In Summer 2006, I purchased a Flickr Pro account. I was in the US at the time, and Flickr seemed like the easiest way to share my photos with my family and friends back in Turkey.
After I returned to Turkey, I didn’t use Flickr all that much, so I let my Pro account expire, and I didn’t renew it until that unfortunate day in late 2007 when both my internal and external HDDs crashed. Fortunately, I had backups of the most important stuff, and the Apple guys were able to recover all my data from the internal HDD. However, I didn’t have backups of the photos I took in the US, so I turned to Flickr.
As annoyed as I was about the fact that I had to renew my Pro account just to be able to download my photos, those photos were worth more than $25 to me, so I renewed my Pro account. I downloaded all my photos immediately, and made proper backups. As for Flickr, I said “this is it, I’m not renewing a second time.”
And I didn’t, until today. For some reason, I found myself browsing Flickr and uploading photos in the last few days. It felt nice, and I wanted to upload some more photos. So I went ahead and renewed my Pro account for the second time.
As it turns out, renewing wasn’t my best decision. Just after uploading a new batch of pictures, I was granted with this message:
Hiccups? That’s just great. So I paid $25 for hiccups? And what the heck is “hiccups?” Is this some sort of joke? Is it supposed to be funny or cute? Sorry but I can’t see it.
And it’s not just a one-time thing, either. The darn message is everywhere. From my photostream to the support pages. Flickr is completely unusable.
Now, I have a few words of advice to anyone who charges for their software/service. The moment you part your clients/customers/users with their hard-earned money, you forfeit your right to “have the hiccups.” You might have technical difficulties (not the “hiccups”), and I have the right to a full refund. This is called “defective goods.” You can’t just say the payments are non-refundable and walk away with my money.
I will request a full refund from Flickr, and I will send them a link to this post (if I can open the support pages, that is). I will post updates if/when they reply.
UPDATE 1: Got a reply from Flickr, rejecting a refund. I requested the customer representative consult with a superior.
Another interesting detail was my IP address and browser/plugin details being included in my original message. I pointed out that I didn’t agree to sending that kind of information.