Shady shady business. Don't be fooled for the 5 dollars a month lies. They say that it's 5 dollars a month then charge you the full year. The cards you make with smilebox are so basic and lame. It's not worth .50 cents a month. Your way better off going with another card service. You will be disappointed with smilebox. We asked for our money back for deceiving us with the 5 dollars a month and them charging us for a year. They denied us saying read the fine print. Wow. Shady business. Going to go through the credit card to get our money back. Do the same. This is not right. read more

Not worth the money. I can use Canva for free. Also I never got an email saying it was doing autmatic renewal and they weren't going to refund me until I asked to speak to a supervisor. read more

HORRIBLE SERVICE!! Used this site to make a slideshow 4 years ago and was mislead into subscribing for the service. They use false advertising and trick you into buying something you can do on Google Slides. I canceled the subscription back in 2020 and am now finding that they have still been charging me the subscription fee!! read more

Once had them pull that annual fee scam on me and the customer service person called me low class when I called them out on it. Honestly if you want to make a better slideshow use powerpoint read more

Smilebox was such a joy..loved creating beautiful, music background of pictures important in our lives, happy occasions..children growing up and other momentous occasions but....how long are your files safe and stored..when you enjoy looking at the children's special days many years ago...in such a beautiful musical presentation only to find.."no longer available" so disappointing. It was wonderful...when it was good. read more

Last year, I was browsing different "FREE" ecard sites. I used my Facebook login to check out Smilebox. I checked it out that week, but never used it. I totally forgot about their website. Today, a year later, I get notification from Paypal that Smilebox charged me $59 for an annual subscription! WTF?!!! I hate these sites that pretend they are free and then charge you at some random time later. This is BS! read more

Smilebox - Google search shows it's free... - Printing Services Near Me - New York, New York

So distressed w Smilebox... all my slide shows of high school reunions and dearly departed friends and family are no longer available...anywhere!! What's the point if you can't have your memories in the future!! There's no customer service either!! read more

Do not be misled by the false and deceptive practices of this shady and crappy business! The website itself is a mess to navigate, and the cards it produces is not worth the money it charged me. It is NOT $5 a month but the whole year of $60!!! Don't sign up for this business, and do not give them your money. Have a dispute? Good luck on trying to contact them. You'll wait well over a week or two to get dissatisfactory service and response. Now I will have to file a claim with my credit card. read more

Should have read the reviews! They over charged- charged me for 12 month subscription when I signed up for a 1 month subscription. The website is junk and crashes and doesn't work. DON'T USE! read more

I purchased this and was extremely disappointed. The slideshows aren't able to be customized. Every time I tried to change the words the site would crash. I also downloaded the software and it never loads, it just sits on the opening screen and never does anything. Definitely don't waste your money. read more

I'm actually extremely pissed off at this company. I created an e-card yesterday for my customers and signed up for the $5 monthly subscription . Which I thought would be a good deal. $5 a month ? Sounds good. I could afford that. Times are hard right now but I could afford $5 right now. So I sign up. Very easy process . I send the e-card to 30 customers and myself because I wanted to see how it'll look. NEVER received the email, tried it three times. It didn't work. So I thought it may take time , woke up this morning. No email ! Then I check my bank account and they charged me $59.99?!?!? For what ??? Nothing !! I replied to their welcome email demanding a refund. Im not impressed and I never authorized $59.99 to be withdrawn from my account! Currently pending their response. I'm not happy. read more

They make it seem like the service is $5.95. I wanted to try it out, and created one invitation, which was cute, but the delivery was very clunky. I was unhappy with the way the emails went out and with the backside software for tracking. So I cancelled. They charged my card for $59 not $5 and refused to refund it. The indicate you are responsible for a whole year - even if you find the service has zero use after 4 days. read more

I have purchased a two year subscription with Smilebox. Unfortunately, the billing for the membership does not show and I am not getting what I paid for the second year. I am trying to contact but it looks like I'll have to complain to the better business bureau to get changes done. I rate the business poorly! read more

I had the same problem others have had thinking I was paying $5/month but being charged for the full year up front. This was not at all obvious or clear when I used this service. I think their product is pretty good, but this is very disappointing and disingenuous marketing. I filed a complaint with my credit card when Smilebox did not respond to two attempts to contact them. Beware. read more

I paid for a monthly service account ($9.99), set up my invitations, sent them out and then couldn't log back in to my account to check on responses. When contacting customer service it takes them DAYS to get back to you and it's just an automated response. I'm livid and am trying to get my money back with no response from the company!!! Don't ever use Smilebox! Stick with Evites.....learned my lesson. read more

Feeling duped. I signed up for the $5/month plan and didn't realize I'd be charged for a full year. I noticed the day I started because I got a notification from Paypal. Their website is not friendly towards helping customers in this situation. It just sucks when a company that offers an otherwise nice product is predatory in trapping consumers by putting "$5/mo!!" In large print and then "billed annually" in the fine print. There's no excuse or reason that the price you pay today isn't the price you see boldly advertised. read more

STAY AWAY FROM SMILEBOX. What people are saying about the sketchy $59.99 charge is correct. This happened to me also. They have a big "5$/month" option but they will charge you 59.99 without making that charge clear. They also set up recurring payments without making it clear--I am lucky I saw in my paypal a payment of well over $100 that was going to be made toward the end of the year!!! I'm sure somewhere in fine print they say something about it somewhere, but given all the complaints and also just the fact that this is a known bait-and-switch sketchy business practice, they obviously do it intentionally. This company should get in trouble. Brazen scam practices. Shame on them. read more

I have been a smilebox fan for many years. Capturing the moments shared with family & friends and co-workers are priceless. Makes for a great PPT Presentation at a conference. Thank you smilebox for giving me a way to personalize cherished moments in my life. read more

I have never had such a hard time with an application and the sad thing is that I have used Smilebox over the past 7 to 8 years happily. Everything has gotten worse from the fact that the software I downloaded years ago is no longer supported and I therefore have to re-create my address book - which so far has been impossible as the Google csv file has been rejected multiple times. Where is the address book feature that others such as evite or Paperless Post make so intuitive and easy! Even more frustrating, the Help feature got stuck and wouldn't send my request. Things that take minutes in other applications have taken hours - it's not worth it! read more

Some great tools for producing a slideshow. We have used it for three years. There are some features missing that would easily make it a 5 but no new development has improved it on these points since we started using it. Great, but not exceptional. Easy fix to improve. read more

No Stars if that was a choice. Do not waste your money. They mislead customers on what the site can do. Take your money and will not refund.

If I could give Smilebox 0 stars I would. Smilebox is a trash company. They get you hooked by offering a monthly payment of $5/mo and when you go to pay they charge you for the whole year with no warning. I immediately cancelled my subscription as soon as I realized and emailed them. I never even used their services. I emailed them on January 6th and got a response back to be patient because they were experiencing unusual workload. That email was on January 9th. I emailed them once more on January 24th and then the 31st. I FINALLY heard back on February 1st when they told me that they had a no refund policy and offered me the pro package to make up for it. I understand the no refund policy but I also thought I was paying $5/mo not $60 right off the bat. Terrible customer service and a sneaky company. Trash is the only word I can thing of to describe them. read more

Don't use this service if you are looking for a reliable card-sending program. The cards never arrive at the person intended because the card ends up in a spam file or had such an unusual address line that people think it is spam and never look at the card. Also, I was charged with an additional year with no notice. Then when I returned to my login the program changed dramatically and I was no longer a member so lost all of my cards and videos. Do not sign up for Smilebox. Use Jacquie Lawson instead. read more

I've been using smilebox for sending cards to friends and family for several years and I love it! The money I save on buying cards and stamps is a no brainer! It's not a perfect platform; customer service is extremely difficult to find and then to deal with (although, I've only had one problem in all the years), there are some card choices that are "out of date," (like graduation cards that don't offer 2020 or later -- that's a problem!), and I haven't seen a lot of new card choices offered in the last couple of years. However, even with these, I still like the cost savings, the variety offered, the ability to include photos or not (which I normally don't), and the music selections for each card. I used "free" for a couple years before I began to pay for the subscription. I've been a paying customer for at least seven years; maybe longer! read more

They charge you almost $50 to produce a crappy slideshow. You can literally do a much better presentation on PowerPoint then what this sorry software can even offer. Save your money as this product is not worth a dime of your time. Additionally, this company is very non-personal and you can only speak to them via email, if they respond, and the phone number they provide only goes to an unmonitored voice mail. Why must they avoid their customers?!?!? (Hmmm) Not a very customer friendly company by any means as well as very inhumane and non-understanding company by all means. Trust what I say and I'd give them a negative 5 if I could. Product quality sucks. read more

I am very upset and disappointed at this company. I only wanted the 7 day trial, I should have not had to give a cc but I did in good faith that I would not be charged. I cancelled the subscription within the 7 days but still got charged $47.88.Then to add insult to injury my subscription is now cancelled and I can't use it. Paypal has not been any help either. I thought Smilebox was a reputable company but I see that they are not. Shame on you. TOTAL SCAM read more

Wish I would have read these reviews before making my purchase. They tell you $11.67 a month but they charge you for a whole year. I purchased in hopes to make a wedding video for my friend and the video did not have the options I needed. So I didn't even use the program and they do not want to refund my money. $139.00 dollars I was charged!!!! I have emailed them they said they would give me a partial refund but I didn't even get that! read more

It's definitely not a "Pro" application, but I really enjoyed working with it. I recently made a slideshow for a friend's 70th birthday and had over 130 photos to upload. This was definitely easier than trying to do it manually in a program such as PowerPoint. I could add captions to the photos (which I did) or leave them blank. It was easy to move the pictures around and group them. Easy to use, their Help tool is very helpful, did I mention easy to use?? Price is also right - thank you, Smilebox! read more

Like designs found it hard to use/figure out. tried to find how to add a 2nd page to a Holiday letter, never did find, have asked their support. We'll see how long it takes to get a reply. wanted 2nd page as the print gets WAY to small for most to read if you have a long letter. If you can't add a 2nd page, it isn't worth having. Do like their templates and the idea is awesome. Needs to be more user friendly and not so pricey, or at least be able to get a monthly subscription. Overall a good idea if it had a bit more flexibility etc. read more

This company has questionable and misleading business practices and I highly suggest you never use them. I went to the website to send a free card. Only after the card had been designed by me, and I tried to email it it prompted that I had to pay - $5/month. I thought fine, they want to charge me for a one month subscription and I will send the card, cancelling after a month. Only after paying the membership, did I see they billed me $60 for an annual membership instead. I contacted support to get a refund for all but the first month of the membership but they would not refund the money, claiming they do not have monthly memberships. They should not show the pricing as per month, with no indication it is an annual membership, it is misleading. read more

I GIVE THIS BUSINESS a 0 SCORE - NEW USERS BEWARE. I signed up for the 1 month trial and was charged an annual fee of 47.88!!! By the time I discovered the charge 4 business days later and was told that they refuse to refund past the 2 day mark! Really, is this how you plan to keep your users? THIEVES! read more

I only rate it at a 4 because I had to share the created slideshow in order to view it on two computers. When I downloaded this application, this was not mentioned. I was hoping to be able to access everything easily. Other than this small inconvenience, I am very happy with it. There are such cute layouts that typically would take me hours to create and they already have music ability. It only took me an hour to create a very cute marketing video. Very impressed read more

Update: I received a response from customer support on Feb. 20 saying I would receive a refund (My credit card company has great consumer protection and had already refunded me prior to this) Same day 2/20 I am charged another $47 by a random company from China with a similar name!! I've never seen this company before and they have my credit card information? This is too much of a coincidence! I would say avoid smilebox like the plague unless you like to get swindled. Worst experience ever. read more

My issue is not with the application. My issue is related to customer service and lack of notification PRIOR to auto renew and charging for a subscription. We all have busy lives and it is unacceptable that a courtesy reminder is not sent for renewal. When contacted within 10 min of email of charge to reverse the charge since notification is not sent prior it takes 3 weeks for response to be told there is nothing they can do. Better customer service is needed with a renewal refund grace period seems in order as this is common practice with most subscription based applications. Will not be going back due to deceptive practice to garner revenue. read more

This is a review on their customer service and charging practices, not their software as I have no knowledge of the software or how good or bad it works. EDIT NOTE: On June 20th, 16 days after publishing this review, I received an e-mail response from an open support ticket dated from May 15th from Smilebox. They will be refunding the charge in 3-5 business days. I therefore upgraded their stars from one start to two stars. It should not take this long to address a support ticket or issue a refund and it is my hope that they become a more customer focused company and change their no refund policy which they have in writing on their website. While I upgraded their star rating, I cannot change what I wrote because they gave me no indication that they have changed their current no refund policy which means what happened to me can and will happen to somebody else. The original review follows: BUYER BEWARE!! Smilebox's policy on subscriptions and customer service ranks as a "Buyer Beware" and "purchase at your own risk" in my opinion. They are no Zappos or Amazon, that's for certain and rank at the very bottom of customer service with websites that focus on generating revenues first and foremost and customers second. They have a ton of documented consumer complaints including over 270 on the BBB.org website alone. I will share later in my review more links to a lot of complaints but here is a teaser from the BBB (link is at the end of my review): "BBB recognized a pattern of complaints from consumers regarding billing and customer service issues. Consumers allege Smilebox Inc makes unauthorized credit card charges after consumers have cancelled their accounts. Consumers claim after signing up for a free trial account, their account is not automatically cancelled when the trial expires; the company continues to charge a monthly fee of $5.99 for membership or subscription. Consumers further allege Smilebox Inc is unresponsive to requests for assistance." MY REVIEW: In May of 2015, I must have purchased a one year free trial subscription with a credit card. I don't know and I don't remember and in fact, I never used it or tried it according to my on-line account. In May of 2016, I received an e-mail that my credit card had been charged for like $47! The first thing that makes them "shady" in my opinion (yes, there is more than one thing that makes the business owners appear unethical) is that unlike legitimate websites, they did not send an e-mail a few days or a week prior to billing me to warn me that my free trial was almost over and my credit card would be billed. One day, I received an e-mail that my credit card was charged. BAM! Surprise! The second thing that makes them "shady" is that when I went into my account (for probably the first time ever), I went to cancel the subscription. They canceled it but sent me this note in an e-mail: "You can continue to use Club Smilebox until your remaining membership expires." How flippin' NICE! Gee thanks...why would anyone cancel something and be happy to continue using it for a whole additional year? Imagine canceling your cell phone account or cable account but having to pay for another year!! Who does that? Honestly? Who??? I'm not smiling Smilebox. :( The third thing that makes them "shady" is that they will not reply to requests for support (#236686 and #237484). I sent two e-mails requesting a refund and did not even receive a response to say, "sorry, this is our policy" (not that that would have changed things anyway). The response was an automated response from Zendesk acknowledging that they received the request. So they can receive refund requests, they just can't process refund requests. And that last point is their policy and they stand behind it no matter what The fourth thing that makes them "shady" is what they do not show you on your account profile. There is nothing there except that my account has been cancelled but is still opened until May 14, 2017 The fifth thing that makes them "Shady" is that when on my profile, I am given an option to click on a link to "change membership or billing." When I click on the link, I get, "YOU ARE NOT AN ACTIVE SUBSCRIBER. CLICK HERE, (underlined with hyperlink) TO ACCESS YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION." That is the only thing on the page, so I click it and I am directed right back on my main account page and when I click on "Membership" I am right back where I started with the option to "change membership or billing." Endless loop or what i call the gerbil wheel paradox. Other links to complaints regarding refund policy: http://smilebox.pissedconsumer.com/ http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Smilebox/internet/Smilebox-REFUSE-TO-GIVE-REFUND-Redmond-WA-Internet-1241912 http://www.thundercloud.net/infoave/new/smilebox-seems-to-be-a-box-of-trouble/ http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/smileboxcom-c402150.html http://incomplaints.com/computers-services/638701-smilebox-stay-away.html read more

I signed up for smilebox to create a slideshow memorial for my father. Here are my issues. 1.I am a fairly tech savvy person and found this site VERY hard to maneuver. 2. You can only add up to 3 songs on your whole damn slideshow 3. They have no customer service number and if you request a phone call from them they will not return your calls. They will continue to sit behind their keyboards and give you generic freakin' answers to everything you ask! 4. Once I burn all my DVD's today I am cancelling my "FREE" trial. With the looks of these other reviews I am not to hopeful. I will definelty pay a worthy company next time or search a little harder for a more reputable company. read more

Whatever you do, do not use these services!! 1. Not that great - selections are not great 2. time consuming 3. They set you up for a free trial to start charging your c/c - need to remember to cancel your free trial YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET A REFUND IF YOU FORGET!!! 4. customer service has no regard for people's situations even though they clearly see that you did't use their services except during trial period 5. Lots of people I sent my Smilebox to during the free trial period did not see it and/or were not able to order it. SHAME ON SMILEBOX, INC. Most other businesses offer refunds in good faith and understand people's situations of forgetting to cancel their free trial period or if some family emergency situation happen (like in our case), they DON'T give a DAMN! If you want to pay the $5+ (no worthy) monthly service charge, feel free, but I won't ever go back! Sad how over a few months of collecting my $5/mo. is worth them losing a customer and having a BAD REP! read more

No stars!! I'll buy this program, create some slideshows and "Smilebox"remove the format if you don't finish withing a week. They erase your "creations". I contact smile box via e mail and good luck getting a response. No anwer, I look for the phone number and guess what? it's a non working number. I create a Slideshow and try to burn it the same day, and. Guess what ? The IDVD program wouldn't open to burn "My Creation". Today I'm having my big party without a Slideshow. THANK YOU SMILE BOX. All this process took me a little bit over 3 weeks. I need to cancel this Fake Software. read more

When going to the website, they give you the option of your subscription, but it only says for the month. So I thought I could do $5 a month. Next thing I know I'm being charged $60 for a year subscription. I did not choose that option. I immediately cancel my subscription, one because I wasn't impressed with the website and way of card design, and two, I didn't want to pay $60 up front for a year when I didn't know how I liked the website. I emailed them and I told them this was extremely misleading and they offered an "free" upgrade, which I know they will charge me later for, but no refund because it's they're policy and they are only offering year subscription at the moment. Not anywhere was there any notification of that. Smilebox is a scam. Do not sign up with them. read more

I forgot to cancel the "FREE" 7 Day Trial and was charged $47.88 via my PayPal account on 06/21. I emailed support@smilebox.com on 06/23 and received "Your request (#173521) has been received, and is being reviewed by our support staff." Nothing else as of 07/03, so emailed again. Then on 07/06 received: "We are sorry to see you go, and your Smilebox subscription is cancelled under the email address you provided. Unfortunately, this charge does not fall under our refund policy." I disputed via PayPal. Today I received from PayPal: "After further review of the claim you filed against Smilebox Inc., we have determined the issue you have described or the merchandise or service associated with this transaction is not covered by PayPal Purchase Protection. As a result, this case has been closed and we're unable to take any further action." I don't even care to give SmileBox ONE stinking star. From all of the "one star reviews" they are evidently a horrible company that won't be in business long due to rigid terms of service, namely taking customers' money when clearly we are not interested in their lousy service. read more