posted on July 14, 2001 01:39:04 PM newhcross, what are you selling? If you are doing onesies and twosies a few a week, no you don't really need to use something like auctionwatch.
I launch 100+ items a week and it would take hours if not days to do that using the eBay forms and cutting and pasting. Not to mention the mundaneness of the task would drive me (more) insane. Some sort of automation can be very, very useful in this case.
posted on July 14, 2001 02:44:13 PM new
I had 150 auctions last week, only 5 this week because I am suffering from packing burnout. I listed 150 in just a few hours, emailing them all at the end took me about 30 minutes. You must have missed my comment in the previous post where I said I list many, many auctions. Oh, and I sell Pottery, Porcelain and Glass. A generic description cannot be used for them.
posted on July 14, 2001 05:53:06 PM new
Always keep copies of your auction photos either on your hard drive or somewhere like tripod or angelfire. You can't use them to host for ebay, but can store them there until auction is completed.
posted on July 14, 2001 06:43:55 PM new
A little over a year ago, I was a weekly semi-finalist winner in PhotoPoint's "Million Dollar Moments" Photo Contest. The prize was a leather travel bag with PhotoPoint's Logo embossed. PhotoPoint placed a suggested value of $100 on the bag.
Actually, it is a decent bag, but I've never used it and it has never been out of the box other than to take a photo in anticipation of offering it for auction.
I suppose overnight it's become a "HOT COLLECTORS ITEM" - image posted below for those who would like to memorialize:
With regard to PhotoPoint apparently going under, it goes to remind all of us
that maintaining our alternatives cannot be underestimated! However, as earlier posted, PhotoPoint is certainly not the last.
You can bet on the fact that come a year from now that the face of the online auction industry as we see it today will be radically different. Hopefully that means that eBay will actually realize some competition, but more likely is the probability that the majority of the smaller sites will be history.
As for PhotoPoint, good luck to all who appear to have lost their image host! Luckily for me, I cancelled my accounts when they announced "fee-based" services.
posted on July 14, 2001 07:45:47 PM new
I THINK WE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT DELAY, FILE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT. I THINK WE SHOULD BE REIMBURSED FOR OUR TIME AS WELL AS OUR MONEY AND THEIR ARE ATTORNEYS OUT THERE THAT CAN DO IT. IF I CAN GET MY MONEY BACK FOR AN IMPLANT, I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CAN BE MUCH HARDER. YES WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT AND WAIT, BUT WHAT THE HAY, THEN THE OWNER WILL BE THE ONE SUFFERING IN THE LONG RUN. THEY CAN'T JUST UP AND SHUT US ALL DOWN LIKE THAT. THIS IS NOT ONLY OUR PHOTO'S BUT OUR JOBS, OUR LIVES, OUR RENT MONEY. I'M A STAY AT HOME MOM, DEPENDING ON THE MONEY FROM EBAY TO FEED MY FIVE KIDS. NOW I'M RUNNING AROUND TRYING TO PUT MORE PICS ON AND LINKS ON FOR MY BUYERS AND I'M SO SO UPSET. I JUST THANK HEAVENS THAT THIS ISN'T MY ONLY SOURCE OF INCOME. BUT FOR SOME IT IS.
I'M IN FOR THE CLASS ACTION, ANYBODY ELSE? ANYBODY OUT THERE AN ATTORNEY WANT TO TAKE THIS? WHAT A CUT YOU WOULD GET!! COME ON PEOPLE!!! LET'S GET SOME FEEDBACK ON THE IDEA! THANKS FOR LISTENING!
BELINDA BEAVERS
(MOM OF 5)
posted on July 14, 2001 07:53:16 PM new
If a company is bankrupt, it's bankrupt, end of story. You can file all the lawsuits you want and you won't get squat, because there's nothing there to get.
Furthermore, if a company is so bankrupt that its website simply goes off the air with no notice, no redirects, no nothin, then I really, really think you're wasting your time. If they can't even pay the power bill, they sure won't be able to refund your lousy $9.95.
dotcoms die and it sucks. I feel your pain but you just need to get over it. Life goes on. I lost my hiney on eToys and I don't even have the cool stock certificate to show for it!!
posted on July 14, 2001 08:08:19 PM new
WELL, SOME OF YOU MAY HAVE ONLY LOST $9.95, BUT I LOST MUCH MORE. I GUESS I PAID MORE, BECAUSE I HAD A LOT MORE PHOTO'S. THE "FAMILY" PHOTO'S POSTED, ARE FINE, NO BIGGIE, STILL HAVE THEM ON DISK. BUT THE BUSINESS PHOTO'S THAT I HAD LOTS OF, I PAID MUCH MORE FOR, PLUS I'M LOOSING $$$$ BY THE MINUTE!! NOT JUST A BUCK OR TWO EITHER. HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO SELL $1000 ITEMS WITH ONLY ONE PHOTO OR NO PHOTO'S ONLINE? I'M LOOSING MONEY BY THE MINUTE, AND CAN'T SEEM TO LOCATE A GOOD PHOTO HOSTING WEBSITE YET!!
Why not host your pix on a web server like the one that serves up my business web pages...
When I signed up at WyattWeb, the site was set up and running within 3hrs with FTP access and my domain was resolving to it within 72 hours....
Cost? 8.46 per month....with 40mb space and 1gb traffic/mo. No setup fee
You could do a month to month until you find alternative, less costly alternatives...
I've seen some here on AW for under 6.00/mo for a basic site...well worth it, IMO, if you're hosting a lot of auctions and need reliable picture serving...
posted on July 15, 2001 08:21:35 AM new
Updated info (from the digital imaging newsgroup rec.digital.photo) regarding Photopoint may be found at http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/995050152.html
posted on July 15, 2001 08:33:18 AM new
link doesn't work for me...if I type anything beyond imagingresource.com, I get a "not found" message. If I type in just the site, cannot find any way to get info...
can you make the link clickable? Many would appreciate it.
posted on July 15, 2001 08:42:54 AM new
I also tried to call with no luck. There isn't even an option to leave a message.
I called my credit card company today and explained the situation. They agreed to credit me the $9.95 I was charged on June 2nd rather than dispute a charge with a company that might be out of business. Also they said the cost to dispute is more than the amount to be credited.
So start calling your credit card companies ASAP (if that's how you paid) and you stand an excellent chance of getting your money back!
posted on July 15, 2001 08:58:52 AM new
thanks so much, toke, camachinist...that is the FIRST actual news I've seen. Everything else is just rumors, speculation and the usual doom and gloom. Gives me a glimmer of hope...I have photos there that cannot be replaced due to deaths, unlike my auction photos (not too happy about the auction photos tho, either...hundreds of hours of work).
Very grateful for the link...thanks...am on a WebTv
posted on July 15, 2001 09:04:04 AM new
wanted to add...I just got my bill from my credit card for Photopoint membership. I must be the only one (at least posting) that is not only not going to do a chargeback, but I am mailing the payment in the morning.
Why?
Because over the years, I have certainly gotten that much worth from Photopoint, that's why!
posted on July 15, 2001 11:43:58 AM new
That's a bummer
I used Photopoint only to make my "Restoration Folder", and have a link to it on my "About Me" page...and have received quite a bit of work through it! Only cost me 9.95 for the whole year, so I am not griping about the money...But No Warning?.....I'll just put my pics in a folder on my ISP...
So odd that they just started charging a few month ago. Makes one wonder if the closing was planned, and they plotted to grab a few fist-ful of money before slamming the door shut..
******** Gosh Shosh! My "About Me" Page
posted on July 15, 2001 11:58:49 AM new
Thanx for the update on Photopuke.
This is the new eeconomy in action. When a dot.com tanks, it's not because somebody grabbed all the money and ran off to Aruba, but because the company got sucked dry and all available funds got diverted to pay off debts and none was left for operating expenses. They won't give any warning because to do so would dry up any prospect of funding. Don't expect them to play fair.
It even happened to my bank's server! For three weeks they kept telling my accountant [read: wife] that the problem was with her computer. Then they announced they were back up. Three weeks of lies!
I think we can expect much more of this sort of crap. Let's just hope that it doesn't happen to Mother eBay.
posted on July 15, 2001 12:55:23 PM new
"So odd that they just started charging a few month ago. Makes one wonder if the closing was planned, and they plotted to grab a few fist-ful of money before slamming the door shut.."
Actually, I'm wondering if they started charging in the hopes of avoiding a shutdown, and they just didn't generate enough paid memberships to be able to keep going.
This is not the only board whose users "hued and cried" when asked to pay for services. PhotoPoint's own forums were full of angry users who did not want to pay, many of whom posted tips, both at PhotoPoint's forums and elsewhere, for circumventing the fees.
In addition, online image-sharing has not really caught on with Joe and Jane Sixpack, who still want to go to the store, drop off their film, and get hard copies. These two factors combined (wanting the service to remain free, no matter what, and not enough people making use of the service) are probably the reason online image hosts are going under. Even Kodak is hemorrhaging as a result.
Yes, I'm upset, but the loss of the membership money won't break me. I used that service to very good advantage for more than two years at no charge, with multiple accounts for both business and personal photographs.
I'm really more distressed about the loss of my photos, particularly the personal ones, and I hope that something can be worked out at least to enable people to retrieve their images.
posted on July 15, 2001 04:10:45 PM new
As aggravated as I am, I also will not initiate a charge back of the $19.95 I paid Photopoint. I used them for free for two years and their features and customer service were excellent. I've moved to Baypal, $5.00 a month.
posted on July 15, 2001 04:39:08 PM new
I can understand the position of those of you who've used PhotoPoint for a long time, in not initiating a chargeback, that is.
However, people like myself who've only used PhotoPoint for a few months, I feel are certainly entitled to their money back.
posted on July 15, 2001 06:16:04 PM new
An update from Michael Tomkins at IMAGING RESOURCE http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/995050152.html :
UPDATED 2001-07-15 20:16ET:
We've been receiving quite a flood of emails on the PhotoPoint outage from readers, a large portion of whom seem to use the site for hosting their Ebay auction images. From these emails, we feel that a few points do need to be made:
PhotoPoint has yet to make any official statement that we've seen in regards to the outage. As noted earlier, a statement that the site would be back was left on a Pantellic Software voicemail, however we have not been able to confirm rumors that we have read elsewhere attributed to PhotoPoint / Pantellic staff, and these rumors may or may not be accurate.
It remains perfectly possible that PhotoPoint's site may indeed have suffered some kind of hardware or software failure, or indeed that some other cause beyond the company's control is causing this outage.
Until the true situation is known, we feel that talk amongst users of lawsuits and claims that the company has vanished with anybody's money are completely unwarranted. If you have an urgent need for your photos to be online, there are other sites available which you can use. If/when PhotoPoint returns then users will be able to seek redress for the downtime with them; if the site doesn't come back then simply contacting your credit card company and disputing the charges will resolve the situation.
PhotoPoint has not evolved into another site called Epson PhotoCenter; Epson's site is indeed hosted by PhotoPoint and has been for some time. The two sites do share a gallery between them, and if your PhotoPoint images have been shown in that gallery then they may be visible from the Epson site as well, but the Epson site has separate user and image databases.
Ebay users should note that the popular auction site offers means for users to both update auctions to add new links to their images on another site, or to cancel auctions completely and then relist them. Obviously if you weren't aware of the PhotoPoint problems initially, this may not be of help, but no internet service can claim 100% reliability and as such any user who has critical data stored online should be taking an interest in whether it is secure and accessible, and keeping backups of that data.
Hopefully, the start of a new week will shed further light on this situation. In the meantime, we're crossing our fingers that PhotoPoint's troubles will soon be fixed and the site will return to service. We have seen the site come back up although it is near impossible to get into. Several times we've managed to load the main entrance page
The fact that this front page is occasionally accessible does tend to suggest that Pantellic is working to get the site back online, and hopefully they will succeed quickly. A lot of users are obviously very upset about the lengthy outage, and quite understandably so.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:10:35 PM new
Checked auctions at 3:57 PM (EDT) and Photopoint was back! I immediately went to the site, all looks the same, as if there had never been a total disappearance for several days, no explaination, nothing, just all my pics. So, now I'm backing them all up on cd, breathing easier, and signed onto Andale, oh well, better tha losing my business.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:49:28 PM new
You're right, they're up and running again. However, it was inexcusable for the site to have been down for a total of 4 - 5 days without any communication to their customers.
So, I'm one of the disgruntled customers who just discovered PhotoPoint a few months ago and felt I'd been ripped off 5 weeks after paying them for 1 years worth of service. I initiated a chargeback with my credit card company yesterday, did some searching, and discovered another image hosting site that works similar to PhotoPoint. The first 50 MG is free, and you can pay for more at quite reasonable rates. When I get around to it, I will delete my photos from PhotoPoint and that will be that. If they'd bothered to send an email to notify their customers of the problem, I would have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and stick with them. But, similar to a family crisis I'm going through right now, a total lack of communication makes me lose faith in the trustworthiness of the party who's failing to communicate.
Good luck to those of you who try to stick with PhotoPoint. I hope the site remains stable for you.
posted on July 16, 2001 02:25:48 PM new
WOO HOO! All my pix are there, just as I left them....hundreds in the "inbox", those I was working on...all albums. The site is running like greased lightning for me, the tools work beautifully and there is a new look. And I am on a WebTv!
Those of you who are "going to pick up your marbles and go home"...well, you are going to be doing that over and over. Through the years I have yet to see one site not go down...some for over a week, including "Ma" ebay. If you are looking for perfection, you ain't gonna find it on the net...even less on the net than in "real life". And I've never found it "out here" yet, either and I've lived a lot of years.
I, for one, needed this. I was griping about all the work PP is last week. Boy, do I appreciate them now!
I have looked at other sites these past few days. All I can say is I won't be griping anymore about them. I didn't know how good I had it until they weren't there.
So they didn't communicate re the site being down. Who knows why? Maybe they couldn't.
happy, happy here and I think they can afford to lose the losers. They had too d*** many people there anyhow...biggest online hosting site on the net.
Regardless, I have always found them to be a "class act".
Glad to see 'em back...I'll stick with them until something happens that makes it no longer possible.
