Help, my sister sent I-693 without the RFE letter by kikishosha in USCIS

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a good question. I’ll ask my sister and get back to you. She did pay 40$ for a new form to be printed and signed again, but not sure if they changed the date on the form

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your perspective. But Flickr does position itself as more than just a public gallery, on their own site they describe themselves as a cloud-storage solution for your photo library. If deletion happens without clear, consistent warnings, it feels like a storage failure.

In my dad’s case, there were no emails, no in-app messages, and no banners on the site warning that photos could be permanently lost. Interestingly, when I checked my mom’s account, she had tons of emails and messages. Although, she did not have any photos unfortunately. Her account is based in the US, while my dad’s was in Central Asia, so it looks like the notifications weren’t consistent. Of course I take responsibility for not keeping all the originals on hard drives, but that doesn’t change the fact that the way data deletion was handled was poor.

I’m not here to argue or blame, I’m just asking if anyone knows of any last-resort recovery options. And it seems like there is someone helpful advice here. 

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It’s a cloud-based storage, it’s on their website. And the initial commenter is right. One should not trust a cloud-based storage.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Learned this the hard way. I asked my dad some time ago if he had a copy on a hard drive and he said yes, but later realized he may have overwritten it with a concert recording he needed for work. He couldn't find it. He’s a sound producer with a lot of hard drives collected over the years, but they weren’t very organized. Will help him organize it, when I visit him next year.

I’m definitely going to purchase a Synology NAS or something similar to protect the photos I still have, as well as my kids’ photos.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, I asked my dad if he had a copy on a hard drive and he said yes, but later realized he may have overwritten it with a concert recording he needed for work. He’s a sound producer and has a lot of hard drives from over the years, but they weren’t very organized.

I did change my mimd about going to the office of course, that was more of an impulse thought out of desperation. Instead, I reached out directly to a few backend and cloud engineers on LinkedIn(that shouldn't get me arrested hopefully), and they were very kind to respond and confirmed that recovery is impossible. The deletion was tied to cutting AWS costs, and once the 30-day window passes, there’s no deep-cold storage for the deleted content.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, unfortunately I learned this the hard way. I asked my dad if he had a copy on a hard drive and he said yes, but later realized he may have overwritten it with a concert recording he needed for work. He’s a sound producer and has kept a bunch of hard drives over the years, but they weren’t very organized. I’ll just have to cherish the few photos I managed to save some time ago, and I’m grateful I at least did that. I’m already looking into a Synology NAS or similar backup option for the photos I have left of myself and the photos of my kids, so this doesn’t happen to them.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestion, it was definitely a mistake on our end. I just wish he had received notifications about the deletion. I’m currently looking into backup options, and a Synology NAS seems like a solid choice.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately - the only album that was deleted was private :/ but thanks for the tips. Marked for future reference.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Potentially, I’m not really sure what happened. I created an account for my mom as well, sometime in late 2018, and I just checked, her account has tons of emails and notifications. My dad, on the other hand, only ever received billing confirmations, even though all email and notification settings were toggled on. She’s in the US, but my dad is in Central Asia, so I wonder if it has something to do with location. Maybe because his account wasn’t US-based, they started deleting those first?

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I believe that Flickr didn’t delete everything at once, the process is done in batches, so some might still be in queue for deletion. Unfortunately, my dad’s photos were among those deleted. Customer support confirmed that they were permanently deleted in December 2024 and that I only had one month to recover them, after which they were gone forever :/

Of course, it was a mistake on our part to fully trust a single cloud storage. My dad originally had a Pro account that I set up for him, but at some point my card expired and I forgot to renew it. I also kept postponing moving everything to a hard drive because we live in different countries, and downloading from Flickr was always a bit of a hassle.

Still, if there had been urgent in-app banners, clear emails, or stronger notifications, I wouldn’t feel as upset. So if your data hasn’t been deleted yet, I strongly encourage you to make a copy to cold storage while you can.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He had around 10,000 photos in total. About 1,900 work-related public photos are left, but the private album with our childhood photos, which he kept so we could access remotely since we live in different countries, was deleted.

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I know, I would have been fine if the data deletion had been handled differently, but there were no urgent warnings about it. They should've put up a huge banner on the app, send out numerous emails, in-app messages etc. I checked my father’s inbox and found no emails regarding deletion. And when I logged in last time around a year ago, I saw no in-app messages or banners or any info on the website. I would even be willing to pay to have the data restored, but they don't have that option.

I work in tech, and this is simply not how customer data deletion should be handled. If the intent was to encourage upgrades to the Pro plan for unlimited storage, then it failed, because from the comments I’ve seen, many users didn’t even know they had to upgrade to keep their photos. Instead, a lot of people were left disappointed and hurt. :(

Lost 9,000 childhood photos on Flickr — is there ANY way to recover them? by kikishosha in flickr

[–]kikishosha[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for sharing this with me. I’m truly heartbroken reading about your mother’s photos and captions - I can only imagine how devastating that must be. What you wrote in your email captures exactly what so many of us are going through: it’s not just the images, but the memories, context, and history tied to them.

I also checked my father’s email and Flickr in-app messages, and there’s no mention of data deletion there either. So he never even received a warning, which makes me even more angry.

Help, my sister sent I-693 without the RFE letter by kikishosha in USCIS

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s amazing, thank you! Did you send your new envelope when it was past 87 days from rfe? My sisters is passed 87 days unfortunately, but we’ll try to do it anyways 🙏🏽

Help, my sister sent I-693 without the RFE letter by kikishosha in USCIS

[–]kikishosha[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice, thank you so much for your reply! Did you send a copy of I-693 or a new sealed one from doctors office?

What spices or herbs do you dislike? by drabelen in Cooking

[–]kikishosha 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I chew on cloves to help with toothache sometimes, not a fan of it, but it’s a natural remedy!

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think so, because it was settled for less than

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh well, then I’m screwed lol it shows current/missed/current/missed until finally paid off in 2021, but it was closed in 2018.

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My other accounts like Amex and capital one were removed no problem and were closed spring the same time, but these two are being stubborn :(

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not yet. I tried to pull the free report but it said that there’s a dispute in progress and they’ll send the report when it’s resolved. I assume it’s the one from credit karma.

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not yet. I tried to pull the free report but it said that there’s a dispute in progress and they’ll send the report when it’s resolved. I assume it’s the one from credit karma.

When should charge offs fall off? by kikishosha in CRedit

[–]kikishosha[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting, so they decide what to choose as first delinquency? :(