DontSendMeACard.com Reviews 17

What an easy way to send all my friends Christmas cards! I love it and it didn't take long to do. I love the animated cards for HEART UK charity. They are beautiful.

I have a subscription to a competitor's system and this year their system was overloaded with too much Christmas traffic. So much so that it didn't work at all. This made me remember that I received a card from DontSendMeACard.

I gave them a try, it worked perfectly and it gives a donation to my chosen charity. What's not to like.

I was really pleased to find this site but sadly not one of the cards I sent was received and I had to resend via my own mail address. Even when the report said that the card had been opened it was not the case. I found the site a bit confusing to use and although I really like the concept of donating to charity I am not sure I will use the site again. Since posting this review, I was contacted by the company and shown how the system works. It was good to see the positive reactivity and I hope that the glitches are soon ironed out as the concept is a praiseworthy one. I have added a star to my rating as a result of the explanations provided .

I was sent an ecard by this company; I’m NOT a customer of this co. (One of my email Contacts is).
This review is in 2 parts: re e-card companies in general, & re this company.
(Please excuse capitals here+there, but such typing-spaces can’t have facility for bold or underline.)

General advice re using e-card companies:
1) DO tell your email Contacts the email address of the ecard company you’re using, so that they can input it to their own Contacts, so that your ecard is viewed instead of going unseen into their Spam
2) DON’T give your recipients’ full names – just their usual forename or nickname is ideal & more secure
3) Bearing in mind that ALL companies can be hacked & thence data-mined:
–a) DON’T give out your Contacts’ email addresses without asking them, preferably
(& there are other ecard companies that work differently, creating a link to the bought ecard, & the buyer emails the link themselves to their Contact, thus not having to divulge people’s emails to a company – but some people don’t wish to open the links! – so ecards are tricky. Also I don’t know if any ecard companies working that way do charity-ecards how this company does.)
–b) IF giving email addresses to an ecard company, DO delete the addresses once the card is sent (but I’ve found that the email address is still auto-suggested for 3 mths, tho that was NOT with this ecard co, that I’ve not used myself)
–c) DON’T, or preferably don’t, use the Reminder facility for birthday cards WITHOUT asking your Contacts’ prior permission to give out their b’days – & NEVER give out a whole DoB
(Giving out someone’s name, email address & DoB compromises their online security – so this is similar to being careful to NOT post others’ info on FB etc.)

This company, DontSendMeACard.com:
5a) is “legit” & is wholly owned & run by a company called FutureImaging (who do graphics) which has a very high Trust score on Scam Detector (of which I’d not heard till checking these out) – so, logically, this company should be equally highly trustworthy
–b) I was unable at short notice to ascertain whether or not the whole donation goes to the charities – I assume it does, or that only minimal is kept for wages etc
6a) was set up in 2013 (I looked that up)
–b) is still having teething problems/glitches with some characters (this is fairly common, as things can occasionally take years/decades to come to light) – eg if input speech-marks/inverted commas, those are auto-replaced with 5 characters, not all of which this space can display, so their names: ampersand, hash, 3, 4, semi-colon – so DO preferably send yourself a copy of an ecard to check what it looks like at the recipient’s end – & of course preferably don’t use speech-marks/inverted commas in an ecard greeting with this co. until this glitch is fixed (point continued at end)
7) I found that this company’s ecard only stays “open” while you hover over it – so I’d not send one to anyone elderly or with hand-problems, but that’s just me
8) writing about & to this company:
–a) If write a non-optimal review, can expect to be requested (outside TP) to rewrite it (I was, & this is the rewrite, with an extra star as they requested)
–b) If you refuse to rewrite it, you can expect a “reactionary” reply (their word) (After some email-tennis, I decided to rewrite after all, but this is as impartial as I feel is fair to make it, after my relative used this co.)
9a) I gather that this charity ecard concept is this company’s idea AND is done free by them (or at least for minimal expenses; I don’t know which) – so kudos to them
–b) However, I’d like to add that ecards are of course NOT completely carbon-free, just hopefully much LOWER carbon; I mean that the elec used at the data-centre-end in writing the ecard & then its retrieval to view should hopefully total significantly less carbon than that of a card+envelope & the power used by the post-sorting-buildings & the fuel used in delivery

(6b –The character appearing as long glitches was what I’d initially posted about here on TP, NOT complained about merely having received an ecard (as readers can see the co. here accused me of, in its 2-1-26 reply). & I'd pointed out that the co’s name looks weird or fake when in Spam folder. & I‘d pointed out that they’re a legit co, but they didn't even acknowledge that. I also emailed all my Contacts mutual to ecard-sender & me to let them know to expect an email from this co in their Spam & telling them which Contact it's from & saying it's safe to open it & calmly explaining glitch.
I was annoyed cos the card was so glitchy & I knew my contact will've sent the same wording/glitches to all contacts, & knew she'd paid/donated her hard-earned cash to do so, so I feel my annoyance was understandable – unfortunately it's human nature to be more annoyed on behalf of someone else than they are themself, sometimes.)

Some of my cards were sent but not opened... ..correct email addreeses ....it appears from a relative... that his computer anti virus was the possible cause of blocking it.
I'm checking with others.

I am really happy to be supporting this venture. I soon got the hang of it with a test posting. I like being able to support charities (which of course is the same with real cards) but here you are able to give more by avoiding the ever-increasing postal charges.

I usually delete these emails, but there was enough information to encourage me to click, having checked the bona fides of this site online. The card design itself was OK, but inside it was addressed to no one in particular. Would be better if there was a way of personalising these cards. I struggled to print it off without losing too much resolution. It's now adorning the frame of a mirror in my living room, along with the real cards.

Brilliant to be able to send an ecard and also make a donation on behalf of the person you are sending it to. Adds an extra feel good factor without the carbon footprint!

Since my last review, I have been contacted by the person who runs Don'tSendMeACard.com, by both email and telephone today. It was much better to be able to speak directly. Mr Furness was very pleasant and helpful, he listened to the details of the confusions I experienced while using the site and said he would take them on board. I appreciate his taking the trouble to call and I will try using the site again.

Professional and personal service, really great technical support also :)

Don'tSendMeACard are an innovative and responsive company with green credentials

As a charity it’s ease of use and really has been great! A fab team who support us with lots of resources.

Easy to set up on here as a charity. Friendly, real people for advice. And fun to add own pictures if want to

The range of cards and charities seems to be increasing. It is a simple procedure and reliable on sending.

What a fantastic idea - I know they're not new but they are new to me.
I've always been unhappy with sending cards so this is a brilliant alternative and the money saved goes to charity!
Very easy to set up and send. I can't say if they land in the receiver's Inbox or Junk Mail but that's something that everyone has to contend with these days so shouldn't be a problem.
Saves the environment, raises money for charity and is quicker than writing and posting cards - what's not to like?!

In theory a good idea, but the site is a relatively new concept and still has a few glitches.
On sending myself as a card as a test, it went straight to junk mail, however the report of deliveries does indicate that most did get opened by recipients.
On attempting to contact the company, none of the emails published on the website worked, however they did follow up with a call to address the issues.
Disappointing to learn that because I selected a card design, rather than a charity of my choice, my donation went to the charity associated with running the site.