T J.

I was on this site some years ago as a designer and I immediately noticed that the "best" (or highest voted) designs by the person running the contest would IMMEDIATELY start getting copied to the point that it looked like it was just one designer creating most the designs.
Also, if you are not seen as "good enough" which on 99designs seems to mean if you refuse to simply work off of the designs that are being highly votes, then you are not a good designer and you get booted off the site, which is what happened to me.
That's not the worst of it. If you are booted of, you can NEVER get back on. I guess people don't improve! Mind you, I am a graphic designer. I do this for a living. I sell my designs on many items everyday. I think this policy is idiotic and they really need to change their contest process so you just don't end up with hundreds of copycat designs. Where's the creativity in that?
If you are a serious designer with creativity and your own mind/personality, I would avoid this site. You will end up wasting many hours entering contests. And when you refuse to go along with the crowd long enough, you will get booted... PERMANENTLY!
(PS: please don't get the wrong impression that I didn't follow the design briefs. I always worked within what the customer was asking for.)

I've been with them about a year. I know I have good art as I sell alright on other print on demand websites. But I have yet to make a sell on FAA and it's all the more aggravating because I am paying a yearly membership. I will NOT be renewing. But you need to be careful and keep track of when your membership renews because they don't seem to alert people that they are about to be charged again. (Mark your calendars.)
This is a poorly run company. Their emails don't even get to people. It's a complete mess! They need to get their act together.
As for the string of positive 5-star reviews, I gather these are from customers, which is a good thing if customers are happy. But I suspect some sort of incentive is given to them to come here to write glowing reviews.
On the other end, as an artist, this is a site I would NOT recommend using. There are many better options. I've created a support ticket many months ago which has yet to get a response. The woman running the forum (it's kind of a mystery as to what position she holds with the site) is very snappy and standoffish. Don't trust any site where they make it an obstacle course to get in touch with support, as FAA does.
I feel I have wasted money on my membership. And it's too late to get a refund... and even if I was within the time-frame, I doubt I'd get a timely response. Seems like they're the type to wait it out until the window closes and shrug it off as "Oh well, too late!"

As an eBay shop owner since 2008, and a Paypal user for many many years, most of my Paypal-ing as been positive. It's very easy to use and super convenient.

The problem comes in with people gaming the system and Paypal seeming to not care about this problem. My eBay store is NO RETURNS/REFUNDS. Well, people have figured out that if you accept Paypal as a payment, and you deny their refund request (usually it's buyer's remorse or some other fault of the buyers, which I have no time or patience for). They jump over eBay's head and tell Paypal they want a refund and AUTOMATICALLY get it once the tracking shows that they sent the item back. TERRIBLE system. Great for scammers.

I get why this would be great for honest shoppers but more and more I am running into scammers and con artists using Paypal to con people and not follow store rules.

Paypal really needs to do something about this. They give a very long time (6-9 months IIRC) for a buyer to request a refund! Why so long? The time should be shortened. This is ridiculous.

I've used Hostgator for many years on and off. It's been just okay the whole time. I've left them a couple of years ago and opted for other platforms to see what works.

Problem 1: I've experienced a few times where my site could not be accessed. So "downtime".

Problem 2: The worst thing about Hostgator is customer support. They make you jump through SO MANY hoops to chat with someone. It's ridiculous. It should be as easy as filling out a support ticket but it's not. You have to sign in to a separate site from your control panel and account to get to billing. And they ask so many questions and then list a bunch of articles that they expect you to read through before getting help. I only ever need to contact them if I can't find help IN the help articles!

Why make it such a difficult task to get help from an actual person? Sorry but Hostgator has the worst access to support of any site I can think of. I can think of sites that are probably larger that make it far easier to send off an email or fill out a support ticket.

I don't think I will ever use Hostgator again.

The recent changes were really the last draw for me.

As someone who made very few sells, who struggled with even getting views unless I PAID EXTRA for a promotion for my listings, the recent changes of showing "free shipping" items over non-free shipping items was really the last draw for me.
Mind you, I didn't have shipping on anything as I sold digital content, but I was seeing how unfair Etsy was being towards sellers in general. For some, it would be fine. But for others, this just would not be feasible. But Etsy clearly does not care. So many sellers who don't play along will simply get even more buried.

As a buyer, I've never really had any issues that I can recall. Except once I bought from a seller stating they were located in one area but I got the item shipped from somewhere completely different (Isreal) which I thought was suspicious.

It's mainly not the users on the platform that have been a problem. It's been Etsy! The constant site changes and experimentations is too much for some of us. Depending on what you're selling, there are better alternatives (eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, Creative Market, etc.)

Etsy needs to stop trying to be new and edgy and stick to what works. Stop expecting sellers who are already paying listing and selling fees to pay for Promotions just to be seen! I know of many who have closed down shop. No they were not all unsuccessful like me. Some were doing quite well but just would NOT out up with it.

Actually another issue I had with Etsy was the obvious Trademark infringements. This was especially true with t-shirts. Fake well-known name brand shirts were allowed to be posted. Do they not do scans. WE are supposed to report them.

Same as how it seems they rely on US, the users, to help each other in the forums.

I highly doubt I will ever return to Etsy as a seller. I may buy something off Etsy but I'd honestly rather not. I'd rather take my business elsewhere and reward sites that don't treat people the way I feel I've been treated... like I don't matter. (I rarely even have a look around on Etsy anymore. Maybe once or twice a year I'll browse about but that's it.)

First of all, please scroll down and note that the positive reviews are all from the same date, at least on the first page (5/28). HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS and if anyone working for Skillshare is behind this, this is fraud.

I was a monthly pro member paying about $15/month. A week after paying for a month, I woke up to an email thanking me for paying $99 for an annual subscription! I demanded my money to be refunded as I absolutely DID NOT switch to annual. And even if I did, why would they charge the full $99 after taking $15 the previous week!?

They have fraudulent billing practices and this is clear from reading the countless negative reviews all over the internet. And I don't mean the people who were using a free trial and forgot to cancel and are angry. NO. I mean people who had premium monthly subscriptions and were switched to annual without their consent.

They did refund me but had the NERVE to say it looks like I switched over to annual. Seriously? In my sleep?! And NO my account was not hacked into.

Also, it seems recently they've been mass deleting courses off of their platform. It's like they don't want a good reputation. This all seems worthy of a class action lawsuit.