Thanks for the update, but unfortunately, some of these “answers” don’t make much sense.
Since September, 2024, no user (not even the original owner of the vault) can view any file attachments without downloading them. Even before that time, viewing PDF attachments was buggy, and viewing other types of files without downloading them was never possible (there is even a long-standing Feature Request asking for this functionality).
Thus, I find it very difficult to believe that Emergency Access grantees have (or are supposed to have) some ability to view file attachments without downloading them — “bug” or no “bug”.
Were there any qualifiers mentioned that narrow the scope of the above claims? Did the support representative actually understand the scenario in your question, that the owner of the vault no longer has an active Premium subscription when take-over happens? Is the claim contingent on the assumption that the Emergency Access grantee has a Premium subscription themselves?
Basically, if we take the response at face value, and assume that what is claimed is always true under all circumstances (no qualifying constraints), then this would provide a simple mechanism for getting some Premium benefits (specifically, the use of file attachments) for free:
- Set up a Premium account and a Free account.
- Upload all of your file attachments to the Premium account.
- Set up the Free account as an Emergency Access grantee with Take-Over access to the Premium account.
- Within 30 days, cancel your Premium subscription and request a refund; this account now reverts to a Free account.
- Initiate Emergency Access Take-Over.
- Start using the taken over account as your own (optionally, delete the other Free account, as it is no longer needed).
If what the support representative wrote you is accurate, then after the take-over, the Free account will have perpetual access to the file attachments feature, being able to download and modify (i.e., upload) file attachments to the vault that was taken over, without ever paying a Premium subscription fee.
I recommend that you respond to the customer support representative and ask them to read this comment and give you a response to what I’ve pointed out as apparent inconsistencies in their previous claims. This comment is available at the following link: