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other website

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 06/06/10 02:07 PM Views: 1884 Replies: 8
Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 2:07 PM

Has anyone received complaints about a website call alumni.com. They are based in Washington State and set up alumni websites for all schools across the country. We have lost a lot of potential alumni to this site. The think they are joining this site. The other site requrires everyone to pay $10.00 to join and from the complaints I hear they get nothing in return. Is there a way that my website can be brought up first when alumni type in our school name.

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Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 8:20 PM - Response #1

Where you rank in the search engines depends on what title you've given your site, and exactly what people search in Google. Your site will usually be in the top 10 for most if not all relevant keywords, but it's going to vary.

Yes, this has actually come up many times before along with several other similar scenarios. We did have one Admin write to them (I'm pretty sure it was them anyway) and ultimately convinced them to remove the other site. If I recall he wound up having to be rather threatening though. Aside from that I'd say make it known in all ways possible where your official site is, which I'm sure you're already doing.


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Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 8:26 PM - Response #2

Yes. I have been 'fighting' with this guy for over a year. He stole our copyrighted logo from our website and put it on his site and changed his colors to resemble ours. Several of our alumni have been 'tricked' into getting on this site and paying the 10.00 fee.

We have a non profit and an alumni who is an attorney sent them a letter. They finally took off our logo and but a disclaimer on the bottom of the site saying they are not associated with our association.

Also, they have contacted our school to claim to be the offical alumni site and asked to be listed on the schools website.

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Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 8:40 PM - Response #3

our school alumni newspaper just came out this week and they mentioned a site called alumniclass.com. sounds like the same premise. we, so far, knock on wood, have not had a prob. with our website here because of them. hopefully we will continue to not have any prob.........

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Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 9:10 PM - Response #4

I'm sure glad you brought this subject & website up. About two years ago, these "animals" caught me and swindled me out of $10.00 as well. Their website didn't have their street address or phone number posted and they refused to give me any of that information. However, now that I'm the webmaster for the Bothell High School Alumni Association Inc in addition to being Site Admin for my Class of 1961, we have been actively trying to give these people a run for their money. I've worked hard to keep messing them up with the Search Engines, however now that I have an actual address and phone number (taken from their website) life is just about to make a major turnaround for them.

Thank you very much for your post here today, I will keep this thread active and report back to you the outcome as these despicable "animals" may have just hung themselves out to dry. Just for the record--my intent is to put them OUT OF BUSINESS once and for all.

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Sunday, June 6, 2010 at 9:27 PM - Response #5

Our Alumni Association voted to place an ad in the back of each yearbook going forward so anytime in the future the grad browses their book, our website is prominently displayed. If they forget what it is, they may remember where they saw it.

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Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 3:17 AM - Response #6

Get word to all you classmates, even if it takes mailing out snailmail notices. But sure you go to the cc FAQ's so people know the truth. AND memtion these other sites. Tell them this group charges the class, but not individuals.
MOST of all it's the "official" site and all info for reunions and updates will come through this one. Send those out by email if possible, but longhand the rest.
Lara

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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 at 12:59 PM - Response #7

I am with Laura on this. I think basically we need one snail mail to inform every classmate of this site and then the ball is in their court to join or not. We will be doing that in Jan 2011 for our August 2011 40th reunion. At least they will be aware THIS IS THE PLACE! I have also talked personally to people that this is all we are using other than Facebook, which is unofficial of course. BUT we find people there and direct them here.

If people still refuse to use computers (how they are going to retire and get SS and Medicare is beyond me?) we will give a telephone number to contact on the Jan. mailing. We plan to use a drop dead georgous picture of the school and have an "eye-catching" postcard, professionally done, announcing this and then as I said, the ball is in their court.

We had 639 graduates and many who for some reason did not graduate, and of course 50 deceased among that number so we are talking about 600 people any way you look at it.

When you google, unfortunately classcreator is about 6 down (Facebook is #1) but it does say right there "This is the official web site for the Class of 1971" so hopefully we are grabbing those people who google.

We are all about this product and while I am still learning much, it is working for us. And we are very glad we started a full year ahead of the class ahead of us. By the time we really get serious this fall, much of the work is done!

Denise

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Monday, March 19, 2012 at 7:29 PM - Response #8

Just an update to those who may have concerns about the misleading marketing of other commercial websites.

We have had complaints from our alumni members that they had received emails they thought were from us requesting they pay a fee to be registered on our free alumni website.

We immediately follow up advising them that they never have to pay a fee to join or participate on our all-alumni website or our private class websites, and that the emails they have received are from a commercial for-profit website.

Are any other ClassCreator websites having similar issues with any commercial sites improperly marketing to your members? I'd like to know if it has been a recent issue for others besides just us.

Our representative contacted the representative of a major commercial website in December 2011 and they just recently responded and claim they are not doing anything wrong. We may take it a step further to protect our members from this type of misleading marketing.

Here is our position:

"Our concern is that the "so-and-so" website leads consumers (including our members) to believe that the website is authorized by and/or working with our association, which is not the case. The company then relies on that false impression to seek payments from our members and others. The fact that the company refuses to include the language we have requested, clarifying that they are not affiliated or working with our high school or our alumni association confirms that the company is fully aware of the confusion created by its marketing and has no plans to change its strategy."

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Edited 03/19/12 7:30 PM
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