Phanfare Reviews

(based on 16 reviews)

80 of 142 people found this review helpful

I have been using phanfare for 10 years now. My site has had over 7 million hits. I photograph ballparks. In the beginning and up until carbonite took over and screwed it up, it was a good product... I could download music from iTunes and upload my photos with ease.

NOW, every week, I get this error message time and time again

Phanfare has encountered an error and needs to refresh the page to continue.

Reason: service
Info: 997

ENOUGH is enough. I will be moving my site to either smug mug or zenfolio.

A very PISSED off ex customer

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

131 of 237 people found this review helpful

I've been a Phanfare member for a couple of years. I love the features and the ease of use and sharing. My problem with this site is the awful customer service. I can't call and I can't chat so am forced to send written messages when I have an issue. They commit to a response within 24 hours, but that never happens. When the site crashes, which it is doing with increasing frequency, I eventually get a canned response informing me there was a problem that the engineers have now corrected, and am I now completely satisfied? Well, I'm not and am becoming less so. These people have a great product when it works, but I can't trust it anymore. I'm shopping for a better service that will give me those great Phanfare features -- every day. If the Rolls Royce won't start it's just another car.

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

130 of 264 people found this review helpful

Good points:
- Easy to sign up
- Can have a lot of folders
- Lot of preset themes
- Can load a folder and then decide to keep it private and undisplayed

Bad points:
- Uploading not great, if you try to upload a lot of photos it tends to time out partway through, and doesn't have a good way to figure out which ones need to be reset for uploading except by checking photo by photo to see which ones got successfully uploaded.
- Uploading fairly slow compared to other photo site uploaders on the same connection.
- On the site you see as a user, it will automatically have a top folder level that is based on which year you UPLOADED the photos. So if I upload sets of photos today with file dates of 2010, 2016 and 2015, it doesn't matter what I label those folders, they'll all show up in the 2016 folder in my user view.
- You have to use either Flash or Java to upload photos. Both have regular security problems and having to install one of those just to upload photos to Phanfare is ridiculous.
- Lots of preset themes, but at same time not a lot of... (Read the full review)

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

139 of 277 people found this review helpful

My star ratings are based on previous use, before last month.
I have been using Phanfare as my primary photo album site since 2008. On July 31 2016 I was billed for another year .

I have been having trouble with my site:1 . about a month ago it began to get stuck on one album, not being able to move from one album to another. the site would open on the latest album and be stuck there. I would have to reload the site numerous times until it would finally work.now it won't move at all 2. then the videos I uploaded would not convert, even though they are the same type I have always uploaded. 3. today none of my pictures can be seen .they all have a little box in them with a broken line

I am devastated , I am in the midst of preparing an album of my latest trip and must finish by the end of the week when I have a presentation to give.
Please help me

Thank you so much
Shoshi Battat

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

112 of 273 people found this review helpful

The actual features are OK, but the site constantly locks me out - becomes unresponsive and have to either restart or wait until next day. I do not wish it on anyone! (have been a member for a few years now)

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

156 of 282 people found this review helpful

I was subscribed with phanfare and enjoyed their service. However I think this is now a zombie service with no meaningful support. Joining and uploading is easy and I like the music feature. But there is no support and I can see no change in the last two years. Their blog seems to have closed.....................

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

165 of 360 people found this review helpful

Having read the top review here It was almost as if I had written it myself. I have just spent fifteen minutes trying to send a letter of complaint to their CEO but couldn't even send it to their technical support that about sums it up but you might as well see what I'd written:

To the Manager

I am absolutely disgusted with your non-existent customer service. Having been a client for many years I would have expected a little more notice before you disabled the link to my phanfare account. However, since I have been unable, for some time now, to work on my albums by adding music and transferring them to my Facebook business site - and you have been completely useless in assisting me in both respects, then goodbye and good riddance. You are certainly not the only company that can provide this feature and without doubt, you are not worth the money.

I would strongly advise more customer service and technical training for your staff if you are to continue in business.

June Howley

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

172 of 323 people found this review helpful

Phanfare is still the place I archive my photos, but since the founder sold out to a company named Carbonite, there is no longer customer service or upgrades and some features, such as the ability to upload music for the slideshows don't seem to work any more. There hasn't been an update since the end of last year (2013). While I would have highly recommended it while it was still owned by its founder, I wouldn't anymore, at least not until someone in the company gets serious about looking after it.
As for prints and gifts, I've never used those, so I can't really give an accurate review one way or another.

The pro version was $99 per year, and I believe that was unlimited, but not for RAW. You could also upload video, but it takes forever, as it has to convert to a different format, I believe.

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

226 of 415 people found this review helpful

Phanfare management has decided to close down their Tech Support Call Center. You can now only contact them through e-mail. They do not offer "Chat". I sent them two e-mails over 24 hours ago and still no response. I am using their website to run a business and subscribe to their "Pro" service. No where on their website can you find a phone number to call - VERY DISAPPOINTED!

In summary, I would not recommend Phanfare to a friend.

201 of 372 people found this review helpful

I have been using phanfare as my primary storage facility for over 5 years.
I have a PRO account and pay good money for it!
And while managing,sharing and storing capabilities are good/great.
If you want print anything in their website, dont..
Its not easy, if they make a mistake it will take you ages for them to ammend it..
I still have a 180usd album with a stranger's face as cover, from my Xmas shopping...
I recently got credit, not refunded, and when I tried to reprint my album and could not do it..
I got this customer support answer to my dumb query:
"While you are able to go back to a Photo Album you had not yet finished to continue it, you are unable to Reorder the exact same one if it has been ordered and sent and is outside the return date. Unfortunately you would have to recreate the album on the site.

Please let us know if you need additional assistance."

I am never printing with them again, once I have used up my credit.
I recommend Blurb to print albums, quality is awesome.
Or snapfish (same event happened in snapfish and was solved in days)quality of prints is Ok. (Read the full review)

In summary, I would recommend Phanfare to a friend.