PHOTOBUCKET

Love it or hate it, much talked about, more negative than positive......but, I have had an account with them for years with thousands of images on there. A lot of the images are of intrinsic value, rather than of "things of beauty" but they are important to me.
Anyway, due to my Laptop dying on me recently, I have had a change in "digital details" which has caused problems here and there but resulted in PB not recognising the old log in details such as old user name, e-mail, and password. So I e-mailed PB and explained what had happened and that I needed to change my old details to my new details. Within minutes I had a really nice reply which said to help them would I answer around 10 security/Album details, and what was my old User Name??. I didn't have a problem with that so I answered all the questions correctly but PB then come back saying that they didn't recognise my old User Name
That meant, according to PB that they couldn't trace my account, and would I please find an image of mine on the Web and track it for them.
Now, call me 'ornery but I told them No!, and that if they couldn't find my account after all the personal/financial information I'd given them, which was enough to track down my Great, Great Grand Uncle, in their records and system then I wouldn't be able to use my account and therefore I would have to pull the account and cease the Direct Debit payment. Within minutes, I had a "Congrats, we've found your account and here's the link to reset your User name, new e-mail, and password".............amazing, what great service!!!............you don't think it had anything to do with me threatening to pull my account do you?? So, I'm back again new User Name, New Password and no problems.

 

Funny you should mention that, Sheal!!. I have a few 32GB USB Sticks that I will be using shortly for downloading purposes. I'm also getting a new High End Desk Top Computer which will be nice to download images onto as well.

 

Same here

I had already stopped using my PB account before they started charging for it as GC had then made it easier to download direct. I only originally used it for GC because there wasn't the direct download facility then.

All of my photos are stored on my computer and backup drive so no real loss. The only problem is that they have now overwritten the photos on GC that had come through them. (That angry face is in lieu of the nasty words I would have preferred to call them!)

I shall need to go through all my travel threads to see which need the photos replacing and then do the tedious job of changing them - when I have the time.

I don't store anything in The Cloud as I don't trust it and, I understand, that there's a limited free capacity before you need to start paying for it. I'm too stingy to do that!

 

I would highly recommend Western Digital My Cloud series, although would comment that it is not worth going for the cheaper versions of this and to stick with the EX range linked to here.

I have had one for years, and it works extremely well - essentially, it is NAS storage at whatever size you have chosen, with a built in backup drive; as you save your files onto this, they save to one hard drive which is then backed up internally to another drive, so if one fails..... better still, if you do need to change one of the drives, you pop the lid open and simply unplug the drive, plugging in the new one in it's place. Not cheap on the face of it, but when you consider a year or two's subscription to the likes of Photobucket.....

 

Yes, that's what happened to me as well. It's a bad policy as they could simply have said you can't use your account any more without paying. Basically, they have simply vandalised our photos and all they get from me is bad mouthing and telling people to use anyone but them.

 

Good morning yes I have lost over a thousand images and have been trying to work out how to get to them and download them,but uptil now cannot find a way

 

The only way I can think of @wiseowl, is for you to take one of their monthly subscriptions, then within the first month download all the photos and then close the account immediately thereafter, and stop the direct debit at source; it will cost you one month's subscription, but at least that way you will get everything back.

@roders - Google are a lot less likely to stuff you over than Photobucket, simply because they are much larger and have their revenue coming in from various different sources - for Photobucket, photos are their only source of income. The downside of Google is that it is harder to share images on some forums - or at least forums that don't allow you to upload photos direct in the way that GC does.

 

Good evening @Fat Controller and thank you my friend,I did that one year a time ago and if I remember because it was in the USA,I had a hell of a job stopping it,can't remember exactly why now,it was something to do with it runs for a year or something,but I will check it out

 

@wiseowl - the hardest ones to stop are recurring credit or debit card payments, so if you can go for a direct debit option; that not only allows you to go onto your internet banking and cancel the direct debit there (thus cutting them off completely) but also covers you under the direct debit guarantee. The only stipulation is that you must have contacted the company and informed them that you are terminating and ceasing payment.

The photos themselves can be downloaded as full albums rather than having to do them individually, thus making it faster