Sinemia

Sinemia started charging processing fees in the middle of my contract. They stop responding to support requests when I bring this up.
I signed up for an annual Sinemia movie membership plan on Aug 22, 2018 for $179.88 ($14.99 per month). I did not see any mention of fees being charged when buying a movie ticket on top of this charge. I also paid a $9.99 express activation fee thinking I would be getting a physical card. This is because the pictures on the website at the time and their documentation advertised a card. I then find out its cardless. No big deal I thought.

I got to my first movie and am told I'm being charged a convenience fee. I contact support about this and they tell me its standard. I ask why they advertised a physical card and they said they dont offer it. I asked why its still on their website. They do not answer the question.

I suck up the convenience fees but I notice I now am also being charged a processing fee for each movie. I do not see any mention of them being allowed to do this in their TOS. It might have changed now, but you can view what it looked like back when I signed up:

https://web.archive.org/web/XXXXXXXXXXXXXX/https://www.sinemia.com/terms

I emailed support specifically asking about the processing fee twice with no response. I tweeted to them asking specifically about the processing fee with no response. I tweet to them and don't mention the processing fee and they tell me to DM them. I think they intentionally ignore questions about the processing fee. I DM them multiple times about the processing fee with no response.

Not only is this company violating their TOS, but they also do not respond to support requests when I try to get clarification.

I am not the only one not happy with this. You can view here:

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My supporting screenshots are here:

I was not able to use the service they provide. Contacted customer service and received no response for 30 days. Refused refund.
I contacted customer service in November because I wasn't able to purchase movie tickets. I tried on 3 seperate occasions and each time I was declined. I finall left a complaint on their facebook page and that triggered them to response to my customer service email. They basically said they wouldn't do anything and would not refund me the money for the month I couldnt use their service.

Terrible customer service and the product is very difficult to use
We purchased 2 movie pass subscriptions to Sinemia and chose the cardless option. We downloaded the Sinemia app as instructed. We have not been able to figure out how to make it work to go to a movie. We even had a manager at one of the movie theaters here in town look at it with us and he was a young man who uses phone applications frequently and he couldn't figure it out. We have tried emailing the company several times as there is no phone number for customer service and have not gotten a response. There is an option to use a physical card with the app and all we we're trying to do is order the physical cards and cannot get them to respond. Very very unsatisfied. Please help!

Sinemia generates card is not acceptable At movie theatres and unable to watch movies after paying 120$ in advance
Sept 30 was the purchase...have Used this card for purchase once...and the payment card generated doesn't work anymore.

I purchased a gift card, and there is no place to redeem the card. I tried to use it to extend my membership, but my membership was not extended.
I purchased a gift card from Sinemia on 11/22/2018. There was no way for me to apply the gift card balance to my account, so I tried to use it to "extend my membership." When I did this, my gift card was charged, but my membership was NOT extended. Then, my monthly rate was increased over 300% from $8/month to $25/month - despite the service stating that my first YEAR of membership would be $8/month when I initially joined in August 2018.

I have since submitted THREE emails to Sinemia Support - all of which have received no response. So I tried to contact Sinemia via the Sinemia Support Twitter account. I sent them EIGHT direct messages, as well as a direct tweet, informing them of my situation. I still have not received ANY response.

At this point, I have been charged for a gift card, did not receive anything in return, and my monthly membership fee was TRIPLED. Now, I have not received ANY response to my 12 messages to Sinemia Support.

The product does not work, they changed their model, and it is virtually impossible to get a hold of representatives from the company.
The product was advertised to be like MoviePass. You are given a credit card to see two movies a month, but the app stopped working. (It showed months old films that were not at any of the theaters, so I could not see any movie at all.) I emailed them regularly for a months without any response. Finally, I was told they changed their model and you now have to buy your tickets in advance. You have to tell Sinemia the time you want to see the film, then they send you a credit card number for the day, you buy the ticket from a third party app then you have to check in at the theater or else your actual card is charged. This quite far from what I signed up for, especially being charged if you forget to check in. (I actually DID check-in, but I got a notification saying I didn't. I guess you get one strike or you are charged- but knowing I did I have little faith this won't happen again.) Okay, so the problem is that the credit card number they sent me for the day was declined. And declined. And declined. Then I read on a message forum that you have to wait a half an hour after you get the number to buy thet tickets. So I did. But it was declined. Again. I did work once for me, but I ended up being very late for the movie. Not to mention it is time consuming and very, very far from what I signed up for. So, now the card they sent me was declined, the credit for that month was taken up. And when I finally do get to talk with customer service, they say they don't offer refunds (I just wanted my money back), and they won't compensate and apparently they won't give me my credit back. (Because I was unable to use my card for the summer/fall months, I was told I would get three films per month instead of two, but that is not the case.) So, basically, I paid for a service that simply does not work and judging from various FB groups, I am not the only one. I feel the product does not only not work as I initially paid for, but does not work period. I am aware will not get my money back, but I do not want this to happen with others. Thank you.

I've tried to buy tickets from the atoms website with the cardless app, with the card they provide and it continues not to go through. Only way to contact them is via email for support, and I've not heard back at all. The month renewal came and went, and I still am unable to use my tickets for the month. Buyer beware, when you "cancel" it just cancels the automatic renewal for NEXT YEAR, since you're required to pay the whole yr up front. So for the past two months I haven't been able to buy any tickets!

Charged "misuse" fees for using their broken service. Fee works as a ransom. Bought a year service that cannot be used. No response from Sinemia.
I purchased the 3 movie a month annual membership from Sinemia. The service generates credit card numbers that are used to buy online tickets. These credit numbers do not work 9 times out of 10. I have lost one of my movies a month to bad/declined credit cards. I am not able to "check in" when physical at the theater as directed by Sinemia's rules due to problems the app (the app thinks I am not close enough for instance). I am being charged a $17.70 "misuse" fee by Sinemia for not "checking in." The fee must be paid to continue using their service. I have tried to contact them via email and also multiple times with Twitter direct messages as recommended by Sinemia. My wife uses the service and has had the same problems. In addition to these complaints, Sinemia is deceptive about the fees it charges customers. I end up paying double the price of the membership excluding the misuse fees. Their Twitter feed is entirely comprised of similar complaints. I realize these are relatively small problems but Sinemia's deceptive business model and penalty fees are a widespread menace, unethical, and completely unfair. They are offering a service they cannot provide. I would consider paying their misuse fee if the service actually worked. I paid $107.8 for maybe one or two movies a month plus the ransom fee. I have tried to use Sinemia's service correctly. I have politely reached out to them asking for a reasonable resolution. Thanks for your time.

They don't have a live customer service to talk to and it's takes several day before they respond via email only no one is responding
It's take too long for them to respond and only via email only

Malfunctioning app prevented check-in. I contacted Customer service within hours, no help. Instead received form letter implying fraud without proof
I bought a movie ticket using Atom tickets. Arrived at the movie theater a few minutes before the show and tried to check-in, but the app kept resetting and not allowing check-in.
I contacted support immediately after the movie explaining the issue, and received a form letter saying I would hear back soon, but that didn't happen.
This morning received an email saying a "misuse" fee was charged to my account. I contacted them via email again, without response. DM'd them on Twitter and again received a form letter with text copy pasted from the terms saying they reserved the right to assess fees in case of fraud.
Numerous explanations from me have not made any difference. In addition, it has been strongly implied in their replies that I fraudently purchased a ticket, without proof even after I sent them pictures of bar codes and atom receipts and can send them whatever additional proof they want that I was at the movie.
This is the worst customer service I've ever experienced. It is one thing to refuse to waive fees, but an entirely different level of incompetence to accuse customers of fraud without proof to back it up, and then hide behind their ToS when called on it.
Judging from Revdex.com complaints, their customer service is terrible on an epic scale.
This is all in addrion to the bait-and-switch tactics involving processing fees and card vs careless service they employed to gain me as a customer, which I was willing to overlook earlier.
I do not expect a constructive reply from the company. Their sign-up FAQs never mentioned processing fees when I signed up, and promised me a physical card within 30 days (which never came). When I contacted them about it they lied and said that the card was never part of the membership material I was sent, and that their terms allowed them to initiate any processing fees they desired without clearing it with customers in advance.
The only upside is that companies who treat their customers this badly and engage in such shady business practices tend to die out naturally.

Sinemia has failed to provide the service I have paid for. Due to the failure of service, I have had to pay out my own pocket.
My first payment to Sinemia was processed on August 2, 2018. My year to date membership fees have totaled $59.95. These payments have been processed through the account username: *** email: ***@vt.edu. In the first months of use, the app simply did not work. I was paying $9.99 a month to see two 2D/3D movie a month. The first time I successfully used the app to check into a movie was on 11/23/2018. Sinemia provided a temporary credit card number to purchase the ticket. The number provided to me was not accepted. I had to pay $14.22 plus $2.00 "service fee" out of my own pocket. When contacting Sinemia through email asking for a refund and service cancellation, I was told that it could not be done and the best they could do was give me an extra movie credit that I am unlikely to be able to use. Sinemia then made it exceedingly difficult to cancel my membership. You can not cancel from the app and must go through a process online that took me 5 tries to properly cancel the service.

Terrible customer service with borderline unethical communication policies
As a movie lover, I was thrilled to here about Sinema. I knew that the process of buying tickets was a bit indirect, but for the savings, I could overlook that.

The first frustration began when my physical card was unable to be activated. Not the biggest deal in the world though, so I put the thought aside and continued on with just the cardless option.

My next frustration was harder to put aside. Suddenly, with no warning or heads up, there was a $1.80 service charge added. Even with some communication, this would have been frustrating news, but to receive no advanced warning left quite a bitter taste in my mouth as most companies would give at least a 30 day notice that such charges would kick in. After months of waiting for my physical card, I decided it was time to follow up (since that's how you can avoid paying this $1.80 fee. Several times I inquired about the card, but I got no reply.

Frustrated, but still able to use the service, I once again put aside the feelings.. until another problem came up.

I couldn't purchase a movie. To make things more frustrating, I couldn't get a hold of someone in time, so I had to pay out of pocket for the movie. Sinemia still hadn't gotten back to me, but I later found out why. I'll get to that soon.

Shortly after, I tried to make a purchase again. This time with more time in advanced so if something went wrong, I'd be able to get a hold of someone.. Well, something did go wrong. I still couldn't get a hold of them. I decided to look at other people's tweets to Sinemia and finally discovered there was a separate account for support. Not sure how anyone discovered that though, because there's no reference to it on their site. I'm also not really sure why Sinemia just decided to stop replying from the account they always used to. No matter, I FINALLY reached someone and have discovered that I suddenly need to go through some weird work around in order to purchase a ticket. That's on top of the already slightly long process of buying a ticket.

In either case, I finally got my ticket. After purchasing, I got an annoying pop up about checking in. I've never checked in before, and didn't see why I had to start now.

Well the next day I received an email explaining that I had misused the service and if I continued to do so, I'd receive a charge to my account.

Wait what? Not really sure where this came from. Now thinking about it, I suppose there was a warning given, but it still wasn't communicated well.

Shortly after I saw another movie. I made sure to check in due to the warning I received the previous time. Despite checking in, the next day I received an email saying that a charge had been added to my account and I can't use my service until I pay it.

I reached out to SInemia to explain the issue. All I received was instructions for checking in. I explained that I did check in. No reply for several days. So I contacted again, also explaining that I was running out of time to use my last movie for the month. I was told again how to check in, and was told my movie wouldn't roll over. Several more times I tried to explain that I did check in, but Sinemia refuses to remove the charge, claiming that I didn't check in.

I work with technology so I can understand that errors happen, but if an error occurred, that's not my fault.

I'm at a loss. I don't see why I should have to pay for a wrongful charge, and why it's essentially being implied that I've lied about checking in.

Company has refused to address an issue with their service which has resulted in poor service and a membership misuse fee.
The company charged me a membership misuse fee of $46.xx because I was unable to check into the movie through the iPhone application. Because the app crashes whenever I attempt to check-in, I am unable to do so. Sinemia replied to my first email asking for screenshots. It is impossible to provide screenshots of an app crash. Additionally, I am unable to get to the part of the app where it crashes unless I am able to actually book an advance ticket and "check in". I reached out to them for assistance to obtain instructions on how they would like to me accomplish this request and they simply responded with an email that the app is working and their decision was final. They've yet to provide the actual instructions on how to complete their request (I suspect because it is not possible). They've routinely told me that their decision is final and repeatedly close my ticket. They also have not reached out to me via Twitter (which I contacted them at the time of the movie).

More issues. Their app requires check in (seemingly to make the process more cumbersome so that there will be issues and you will get stuck with the bill). The stupid check in process never worked, I submitted a ticket the second time because I knew exactly what they had done, but they never responded to my ticket (Not the first time, they do not care AT ALL). What they did was put the wrong date on the movie (Mirai) so you ***'t check in on that date and it was pretty clear as day. The app said Nov 30th, but the poster THAT THEY WERE USING and the actual movie date were completely different (Nov 29th). This would be an easy issue to clear up with any other company, but these guys are lazy, unresponsive, and for some reason feel that they are doing nothing wrong when it is clear that they are. This is no way to run a company or treat customers and the fact that some people are too dumb to realize it doesn't make it okay. I only ended up losing about a movie tickets worth of money with this service (2 missed check-ins and they suspend you), but I am definitely not sticking around to try and get ahead because they will just add another fee to charge me and cover themselves.

Their cardless option works only about 30% of the time. They've added on additional fees that were never disclosed and never gave the option to opt out and receive a membership refund. They did not provide the physical card as was promised and now charge extra for something that was supposed to come as a part of the program. Customer Support is non-existent.

Do not sign up for this company's product you will lose money on it.

Horrible service and scam artists.

Service has degraded and they charge extra processing fees that are not included in the original agreement.

Half the time their generated cards do not work and are rejected by the theater.

California Attorney General complaint filed.

I urge others to do the same: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

Apparently the only way to get a response from customer service is to file a complaint with the Revdex.com. That pretty much sums up how horribly this company is being run.

First off, over the summer when Movie Pass *** their terms of service on me and gave me the opportunity for a refund of the remainder of my year's subscription, I decided to check out Sinemia to see if the plan was better. What the advertised was basically the same price for the same amount of movies as movie pass, but they had more theaters and said I could purchase tickets via their credit card or digitally. It said the credit card would take 6 weeks and I wouldn't be charged until it was active. But apparently they stopped doing credit cards between the time I signed up and the time they activated my account, but they didn't tell me. Then I find out I have to pay the service fee from the ticket vendor every time I want to see a movie, and I ***'t avoid it because I don't have a card. So this now makes Sinemia more expensive than Moviepass *** the same amount of movies.
When I contacted to ask about how long the card would be, I got no response over 2 months. Then they sent out a newsletter telling customers that they would start doing physical cards again, which was news to me that they ever stopped, because it was advertised to me before I signed up.
The app also has issues. It freezes and crashes. It's so graphic intensive too that if you're in a place with poor reception LIKE A MOVIE THEATER, it makes it a bit hard to check in on their app. And if you don't check in on their app in the 1/2 window of time before or after the movie has started (which no one should be doing so really you only have a 30 minute window to remember to check in) Movie pass *** charge you a fee for the full cost of the ticket and if you don't pay they lock your account. And since their customer service is non existent, you ***'t call and explain the issue and sort it out, they just extort you for more money.
By the way, if you're expecting the app to remind you to check in during that window, it doesn't. Yes they know what time your show time is, and yes they could remind you to check in during that window, but they don't, they only remind you when you purchase your ticket in advance, in a place and time where you ***'t check in yet.
I get the check in thing, and I'm happy to do it, but you ***'t expect people who are out with friends, in a parking garage/mall with terrible cell service or rushing to make it to the theater before the movie starts to always check in during that 30 minute period.

Since customer service is non existent, I guess my only option is to have my credit card dispute the charges since Sinemia wants their customers to constantly forgive all their mistakes but will fine you for not checking in. Honestly I'd rather just go back to buying my movie tickets rather than dealing with this.

I'm thoroughly disgusted with Sinemia.

Two weeks ago I was charged for a ticket I wound up purchasing via Atom Tickets and not through the Sinemia app. Then, this past weekend, after my name did not appear within the database for check-in at the local theatre I was attending, I received a notification I'm being charged a $14 'membership misuse fee' which I refuse to pay. I've indicated to Customer Service (or their pathetic excuse for it) I am refusing to pay that fee and have demanded they cancel my account immediately.

They've somewhat restored my faith in MoviePass, which is quite the statement.

I tried using the service twice in November, and the service failed both times. I have also been trying to contact customer service through their website, through their support email, and through twitter since November. I don't know if the service has been shut down, but it's definitely not working for me, and no one from the company will respond. If the service still works, stop giving me the runaround and give me some way to actually contact customer service to have my situation resolved. If the service has been shut down, just refund my money. I have absolutely not received value for this membership. When I try using advanced tickets, the card numbers provided just decline and Fandango (a few months ago when Fandango was an option) and now Atom just claim the declined reason is that the payment information provided by Sinemia is bad with an error message "Sorry, your payment method was refused by our payment processor. Please choose a different payment method and try again". When this happens Sinemia doesn't not provide any way to receive accurate information to complete my purchase, so I'm just left paying fees and unable to use the service.