I just received an email from Flickr, stating that my account has been reduced from Pro status to Free status. What pisses me off is that in the email, they say that they usually warn people ahead of time before this happens, but with the holidays blah, blah, blah, basically “tough shit”. What I heard? “You’re not important enough to us to treat with respect.”
Now, I didn’t pay for my Pro account – I earned it. I got 5 of my friends to sign up for it in a very short window of time to earn my Pro account, because I believed in their product. Now I regret that I did that. I don’t want my friends to be associated with a site that treats people this way.
For the record, here are the contents of the message that I received:
Subject: Flickr Pro Account Expired
Hello Friends and Flickrrs!
We’re writing to let you know that, not only do you rule, but your Flickr Pro Account has expired. We usually let people know this a week in advance, but things have been nuts — nuts! — here at Flickr HQ (in a good way!) and then the holidays happened.
Your Flickr account has reverted to a Free Account, which means that you can upload 10 MB of photos a month, and only the last 100 photos are visible in your photostream.
ALL your photos are still there, and will be restored if you upgrade to a pro account!
There is more information here:
http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/There are a lot of fantastic features, upgrades and improvements coming with the 1.0 release, so stay tuned.
This is the last email you will receive about this, unless of course you resubscribe, at which point we’ll probably send you another email to let you know when *that* account is expiring.
Joy!
Caterina, on behalf of Flickr
———————————-
PS: I am writing this from my personal account, so please don’t write back here. If you have questions, check out the help page here:
http://www.flickr.com/help.gne
At this point, Flickr can kiss my ass. I won’t be recommending them to my friends, and I will be warning any friends that I know currently have Flickr accounts to beware. This is very not cool.
#1 by Caterina Fake at January 10th, 2005
Indeed! Our apologies. There was only a skeleton crew around for the holidays, and the email alerts to let Flickr users know their free pro accounts were expiring were not yet automated. This is something that will be automatic in the future, but while our crew was away over the holidays, the email alerts slipped through the cracks.
Caterina
#2 by Francesca at December 24th, 2005
That’s total bull! If they generally give notice and couldn’t because they were busy then that is a problem they will have to deal with. It is not the users issue. At the very least this email should have been your notice, late or not…honnor the orrigional intent which was to give a reasonable warrning!
(Writing the email in a cute and fun tone does not make the company come across easygoing and personable. Content like this is not that easily glossed over.)
#3 by David at February 21st, 2006
Your attitude seems a bit harsh considering all you have to do is upgrade to get all your pictures viewable again. Its not as if they deleted all your pictures. But then again I am the kind of person who does not let something this silly send my blood preassure through the roof.
#4 by Jason at February 21st, 2006
David – you’re right, I should have updated this post or put something in the comments. This post was the result of a misunderstanding, but I wasn’t the only person that was confused by the situation. It’s maybe a little embarrassing, but I figure there’s no point trying to erase history by taking this post down. Thanks for the comment.
#5 by Mike 3D at April 1st, 2006
Yes Flickr has at hing about Favoritism I have waited six days and my photos still are not in any searchable tags, So it’s just fine to take my pro account fee and not post a thing of mine.
We need more sites like this all over the web.
#6 by Dev M at September 1st, 2007
Flickr DOES NOT RESPECT USERS at all:
Here is the reply that I received when I had problems with conflicting yahoo accounts. 2 accounts in question, 1 needed to be deleted so that I could proceed with transferring my photos to my new account.
Here is FLICKR’s response:
Hello,
Thanks for writing in and sorry for the late response.
Your account is not deleted.
Regards,
Do
#7 by Lucy at November 9th, 2007
I am very sorry, but flickr-staff are f*cking bastards!
#8 by Tiagonmas at November 19th, 2007
Hi! There!
I’m also a Pro user and received no previous warning that my account was expiring. It just did! “Don’t panic, but your Pro account has expired.”.
It just happens that I tried to upgrade but the upgrade price is not in my currency (i’m in Portugal and the prices appear in Brazilian coin), and the process fails in the end (using Visa).
I’ve been waiting for a solution from Flickr and after after 6 days I received this answer :
In response to your email, our engineers released a fix on this issue 11/08/2008 where users should be able to change the country they are in so they are not forced to pay from a Brazilian pay site. If you choose Brazil as your country then you will need to pay in Brazilian Dollars.
If you are not able to change the country please reply to this email with the information below and we will research this further. We do apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.”
Obviously the problem was not solved yet. Still waiting to be able to change the country for the currency and upgrade.
#9 by Tony at December 16th, 2007
Flickr sucks. They’ll hold your pis for ransom cash. They wait till you’ve loaded a wack of photos up, then shut your site down, and force you to upgrade to a ro accout. Don’t use flickr. There are a bunch of better deals out there. And oh yeah, flickroos… I think you’re a bunch of dicks. Enjoy your dirty money.. go snort it up your nose and drive into a brick wall.
T
#10 by erica at December 20th, 2007
i agree with you, flickr really sucks! i moved there from yahoo and they gave me this free pro account…for awhile. the free pro account is a trap because after it expires, all my photos are locked away in their system from me, unless i pay. it’s not huge money, but i don’t wanna pay!
#11 by Jay at January 3rd, 2008
Guys….PRO account costs money….$24 bucks….that is why Flickr played this game of not warning people….who had thousands of pics uploaded….so u will be forced to buy PRO account..
They give u option of downloading or deleting pics one by one…taht would take teh whole weekend..but I would still do it…and not give my business to dishonest aholes like flickr.
#12 by Brian at February 24th, 2008
When i made the selection to move my photos from yahoo to flickr I made a huge mistake, even though i did it right when the choice was given i was locked out of my photos for almost 2 months while the transfer happened, there was no warning that it would take 2 months and i wouldn’t have access to them. When i complained about it in their help forum on flickr my posts were delete by the staff. Over 5 of them just deleted, emails went ignored.
When my pictures finally came through i verified them against the backup copies i had, got a couple that i hadn’t saved and then deleted all of them off flickr and terminated my account and told them to kiss my ass.
What i find odd is Yahoo owns flickr yet doesn’t take responsibility for what the flickr staff does and the flickr staff points the finger at yahoo.
The pro status is a joke, they hold your pictures that you have the rights to hostage unless you wish to pay for their services. Sure you can delete to get them back, but come on if you have 1000 pictures thats really stupid to force your users to do that. .
#13 by nothing is free at May 13th, 2008
Perhaps you guys all want someone to give you a ton of space for free, but it’s not happening. And it’s really a nominal cost. You spend twice as much or more on one tank of gas.
There has to be some incentive to pay, or who would? It’s business. And it’s not stupid.
Any free site I’ve ever been too limits or changes the size of my picture. Flickr Pro does not, which is why I pay.
I will say their newest uploader sucks, and I switched back to the older version. But it took me less than five minutes, so I can’t complain.
#14 by Former Flickr User at May 21st, 2008
Flickr does not suck because of the Pro account fees. Those are reasonable. They suck because they have no customer service and they delete accounts without warning and without explanation for violating their intentionally vague and corny sounding terms of service. I lost my “safe” rated pro account last weekend over for no apparent reason. There was no porn, nudity, or stolen content on it. Also, I orded prints from them every couple of months as well. They were making money. That said, Flickr probably has millions of worthless free acounts that either contain no content, or else only stolen porn and “my d__k” pictures taken on a cellphone. Given their policies, that’s exactly what they deserve.
Perhaps I just blocked someone who was too closely connected to an employee or perhaps my account fell victim to a disgruntled employee. Hopefully, when microsoft takes over, they will end the free reign of flickr employees and start thinking about rational things, like making money, rather than allowing a bunch of adolescents to run the show. They run things way too much like one would run facebook or myspace, without realizing that photos are what make them money and draw views to their advertisers. When they delete high-end accounts like mine that were getting lots of views and ordering lots of prints, they are not maximizing profits. They need to go back to buisness school.
#15 by CORY at June 7th, 2008
Mr. Clarke:
Should we do the following:
A) Kick their asses and let them suffer.
B) Get my help to make Yahoo sue Flickr.
C) Bury the Flickr Customer Care in the sand on the beach.
Team Flickr only does the forums, and they might help you if you have used the help by email/report abuse link. Flickr Customer Care should really be fired because they’re f***ing gay.
#16 by Flickr victim at June 17th, 2008
Hats off for taking up the voice!
I just started a technical discussion in light of flickr staf:
http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/74977/
And no mails, no warnings, no suspension.. direct deletion of my PRO account!
I hope you take up the voice of all the victims. Its not the frustration that i want others to know, but the gentle reminder: PLEASE DONT BUY FLICKR PRO ACCOUNT you may be deleting next day without a single email conversation.
#17 by angela at June 25th, 2008
The simplest solution: use Smugmug.
#18 by james dupree at August 6th, 2008
Flickr sucks is the understatement of the year. On July 14th, I signed up for a “pro” account. After I uploaded 4000 pictures, my account was deleted. Why? After several emails, I was told the following:
“Hello James,
As stated on the order page there are no refunds on pro
accounts. If an
account has been closed before the pro term is up it cannot
be
transferred to another account and the unused portion is
non-refundable.
Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to reply to this email.
Regards,
Emily”
My account was deleted yesterday for reasons unknown. It simply stated TOS violation. Flickr does not feel it needs to explain which terms of service were violated.
However, I have no intention of going into that good night over this issue. This is theft-pure and simple.
-James Dupree
#19 by Maxion at October 28th, 2008
Flickr mods are complete idiots period. I have tested their mod activity with many photo combinations and not once have the results from making fake complaints been consistant. Some mods will even set an account restricted if someone family pet offends. Flickr has no respect for pro account holders, they are nothing more than a bunch thieves.
DO NOT BUY A FLICKR PRO ACCOUNT !! Go use smugmug if you want to display your nice pictures.
#20 by Adam Dexter at October 30th, 2008
@James, I have a similar situation. Over a month ago my account was deleted. I'm still fighting to find out why! I Just want to know. I have officially been given the cold shoulder. My last email to them was 10/22 and they still have no responded- the whole story is here:
http://adamdexter.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/flic...
#21 by Anon at December 15th, 2008
“Now, I didn’t pay for my Pro account – I earned it. I got 5 of my friends to sign up”
Get over it! As you said, you didn ‘t pay for it: so why do you care so much?
I pay for mine, and once a year it runs out, and I renew it, no issue, it’s called a subscription try looking it up!
You might have gotten some free time for signing up some friends, but did you really expect free membership for life, when the rest of us are paying for it?
They’re kind to you by letting you have a pro accout free of charge for a little while, and you complain about it. Jeeze…
For thouse of you in the comments complaining about flickr “Holding your pictures hostage” or “Closing my accout with out reason” you need to read the T&C’s before you sign up.
The “Hostage” thing is how the free acounts works, and for thouse of you getting banned, I’m willing to bet that every single case could be traced back to a violation of the T&C’s
#22 by cat at February 9th, 2009
I just deleted my account with Flickr because they censored my protest-art (you can see it on my blog at Over 40 and Feeling Fine). They claimed I was harassing and abusing other members by having it posted.
My protest-art has the words “Summertownsun sucks”. I put this artwork up in protest of Summertownsun complaining that i was infringing on their copyrighted work. They said I was posting images that they own. So flickr removed the images. But the images are actually in the public domain. So I protested Summertownsun’s actions by creating a piece of artwork and posting it on Flickr.
Then Flickr, in all its controlling, tightwad glory, removed that image too, and sent me an email which said, ”
Hi dazzlecat, In joining Flickr, you agreed to abide by the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Specifically, you must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Flickr member. . We’ve removed the content, “SummertownSun Publishing Sucks!”, from your photostream. Please note that similar activity may result in the termination of your account without warning. Regards, Omar ”
The simple fact is that Flickr censored my artwork!!!
So I decided I didn’t want to be a part of a system that censors artwork because someone else whines about it. I sent out an email to all my contacts on Flickr letting them know I was deleting my account and why. Now I’m going to have to make another piece of protest-art called Flickr Sucks!
#23 by Moot at April 5th, 2009
Bummer:
You’ve run into one of the limits of a free account. Your free account will only display the most recent 200 things you’ve uploaded.
Anything beyond 200 will remain hidden from view until you either delete newer items, or upgrade to a Pro account.
#24 by Z at June 27th, 2009
Waaaaah… Damn, dude.