Hi,
I have been frustrated with my Smugmug acct for over a year now. It seems like when I think its straightened out - its up to its old tricks - or, I am an idiot.
I am a "Power" user giving them 60 dollars a year to display my images. I am not a pro but pretty serious about imaging for many more years than I'd like to count. Don't earn a penny from my work although
the one time I displayed prints in a restaurant I sold several framed images.
Some background: A year ago my wife goes to visit an old friend that owns a small curio shop. While there she sees cards for sale with my images attached to the front.
Her friend has her name on the back as the photographer. She is struggling to survive so I kind of understand, but, I would prefer my name on it, have more control
and know how well they are being received.
This opens my eyes and starts me down the path of trying to figure out how the hell she is selling my work without me knowing. I find out that the "buy" button is available on all my work,
and for a few cents she is ordering my images printed on card sized paper. All without me knowing. I get all worked up.
I contact smugmug and they tell me how to prevent prints and how to stop people right clicking my work for downloading. OK, so I calm down (kind of).
They walk me through all this and I think they tell me how to set up my site with global settings so this doesn't happen again.
I am not dumb when it comes to computers. I haven't had the need of a computer repair shop in over 15 years.
Last night, I am wondering why my site is getting so many unsolicited visits (usually its visited by people I know, in response to my invitation).
I find several of my galleries with the print button enabled AND the images downloadable. I am freaking pissed.
I thought that I had a global setting to prevent this but apparently not, or not any longer, or whatever. I tried in vain last night to get their support staff
to connect me to someone in customer relations. My feeling is that they should tell me whats been sold, and that its absurd that each and every gallery
needs an independent custom setting to disable the BUY button and right click download. Especially for someone thats been using their service for nearly a decade.
To add insult to injury, Smugmug flat out denies they have the ability to tell me whats been ordered or downloaded. How can this be possible??
They get computer orders, money changes hands, they ship hard goods. How the hell could they not know what was sold off my site?
It flies in the face of logic. I have the strong feeling that Smugmug profits from these errors, effectively stealing from their bottom tier customers.
While I really do not want to reinvent my Photo site. It seems I have little choice. Any solid recommendations for another photo hosting service would be welcome.
Thanks for your suggestions and letting me vent....
