While away my Flickr pro. account expired. It isn’t serious as they keep all your data until you renew. It is frustrating though as I have a few gigs of photos to upload from my travels but I dare not as I fear they will be subject to non-pro. account restrictions (like no original version kept.)
Sadly the renewal process is flawed. It uses PayPal which while very useful has some policies that may be in the interests of safety but are in the path of utility. I have a zero sending limit on my PayPal account. Flickr says it can process credit cards without a PayPal account but if your credit card number is in PayPals database then you have to use your PayPal account. Except I cannot because of the zero sending limit. Removing my credit card number from PayPal does not get around this problem. Obviously PayPal are still tracking all cards even if you have removed them.
To increase the sending limit PayPal debits your account with US$1.50 and in your credit card statement prints a code that you then enter into PayPal.
As we all know though credit card statements either take a month to appear or, if you have online access, about 4 days.
So for the simplest act of wanting to renew my Flickr account I have to go through this 4 day process with PayPal. Not happy.
