What happens to site if I can't renew?

anim8tor

I've been a member for almost a year and spent a great deal of time figuring out how to customize everything and get it to work together with the other part of my site that I built this year. All of it took a lot longer than I thought it would. Between getting everything together, some major financial hits (lost almost everything) and family health issues (my mom almost died), I haven't really been able to learn how to market everything and really sell my stuff so I have made no sales . Anyway, because of the financial issues the credit card on my account will not work and I don't have the money to renew my pro membership when it's due on January 27th. I really want to keep my site and I'm hoping that I'll be able to start getting some money by selling my personal stuff off on ebay.

Please note, I'm not complaining. No matter how bad things get, they can ALWAYS be worse and I've rebuilt my life from the ground up before. I'm so grateful to have my family and a roof over my head and access to the internet. I guess what I really would like to know is what is going to happen to my site when the payment doesn't go through on January 27th? It was so much work to get it the way I wanted and I don't want to lose all of it. It's a little overwhelming and I'm hoping to start getting things moving in a more positive direction this year. Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Beth

Malte

I would make sure to have all photos in two places other than Smugmug. I think this a good practise even if you hadn't been in this situation but even more important now. I would also make a copy of the customization to your computer. You can do this easily by clicking the "Email It" button on the customization page.

This being said I highly doubt this will be a problem, not at Smugmug. If any company would extend you a month, it would be this one.

Malte

denisegoldberg

One thing you might consider (if you are financially able, that is) is to drop your account level to either power (which would keep your customizations) or standard. That way you would still have your smugsite as backup for your photos. In either case, you wouldn't make any money if your photos sell.

I would suggest contacting smugmug directly with your questions, http://smugmug.com/help/emailreal.

--- Denise

Andy

Please write our Support Heroes and let us help you directly from the help desk. I'm sure we can help - reference this thread please, Thanks!

brandofamily

Andy wrote:

Please write our Support Heroes and let us help you directly from the help desk. I'm sure we can help - reference this thread please, Thanks!

Can users donate "credits" to other users?

Andy

brandofamily wrote:

Can users donate "credits" to other users?

Nice idea but we just don't have it Anthony, sorry!

anim8tor

Thanks for the help. I went ahead and emailed support directly today. Also, I took the suggestion of emailing my customization to myself so I will have a backup. I do keep backups of all of my photography but was worried that all of the work to set up the whole look of the site would be completely lost.

The whole point of putting my site up was to have a place to showcase my portfolio and the hopes that some of my photography would sell and offset the cost. Most of my photography up until now has been more in the fine art area and I've had a few photos published but never heavily marketed myself. You would think that having worked in the advertising industry (as an animator, but still) I would have considered all of the time and energy involved in marketing, promotion and getting it all going but I suppose life happens to the best of us.

Anyway, I have been very happy with the support and community here and I'm hoping to get back to business soon. Thanks again for the help!

Beth