Discussion: concerns with using Active.com

Has anyone among the orienteering community here in North America, had a bad experience with using the Active.com registration system ?

Specifically, about unauthorized financial charges on a credit card of withdraws from a debit card.

Their customer support website has numerous complaints.

Searching the internet with the sentence "active advantage scam" yields similar stories.

Got a bit suspicious after I recently registered for a 10K run:
At the end of the registration process, there was a screen with FREE offers, and two choices to make, either Yes or No. Reading the fine print, I found that if someone chose yes to the free offers, that person would automatically be enrolled in a premium membership service should that person not cancel that within 30 days. Since in registering for the 10K race one has to provide a credit card or debit card number, the company Active.com has that card number to deduct additional fees in the future should they want to.

Beware of negative billing.

Some races I attended had no other means of registration. Active.com accused me of checking a box (that I did NOT check) which requested free full membership for a year. After that non-requested free year expired, my non-requested full membership was then continued at full cost and deducted from my credit card. After I reported the situation to the credit card company, Active.com withdrew the charges.

Except where there is absolutely no option, I will not use Active.com.

This is ancient history now, but when Active.com was a new company, they offered to help Orienteering USA (USOF at that time) with new membership and registration software. The offer looked very tempting on the surface, and Liz Kotowski and I spent probably six months in discovery negotiating with them. The whole thing turned out to be a bait-and-switch, and they did some unethical things that were not approved by anyone in USOF, so we pulled back. I do not recommend Active.com.