see anywhere that actually lets you request specifically for a refund, so I found their general requests page. It doesn't connect to your emails, it's literally just a forum. So if you log off and leave it.. how can you track it?

So I manually typed in to request the refund, and I get a reply saying refunds for subscriptions are never refundable... which is NOT what their page says. I responded saying this, and have had no reply since.

While this service is based in the US, I am in the UK/EU and they still must comply with international law and GDPS.

Signed up the day before the page kept crashing which should have been a good warning not to proceed and give them my email. However I eventually managed to set up an account and join a couple of events for today.
Today when I tried to sign all I got was error messages I checked all connection settings which are working fine for all other pages apart from meet junk. So I won't be able to attend these events have no direct way to contact the event organisers and let them know . In the interim I can't sign in to delete my account from this worthless data extrapolator thank fully I only created a bare bones profile . I would advice others to do the same .

By the way a parent of mine is a profilic meet up user and that is someone unhinged with a violent past . So I don't know what shape meet up is in these days as I last used the service back 2017 when it was still functional for the purpose of finding groups and then attending an event now it is not even fit for that . However as I mention meet up groups are full of troubled individuals and I met a few myself so I count my blessings as the odds on meeting people with basic social skills like manners are not very good and I remember from football meet up's that I attended . In the past .

I also relate to what another user said about not wanting to be forced into photos that are claimed to be used to promote the group I remember that also being a factor that made me feel uncomfortable at past events and I'm a man but like the other user on here I like my privacy and the word meet up has nothing to do with being cajoled into having to pose for a forced photo as if it is like a school .
All I can say further to the above is I hope someone starts a site that is literally just a place to meet people interested in the same subject or who just want to do an activity not find fodder to spam up their socials.

VERY BAD COMPANY. DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM THEM. THEY ARE MISLEADING AND DON'T HAVE A CANCEL BUTTON. THEY WILL CHARGE YOU UNTIL YOU FIGHT A SUPPORT REP ON EMAIL FOR DAYS

I did the seven day free trial and canceled prior to the seven days, they have continued to bill me weekly for five dollars or $4.99 and they will not credit me back my money and they continue to bill me. I don’t know what to do. This is such a scam. Beware of meet up.com.

Simply fraudsters. Cannot unsubscribe now, didn’t get refund and they are charging me already twice despite not using this silly app at all. I will get in contact with my lawyer as I have no idea what to do to now, but they lost my time and energy as well as my mood

I contacted à local group organised through Meetup: realised I didn't want to join and unsubscribed. Or thought I had. Multiple times.
Impossible to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe link doesn't go anywhere. I trawled their website - you can only unsubscribe if you are à member - NO WAY am I joining them but I can't stop them emailing me.