Extremely Unprofessional: Changed Pricing Overnight by 20x
Extremely Unprofessional:
They had promised 10K free searches but automatically downgraded and disable our account to 50 due to change in their terms and conditions. Whenever a business does that, you lose trust. Once I asked them why did you do it? They said if you were on a paid plan we would not have. I require only 1000 searches so why would I buy a paid plan when I had 10K free. Without warning doing this overnight is extremely unprofessional. Please use PodcastIndex instead.
Providing an update based on the Response given by ListenNotes as of June 7, 2023:
1. We never at any moment increased our usage for the purpose of For Profit. We have a free of cost tool. Therefore, no profit is involved.
2. Anyway, 10,000 requests for free for all users and post which the premium plan came into effect. We created our main account in Feb 2023 and our QA created an account on June 6, 2023. The QA account was asked to be merged with the main account. However, instead of merging the Owner of the website ListenNotes decided to purposely downgrade our usage without any warning whatsoever. It is very common for Developers to create multiple accounts but with no intention of excess usage but just to QA the service. When the QA knew I had another account we asked for a merge but the Owner downgraded the usage from 10,000 to 50 overnight
3. I would like to point out that Trustpilot is a place for providing reviews. Therefore, there will be both positive and negative reviews. As your service was not upto the mark we recommend you take the review positively. Furthermore, I highly recommend you increase the usage as per the promised limit.
Last but not the least I would like to mention we have found alternative services; however, with the good views on the web on ListenNotes this review is warranted in lieu with the way we were treated.
Reply from Listen Notes
Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback on Trustpilot. We appreciate and respect all viewpoints and take them seriously, as they help us improve our services. However, we'd like to clarify a few aspects raised in your review.
Our free API plans are aimed at supporting hobbyists and individuals working on side projects. This is reflected in the specific usage limitations outlined in our Terms of Use, which all users agree to when signing up for our service. Regrettably, creating multiple accounts to circumvent these limitations is in violation of these terms and disrupts the fairness and quality of service we strive to provide all users.
We noticed a surge in accounts originating from your company. We feel it's pertinent to ask why there was a coordinated effort from your employees to create numerous free accounts. We hope to understand this situation better as it seemed out of ordinary usage patterns.
As a for-profit organization with requirements beyond our free usage quota, we believe our paid plans would be a more suitable choice. These plans are structured to meet commercial usage needs, providing wider features and greater capacity that can effectively cater to the needs of larger, profit-driven entities.
We have noted your history of expressing dissatisfaction with companies whose complimentary offerings do not adequately meet the commercial requirements of your enterprise, e.g., https://www.trustpilot.com/users/629cec5a30e24a00124872e8 It's understandable that not all experiences with service providers may meet your expectations. Nevertheless, it's essential to consider that utilizing free plans beyond their intended capacity is neither a sustainable nor an ethical practice, especially when it violates the provider's terms of use.