Wow. In the last two weeks I've received a couple email from disgruntled individuals who don't seem to care for our IconBuffet Free Delivery service. I am always amused by these emails, as we never get complaints from people who actually pay for our stock icons. We just get the occasional complaint about the free stuff.

For instance, an individual (we'll call him Ben) emailed last week wondering how he could pay for the free icons we offer through Free Delivery. I replied, and shared with Ben the good news: "They're free! You simply have to become an IconBuffet member, visit our forum, and someone will send the icons you want to you." It's really that simple, and a lot of fun. Probably would take about 5-10 minutes of your time.

However, to my surprise Ben replied and said he did not have the "time or the inclination to play that game," and more-or-less insinuated that our "marketing people" were out of touch. I replied and told Ben I'd be happy to even send him the icons he wanted personally... uhh, for free. That's why we called it "Free Delivery."

After this time, Ben replied and let me know "I don't have a current project that would need any of the free icons, but I think you can see that if I did, I couldn't start that design until I was sure I could get all the icons in hand."

Thanks. Glad I could help. How 'bout next time we not spout off unless we actually have a real need that doesn't involve something you can get for free for the cost of an email?

Today, I get another one, this time from a fellow we'll call Frank. Frank had this to say:

I signed up to gat a taste of what services your have to offer, play with icons, etc... What I got from you is a pack of chinese icons I don't know who can have use of. Excuse me if I sound harsh again but it's how I felt it. I receive once in a while an email that sounds promising but that each time is more disappointing. You tell people you give them something nice and they get something of absolutely no use. And it suffice to compare what you send me drop by drop to the whole amazing icon pack I got in one click and for free from famfamfam (I still can't describe how much it's nice of them to make it free).

Then, I ask to be deleted from your maling list, I receive a confirmation email, and nothing happens. I still get another email for a s*$~id icon pack. I guess something doesn't work the way it's supposed to... Then my choice is done, I will buy icons from famfamfam or another good icon artist, not iconbuffet.

What I want to tell you, because I liked mush [sic] iconbuffet before all this happened, and because I think you are making big mistakes and losing much credit (credit you deserve BTW), is that in the user experience era, we've come to expect more and better. It couldn't be iconbuffet that reminds me of that telemarketer that bugs me with supid offers.

Thanks. Your account has been deleted. Personally, if you don't care for our freebies, we'd rather not spend the bandwidth to send them to you. Tens of thousands of others seem to love them just the same. I guess these emails are just part of the cost of running a free service.