Warning! - Dropbox Plus “Free Trial”

[goldnet]

I was nearing my Dropbox storage limit. I had an increased storage size in my basic account due to many referrals to friends and companies I worked for over many years and taking tutorials in the past.

I was offered a “free trial” to Dropbox Plus, with seemingly no option to refuse it. I used the (what I thought of as temporary) time and extra capacity, to do housekeeping in my account and move off a lot of photographs to other storage.

With a few days of the so-called trial left to run, I looked for ways to cancel it and return to my former plan. 

I discovered to my horror that if you do not take up the paid upgrade (at 120 a year), Dropbox does NOT restore your former Dropbox storage limit but drops you to its current basic plan of 2 GB. 

So, having removed several hundred photos and videos, I now find myself around double the limit with no means of restoring functionality to Dropbox other than by removing more than half the remaining files, negating any purpose in having an account at all.

Dropbox was the first and simplest cloud storage/sync solution. It has always worked flawlessly for me. That’s why I have recommended to employers, work colleagues, friend and families for decades.

However, this action, a “free” offer, which cannot actually be refused, along with a penalty for not completing an expensive upgrade, that you are not warned of in advance - will drive me away and encourage my contacts to also. It is blatant misrepresentation at best, potential fraud in reality.

Be VERY careful to check your storage capacity and current use! Do NOT proceed with the “free” upgrade unless you are prepared to pay. You cannot go back! 

[Megan]

Hi @goldnet, let's jump right into this! 

You mentioned a couple of things about your Plus trial, and I want to make sure that we're on the same page here.

To begin with, you can always choose to not proceed with any kind of trial, or upgrade. The choice is up to you, and Dropbox will never force you to start a trial.

Now onto the referrals: keep in mind that all the referrals you have earned would remain on your account when you upgrade or downgrade. Bear in mind that on a paid plan, your referrals would be worth 1 GB each for that duration, while on a Basic plan that'd be 500 MB per referral. 

Hope this helps to clarify matters!

[goldnet]

Hi - I got a big blue button saying your storage is almost full but we’d like you to have a free trial of Dropbox Plus. I don’t believe there was any means to bypass that button, nor any warning that if I did so I would no longer be able to use my account as I had prior to the trial if I clicked on it. 

In reference to the referrals credits, it is irrelevant how they were originally credited. I had a certain amount of storage. Having removed around 30-50% of that storage, if I revert to my Basic plan, I am now 2.2GB over the 2GB limit for the Basic plan as none of my original referral credits remain in my account.