PSA: If you use Active.com for anything, check your credit card statement. They just charged me $79 that, thankfully, my credit card company caught at as fraud. Seems they signed me up for a membership even though I opted out of it when signing up for a race. Calling them they then lied to me and said I hadn’t been charged, so obviously my credit card company was just anticipating fraud. The lady at Active was rather rude to me when I pointed that out to her.
The person at my credit card company said they get a lot of calls about Active.com, so watch your statements if you sign up for races through them. ACTIVE.com
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’ve been doing this for 10 years and haven’t had this happen before. I signed up for Wildflower though and it said I opted in. I most definitely did not though. Considering that they also lied to me about charging me, I am just going to assume that they have a system problem instead of being unethical. Either way, I figured I’d spread the word.
Didn’t help that all their emails about their “membership” went to my spam folder. Obviously Google and my credit card company have seen a pattern.
I’m going to actively avoid using them whenever possible. I’d rather register by mailing in a check than use them again. Especially after dealing with their “customer service”.
Active sucks. I really wish races would stop using them, but I think 2 of the ones I am looking at this year are. Heck I cannot even go to their site at work to register, because they are blocking it as a blacklist website. This means they find it a questionable site for a person to visit. Usually the sites on that list are spammers, questionable ad providers, or questionably legal sites.
Some races now appear to not take paper sign-up anymore, so it is hard to steer clear of.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’m assuming if you only “made” around $100 that you didn’t get the $85/yr for shoes from Road Runner Sports or the Free compression socks? Just with those two options there is no way that you can come out of the membership in the red.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’m assuming if you only “made” around $100 that you didn’t get the $85/yr for shoes from Road Runner Sports or the Free compression socks? Just with those two options there is no way that you can come out of the membership in the red.
I’ve gotten the check also, play like the afore mentioned rr $85 deal. I just got Hoka Machs for $15 with the active 85 and my rr family plan. Not to mention the discount on fees on whatever races you sign up for. I’ve also used their travel links for race hotels and gotten some better deals than through hotels.com/ truvago and the like.
If you do 1 or 2 races a year that use active then I get not signing up, but multiple races a year with the fee discount and bonuses does help wash away the yearly fee.
How is this a PSA? I signed up for 20 races before I ever added the active membership. So take the discount on races, and then add in the $85 shoe coupon for roadrunner sports and you’re actually not spending money.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’m assuming if you only “made” around $100 that you didn’t get the $85/yr for shoes from Road Runner Sports or the Free compression socks? Just with those two options there is no way that you can come out of the membership in the red.
The PSA part is that I didn’t actually sign up for them. I selected the Opt-Out and they added me anyway. They are SUPPOSED to also send an email to verify which I never got.
It wouldn’t give me any value anyway as I get much bigger race discounts through my club and I buy my shoes locally as I kind-of like supporting local businesses.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’m assuming if you only “made” around $100 that you didn’t get the $85/yr for shoes from Road Runner Sports or the Free compression socks? Just with those two options there is no way that you can come out of the membership in the red.
Thank you for the PSA. Active bit me a year ago, and I never noticed. Fortunately I signed up for enough races that I recovered about 2/3 the cost. Dirty business.
Only 2/3? I actually “make” money on the membership. Between the (up) $10 discount on their fees, their “fifth race free” program and their giveaways, I suspect I “made” over $100 last year. I actually received a $70 check from them for the “fifth race free” program. But, I do a lot of races that use Active.
I agree that their signup can be sleazy. One needs to look at all the check-box options on every screen.
I’m assuming if you only “made” around $100 that you didn’t get the $85/yr for shoes from Road Runner Sports or the Free compression socks? Just with those two options there is no way that you can come out of the membership in the red.
Yes, I did use the $85 shoe discount. I used it for my brother (who got a pair of Hoka shoes for $12) so it didn’t register on my ledger. So, yes, including the shoes, it’s closer to $200 last year.
ETA: They occasionally run giveaway contests on Facebook and a received a pair of glasses earlier this year. Gave them to my son for his outdoor tennis matches.
The Active Advantage program offered very little value a few years back but I feel like recently they have been making an honest effort to make it worth it (like Amazon Prime). It’s going to be an uphill battle to undo all the bad press/reputation but if you do a couple of races that use Active a year and make use of some of the other benefits it not hard to come out ahead.
I just found my surprise $89.95 Active Advantage charge. They make it a hassle but if you call, they honor a refund if you’re not satisfied. Or if you are pissed that you were tricked into the membership charge. What a way to make a living!