Flickr Pro refund – how to get a partial refund

Within 15 minutes of signing up for Flickr Pro I was getting a sinking feeling about the usability of their platform:

  1. I just couldn’t figure out how to download my original file, with it’s original filename.
  2. I also couldn’t find anyway to download the ‘original sized’ version of my photos without doing it on an image by image basis – no apparent sign of a bulk or batch process for this.

Within 24 hours of signing up for Flickr Pro (the time taken for Flickr Support to respond to my questions) I finally had confirmation that this platform wasn’t unintuitive, it actually doesn’t support #1/#2 and so turned out to be a poor fit for my needs.

No refunds – it was in the small print, so I can only blame myself for not approaching my relationship with Yahoo! with much more caution…. but from an ongoing relationship perspective I think Yahoo! should consider the benefits of easing the situation when someone has been disenchanted with their services by considering some kind of pro-rata reimbursement – especially when concerns had been raised so rapidly after payment – otherwise people may perceive giving them money as a much bigger risk than it needs to be.

Possible workaround for a partial refund

The only bronze lining to this cloud is that I may have found a way to at least claw back a little of the annual subscription fee:

  • there is the option to “Change your subscription“

“When you choose a new Pro subscription you will receive a refund for any unused time on your current subscription. You will be billed for a new subscription. Your new subscription will begin immediately.”

Pasted on 2012-08-26 from <http://www.flickr.com/account/order/manage/>

  • You can then select “3-month Pro at $6.95”

I received an email confirmation:

“This is a confirmation that you have changed your Flickr Pro subscription period. We’re issuing a prorated refund for any unused time on your current subscription and billing you for the new subscription period. Your new subscription begins immediately.”

  • I am now awaiting to see my updated Credit Card statement to see if they are good to their word.

[update] As of 30 Aug, my credit card is only showing $6.95 – I’ll keep an eye on it, but at this point it appears that I’ve been successful in cutting back the amount of money that was not refunded.

 

PicasaWeb has clearly spoiled me – after over 5 years of using it as our main photo sharing platform we had come to expect these levels of functionality as standard – apparently, Flickr/Yahoo consider such functionality to be either superfluous or luxurious

My next steps are to try out my last best hope: OpenPhoto

— more to follow.