Forums >Off the Beaten Path>active-dot-com
What a JV operation!
Do they think they are ticket master? $3.00 processing fee?? Aren't things supposed to get cheaper when human intervention is not required?
The voice of mile 18
$3 i though it was closer to $10
will be actually snail mailing a couple registrations this year to avoid their fees.
Tri Rule #1 of Triathlon Training/Racing - If Momma ain't happy nobody is happy
http://briandpurcell.blogspot.com/
Queen of 3rd Place
active is e-v-i-l
They totally buggered up Cool Running. Which is why this site got stuck with a bunch of us.
Ex runner
I've got a fever...
active is e-v-i-l They totally buggered up Cool Running. Which is why this site got stuck with a bunch of us.
We are thankful for that particular act of buggery (which is what Scout's mom said to me last night). RA is much richer with arrival of the C-R refugee boats. Hard to believe all of that was almost 2 years ago.
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
Their pricing varies by the cost of the registration. Most 5k/10k races have the $3 fee, but some marathons are in the $6-$10 range. I have very rarely used them to register and much prefer mailing in my entry and pay the postage.
Why would the cost of processing the application vary with the regisration fee. Wouldn't economies of scale kick in here? They just want to get as much as they can out of us.
Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos.
tomatolover
Prince of Fatness
i don't have a problem with them covering their costs, or even making a profit for that matter. They are a business after all. My issue is mainly that they suck from a customer service standpoint. When I run into problems I have difficulty getting them resolved. They seem to have a take it or leave it attitude. The CR fiasco was an example of this.
What they need is some real competition. Losing business would wake them up, I bet.
Not at it at all.
Then there was that whole thing where they had an employee (their director of social media or something) masquerade as a newbie runner on sites like RA to troll and generate traffic on active.com.
I don't like the size of their fees. They aren't the only game in town... marathonguide does race registration. So does signmeup and a number of smaller players like allsport, databar, etc. I'm surprised that active is the biggest. The barriers to entry here can't be big, and someone should be able to school active.
I still don't know if their incompetence at the CR message board takeover was intentional or not, but whatever it was, the plan backfired.
Then there's the whole "pay us for our awesome running log and annotated coaching with c25k" stuff.
The whole membership thing that they want you to sign up for. The free magazines that are not free. And the not-obvious ways you opt in and opt out of those things.
I don't know anybody that likes active.com. At all. Yet they are the biggest game in town when it comes to registration.
I wonder... and I should ask... whether active.com treats races and race directors well.
Skooter 3.0
"This guy, this is not my kind of guy."
Goals?
I don't know anybody that likes active.com. At all. Yet they are the biggest game in town when it comes to registration. I wonder... and I should ask... whether active.com treats races and race directors well.
Perhaps the reason they are the biggest is because they more aggressively market themselves to race directors than any other online registration service. I don't know of any other service that has a sales staff that pursues RDs to try to get their business. I guess, in enough cases, it works.
Hawt and sexy
Do I like active? Hell no. But I have to use their service once a year as Steamtown, the local marathon, only takes registration from active.com. If there was another option, I would gladly use it and probably donate more to the charity that runs the race just for using a service that was better (and in my opinion, anything would be better). I agree that the customer service at active seems to be their way or the highway, but would you pay for yet another service since you don't like us?
Meh, IDK.
I'm touching your pants.
That 3 dollar fee is ridiculous. There are a few local races here each year that give you the option of registering online for 5 dollars less than the regular fee. Of course they use active dot com and at the end of registration you get hit with that 3 dollar 'processing fee.' Oh gee thanks, I saved 2 dollars. I won't use it unless they require online registration. I'd rather stand in the race-day registration line for 30 mins in the cold than contribute to their site.
MTA: accidentally referenced their actual domain name in my post