DesignConnected Issues and Warning

[jujubee]

I've encountered two separate but related issues with DesignConnected which you host 3d assets on Cosmos.
I needed a few more assets and so I took a look on their website after seeing them here and found additional models that looked great. I quickly signed up for a membership. But I quickly came across a couple big issues that I thought I'd warn others about:

1. Many of the downloads which are free on Cosmos are listed as for sale/duplicated on their site. So if you add some of their models to your membership, it counts against your monthly downloads.
2. I went to go cancel my membership and suddenly I was presented with a warning that if I were to cancel, that I'd be charged half the annual monthly fee ($200+.) So, they hit you with an early termination fee which is completely disingenuous and unacceptable. The proper way to have done this is to simply charge you the full monthly amount then let you cancel, otherwise I consider it to be a hidden and extremely steep fee buried in the fine print. Another way is to simply only offer up a full annual price. It's a bait and hook scheme. I had no choice but to cancel this because I felt like my money is being held hostage. With other services that have annual memberships sometimes divided monthly (for example, Netflix, Disney, Comcast/Xfinity, Spectrum Cable, etc.) - if you cancel, you don't get hit with half the remainder of a full year. This is absolutely ridiculous and something VRay/Chaos and its members should be taking into consideration with this vendor.

I won't be doing any business with them in the future and I'm warning others in advance of their policies so they do not make the same mistake. I personally find these hidden fees reprehensible and slightly dishonest and will be disputing their charges.

[kalina.maneva]

Hi jujubee,
And thanks for taking the time to provide your opinion.

DesignConnected are a long-time partner of ours and their assets are highly valued by our community.
We are sorry to hear that your experience with their service was suboptimal.

We will forward your feedback to them.

Regards,

[Alex_M]

Hi jujubee ,
I understand your frustration with this, and I don't like the practice of cancellation fees too, so I decided to check their website to see if they really hide this. From what I can see, Design Connected clearly state on their subscription plans page that they have a cancellation fee for yearly plans.

For Annual Subscriptions:

You can stop using the service by canceling it prior to the end of the commitment period. In order to do that you will have to pay a cancellation fee equal to 50% of the remaining monthly fees.
For example  -  if you are a Business plan owner with three months left and you want to cancel, you will have to pay a fee of 149 EUR.

So I wouldn't call this a hidden fee. It's still something you can miss though if you just rush to buy a plan without thoroughly reading the terms of service. This is why for a long time now I always force myself to read the terms of service of any service I sign up for from top to bottom even if they are long and tedious to read through. Most people nowadays, due to their busy lifestyles, just skip through it thinking that the company has their best interest in mind which of course, as a business that wants to make as much money as possible, they rarely do. They will take advantage of you if you are not careful. It's the sad truth.