Recently I went to download a file of images that I was told was located at http://www.fastdownloadarchive.com. When I went to the site, I was told I must be logged in to access that download, and that if I had NOT signed up already to please create an account. I was then told that Creating an account is free, easy and only takes seconds. After filling out my e-mail address and putting in a password, I was informed that I was seconds away from downloading from their private download directory. In order for them to pay for server fees and to provide their premium service and support they need to charge a fee. Fine, I can understand that. Servers and bandwidth are not free and sometimes very expensive. They then inform you that they use a third-party billing service so that they dont have access to any of your personal or credit information, and that the membership fee was $4.87 which was a Promotional Membership". They also had a Full Membership package listed at $39.95 that was lined out, and that once I had filled out the credit card information needed and received my Subscriber ID, I would then gain access to the file that I wanted and many other files as well.
Upon receiving the e-mail with my Subscriber ID, I discovered that I was being charged EUR $3.67 (about $5.17 USD) for a 3-day trial to Mega Flix Pass Basic recurring at EUR $29.73 (about $41.90 USD) every 30 days unless/until cancelled. Again, fine. I wasnt planning on downloading anything after I got my file of images and was planning on canceling the account after I got the file anyway. I figured this was a fair trade, they get $5.00 US, I get my pictures and everybody is happy. WRONG! After entering my Subscriber ID and logging into my new account, I am told that downloads that do not get many hits are often placed in the archive to save space and make the servers faster for everyone. This does not mean they are unavailable, but they must be re-included before they may be downloaded and that I could request this download and they would add it for me manually and send me an email when done. When I attempted to request to download the file I want, the site returned me to their front page and when I use their search engine to try and find the file again, it informs that no files with that name exist.
One of the rebuttals to one of the previous complaints about the website goes as follows Bottom line, you tried to obtain copyrighted material illegally and the scammers took your money. I'm having a hard time trying to work up any sympathy for you. You got ripped off while attempting to rip off others. Boo h*o., and I would agree except that the images I was looking for were public domain that someone had packaged conveniently into a single file, which meant I wouldnt have to spend a large number of hours looking and downloading each individual file. But this report is not to bring these individuals to justice or anything moral like that. This report is to give others a heads-up that the website, Fastdownloadarchive.com, is a scam and should avoided with extreme predjudice.