Tagfoot fines $5, but does not explain why…
By admin. Filed in Blogging, social media |Tags: scams, social media, Tagfoot, Tagfoot account restricted, TagFoot fines, tagfoot support, Tagfoot Usage
The tagfoot "your account is restricted" message
I am always a little suspicious when people start trying to punish me without explaining why. I am even more suspicious when that punishment involves a fine.
So, when I recently tried to use Tagfoot and got a message that my account was restricted and pointed to a help page that said “You have broken a rule, or rules, as outlined in the Usage Guidelines. To immediately unlock your account, you will need to pay a $5 fine” that set off a lot of alarms. Looking around, it gets even more interesting as I found a post by someone who paid the $5, but still couldn’t figure out why she was fined and they would not tell her (and no “you figure it out” is not a decent answer). It is even more suspicious when you realize that they previously had a bug that was marking users as restricted when they were not…
Well, in light of this, I sent the Tagfoot support a request for clarification and an explination of just what I have done. I have had this account since soon after they started and had not even seen when they released these guidlines and fines.
A while later, I got this very turse form message with a couple of links, but absolutely no real explanation…
Why is my account RESTRICTED and what does it mean?http://tagfoot.com/help#Why%20is%20my%20account%20RESTRICTED%20and%20what%20does%20it%20mean%3FYou’ll also want to make sure to read tagfoot’s usage guidelines: http://tagfoot.com/support/news:.E68423EB-4A17-45AD-8263-CB404D59D0D0
Thanks.
Seriously? Now you are fining long term users without any real explanation? This seems similar to the police mailing you a ticket for $100 and telling you to look in the traffic code if you are unsure when or what it is for. I figured that I might as well try to get a straight answer one more time and see if they got the point (I figure that my account is lost by now unless I do anyways). I replied that I wanted to know what the specific issue is, but no answer. It turns out that they block replies to support by restricted accounts. So, now I have to jump through hoops to find that I can still send support a message from the support user profile page. What a pain. I replied that I had seen the usage guide but wanted to know just what I was specifically fined for. Still waiting for an answer…
So, currently I am left with the choice of:
- abandon Tagfoot
- pay a random $5 user fee and just hope that they don’t just ding me again…
Since I really like to know what I am paying for and why, I guess this is the end of my Tagfoot usage (at least under that login). Hopefully at some point they will consider improving their support and the definition of their rules and actually start explaining to users what they did wrong and how to fix it. Otherwise, their fines just look like random user fees to me.
Frankly, at this point using Tagfoot just does not seem worth the $5 random usage fee, I mean “fine”.
Sunday, April 11th 2010 at 5:41 pm |
Hey there Mark, it’s Scott here from tagfoot. Nothing sinister or scammy going on – promise – it’s just a matter of keeping the place clean.
In perusing your bookmarks, it would appear you’re using tagfoot to promote mostly your own blogs – which is prohibited. Of course if I’m wrong, please let me know and I’ll review your account again.
The $5.00 fine exists as a way to MAKE users read and follow the usage guidelines if they fall out of line. I’ll PM you my personal phone number so you can call me directly if you have any questions.
Thanks Mark,
Scott
Monday, April 12th 2010 at 10:30 pm |
Interesting… I have not posted anything from this blog to tagfoot in a very long time, so at least I seem to have finally gotten someone’s attention and they did spend some time looking at things.
Since Scott said that I was using tagfoot to promote my blogs, I took a look at my posts in the 9 months since they posted their guidelines. In the last 9 months, I have posted 8 links, of which I admit 5 were to articles on Green Colored Glasses which my wife writes, and 3 were to misc other sites. So, yes, I did post more links to my site than anyone else’s, but seriously, they suspend your account without telling you (they have my email address) and then make you run through hoops for 5 posts in 9 months? That seems a bit much.
Keep in mind that before they released this vague usage statement, one of the reasons that people (including me) were flocking to tagfoot was because it encouraged you to post whatever you wanted (except porn, illegal stuff, yada yada). Even now, the tagfoot login page says (and I quote) “Share everything and anything – on your terms.” It also says “quickly share anything you find on the web with your friends”. It now appears that what they really mean is “Share what we want – on OUR terms.”
At this point, I just have not had the time to call them long distance in Texas (I have a day job) and they won’t let me repond to support on tagfoot, so this is getting painful to try to talk with them. All I can say is that I am still not impressed.
In his previous comment, Scott posts that promoting mostly your own blogs is prohibited (no definition of where the line on “mostly” is either), but their own guidelines is pretty vague and actually says that “we don’t mind the occasional Hey-look-at-me!” Scott seems to be saying that his is not true.
Any site that will fine me for posting 5 links in 9 months to the same site while telling me that I can “quickly share anything you find on the web with your friends” seems a bit full of it.
Frankly, yes, one of the things that I like to share is often my sites because my wife and I tend to write about things that we think are interesting and want to share. The fact that the limitations on how much you can post your own site are very vague and hidden (until you trip over the line and have to pay $5 to find the URL) just annoys me. There are other sites that will allow me to share what I want with less hassle and arbitrary fines.
Of course, keep in mind that this is all speculation. Scott said that he looked at my bookmarks and “it would appear your’re using tagfoot to promote mostly your own blogs”. Reading between the lines, that says to me that someone marked the account restricted, but they don’t bother to track why. If someone comes asking, and refuses the initial brushoff, then they will make a guess at it.
At this point, tagfoot still seems to be more than a little fly-by-night to me.