As a club, we are more selective about our members than most, which means we often have to ban individuals with poor character. Unfortunately, such people tend to blame others for their own mistakes, leading to frequent slander against us. We can handle this, as slander from a bad person is a compliment to a good one. However, some people believe these false accusations without question. That’s why we publicly clarify these cases here. Details can be found by clicking on each case.
This approach also saves us from having to respond to every online slander individually. Instead, we can simply link to our official correction as often as needed.
Misrepresentations and Slander
Common claims include "I was banned without reason", "I was just expressing my opinion", or "Anyone who criticizes gets banned". None of these are true. We only ban those who repeatedly or deliberately break club rules or behave inappropriately.
Criminal Offenses and Fraud Attempts
This includes fraud, attempted fraud, and other crimes such as copyright infringement (photo theft), service fraud, and payment fraud.
Forum Trolls and Psychopaths
Unfortunately, the internet attracts many severely disturbed individuals. Such psychopaths are also listed here to warn them and other trolls that they will face serious consequences with us. We protect our club and members by all legal means.
Wolfgang Wiebels created two accounts on Photoclub: one under his real name (Wolfgang Wiebels) and another under an alias (Gerd). He purchased a premium membership under the "Gerd" account but used his real name, Wolfgang Wiebels, as the billing address. The PayPal payment was also made under his real name.
Ralf Fackiner experienced issues uploading photos due to his very strict ad blocker. Our technical team informed him of this. Instead of disabling the ad blocker for Photoclub as advised, Ralf Fackiner complained on the forum, Facebook, and YouTube that he was not receiving any response and that our system was faulty. Ultimately, he withdrew his payment via PayPal under a fabricated pretext.