Dear GetGlue…

An open letter to GetGlue…

Dear longtime friend,

You appeared on the internet shortly around the same time as Tunerfish, and I had tried out both check-in sites. I gravitated towards you because of the additional fun factor of earning stickers and being able to request physical copies of them. In fact, that’s probably the biggest selling feature to your site – earning the stickers. You don’t hide the fact that you want people to request physical copies because the button is everywhere for people to request to have them mailed.

I had placed my first request over a year ago and waited a long time. Nothing showed up. I emailed your support email address and was told that they take about a month to arrive – and if nothing shows up to re-request. I left it alone at the time, taking the opportunity to (obsessively) check in and collect more of the stickers from my favourite shows before re-requesting again.

This summer, almost a year later (and the 1st request of stickers had still yet to show up), I sent in my 2nd request. Once again, nothing arrived. I’ve emailed and tweeted you about it and now receive no response at all. About 1.5 months ago, I decided to request a 3rd time. So far, still nothing. Is it because of my Canadian address? A fellow Canadian also said she hasn’t received any stickers either.

I understand that it’s “just” stickers and it isn’t the end of the world, but if that is such a major part of your website, at least have it be a reliable feature. As addictive as it is to check in and earn the stickers for my favourite shows, and I understand it is a great marketing tool for that industry, I also do feel a bit cheated at being so diligent about checking in to not have any of my requests be mailed, or even have any emails answered as to why. Upon searching the internet, I’ve found many other people with the same issue – no stickers or email responses ever received from you.

You went from “request a copy of all your stickers” to “request 20 stickers per month/request”. It looks like the operation has gotten really big, really fast, and you may not have the means to handle that increased capacity. I don’t know how much money is made from companies wanting to offer stickers to push their shows being checked into, but maybe step back from the greed for a bit to take care of the basic logistics of the site before you get in over your head even more.

Regards,

Michele

P.S. Strangely enough, as I was writing this open letter to you, I received an actual email reply that my 1st request from last year was probably lost in the mail or during sticker processing, and that any subsequent requests will arrive. FYI – I have requested twice since then and nothing has shown up.