New Smugmug Changes " $$ lost"

lopey

Hello photographers. Anyone else on here pay for a custom website thru smugmug 3rd party and now with the changes lose money cause your old site is no good..
I'm currently looking into legal representation on this issue, because smugmug is not responsible for paying a 3rd party " which they support on there site".. I'm out the money I paid for the site and smugmug pretty much say's there's nothing they can do.

Richard

I moved this to MYOB.

I'm not very clear on the problem here. Who is the 3rd party and who do you think is responsible for the lost sales?

Ferguson

I think I understood the question. My guess is lopey paid someone to customize his old-smugmug format site, and now it is being obsoleted and he has to pay again.

Is that correct?

I get the concern, and there's a lot I did not like about the new Smugmug implementation (mostly bugs), but any modern system is going to go through transitions periodically. They did provide quite a long period of time to make that transition, during which you could shop for other venues. I know I did (shop for other venues), without much success of finding a better alternative (weighed down a bit by lots of links to the old Smugmug structure).

I'm sure you can sue them -- in the US you can sue most anyone (though not sure if that's where you are). But I wouldn't bet very heavily on you winning. You'll be joining all those who didn't want to update (or pay the cost) for thousands of commercial products and web sites.

Sam

lopey wrote: »

Hello photographers. Anyone else on here pay for a custom website thru smugmug 3rd party and now with the changes lose money cause your old site is no good..
I'm currently looking into legal representation on this issue, because smugmug is not responsible for paying a 3rd party " which they support on there site".. I'm out the money I paid for the site and smugmug pretty much say's there's nothing they can do.

If I understand your complaint, your out of luck and have no basis for any legal action. You really don't have any basis for a protracted rant. You can of course be upset that you will need to spend money that you didn't have budgeted, but that doesn't rise to a legitimate basis for a legal argument.

Have a cold one and chill.

Sam

denisegoldberg

There is no guarantee with a subscription-based site of the site remaining the same forever. If you need a site with no changes in the future (due to improvements to the base software) then perhaps you might consider creating a site from scratch instead of using a service.

Have you looked at the site customization currently available within SmugMug? It is entirely possible that you can recreate your site in the new world without using code.

--- Denise

Richard

Unless whoever did your customizations specifically offered a written guarantee or you had been paying an ongoing maintenance fee, I'd guess that you have no legal recourse. Just to avoid further aggravation, if you insist on taking legal action I'd look for a lawyer who will take the case on a contingency basis. If you can't find one willing, that tells you something about your likelihood of winning in court.

As Denise mentioned, you can really do quite a bit of customization yourself with the new SM, so check it out. If you are too busy to learn how it works, it would probably be more cost-effective to pay a (different, of course) third party to do it than to pay for litigation.

lopey

Ferguson wrote: »

I think I understood the question. My guess is lopey paid someone to customize his old-smugmug format site, and now it is being obsoleted and he has to pay again.

Is that correct?

I get the concern, and there's a lot I did not like about the new Smugmug implementation (mostly bugs), but any modern system is going to go through transitions periodically. They did provide quite a long period of time to make that transition, during which you could shop for other venues. I know I did (shop for other venues), without much success of finding a better alternative (weighed down a bit by lots of links to the old Smugmug structure).

I'm sure you can sue them -- in the US you can sue most anyone (though not sure if that's where you are). But I wouldn't bet very heavily on you winning. You'll be joining all those who didn't want to update (or pay the cost) for thousands of commercial products and web sites.

Yes correct. Yes I believe I have a very good chance, Team looking at the terms and agreement before the change.

lopey

denisegoldberg wrote: »

There is no guarantee with a subscription-based site of the site remaining the same forever. If you need a site with no changes in the future (due to improvements to the base software) then perhaps you might consider creating a site from scratch instead of using a service.

Have you looked at the site customization currently available within SmugMug? It is entirely possible that you can recreate your site in the new world without using code.

--- Denise

I whole point of paying someone to create a site would mean I can't do it myself.

lopey

Sam wrote: »

If I understand your complaint, your out of luck and have no basis for any legal action. You really don't have any basis for a protracted rant. You can of course be upset that you will need to spend money that you didn't have budgeted, but that doesn't rise to a legitimate basis for a legal argument.

Have a cold one and chill.

Sam

Sounds like you work for smugmug sam. Well find out if there is a basis for legal action in the user agreement before the change.

AceCo55

lopey wrote: »

I whole point of paying someone to create a site would mean I can't do it myself.

Have you tried or looked into creating your site with New Smugmug. There are MANY features, that used to require a knowledge of code, that are simply settings to check or uncheck. There are also MANY wonderful volunteers who can help you if/when you run into a problem.
Once you understand the process, features and elements of the New Smugmug it is much easier to maintain and update than the Old Smug. Denise was just pointing out that the New Smugmug is much easier for people who don't know code.

lopey wrote: »

Sounds like you work for smugmug sam. Well find out if there is a basis for legal action in the user agreement before the change.

Bad assumption - Sam most definitely does not work for Smugmug - and neither do I.
He, Denise, the majority of posters in the forum and I are just customers/users of Smugmug like you.

I'm not sure what you are looking for in this thread?
If everything is in the hands of the "legal eagles", what do you want from your fellow users?

denisegoldberg

lopey wrote: »

I whole point of paying someone to create a site would mean I can't do it myself.

Have you even looked at the customization available in new SmugMug without the need to write any code? Since we can't see your old site we have no idea of what types of customization would be needed for your site - but I highly recommend exploring the non-code customization possibilities in new SmugMug.

I had a highly customized legacy smug site that included lots of code. I was delighted with the release of new SmugMug to be able to customize my site using the built-in customization tools. Yes, I do still have a small amount of code to tweak a few things but most of my customization was done without code.

As was noted above, I do not work for SmugMug; I am a customer just like you are.

--- Denise

mercphoto

Ack. This is almost as bad as the Peter Wolf patent fiasco.

jonh68

lopey wrote: »

I whole point of paying someone to create a site would mean I can't do it myself.

The whole point of smugmug is to give the photographer the ability to create a website with minimal skills. If I were going to pay someone to manage and create a website I would want one built from scratch.

I don't think you have much of a case but good luck if you try.

Sam

lopey wrote: »

Sounds like you work for smugmug sam. Well find out if there is a basis for legal action in the user agreement before the change.

Lopey,

You should read a couple of other threads..........roflroflrofl

I call um like I see um for or against, ask anyone who has been here awhile.

sam

Sam

mercphoto wrote: »

Ack. This is almost as bad as the Peter Wolf patent fiasco.

Not even close. The Peter Wolf scam was for the most part very successful.

Take a completely invalid patent threaten to sue and have all the major players, who know the patent is invalid, fold like cheap suit and pay extortion.

Sure it didn't last forever but there was free money for as long as it did.

Sam