You can’t have any special characters in your text. Take out -,” or ‘ I haven’t figured out which ones will work and which ones won’t so I don’t use any as of yet but I just started playing with it.
I just ditched the plugin and used the embed code from Mailchimp. I don’t have time to wait on a reply but if it ever gets fixed I will go back to using the optincat as I do like the design features.
Same for me I have 8 new signups and not one of them went to my mailchimp or ever received their welcome mail. I am so heartbroken I really needed those people and like you said now they are lost forever.