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Dec 29, 2006
Chris Marshall
6 Comments

Flickr – an underhand ploy?



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I have blogged about Flickr before and have always been really positive, so I want to share something with you that I feel is really underhand.

If you remember I was really surprised and pleased on the 13th December when out of nowhere my account became a PRO account. No warning, no notice, no email after the event – a total mystery. It has been great having the unlimited sets and I have started to use it more.

Today I got an email saying that my account would expire on the 12th January! Now that seems REALLY underhand from Flickr. Sure if they had emailed me on the 13th December and said they were giving me a months trial (I would have declined as a month isn’t long enough to determine if it will be of any real value with what I plan to do with it) I would be expecting the renewal email. If after a year they told me I needed to renew than I would have no problem at all as I would either be hooked or not and it would have been an easy decision, besides I wouldn’t expect a free PRO for life from them.

But a month??? That really sucks!! On the back of the PRO account I have been looking at a couple of “fun” things that I can offer to get even more of your great pictures on the site, and now it seems that I will have to pay Flickr to retain what they gave me for free, with no explanation, in order that I can continue with the experiment!!

So Flickr – it was a great Christmas present, but it REALLY sucks that you actually only ever intended it to be a loan, but forget to tell me. Happy New Year to you and your underhand marketing team as well :-(

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  • Charles

    Umm… quit yer whining? There’s nothing underhanded about giving you a month of something that you normally have to pay for, for free. Either renew, or don’t. No one’s cheating you of anything.

  • http://www.myapplestuff.com MyAppleStuff

    :-) you don’t reckon they should have come clean up front that it was a 1 month trial then? I agree totally, a free month is geat, but only if you know it is a free month.

    I am not “whining” about the free month, I think that has been great. I am saying that to give you something with NO communication at all, then a month later after you have started to use it to say you now have to pay to continue is underhand :-) Why didn’t they say up front it was only for a month?

  • Jonas Messina

    Wait a second… You receive a free upgrade, but don’t try to find out why (was it a gift for you? Did they make an accounting mistake? Is it a trial run?), then complain when the upgrade is removed?

    Then, in your next post, you comment on “the mindless negativity of a minority! People seem to be so intent in picking fault, getting their voice heard and trying to ruin initiatives for other people.”

    Wow.

    Mr. Pot? Meet Mr. Kettle.

  • http://www.myapplestuff.com MyAppleStuff

    A little harsh jonas :-)

    Not only did I check if it was a gift, an across the board initiative or an accounts error, but I also emailed them to ask what this was about. I got no response.

    You will see from the original post (http://myapplestuff.com/happy-christmas-from-flickr/) that I had emailed them before with a question and although at not time have they mentioned an upgrade I think they may have provided an upgrade as I had mentioned going PRO in the original email so they were just tempting me.

    I REALLY am fine with that. What gets me is the lack of communication. That is all. I still think to provide something with NO details of why and for how long, and then say “oh the time trial period is up” is a little underhand. Added to that they have yet to reply to my email asking for clarification, makes it all seem less open and upfront that it could be.

    I stand by my “mindless negativity” statement, but please compare “apples with apples” not “apples with pears”. If you have followed the comments over on MAAD you will see that some people have been getting pretty personal, even though the “rules” were laid out up front.

    IF Flickr had said “yours for a month then it will cost you to remain PRO” I would have no problem at all. When they upgraded to PRO out of the blue I was really happy and said so in my post, so when they asked for money out of the blue I was equally unhappy and said so in my post – surely that is just been consistant?

  • http://www.myapplestuff.com MyAppleStuff

    At last the answer!

    “I’m very sorry for the confusion that our free gift of a month of pro has caused.

    Given our buildup of help cases a couple of months ago, we closed out the cases and gifted everyone a month as our way of apologizing for the less than stellar service — you should have received an email regarding this when the gift was given.”

    Now – given how long it has taken to tell me this, then perhaps I should get another month :-)

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