Doing the monthly round of checking old email addresses to see if I'm not missing anything important—as usual, I am—I find an email from Classmates.com. I signed up for the site ages ago, and checked it out once every couple of months to see who from high school had added their profile. Since it's coming up on 10 years since graduating, a notice of a 7-day free trial for the 'gold' accounts looked inticing. What a great way to read the profiles of people who wrote them, when before they were behind the pay wall. The email containing the free offer looked like the one to the right—it's cropped, but the important information is there.
So far so good. So I click on all the links and they all go to a page asking me to select between 3 options: 2 years at $2.46 a month; 12 months at $3.25 a month; or 3 months at $5 a month. The last option is reasonable: five bucks is probably something I'd be willing to pay for using it a couple of times a month to connect with old friends, but no! I specifically requested the 7-days free option. Strike 1.
I stumbled around and found a link inside Classmates.com for the free account as one of the options. It repaces the 3 month option at $5 a month with the 7-day free trial. Yes, that's the one I want!
Then this, the bold in the original: “If the 7 Day Free Trial for the Gold Membership is free, why do we need your credit card? ¶ Once your trial period has ended, your membership will automatically be renewed and charged to your credit card. ¶ If you decide to cancel, just do so on the My Account page during your trial period and your credit card will not be charged.” Can you think of any type of site that, in return for your credit card info, gives you a free trial access to the site? The fact I know this no doubt reveals a little more than you wanted to know, but that's right friends, this is porn website tactic. That's strike 2 and strike 3 yer out. I know that screens out looky-loos, but it also screens out people who, like myself, are confident they will completely forget about canceling the membership until they see the charge on their credit card bill.
I'm still a potential customer of theirs. $5 is a reasonable monthly price for their lowest—or rather, shortest—offering. But Classmates.com at least missed an opportunity to let me in and give them the new feedback on their actual service, and not their crappy wall that prevents me from honestly experiencing it for a real free trial.