Hello All,
Imagely, the maker of NextGen galleries changed my license agreement, without informing me and without my consent. On July 10, 2021, I bought a Lifetime license. This was labeled for "Professional and Power Users" and boasted UNLIMITED websites in the installation quota. You can easily see this for yourself with the way back machine for web page archiving.
As a graphic designer, I make websites. Lifetime licenses tend to be expensive, and they only financially break even after some years of use as compared to the cheaper priced annual licensing, in general. I decided I would buy this Lifetime license offered by Imagely and use their fancy galleries in all of my websites to get my money's worth. (Which was 20 websites, inclusive of live and dev copies.)
Yesterday, I updated the NextGen plug-in on one of the websites I manage, and saw an ad for photographer proofing offered by the plug-in, so I logged into my Imagely account to check it out for details. Upon logging in, I saw there was now a 25 website cap on my license.
Imagely had changed my license agreement after the sale…. 3 years after the sale.
They offered an unlimited quota when I bought it. I agreed and paid for the unlimited quota. I emailed support upon seeing this cap, and they do not want to agree to the unlimited quota. They will up the quota to another fixed number, but not make it unlimited. I don't want to agree to these new terms. I want them to stick to what they offered when they paid them.
My next step is to report this to the FTC.
I wanted to warn you guys if you bought a lifetime license in the past years. Go log into your account, and see if they added a quota onto what should be an unlimited website count.
Sure, if they have a "25 site max" for sale today and you bought it today, that is the term you are agreeing to, but if you saw "unlimited websites" years ago and bought based on that term, you should to email them and demand they not change the terms of the licensing agreement after the sale. Insist they stick to the agreement that was made, report them to the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising.
I shouldn't have had to waste time asking them to stick to the license I paid for once, and now twice. Now I am going to also make a YouTube video to warn people and will report them to the FTC. This is the second plug-in developer that has tried changing my lifetime license after the fact, and they really tick me off. I did not pay a ridiculously higher fee for a lifetime license, and only plan to use the darn thing for only a year; I pay these higher prices when I plan on using the plug-in to the max for many years.
If you were wondering if Imagely's NextGen plug-in is worth it, if Imagely's NextGen plug-in is legit, or if Imagely's NextGen plug-in is a scam… I would think twice before handing over your money. They are willing to change a license after the fact to "better serve customers" even if you do not agree having a cap on licenses better serves you when you signed-up for unlimited websites.
Are you sure you were not selling the licenses to third parties ? Are you 1000% positive you were not engaged in shady practices ? Because when this happens, it means the company is pretty certain the end user is selling the licenses.
Again I am of accusing you of anything, but you would not believe the number of shady people around that do stuff like that.
Just recently there was a guy crying about the Astra Pro theme and how they took away his lifetime unlimited licenses, only to find out he was in India and selling Astra Pro and the 6 plugins it comes with which would cost you a good 180 dollars per year.
He was selling his lifetime licenses and not only did they catch him red handed, but they also revoked all the licenses he had sold.
There are always clauses and other fine prints involved in these matters. They certainly should have notified the change in license terms. Beyond the complaint, I would personally ask them to bump up the site limit and also look for suitable alternatives.
Lawyer up and send a demand letter.
Chatgpt can write one for you.
Ask it to read the original license agreement to draft a demand.