DR Resolved pankajjangir vs Deleted member 752298

[aristocratic]

Just wanted to add my opinion about this.

Its really frustrating to see people who used the service for years now asking for refunds. If you had access all this time and benefited from it, that value didn’t come from nowhere. Festinger still had to pay for servers, development, and support during those years.

It doesn’t make sense to act like all that past usage should be free just because things have changed now. Many of us already received far more value than what we originally paid. I think he is handling a difficult situation as fairly as possible, and we should also acknowledge what we already got from the service.

PS. I also paid for the lifetime subscription and i am not asking for any refunds.

 

[jorry]

I completely agree,

and I also understand that people whose billing kept running and who haven’t had their lifetime subscription for very long would want their money back.
I think he ended up in a rapid downward spiral.
After the lawsuit, the websites that kept breaking, the themes and plugins that all had to be renamed, and then the claims.

Maybe he should have been open about everything from the start and provided a realistic roadmap.
In the past, I also had a period where the billing didn’t go correctly. He fixed that immediately and refunded everything.

I also had a lifetime subscription, but I don’t need my money back.

Respect to the admins for how they handled this situation.


And now I’m going back to MELMEK.

 

[Rufai]

Just wanted to add my opinion about this.

Its really frustrating to see people who used the service for years now asking for refunds. If you had access all this time and benefited from it, that value didn’t come from nowhere. Festinger still had to pay for servers, development, and support during those years.

It doesn’t make sense to act like all that past usage should be free just because things have changed now. Many of us already received far more value than what we originally paid. I think he is handling a difficult situation as fairly as possible, and we should also acknowledge what we already got from the service.

PS. I also paid for the lifetime subscription and i am not asking for any refunds.

I think what caused all these is the lack of openness from Festinger. He should have explained the situation to his customers just like he did during the lawsuit. He is a very reputable member here and I think if he had been open about the situation, both the users and the mods will be lenient and supportive to him just like they did during the lawsuit.

 

[mbreti3gut]

Just wanted to add my opinion about this.

Its really frustrating to see people who used the service for years now asking for refunds. If you had access all this time and benefited from it, that value didn’t come from nowhere. Festinger still had to pay for servers, development, and support during those years.

It doesn’t make sense to act like all that past usage should be free just because things have changed now. Many of us already received far more value than what we originally paid. I think he is handling a difficult situation as fairly as possible, and we should also acknowledge what we already got from the service.

PS. I also paid for the lifetime subscription and i am not asking for any refunds.

Totally agree. I am in same situation as you.
Used his services for a long time, downloaded maybe hundreds of plugins and themes.
I would feel guilty if I ask for refund.

 

[ComradeBernard]

Just saw this thread. At this point, there's no point in opening a dispute or complaining. The accused has been banned and kept our money

But I'm seeing a worrying number of members defending the scammer

I'm happy for those of you who used his service four years ago and had a good experience. But for people like me, who bought the lifetime subscription last year, it was a nightmare. His website was almost always down. I used it for only a few months before the problems started, and they never stopped. This year, it became completely unusable, always down and full of problems, excuses and promises that it would be solved

If you had a good experience with his service in 2020 or 2022, good for you. But since 2024-2025, this service has been terrible and doesn't even work anymore

In addition, several members have reported random attempts to charge their credit cards. He didn't even show up here to apologize or say anything, he just read and ignored the victims, no refunds were issued

Wake up, guys, it's almost 2026, if this service was amazing five years ago, that means NOTHING in December 2025, right now for me as a newbie member, it was just a frustrating experience with a scammer who ran off with our money

 

[Deleted member 731332]

there was already a long conversation about lifetime membership and why it should be refunded.

He continued promising that the service would be back up shortly. He kept insisting that he had fixed issues one person complained about but the next day someone else would say they are still having the same problem.

Because he continued to promise the service to the lifetime license holders but never intended to that’s why there were refunds.

Festinger himself agreed to it. Why are people up here opining about what he agreed to?

 

[princev558]

Check my Personal chat with him in BHW, you will see a screenshot of the payment. On March 2023, I paid for the lifetime membership and he either don't have the website backup or deleted the payment from his Database.

You said you purchased lifetime membership in March 2023

Here is the payment screenshot from my bank statement: https://prnt.sc/4zBRoZnN98ej

In the screenshot the transaction date is 1 Aug 2022

 

[flprocess]

Might be unpopular opinion, But I wouldn't call Festinger a scammer, but a guy who's business collapsed. It does not free him from his obligations to his customers or the requirement to repay every cent he owe OP & other people, but it does not make him a scammer either. There were times he was one of the most trusted sellers here, I did business with him when he rented my signature (paid cash + let me and others be affiliates so we can earn more), he was a stand up guy.

Sorry to see this thread and see Festinger banned, but it was the right call as this dispute was handled professionally by the mods, with even giving Festinger more then one opportunity to make things right.

 

[geomink]

I can understand the usefulness of opening a dispute thread for forum administrators, who can thus avoid a big problem.

But in this case, what exactly would be the benefit for users?

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

But in this case, what exactly would be the benefit for users?

The benefit would be to try and get the accused to refund those who did not get what they paid for, and to stop the accused from doing this again.

 

[BNB]

I would blame BHW for letting this guy do his business at BHW. (against the rules IMO)

Why? Well, there is a list of softwares you can't share/upload on BHW for free or as a service.

You can't offer for example Adobe products, or services, but you can offer some Wordpress plugin.

So, these Wordpress plugin owners can be abused on BHW, but Adobe can't?


Refund? Nobody deserves a refund, by any means. This entire service is built against TOS in terms of Legal.


This is my opinion, and it might be wrong for you, but it's not for me.



What would be the legit approach? Look at Mansory, brand who redesign cars, legally. That is acceptable.

 

[Jaspix]

This is my opinion, and it might be wrong for you, but it's not for me.

Your opinion is trash, keep it to yourself. Also read about the GPL.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

I would blame BHW for letting this guy do his business at BHW. (against the rules IMO)

Why? Well, there is a list of softwares you can't share/upload on BHW for free or as a service.

You can't offer for example Adobe products, or services, but you can offer some Wordpress plugin.

So, these Wordpress plugin owners can be abused on BHW, but Adobe can't?


Refund? Nobody deserves a refund, by any means. This entire service is built against TOS in terms of Legal.


This is my opinion, and it might be wrong for you, but it's not for me.



What would be the legit approach? Look at Mansory, brand who redesign cars, legally. That is acceptable.

He offered GPL products.

That is inside the rules of the forum and inside the rules of law.

Adobe is not a GPL product, which is why it is not allowed.

 

[AlekhyaDas]

Damn he promised me to refund money multiple times and never got a reply ever.






Was ghosted ever since and never replied to, I wish I paid the annual as I was able to use it for less than a year with all the issues they had after buying. The amount of positive feedback really didn't help and them always trying to gaslight that they'll actually be back and up and running.

 

[VikingWannabe]

I'd like to barge in to offer an unsolicited advice regarding people who use their credit cards to allow for random companies to log subscription mandates and then complain when those random companies misuse these subscription mandates to continue charging unsuspecting users.

Guys, atleast use auto expiry VCCs to buy subscriptions for companies/services that aren't reputable (I'm not talking about reputation on an Internet forum but actual corporate reputation).

Or if you don't have provisions to create VCCs with your bank atleast make sure to manually cancel any debit mandate on your cards/accounts after you cancel a subscription.

Otherwise it's just poor opsec.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Unfortunately, Deleted member 752298 has no interest in refunding per a message in support.

I'm sorry some of you did not get what you paid for but I do believe there is at least one other service in the Marketplace offering something similar.

 

[kmksick]

I used Festing Vault for 5–6 years. It saved me thousands and thousands of dollars.

Too bad it ended like this.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

I used Festing Vault for 5–6 years. It saved me thousands and thousands of dollars.

Too bad it ended like this.

It didn't end like this, he ended up scamming and stealing.

I doubt he would be OK showing his face in an alley in the ghetto after this.

 

[Deleted member 731332]

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

Straight up, the staff spent a ridiculous amount of resources to help him make it right.

The community sees 10%, like what you can see with an iceberg, but the work that went into this was Herculean.