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NAS membership and using the discussion forum

longman

Does anyone know if I need to be a member of NAS to use this forum?

Presumably some of the regulars can tell me straight off if they subscribe to NAS.

I've been paying a subscription to NAS for over ten years, so not been in a position of not paying and using the discussion forum.

I moved to another part of the country last December and also changed my email address. Despite repeatedly asking NAS to update my details NAS are still sending surface mail to my old address, and still send me discussion notifications and promotional material to my old email address.

They keep emailing me to ask if I'm supporting campaigns where I used to live. They don't contact me about campaigning where I now live.

I paid the post office for a year's forwarding, but that arrangement runs out in three weeks. As the purchasers of my old house were going to do major work on it, I don't know if it is currently occupied and may not be able to ask anyone to forward mail from there. So any NAS mailings from here on will be lost to me.

My old email still receives but I've stopped paying the ISP so cannot use it to reply, so it is effectively a dead mailbox.

Added to which a month ago NAS wrote to me saying I'd stopped my subscription whereas I've found on enquiry it was a system error, but nothing has been put right.

Maybe, as I'm critical of them and a right pain on here they're doing it deliberately to get rid of me....... They're certainly succeeding in making an enemy of me....

And I'm certainly well and truly fed up, and thinking of ending my subscription to NAS. Just I do value to forum and would want to keep it going, hence asking whether people can use it without being NAS members. 

  • no, they offer nothing - the only thing they want from us..or anyone else is to pay for membership or buy stuff in the shop or make donations....and with all this autism act you would think the main thing they should be doing is offering legal advice but oh no...they won't even go there... it might cost money and they only have £95 million a year and the've got to think about all those directors salaries and plush offices and awards cermonies etc...

  • I agree with you Paull about the lack of support.  I have previously contacted them about needing help and like you I was fobbed off with links to elsewhere (which I had already tried anyway) and that was after a delay of months before they replied to my email.  They just quoted stuff and sent me links, they offered me no help themselves and like you, that is what I thought they were there for.  I mean is the NAS just a name that talks about what is supposed to happen?  It seems to be short-staffed, lumbering and disorganised and to bat people away very quickly.  Even the website is a huge monolith of sublinks and confusion.  Do the NAS offer any actual physical help at all?  Do they not phone or write to people on your behalf when you are being let down by public bodies etc.?  Doesn't appear so.Frown

  • of course they don't function properly - the entire reason NAS exists is to make money - they don't give a stuff about anyone with ASD and just do a tiny bit to make it look like they are so that the donations can carry on flowing in.

    I ask NAS for help - all they do is send a load of links to other organisations - despite them being the ones that are supposed to be providing this help as I was told by the NHS.

  • Longman - I'm sorry about the issues over your email address. I'm going to press our developers for why this has been such a difficult issue, when it really shouldn't be. It frustrates us as well. 

    Also, you don't have to be a member to use our forum. I'll pass on this thread to our supporter care team. 

  • It is certainly hard to fathom how they are still able to continue given my experience. I've still a record of the dialogue back to August.

    I got a campaign notice about support where I used to live sent to my old email address 11th. I had been getting these for a while and simply replied I have moved to -----. This time I sent a strongly worded email from my new email address pointing out I'd moved more than 100 miles but was still getting post to my old house I moved out of last December. I was still getting emails only to my old email address. I got a reply asking for my new postal address and email address and they'd sort it.

    Nothing changed. I kept chasing this. The explanation given was that they had two accounts with my details and had now merged them so there should no longer be a problem. Problem continued. 21st August I was told it should hopefully be resolved now. I emailed back that my old addresses were still being used.

    I didn't get a response until 9th September opening "Gosh its bloody resistant isn't it". They said they couldn't currently resolve email notifications to my old address informing me of new comments on the forum as this appeared to be a technical issue, but everything else should be fine. No change.

    I kept chasing up but was ignored from there on. I emailed 7th October asking if they could just sort out my postal address. No response.

    21st October I got a message saying "We miss you" implying I'd left NAS. I emailed Supporter care saying I hadn't closed my account. I chased it up 23rd October as no response

    I got a reply 23rd "This is a very unique situation in your details reverting to the details we had previously held for you and it is someething we have addressed and believed this to have been rectified".

    They also said my account "had been affected by an internal administrative error affecting a number of our active members"

    They were going to sort this and send me a confirmation letter shortly. They confirmed they had my new address and email. They also said I'd receive a letter from the senior office at supporter care "Kelly".

    I didn't receive a confirmation letter or a letter from Kelly. I've kept enquiring and been ignored since.

    I just don't think NAS are able to function properly.

  • Maybe it's government money just to keep up the front that they are addressing autism, whilst softly-softly they are failing to diagnose children (who will one day become adults) by fobbing them off with "not enough traits for a diagnosis" (erm, spectrum anyone?) more and more, so that whilst it looks like they are giving with one hand, they are in fact surreptitiously taking away with the other.

  • Think if things don't improve quitting membership is the best way out. I've done my bit and before I retired did make extra contributions often.

    I cannot comprehend their continual failure to change my address and email. But to go by what another poster said about the Director's payrise they must be getting money from somewhere if they can affford to lose subscribers.

  • @Longman: in all the time I have been an NAS forumite, I have literally only just become a member, so no you don't have to be an NAS member to be on the forum.  I'm a bit worried about their admin after reading the experiences of both of you now though.

  • Anyone can use the forum, even if they're not NAS subscribers. I think it's worth subscribing for the Communication magazine or whatever stupid rebrand they've just given it. 

    But I've had the same problem when I moved - I told them several times of my new address and they kept saying they'd update my details then not doing it. They work really hard in fundraising then the membership dept undermine it by alienating members to the point where they leave. Someone ought to let the fundraising dept know this. 

    I'm moving again soon, so having to change my contact details twice within a year will probable cause a database meltdown.