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Upgraded to 1st class membership but problems

5K views 23 replies 12 participants last post by  Greg Elmassian 
#1 ·
I wanted to add a new thread to the "wanted' forum and found that I needed to upgrade to 1st class.
I wenrt and did this and paid through paypal but I still cannot add a new thread in the 'Wanted' forum.
I am given some text which says:

'

  1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
  2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
 
#4 ·
When did you make the payment? I suppose it could be if it was done late Friday that they may not see it until work begins on Monday... (or maybe Tuesday if they celebrate Pretzledents day).

But, from what I have seen on this site lately... I don't understand how you sent them money! Others have been complaining that they don't know how to become 1st class members! Maybe the new owners really have been working on the system! (Will wonders never cease!?!)
 
#7 ·
There is no option currently to upgrade to 1st class. The site owners are working on a solution, but there's no timeline on that. If PayPal actually debited your account, find out who got the money (Shad or the new owners), and follow through with them for a refund. To my knowledge, no one's actually been successful in paying, so you may be a first!

If you want to post something in the Classified section, go ahead and place the ad in the Public Forum, then use the "Report Post" button in the lower left corner. Ask us to move it to the Classified section, and we'll move it to whichever heading is appropriate.

Later,

K
 
#8 · (Edited)
Hi
I have checked my $24 paypal payment and it has gone to VerticalScope Inc. Are these guys the new owners?
I managed to find out how to upgrade to 1st class by doing the following:
Go to the 'Home' page
very near the bottom it has link text saying 'Upgrade to 1st Class!!'
Click this and it takes you to a page where you are asked to log in again.
When you login or use the 'return to this page' you have the oportunity to pay to upgrade.
I can now see the record of my upgrade
Still doesn't work though.
I will post the 'wanted' post in the public forum and report as you directed Kevin

below is a screen capture:
Text Line Font Parallel Rectangle
 
#9 ·
Thanks! VerticalScope is the new owner, so you were apparently successful in paying for your 1st-Class membership. (Which is more than others have been able to do, but I don't know if that constitutes an "improvement" or not.) I let the site admins know of your post, so hopefully they'll be able to resolve the issue.

In the mean time, I moved your wanted post to the wanted forum.

Later,

K
 
#11 ·
Many thanks for that Kevin.

I have sent messages to VerticalScope through their website, to various destinations on it, but I have not heard back from them. I have asked them to refund my Paypal payment but it looks like this will not be happening.
The fact that there is still a page on this site, that can be linked to, that is 'Shad's old home page' shows that VerticalScope are probably not too interested in checking the site through and maintaining it well.

I take it that there are 1st class members who were already endowed as such before Shad sold it to VertiacScope, and that is why some can post new threads in the 'Classifieds'.
Is the $24 payment per year or is it a one of? If it is annual, then how do the current 1st class members pay?
 
#14 ·
Hey there,

Sorry for the late reply, we don't usually work on the weekends and yesterday was a holiday for some of us.

beavercreek, I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I'm going to ask you to go into your paypal account and provide me the UNIQUE transaction ID # from the receipt, It should be near the top of the receipt and contains letters and numbers.
With that information, I can ask our sales team to search for it. It might have gotten lost in the email. :(
When we find it, I will upgrade your account.

Thanks.

~ LL, community support
 
#18 ·
Hi
For the administrator, here is the info that you have requested:
Unique Transaction ID 3MC22412C08060911



To placate all of the folk who are wondering how I got 1st class membership and they didn't....
I paid but I am not sure if I have any perks!

In relation to this. If there is not going to be any more 1st class benefits to members, then perhaps it may be prudent to open the 'classifieds' to ALL members (after they have been members for a certain time etc to avoid somebody just getting a membership to quickly buy or sell)
 
#19 ·
The Perks USED TO BE: (in no particular order, as I remember what they were)

1) Storage space accessible via the internet for photos or a personal web page. The photos could be access by MLS or any other web site so you can post a photo in any forum.

2) Additional editing controls in the text box when posting to MLS. Including a very easy tool for accessing photos in the personal 1st class storage space and a tool to embed YouTube videos, amongst some other tools to make it easier to format the text.

3) Ability to post buy/sell/trade entries in the sub forum for that purpose.

4) Knowing that you have helped to pay for the server and work done to maintain the best forum for Garden Trains.

Now:

1) I don't know if any new 1st class members will gain access to the server for personal web storage space. AND those of us that did pay for it are somewhat concerned about whether the space will continue to exist or when/if it may someday just up and be gone forever. We are apparently no longer paying for it and not being required to pay for it to keep it around, so there is no recourse if the new owners decide to pull the plug.

2) The extra editing controls are now uniform across both non-1st class members and 1st-class members, but the nice tools for accessing the 1st class storage space are gone and YouTube had already screwed up the neat tool for embedding videos and it was no longer as easy to use as it used to be, anyway. So this is no longer an incentive to cough up the $$.

3) The ability to post buy/sell/trade items seems to still be a perk for those what have been able to pay for the privilege, but, the ability to pay seems to be screwed up.

4) The new owners seem to not care about paid subscriptions to the forum, as they supposedly are making their money from advertising revenue... but, I don't see any advertising at all except when I go to the old "Home page" to click the link to get to this new forum to log-in (I could set my "Favorites" to point directly at the forum and skip the old Home page completely). So, I am no longer proud to be supporting this site financially. And I worry about when the new owners will suddenly realize that all the old members (1st class and otherwise) are now "1st class" somehow whether we paid anything or not and we will then be inundated with unwanted advertising.

But the major concern is whether the new owners even know what a Garden Railroad is or why it is so important to us such that we were willing to pay money to help create the best Large Scale forum.
 
#21 ·
Another perk of 1st class memebrship: very little advertising visible! ;)
I think all ads are gone for 1st class members, except for forum sponsor banners.
thats why you guys arent seeing ads..

try logging out and then taking a look..ads all over.
top, bottom, and side of every page, plus ads mixed into every thread.

Scot
 
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