Upgraded to Pro, couldn't downgrade back to Starter, now my website is suspended

[mcarlini]

My website, SouthernOregonDrone.net which has been on Weebly since 2015 on the starter plan, was suspended this morning. 

About a month or two ago I upgraded to Pro to sell some stuff, but it didn't really pan out, and so I wanted to downgrade back to Starter plan. Well, there was no option for this. So I cancelled Pro and thought that it might downgrade back to Starter somehow when it expired. Not that there was any way to do this from my end, but I was hopeful. Clearly that was not the case because as of this morning, my website - which is my livelihood - is suspended. I've been waiting to get ahold of someone on the phone for 30 minutes now, listening to the same 3 tracks.

VERY dissapointed in Weebly. After doing some searching, it seems like this is a common issue...for a few years now. How hard is it to just give us an option to downgrade to Starter??? Seems like a way to keep us paying more by forcing people to wait to infinity on the phone, get frustrated, and just give up and pay. 

Well, I have given hundreds and hundreds of dollars to Weebly since 2015, but I am *this* close to moving on. Absolutely ridiculous. This is the kind of business practice that I find abhorrent. Can someone here possibly help me with this? So frustrating. 

[Adam7]

Thanks for posting about your upgrade issue, @mcarlini. Did you still need help? I checked your account and it looks like our support team helped transition your site back to the Starter plan.

[mcarlini]

Yes, after a total of 45 minutes on the phone, they finally were able to switch this. I told the person helping me to please forward on my message to whoever it is that needs to hear it: PLEASE create an option through which your customers can downgrade back to starter. It can't be that hard. I understand you might make more money in the short term by creating a situation in which the customer has to spend almost an hour of their day to fix the issue, and hoping they just give up and pay the extra money, but that's a garbage business practice and some people (like me) are extremely aware of that and will leave. That has to be the only reason for the current design, as its incredibly easy to upgrade an account, but in order to downgrade, my phone helper had to put me on hold for 15 minutes "due to computer problems." Whether or not that's true, why not save everyone time, hassle, and money, and just let us downgrade from our own computers?

I normally don't rant like this, but after paying money to you guys for years with multple domains and sites and having my main site (income) being turned off because I couldn't downgrade on my own but didn't need the upgrade anyome, it really pissed me off. The most frustrating part is that I emailed you guys on August 31st (just now checked my inbox again for the confirmation email after I sent you the message: "RE: I need to cancel my pro plan and get a refund because I was just charged another month, I would l...") about this issue and no one got back to me. Now you have a 5-year customer who 1) will not upgrade again because I can't be sure I can ever go back without wasting an hour of my day, 2) now feels suspicious towards Weebly because who knows where else they might try to trap me into paying more 3) will not bother with emailing/messaging support, so I will always call, using Weebly's limited in-person resources.

So again, if you wouldn't mind, please pass on the message to the right people that they really, really should allow the customer to downgrade from Pro to Starter. 

[karnsingh]

I am facing the opposite of this problem. Somebody help.