Now, my challenge is how to stop this membership. I got them to reduce the monthly deduction (for the membership - not dues) to $25 a month, but I”m currently unemployed and even that is too much for me. At this rate, I’ll be paying on this for a total of nine years, at least.

Biggest fraud.

I found their website and thought it was just what I’d been looking for - an easy way to find a group of people to go out with to do fun activities. I didn’t like that once I put my email address in as interested that I couldn’t search the rest of the site for more information. It kept taking me back to the page that said that a representative would be calling me.

So, they called me and right away I got the willies. I thought, “bait and switch, bait and switch!” The first question I asked was how many members there are locally. She said, “That is an excellent question…” and proceeded to give me a pitch that didn’t come close to answering my question.

Then she said (without taking a breath), “Now, let me ask you a few questions.” And I said that she hadn’t answered my question.

Anyway, it went downhill from there. I was sure I was being “sold”, albeit poorly because it was so blatant and plastic, but I decided to take the appointment knowing that I wouldn’t buy anything unless I got a completely different impression in the interview.

As soon as I hung up the phone, I did a quick Google search and found this post. I can’t thank you all enough. The sum total of comments just reinforced what I thought and answered the cost question which they wouldn’t answer for me either.

I called back two minutes later, talked to the same lady that had called me, cancelled my appointment, and asked to be taken off their call and contact lists. She said, “Oh, I certainly will. I just hope your name hasn’t gotten on to another person’s list already. But I’ll take you off mine.” I said that I hoped my name wasn’t on any of their other lists either because if I got contacted by anyone in their company, I would report them to the Better Business Bureau.

Whew - hopefully, one ongoing headache avoided.

Thanks again.

Be careful when you sign up, as long as they can keep you for 3 days, they keep thousands of dollars of yours! They don’t care the quanlity of services, 3 days is all they need to keep your money. They boast having thousand of members, but the turn out rate is low. Most activities are eating, drinking, playing. You have to pay extra money for signing up for individual events. Lots of events make you feel they are trying to get customers for their business partners!

They apparently have a 24 hour (business day) cancellation policy. Having gotten cold feet after signing up on a Sat., I called Sunday and left messages at the Dallas and Seattle offices. I spent all day Monday calling both offices, Dallas told me I had to go through Seattle and Seattle kept telling me someone from the Dallas office would call me. The Dallas office finally called me about 5:30 pm and informed me that I had to have a Certified Letter dated that day in order to get a full refund, otherwise they could charge me a $400 “processing fee”!!! I not so politely informed the guy that I’d been getting the run-around from them all day when he turned to buddy mode and said he would try and help me out but didn’t know if he could. Being an ever resourceful gal I found a Fed-Ex that was open until 8pm and got the job done. Now I’ve been waiting for 3 weeks to have the charge refunded. They keep telling me they have 30 days to “process” the return (even though the charge to my card showed up immediately). Finally today the Seattle office told me their records indicate it will be processed 3/18….exactly 30 days from the date of my cancellation letter! When pressed, the girl in Seattle couldn’t tell me why, only that it was their policy. She finally transfered me to the Accountant’s voicemail because “she was out.” Needless to say, I haven’t heard back from them yet and finally decided to call AmEx and alert them to the fiasco and enlist their help. Learn from my mistakes and run for the hills!

I arrived for my appointment 5 minutes early and I also was taken into my appointment 20 minutes late, which kind of turned me off to start since I only had an hour before I had to leave. Then I got the same spiel about the $200 off holiday special which coincidentally was ending that day, no pressure or anything. Now mind you I should have done my research before I went into the interview of course because at this point I was still excited about the whole idea and was totally on board until she brought me the pricing sheet. As I was adding it all up I finally realized it was going to be about $150 a month just for the year membership (no cancellations allowed) which comes to about $37.50 a week. Now if you are anything like me you do have somewhat of a life already so attending 2 or more events a week is out of the question. You’d basically be paying $40 to go bowling or sing Karaoke. They of course do have events like seeing plays and what not, but you still have to pay for the tickets for these type of events, though they are discounted. So after I went over all of the pricing in my head I determined I just was not in a place to socially fit in enough events to justify paying the cost that was presented to me. I also was a bit coldly dismissed I thought whenever I told her I would call back again if my schedule cleared a bit because I didn’t want to be locked into something I couldn’t cancel or wouldn’t have time for. I said “thank you for you time and have a nice night” and she handed me my license back, turned to her files and not a “thank you for coming in”, “it was so nice to meet you”, or even a “goodbye”; a touch rude if you ask me.

Now on a slightly more positive note if you do you have the means to spend that kind of money and have more time to attend several events a week I would reccommend the unlimited/lifetime subscription which was $2095 plus the $25 a month membership fee. According to the sales girl you can use this membership as long as you like and this is the only membership type that can be transferred/sold to a new member. That would come to about $200 a month for the first year and then only $25 a month after that. So again, if you have the means and the time I am sure you could meet a decent group of singles in your area, but beware the slightly rude sales people.

When I told her that I might need to wait a couple of months (I’m taking some classes now and wouldn’t have time for many events), I was told that they have openings now but might not have any in a couple of months. Again, that answer raised a red flag…kind of an “it’s now or never” sales pitch. When I stuck to my guns and said I’d have to wait, she said “thanks for coming. Good luck with everything.” Then she turned to her computer and started typing away, totally dismissing me like I wasn’t worth the time to be more polite.

While E&A might be a great club, and might be worth it in the long run, the sales person left me feeling cold. I don’t respond well to hard sell tactics, and that’s what it felt like to me. Unless they change their tactics, I think they’ll continue to turn people off this way.

- Chris W

My other peave with these guys was that you still get to attend club events if you are going steady. In other words, “single” means “not married” rather than “available”.