Internet flotsam, jetsam, and how to knit with it: Roughly chronologically

Friday, December 7, 2007

Roughly chronologically - that link post I was talking about.

34 comments:

Anonymous said...: I have been rejected 3 times
You cannot email the administrator...It is pure discrimination.....Can't we tell
some one who cares? People are
paying good money....It is a business....They should account
and give reasons for rejecting us!
We should have the site closed
down....Discrimination is a serious
offense....We have many who can prove that..... www.bearfront.com/98190; February 11, 2008 3:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Im totally agree with that...

I even posted more info about Bear411 and also their activities their doing in Montreal call Sugarbearweekend...
You can find it all on my website www.mtlscream2.net

or the direct link
http://www.mtlscream2.net/Mtlscream2/Blog/Entrées/2008/2/27_Bear411_and_Sugarbear_weekend%3A_The_Truth.html; March 1, 2008 9:05 AM
Curicub said...: Have been rejected a number of times. Thought I'd try again recently to see if anything's changed, but obviously it hasn't. Funny thing is, my partner (a bear who looks like one) and I had a profile up on that site, and there were no problems whatsoever, but when I tried to create a profile of my own, I got immediately rejected.; March 9, 2008 5:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Interesting info,,,I totally agree the way BEAR411 website is run by an ASSHOLE! I have DELETED my profile at least 5 times and all my photos as well. He keeps reposting the images with whatever info he can capture. It's like I have NO CONTROL over my own content or EVEN if I choose to be on the site at all!; May 22, 2008 8:36 PM
joseph said...: I updated my profile this morning around 8:30 a.m. and by this afternoon (around 4:00 p.m.) my profile was removed. This Greg guy is a jerk. It's OK...perhaps it was time to move on anyway. I never really met any nice guys on there anyway.; July 2, 2008 4:25 PM
Anonymous said...: I couldn't agree more with the comments posted here. Even WITH a face pic, my profile was rejected without a reason. I suspect it was because I didn't look bear enough. He probably also didn't like the fact that I wasn't looking for other bear types. I can't find any decent sites for older for younger...especially for South Carolina.; November 29, 2008 5:05 PM
Anonymous said...: What would really help is if 3 or 4 of the biggest other bear sites worked together and came up with a "one login across all the sites" feature, which would immediately give them a bigger combined membership than bear411 has. Then we'd have some meaningful competition in the bear personals market.

But I think what will happen is that people will just keep complaining and not really do anything. I'm posting this anonymously because I fully expect bear411 to continue to be where groups in my area promote their events, which will drive more guys in my area to bear411. It's a sad cycle that I'd like to see broken, but as of now, it's not.

To the poster whose pictures are still in use on bear411.com without permission: as the site's owner likes to send legal notices, you should do the same to him regarding your copyrighted personal pictures. It seems to be the only thing he understands, though since his site still contains no terms of service or user agreement, maybe he doesn't even understand that.; February 15, 2009 7:52 AM
Anonymous said...: I just tried to join and i got rejected. I'm guessing because im not bear enough. Freaking elitist jerks.; June 2, 2009 12:39 AM
TexasTim said...: Yes, I had someone who IS a member their try to contact me. So twice I was rejected for no reason.
So I changed My pic " to be changed later" borrowed a description. and sent in 2 more with Different profiles. Should find out sometime 6-7-09 if either of those make the cut. the guy tying to reach me was kind hot and would like to meet him.
and here I THOUGHT GAY.COM was bad about Censorship. What is this CHINA ?; June 10, 2009 5:49 PM
zippochaps said...: I cannot even find a place to delete my profile on B411. I emailed Greg (BuddyBear)-Webmaster and Owner. I hope he deletes it.; June 27, 2009 5:02 AM
David said...: I have tried to join several times. This last time finally got a email back saying that I was rejected. Was told to go to daddy.com they will take anyone. What a jerk. This guy needs to be brought down.; September 4, 2009 7:58 AM
DAN said...: I opened my account about 2 weeks ago. I've only chatted with what 3 freinds and this fucking ASSHOLE then deletes my account. I go to sign on today and its gone. What TF did i do?
I had ONE picture up and 4 buddies, i'm an average bear, bearded..... so I fit the profile.

The man needs serious fucking help.

Is there a way for people to file legally against this man? If so, I'm in.; September 19, 2009 11:25 AM
Anonymous said...: I have tried to post a picture, but it keeps getting rejected. I have the same pic on a couple of other sites. Guess he doesn't like it. I sent a message asking why, but he never replied to it, as usual.; September 21, 2009 3:53 PM
Anonymous said...: After having experienced a COMPLETE ABSENCE of customer service on bear411 and having discovered the bear411sucks.com web site and all its associated links, I felt compelled to add my voice here, however little a drop in the bucket it is to the torrents of complaints about this horrid site there is already.

If you have not yet joined bear411, DON'T. There are lots of well written and much better and customer oriented bear web sites around. bear411 isn't remotely being close to one of those. bear411 guarantees you nothing, regardless of whether you are on a paid or free membership. The ONLY thing that you are GUARANTEED is ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE if you have ANY problems whatsoever. The support from bear411 is a predictable and singular - SILENCE. The owner and only "employee" that runs it, will uniformily ignore any requests for tech support you might forward him, that is, if you can FIND an e-mail address to forward to in the first place, because that has been made conveniently absent from anywhere on the site to prevent legitmate users of the site contact the site owner and operator.

bear411 has a complete lack of user agreement or site policies on the site. The operator of bear411 has ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY towards its users with respect to customer service and privacy, two parameters of importance in this day and age of privacy and security concerns. The owner / operator claims he is a software engineer, but it's pretty obvious he is a poor excuse for one because not only is the site extremely poorly written, looks amateur and unprofessional, and functions similarly, but the bear411 web site has more holes than a piece of swiss cheese.

If your profile is on bear411, be prepared that any and all information including images you submit to the site, and ANY AND ALL private message content will be read and archived by the operator, and can be used against you by the operator for his own gain and (selfish / profitable) agenda while compromising your rights and privacy as a user. Integrity is a word that isn't in this site operator's vocabulary. Milking your wallet, is his primary goal while providing non-existent customer service and zero respect to its users, whether they are paid or not.

What is most disturbing is the discrimatory, racist and dictatorial behaviour of this business, including modifying your profiles and dictating what you can call or categorize yourself as, based on the site's available choices, or deleting your account / profile completely without notice or explanation, even when asked. There are even reports of those who tried to delete their profile only to have it resurrected and reposted by the operator. Make no mistake - anything you do on bear411 is monitor and approved by the operator.

When the struggles of what the gay and bear communities have had to endure are considered, this type of person who is running bear411 milking people's wallets in this manner is nothing short of pure MALAISE in the gay cyber community. Stop supporting this type of cyber manipulation coming from a gay man no less, and stay away from bear411. Send your friends to the bear411sucks.com URL and let them see for themselves what the skeletons are in the closet.

If you choose to join another bear or gay related site, check up on the domain name to see if it is registered to the same owner as bear411. This operator owns at least another 75 domain names and you may be unknowingly lining his wallet with cash again. Use the WHOIS search function at the URL below to check a domain name's ownership before you become their customer, even if you do not pay for your use of it. This example below shows the bear411 domain's registered owner's name in the administrative contact section:

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/bear411.com; September 23, 2009 6:48 PM
Anonymous said...: My friend had made a profile on bear411.com and said he was have lots of success meeting guys in his area and that the website was very popular. He is 20 I am 19. So I go to make a profile on bear411 and never get a response, I type in my profile address and see that it is still being surveyed. It's been about 3 days with no response and I check my profile page again to see if it's been activated only to find that it has been deleted. No reason as to why. I don't get it, I'm heavy-set, hairy, bearded, gay of course, and like bearish guys. WTF is with this moderator. I've been told by several other people he has some major instability issues and then I find this website. The thing of it is my friend who got an account on there did so with ease and he's got pretty much the same stats as me.; October 25, 2009 4:08 PM
Anonymous said...: It seems as though the SeeTheBear script is outdated.
Is there any update coming?; October 29, 2009 1:20 PM
Sultmhoor said...: Nah, I won't be updating the SeeThisBear bookmarklet. I'm disinclined to help make his site any more bearable. Pun intended.; October 29, 2009 1:59 PM
Anonymous said...: I sent a message to a friend on there asking if he has Facebook and he never got the message. Looks like if you mention any other social networking site the message gets censored. I am close to deleting this shit.; November 8, 2009 11:55 PM
David S. said...: Back in the early or mid 2000s I signed up at 3 or 4 different times and each time got kicked off Bear411 with no explanation. It was weird because it was usually after the same guy would chat me up and hit on me. I would turn him down politely and the very next day my account would be closed. I tried contacting the owner of the site to see if I violated some TOS or something but to no avail. No explanation, No reason, other than I turned this guy down (which I'm guessing might have been one of the owners friends and out of spite got me kicked off the site). The owner who calls himself BuddyBear runs this business from Canada and I'm surprised at the racist attitude because from what I hear is that BuddyBear doesn't like black people ... so I've read on the internet. Anyway, I'm white so I'm not sure why he kicked me off. But who knows how the racist mind works? All I know is each and every time I talked with the same man and turned him down for sex I was kicked off bear411 that very night. In my book that is "sexual harassment". I ran into two men in New England (USA) that said they met this BuddyBear guy and both of them said he can be very nice one minute and a total douche bag the next when he doesn't get what he wants. If I had known about the complaint websites like this I would have encouraged these guys to voice their opinion.; November 29, 2009 5:43 AM
raindog469 said...: I was the anonymous poster from February 15, 2009 7:52 AM. Not much point in being anonymous anymore, since my bear411 profile was deleted shortly after I changed it to mention my relationship with a woman, to match every other site I use. No, I'm not bisexual; it's a long story which begins with my LJ. But maybe Buddybear thought I was, and we can add that to the list of minorities who aren't allowed on bear411.

Luckily, every single one of the people on my bear411 buddy list is on Facebook nowadays too. Still waiting for some of the other bear sites to team up. I guess the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophy doesn't extend to webmasters of personals sites.; December 7, 2009 7:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Hi,

I used to be a member of Bear411.com until about 8+ months ago.. or around abouts. My partner and I both had a profile on there for a few years and suddenly my partner's profile was removed. There was no notification, just gone.

I tried contacting Greg on the site and all my emails were ignored. I even said, "look, I've got his pictures here - WITH ME IN THEM - to prove the pictures are of him." The reason his profile was removed, was due to some jerk claiming the photo's weren't of him on the site. The fact is, they were. I believe some guy was trying to pretend that my partner's pics were his pics... plain and simple.

When I still recieved no reply, I changed my profile stating exactly what happened and how greg did fuck all even to respond. Within 24 hours, my profile was removed as well.

The guy's a fucking jerk with a serious problem.

Regards,

Gary; December 18, 2009 4:45 AM
Andy S, Milwaukee said...: Hey Guys, I'll just add my 2 cents here. Been a paid member of B411 for geez I think 10 years or so, not sure. Have many times over the years unsuccessfully tried to mention or link to my own webbusiness or to other G and X rated chat sites in my profile without much success and never paid much mind to it.

Then 2 weeks ago, I started searching in Bear411 for guys that were going on the next RSVP gay cruise simply so I could say 'hi' and get to know some fellow cruising bears before sailing date. Suddenly my messaging is shut off in my profile. I can send but can't see msgs and they're piling up, 10 or 20 a day backlog on mobilebear411 but invisible on the desktop site, and unreadable or respondable everywhere.

So I msg Greg and nothing. several times. nothing. Finally over Christmas I decide to just strip all the txt out of my profile and wipe most but not all my pix out too.

One of my favorite cubs calls me yesterday on my cell and says "Dad what happened to all your pix, all OUR pix together, all your text in your profile?"
I was hours away from deleting my profile and demanding a refund (which of course I never expected to see really). really wanted to start my own competing bear chat site to give this jerk a jolt in his wallet!

Low and behold late last nite all 127 odd messages are now visible again in my chat window.

So I start replying to a few cruise buds and then add back in some new G & R & X pix. No problem.

Then I re-write my text and paste it into the profile. Still good.

Then I shut off the browser to make some lunch today and come back, and WTF? All the messages are gone again! I can see I have 80 some odd msgs on mobile Bear411, but can't read or reply, plus see nothing on the desktop.

Here we go again! More messages thru their archaic customer service (sic) Priority Access link to BuddyBear, but nothing.

So this time I googled "bear411 sucks" or something like that and eventually see this blog and some of the links. What a revelation!

The only thing missing here is someone identifying what the top options are or should be in alternate websites to use.

I'm happy to go to any other site that this french canadian asshole isn't involved with in order to chat and connect with bears and cubs and others worldwide, let's all just decide what it would be, which site and say so?

is it bearwww? it sure isn't leatherbear.com (nice guy, but no traffic on it at all)

again, just my 2 cents! I will cancel my bear411 profile the instant I see the best alternate to it (or start it myself)

- Andy
Milwaukee
(formerly Pupfucker on Bear411); December 30, 2009 12:50 PM
Anonymous said...: If you really want change on Bear411, everyone should let their pay memberships run out and then fill their allotment for photos and text and let it all fill up the server and have the site not be making any money. I'm sure it will cost something to keep everything going. My guess is there might be some ass kissing of customers after that. I've been on there for years, but have never paid for membership.; January 3, 2010 11:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Looks like 411 is again restricting the use of the site at certain times a day for non paying members. This seems to happen every year around this time. I suspect it's his way of drumming up business. What he's actually doing is restricting access according to usage, not because the servers are full.

I keep a backup account in case the main one ever gets deleted. Whenever the 'chat is so successful message' appears, I use the other account and can log in immediately, all the time, EVERY time. It's not a paid account either! This guy is obviously playing games.

Just another reason why I'll never pay for an account from this slimeball.; January 10, 2010 1:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Hello everyone!

Oh well. I should've looked around before posting my profile on bear411, but it's tto late now.

I've been trying to cancel my profile for more than 2 weeks and I've looked everywhere in the website for some follow instructions to erase it, but NOTHING IS AVAILABLE.

I've sent more then 20 e-mails to webmaster@bear411.com and greg@bear411.com and no response at all until now. I even sent several on-line messages to his profile to see if he could anything about it. NOTHING!

And I'll probably keep sending e-mails to the same addresses and on-line messages until I get my profile down. If there's hope, I'll keep trying...

I've been horrified about what some folks wrote in here and I feel helpless about getting any response from the webmaster. That's so frustrating!

I've got profiles in others website and I was always treated with a great respect from the webmasters. Especially by Fred, from bearwww. This guy is example of costumer services around the bear community. Thank you Fred, for the good work you provide us.

Now I need to ask you friends: Is there any case of success in here who's got their profile down from bear411?

Any help would be great!

Best regards; February 27, 2010 4:31 AM
Anonymous said...: Hello everyone!

Oh well. I should've looked around before posting my profile on bear411, but it's tto late now.

I've been trying to cancel my profile for more than 2 weeks and I've looked everywhere in the website for some follow instructions to erase it, but NOTHING IS AVAILABLE.

I've sent more then 20 e-mails to webmaster@bear411.com and greg@bear411.com and no response at all until now. I even sent several on-line messages to his profile to see if he could anything about it. NOTHING!

And I'll probably keep sending e-mails to the same addresses and on-line messages until I get my profile down. If there's hope, I'll keep trying...

I've been horrified about what some folks wrote in here and I feel helpless about getting any response from the webmaster. That's so frustrating!

I've got profiles in others website and I was always treated with a great respect from the webmasters. Especially by Fred, from bearwww. This guy is example of costumer services around the bear community. Thank you Fred, for the good work you provide us.

Now I need to ask you friends: Is there any case of success in here who's got their profile down from bear411?

Any help would be great!

Best regards; February 27, 2010 4:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Victims unite!! For the last 4 days, I have been unable to log on to my Bear411 account. I am a "free" member to the site. I have been premium in the past, but right now just cant afford it. Repeated emails about it have been unanswered by the smirking "buddy bear" webmaster. I am already on Bearwww and like it well enough. But I am just so frustrated that my friends all think I dissed them on bear411. I have most emails but will double check If I ever get back on. Any news on the better/best website to move to?? Any update on legal ways to get this jerk to behave in a more respectful, inclusive and honest way??
Thanks

Croix Antares123 on Bear411 for now..; February 28, 2010 8:58 PM
hamruniz said...: I have been a member on Bear411 for years and chatted to a few people but nothing much else. Initially I had access to profiles and their secondary pics. This eventually dried up. For a long time I could only access the main features on alternate days which worked up to the point. This too has dried up recently. I am unable to pick a 'buddy' and send a message. I have not had any messages in ages. I think I can access the wider services if I become a paid-up member. Maybe my contacts are not sending me their usual messages for the same reason. This implies that men who have been members for years and who could access the site and use it, albeit in a limited way, freely are now being forced to pay for membership to return to a, probably, still limited usage of the site. This is called blackmail.
If the owner of the site claims that the website is ever more expensive to run, how come other sites charge nothing for basic services? I he cannot hack it because of 'soaring' costs, he should close the website and get a normal job like the rest of us. Milking faithful members by subterfuge is unacceptable. We've always got a choice anyway.; March 2, 2010 2:52 AM
Anonymous said...: I sent 6 messages on March 1, 2010, to the 6 friends I wanted to know that I was deleting my profile on Bear411. I had to log off right afterwards. Logged back on less than an hour later and I was blocked from my profile. I had mentioned to two of my friends I was on Facebook and they could still chat with me there. The others I just left my email address with.
Is this how Bear411 treats it's long term premium members?; March 3, 2010 12:50 PM
Anonymous said...: I too have been rejected by Bear411He never sent any explanation. It's sad that there is discrimination even in the Bear community and this site seems to cater to it. No big loss there are other better sites than this one.; March 27, 2010 6:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Can anyone please tell me how to remove my bear411 profile from their site? I have been trying to figure it out and cant see how to get it off there.; April 3, 2010 7:51 PM
T said...: Well I have been on bear411 a number of times. My first profiel was deleted and not sure why; but my second profile remains on that site. My biggest issue is due to the denial of service they give, saying that due to high traffic free members are not permitted access. This is a denial of service and price gouging (as I have been both paid and free memeber) much like Enron. Jack up the prices, deny service and try to make as much money as possible. As soon as I can, I will delete my membership "IF" I can ever log back in without dnial of service.; April 4, 2010 1:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Make sure when you deactivate your account/profile with Bear411 that you also cancel with CCBill directly and immediately. The CCBill people kept charging my credit card monthly (for the last four months after leaving the site)and they told me that I had to cancel with them as well and not just shutting my subscription down at the site. The webmaster and CCBill were still getting my money even though I was not using the site. Seems pretty sneaky but call me stupid for not covering my tracks better.; May 24, 2010 6:46 AM
Anonymous said...: Two years ago I attempted to join bear411 and was denied with no reason. Several months ago one of my real world friends saw my face photo on bear411.com with a profile similar to one I use on several sites. Trying to get it removed through the site owner was difficult. Finally I contacted the the hosting company, Network Solutions and got this resolved.; May 25, 2010 7:54 AM

Internet flotsam, jetsam, and how to knit with it

Friday, December 7, 2007

Roughly chronologically - that link post I was talking about.

34 comments:

Technorati Profile

Blog Archive

About Me