The offending scam service

Photobucket claims to be a service where you can store your photos.

There is a free service which supposedly can hold up to 2.5 Gigabytes of storage space. Then there are paid accounts. I have had a free account since around 2005.

The service has been sending me nag emails for forever. So, I decided to do something to stop that. Mind you, I only had about 100 megabytes of photos on their server. That is not even 1/10th of the space a free account supposedly gives you.

I went there and found out that in order to delete my photos I had to pay for the service. The claim was that I was over the limits. Which was just not true. So, I paid for the cheapest service and deleted my photos, after I backed them up.

I canceled my subscription. This was about 1/2 hour after I paid to start one. I sure hope they are not confused. Then I started looking for the place to delete my account entirely. I wasn’t mad yet.

It did not matter where I went I found no way to delete the account. I looked for instructions on the net. None of the instructions worked. They were old suggestions. Finally, and I mean I had to really dig, I found a way to email them on their form and ask to have the account deleted.

This is where I got really mad. The form had a place for Email, Account name, Subject line, and block to write the request or question. If I chose “cancel account” The block was deleted, and my way to ask for the account to be closed was taken away. The same thing happened if I clicked on “other”. In fact, it happened nearly regardless of what I chose. Basically they are sending the message that they don’t want to be bothered with feedback, kudos, or complaints. I did find one place where I was allowed to choose, and keep the text block open. It was getting so frustrating that I don’t even remember what it was anymore.

So, I finally had a subject space to fill in. Every time I typed out anything in the subject field, the text block disappeared (again, and again). Eventually, I figured out I could type just one letter in the subject line that it would leave the text box open for a note. Oh, and by the way, filling in the subject line was required. If you left it blank, you could not type a note to them.

My note informed them that I wanted my account deleted first.

Then I wrote them and said everything I said here. And I added that they were nothing more than a “pressure to pay” service. A scam.

And considering I know what I am doing on a computer, and that I had this much trouble getting a note to them to cancel the account, I do NOT suggest them for any type of service anymore.