AOPA's New Fundraising Tactic?

PW_Plack

PW_Plack

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jan 25, 2012
Messages
377
Location
West Valley City, UT
Display Name
Display name:
Paul Plack
I got this in my e-mail from Michelle Petersen, AOPA's Membership VP:

We're updating our AOPA pilot records and I need to make sure the information we have for you is complete and correct. According to our records, your highest Pilot Rating is: NO CURRENT RATING

Is this correct? Or are there additional ratings that we should be listing for you?

Here at AOPA, we want to make sure you get the credit you deserve for the ratings you've earned. And, if you join AOPA today, this information will help us customize your benefits especially for YOU!
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I felt compelled to respond.

Hi Michelle,

I appreciate your need to get creative, but threatening to list me on AOPA records as having no ratings unless I send you $50?

Has AOPA become just another pay-for-play "who's who" directory?

My ratings and endorsements are correctly reflected in the FAA database, which is the only one that matters to me. If you've started intentionally misrepresenting the qualifications of former AOPA members unless they resume paying dues, I can only assume AOPA is getting more desperate than I imagined.

Extortion as a recruitment tactic? Good luck with that.

Regards...
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Did anyone else get this message?
 
Wonderful response! My renewal is sitting on my desk. I was contemplating. You may have just made up my mind...
 
I Just have everything from AOPA going directly to the delete folder, maybe i did get it but dont care
 
I don't know. I got an envelope from AOPA last week but I just threw it away unopened. The outside said something about it containing my AOPA membership card.
 
I got that message a few days ago. I trashed it, thinking that it sounded a bit like a phishing scam.

Mark
 
Never had AOPA, even as a student pilot I got so much crap from them, I couldn't even imagine how bad to would likely get if I gave them money.

Ended up having my address removed from the airmans list and moved 6mo or so after, haven't received a thing since :D
 
Yup, I got it on Friday. Didn't know AOPA could revoke my ratings. Kinda glad though, one less database to worry about, because of course - if I have no ratings, I'll never hear from AOPA again. Right? Eh?
 
I'm with Walboy on this one.

I pay the annual fees to AOPA and EAA. Sure, together they are 20 gallons of 100LL, but I get all those great advertisements!!!!!!
 
Walboy said:
Maybe I am a naive sap, but $49 for the annual membership dues isn't that bad in the overall aviation budget. I almost always learn something worthwhile in the magazine, I like the online safety courses and attend the twice a year safety seminars in my area. I get a discount at an airshow I attend every year which pays for about 20% of the membership.

I have never understood the hate and vitriol against AOPA. Kind of sounds like the curmudgeons that hang out around the airport and complain about everything.
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The problem is that AOPA is charging dues for advocacy, not for a magazine or for airshow entry. And they don't advocate for anything we care about anymore (or they advocate the same way I advocate for sex...I was gonna get it anyway, there wasn't a need to make a show for it).
 
AOPA claims to represent pilots when lobbying in congress. They cannot claim the numbers if they do not know if you have a rating or not.
 
BillTIZ said:
AOPA claims to represent pilots when lobbying in congress. They cannot claim the numbers if they do not know if you have a rating or not.
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They have my name and address. Do they need my money, too, to look me up in the database?

Mark
 
I've been a member of AOPA and EAA for as long as I can remember. There are lots of people in this country, many of them in Congress, who would be just fine with banning those little deathtraps. Just because they think it might make them feel better or gain a vote or two.

AOPA and EAA may not be perfect, but without them most of us would have been grounded years ago. Who is going to stand up to user fees without them?

My suggestion is that if you don't like the AOPA itself, send your $49 to the AOPA Political Action Committee.

That way all your money will go directly to advocacy.
 
I agree with Walboy and JimNtexas, we need someone to represent our interests.
The ploy to get membership is minor in the scheme of things. Heck, lots of organizations farm that out, can we even be sure it was them or was it a marketing company. I retract the question; don't answer it because it is not important. Staying flying, protecting flying for future generations is important.
 
I got the email, deleted it. Dropped them last year and keep my EAA membership active. I really got tired of renewing and then getting the mailings about three months after I renewed asking me to renew for the next year.
 
They listed me as an Airline TranSport Pilot...not sure what that means, but if their advocacy efforts are as crappy as their editing efforts (not the first time they've screwed this kind of stuff up), they're not worth 50 bucks to anyone.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I agree with Walboy and JimNtexas, we need someone to represent our interests.
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We do. Which is why many of us have stopped supporting a group which doesn't support our interests. Since about 2003, AOPA has been on the wrong side of every issue that is important to GA. To me, the airspace grab with ADS-B was the final straw. It smacks of totalitarian takeover of about 40% of the airspace. Well done AOPA, bloody well done.
 
JimNtexas said:
I've been a member of AOPA and EAA for as long as I can remember. There are lots of people in this country, many of them in Congress, who would be just fine with banning those little deathtraps. Just because they think it might make them feel better or gain a vote or two.
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Exactly. Remember that flying is a privilege, not a right. The FAA is jumping on drones before everyone owns one and before folks start to get the idea that it may be a right.

Whether AOPA is the right organization or not is a different question.
 
wsuffa said:
Exactly. Remember that flying is a privilege, not a right.
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Sorry Bill, you got it backwards. Use of the NAS is a right, same as use of an interstate. Been debated, and judged more than once, and it's well settled.
 
wsuffa said:
Exactly. Remember that flying is a privilege, not a right. The FAA is jumping on drones before everyone owns one and before folks start to get the idea that it may be a right.
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Huh? I thought everything not expressly forbidden in the great TP roll was a right? I must have read it wrong. Or didn't get the proper explanation of what the words really really mean by my indoctrinators. Is there a summer makeup class I could take?
 
MauleSkinner said:
They listed me as an Airline TranSport Pilot...not sure what that means, but if their advocacy efforts are as crappy as their editing efforts (not the first time they've screwed this kind of stuff up), they're not worth 50 bucks to anyone.
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Someone told a data entry intern to make sure "Sport Pilot" was capitalized everywhere in the literature. The intrepid worker thought this a ready-made job for their "Search and Replace" -- "Replace All" skills. DONE! Alas... a leading space before "sport" might have helped, but you really need to review each replacement to be sure it is appropriate.
 
Can an Airline TranSport Pilot tranSporterize the skies without a medical?
 
Walboy said:
Maybe I am a naive sap, but $49 for the annual membership dues isn't that bad in the overall aviation budget...I have never understood the hate and vitriol against AOPA. Kind of sounds like the curmudgeons that hang out around the airport and complain about everything.
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The dues are not the point. Where do you see hate and vitriol in my reply to Michelle? I was outraged by the tactic, period.

I was an AOPA member from the time my six-month student trial membership took effect until a couple years ago. I left for various reasons, including drift from the claimed core mission, on-again-off-again AOPA insurance availability on the experimental rotorcraft I fly, a bad experience with the VISA card, and a brief stretch of unemployment a couple years ago which made me take a hard look at ALL my association memberships.

None of those are long-term deal-killers. I like Mark's approach, and expect to be back. But I felt I had to make them aware of my distaste for the recruitment tactic.
 
JimNtexas said:
I ... My suggestion is that if you don't like the AOPA itself, send your $49 to the AOPA Political Action Committee. ...
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Brilliant! I'll rejoin AOPA when they get their financial house in order, which will be shortly after FAA requires that due to their proliferation in the NAS, all flying pigs must be registered and display N-numbers.
 
I have been an AOPA member ever since I started flying but in the last year or two, they seem to have been increasing their spamming/scamming/begging/panhandling tactics. I get a panhandling email at least once a month. Flat out asking for money. I get scam emails supposedly from Mark Baker with some personal message but again, they are nothing but begging for money. The funniest was when I received the annual renewal email with "we will charge your credit card $59 next week" followed by a few panhandling emails "consider giving to AOPA". :)

If AOPA feels that me paying them $60/year is not enough, they should just send me a termination notice and move on. Their tactics seem to have changed over time and I am losing the feeling of a "member" and gaining one of a cash cow. Maybe I should just forget it and moooove on. :D
 
BigBadLou said:
... I am losing the feeling of a "member" and gaining one of a cash cow. ...
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Last time I looked, they had over $70M in the bank. Three or four years' dues. Where do you think that money came from?

All together now: "Mooooo"
 
I dumped AOPA too. Executive salaries are out of this world, part 23 rewrite going nowhere, third class medical taking forever...and they want more money. No way I will fund these executive salaries. Vp's making close to 300k? Really?

Yeah I know they are the organization that helps us, but they aren't helping me. Also just read a pilot needed pilot protection services and that service was a total joke. Great value there too.

If AOPA is for you - pay the freight. It's not for me. Go google A&P's exec salaries, what they paid outgoing execs, what they have in the bank....then tell me if your opinion remains the same. AOPA has lost its touch, and remains out of touch.

Finally, see where there are fewer fly ins for 2016? Now down to four from six. This keeps up and we will be back to one meeting. See the comments on the AOPA website article where they announce.

To the AOPA execs who read this, post all your salaries, tax returns, and full financials. No hiding anything, no docs with just summary totals, no mambo-jumbo. Full transparency to the members.
 
SkyHog said:
The problem is that AOPA is charging dues for advocacy, not for a magazine or for airshow entry. And they don't advocate for anything we care about anymore (or they advocate the same way I advocate for sex...I was gonna get it anyway, there wasn't a need to make a show for it).
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Exactly they don't seem effective, ADSB money grab, medical reform, part 23, they don't seem to do much.

Heck NBAA seems to get more done for GA than AOPA.
 
I've struggled every year with whether to renew or not. I first joined in 1979. Now it just seems like a big business for them more than an advocacy group. How much do they actually influence things in Washington? When the dues
went up by a large percent this year I almost quit .. but I relented and renewed.
We'll see next time.

RT
 
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