karen r.

I've been stuck with this phanfare service for over 2 years because they automatically take money from your account every year even without authorization. They do not send out renewal forms either.

Here are the pros about this company.
1. you get to download full original pictures
2. The allow you to protect your photos from being copied but so are many other the other photo services.
3. you can do music album but most people do not have the patience to watch the pics pop up one by one.

Here are the not so great stuff.

1. the site is very hard to navigate to find where your pictures are once you download. I consider myself pretty high tech savvy making my own movies and videos but this site is very chaotic.
2. the functions are not user friendly. Most people I know that use this site do not bother with any of their special function because they either do not know how to use it, or they couldn't find any useful help from phanfare customer service.

3. speaking of customer service- there is zero at phanfare. If you are looking for help good luck. I am not sure if they hire people who can't understand the English language or very lazy incompetent people who like to answer your questions by sending you a link full or jargons.

4. If you are looking for honesty and integrity in your photo service, you might e disappointed that they will increase your fee every year. Ours was increased from around $50 dollars to $100 within one year. These people are loan shark. They do not inform you when your bill is due. You will not get a renewal notice. They will take money from your account without your consent. We had to block it from our bank to keep them from taking money from our account. It's another tactic they use to keep their customers from leaving.

5. Their video service are very poor quality. They charge extra if you would like to download HD videos. More than ten times, our videos would come out fuzzy and stuttering on phanfare. You can try free video services on face book, google + and especially youtube for better quality videos in 1080 HD. Phanfare just cannot even be compared to the free services out there. I sometimes do not understand why would people pay for this service. Youtube videos can also be downloaded for back up too. You can also do video editing on youtube all for free. Smugmug, shutterfly got way better and more affordable picture book services for at least 60% cheaper than phanfare.

6. phanfare in my opinion is just too pricey compared to all the photo/video services out there. I find them less reliable, poor service, poor quality videos, dishonest business practice, and not user friendly compared to even the free services currently available online.