M
McRabbet
In a recent thread in this forum, Steve Coles addressed some questions that some users have encountered regarding their Discount Qualified or Corporate membership status. As Steve pointed out, users control their membership level based on information they provide in their User Settings and how often they visit the site. We have a published Promotion Policy that defines the user levels on the website and a Privacy Policy that lets users know how and when we use private information.
Some confusion has arisen when members have "opted in" to attain certain membership benefits (e.g., Discount Qualified) and they may not have filled in all of the required information in their User Settings to meet that level. Steve gave an example where both First Name and Last Name fields must be filled in, but one's address is required as well. For Corporate Membership, a member's telephone number is also required (Area code in one entry field and 7-digit number in a second field, without any punctuation). Please realize that we protect user information and only use it where required and then only when we have confidentiality assurred by an outside party (as a corporation, we must have these details to qualify). For DQ status, a vendor needs to know your real name and address to give you a discount.
I urge all members to read our Policy statements above and to look into the details of the Discount Qualification program -- many of you may be missing some excellent benefits shared by your fellow members if you didn't know how to take advantage by making just a few simple changes in your User Settings. If you have suggestions on where we can improve our policies, please send me a PM -- our Board of Directors will meet early in 2012 and we will review these policies to see where changes may be needed.
Some confusion has arisen when members have "opted in" to attain certain membership benefits (e.g., Discount Qualified) and they may not have filled in all of the required information in their User Settings to meet that level. Steve gave an example where both First Name and Last Name fields must be filled in, but one's address is required as well. For Corporate Membership, a member's telephone number is also required (Area code in one entry field and 7-digit number in a second field, without any punctuation). Please realize that we protect user information and only use it where required and then only when we have confidentiality assurred by an outside party (as a corporation, we must have these details to qualify). For DQ status, a vendor needs to know your real name and address to give you a discount.
I urge all members to read our Policy statements above and to look into the details of the Discount Qualification program -- many of you may be missing some excellent benefits shared by your fellow members if you didn't know how to take advantage by making just a few simple changes in your User Settings. If you have suggestions on where we can improve our policies, please send me a PM -- our Board of Directors will meet early in 2012 and we will review these policies to see where changes may be needed.
