Hi everyone!
Sorry to be discussing the competition, but I’m wondering if CS stopped charging for membership?
The reason I ask is because, even when one does not have a membership on CS, it is still possible to view (partially) some things, through links, on CS such as events and people’s profiles.
And I have seen profiles that were “not Verified” at all (including not having payment verification) and yet the person had logged on just recently.
Now if payment is required to have a membership on CS, then technically all current profiles should have “payment verified” shouldn’t they?
How are people able to have an active account on CS without having paid for their membership?
because they have two kind of payment: the one to be verified (that alone does not allow you to use the site) and the one to use the system, that does not give you the status of verified …
Regarding the fees, CS had the verification fee for many years. It was meant to support the cause of CS, show other people that you are legit (that you are who you are, live where you live, that your phone number matches). Later when CS limited the number of messages it also gave you the option to send unlimited messages. Some people say it would give you better chances in finding hosts, because by being verified you “proved” that you are not a freeloader, but in reality, a lot of hosts never really cared about who was and who wasn’t verified as long as the person had superb references. Verification was always an option. A bonus feature you could pay or not. Totally up to you. It is still possible to use CS and not be verified. In this case, the profile will say “payment not verified” even if the person paid the other fee called the “subscription” fee.
Subscription fee has been around for 3 years, allegedly as a result of covid. Unlike the voluntary verification fee, everybody has to pay this subscription fee either monthly or yearly just to access the platform. If you are from the country where as CS say: “the majority of the population does not have access to a banking system and/or credit cards”, then you don’t have to pay… If you happen to be from such a country and it’s not important for you to be verified, then you can have CS completely for free.
Now why you can see some profiles… you can see some CS profiles (even if you don’t have your own CS account) through the links because of that specific person’s settings. By default, CS profiles are publicly accessible (you can see their main page, but for the rest, it will ask you to join CS). Some people choose not to have their profiles public and in this case you’ll see nothing, unless you are logged in. So this is only about the privacy settings.
Please be careful if you decide to proceed with any payment. Many users repeatedly reported being charged after canceling any recurring payments and other problems…
I, for example, received an email this year telling me that they tried to charge my card that I used to pay my lifetime verification 9 (!!!) years ago, asking me to update the card, because the payment (surprisingly) didn’t go through…
and selling it.