Complaint about renewal price

[zaoka]

I have been IPB customer for a while, however last time I did not renew my licences because it was hard for me to do all skins, modifications and translations to be able to migrate to new version.

Yeterday I wanted o renew my licence and pay $25 as its stated on your web site, however, support guy told me that I can not renew my licences for $25 anymore. This mean that I have to buy full licence again just because I did not buy licence renewal at the time my licence was going to expire.

I purchased over 50 softwares in last 4-5 years and this is first time that I see this business model for licence renewals.
Also, even today I could not find that statement on your web site, its probably hidden somewhere or I do not see well. I am really considering to start using different forum software because those business trick reminds me to my bad expiriences in the past.

I am definatelly not going to spend $600 to renew my licences...

I think that IPB, by doing this, is heading in wrong direction. You guys could, at least, make a clear statement on your web site about this, and make it visible. Its not good to use bank tricks and small letters.. people usually dont see those..

[riven3d]

and what facts are you not telling us, when did your license expire?

[Rikki]

It's difficult to give you an explanation without knowing all the details, but the $25 renewal is for the current type of license. If you purchased IP.Board more than a couple of years ago, you will have a different type of license (yearly, I expect). Therefore the renewal process is different.

With the new style of license, you do not have to renew immediately. You can renew whenever you need to, for the same price.

[Alex]

There were announcements made about this saying about warnings after new license structures, it is on no part IPS's fault due to the new styles.

[zaoka]

I just got message that my licences are exired and that I will have to pay $149..

Am I allowed to post content of my ticket?

[Minos]

It's difficult to give you an explanation without knowing all the details, but the $25 renewal is for the current type of license. If you purchased IP.Board more than a couple of years ago, you will have a different type of license (yearly, I expect). Therefore the renewal process is different.

With the new style of license, you do not have to renew immediately. You can renew whenever you need to, for the same price.

Question.

Do I have to pay 50$ a year obligatorily, is it possible to renew just one time a year and receive updates, I mean if i have to renew 10.10.07 and i don't want to or can, then in 04.10.08 can i just pay the 25$ and receive updates or I will have to pay the past invoice of 10.10.07?

Plus why do you cut one day in every invoice?

[Luke]

If you have a license based on the new licensing structure, which has been out for a while, your license can be expired for any amount of time and you can choose to renew it again for $25 to receive upgrades and support... (for six months)

If you had a yearly license on the old structure the license would have converted to the new one, but ONLY IF the license was active when licenses were being converted. IPS made several comments about this to customers... And it was a no brainier, at least for me, to renew all my yearly licenses for ~$60 and have it converted over... Otherwise they would have been impossible to renew, and I would have to pay full price for a license if I needed an upgrade.

If you have an old yearly expired license that wasn't converted over, you can still use the board, you just can't get updates or support for it. But because it's been discontinued, you can't renew it...

The perpetual license, which was also discontinued, is a bit different. With that license you had lifetime updates and had to renew for support. Even though this license is no longer being offered, you get lifetime updates. But I'm not sure how the support end works... I think they still allow you to renew support for that license..

The same goes for the "Lifetime" license that was offered a long long time ago: It had lifetime updates and lifetime support. No longer being offered, but it's still valid to the scope of that license.

If your old yearly license was not renewed during the period where they converted the active yearly licenses.... Well... they warned everyone about it and gave ample opportunity to upgrade... Should have done it when you had the chance.. Happened more than six months ago.

[zaoka]

The thing is that, at the moment of purchase, nobody told us what we could expect. They just told us how much is licence renewal and thas all, not even signle word what would happen if we do not renew at the time.

I could not find information that if I do not renew at the right time that I will have to buy all licences again.

This is just not nice from IBP to threat existing customers as new customers.

I spent decent money buying IPB products and now I have to go from the begining and pray that something similar does not happen in the future...

[Mark]

Everything you were told when you purchased the license still stands, no matter what kind of license you purchased.
You purchased the license for $69.95, that license was valid for a year. Every year after purchasing the license you paid a further $69.95 for another year.
The pricing structure has now changed, all customers were made aware this was going to happen via the news section in your ACP. You chose to ignore that message.
If you had an active license when the change happened, you would have been given a new license under the new structure (you were also offered to upgrade to a perpetual license). You didn't have an active license, and so you didn't have a license, so you weren't given a new license.

[Minos]

If you have a license based on the new licensing structure, which has been out for a while, your license can be expired for any amount of time and you can choose to renew it again for $25 to receive upgrades and support... (for six months)

[Standard License] So If I do not renew for a whole year and then I want to receive updates I just have to pay 25$ and do not have to pay the expired invoices, is that right?

[Rikki]

[Standard License] So If I do not renew for a whole year and then I want to receive updates I just have to pay 25$ and do not have to pay the expired invoices, is that right?

Yes that's right, you can just pay the $25 whenever you want, and that will give you 6 months of upgrades/support from the time you purchase it. You don't have to 'fill in the gaps' of your license.

[Alex]

zaoka, at the time of purchase, nobody told you what to expect probably because they were still discussing whether or not to change the license structures, your license must have been inactive for at least 7 months because they switched all ACTIVE yearly licenses over. So that means your license was purchased more than 19 months ago, I highly doubt IPS knew back then that they would change the licenses.

[Charles]

The thing is that, at the moment of purchase, nobody told us what we could expect. They just told us how much is licence renewal and thas all, not even signle word what would happen if we do not renew at the time.

I could not find information that if I do not renew at the right time that I will have to buy all licences again.

Back when the yearly $69.95 license was offered you were, at the end of each year, basically buying the license all over again. Your year of a license expired and at that date you had the choice to let it expire or pay $69.95 to get a new yearly license.

Because back then you chose not to pay for another year, your old license expired. When you came back again you had to buy a new license because, for all purposes, you had no license to the software anymore.

[zaoka]

I understand what you are talking about, I just do not think it is fair.

Other similar companies does not charge this way. No matter when you bought software most of other companies offer discount.

The think is htat I have to pay $600 to renew all my licences... this is to much.

[Rikki]

I'm afraid I don't see the unfairness in the issue. When we changed the license structure, we made our intentions clear and gave people a 2-3 week window to update their license if necessary, so that they became eligible for the new-style renewal. This was posted on this board and would have been visible in your administration area.

I realise you feel hard done by because you missed out on the window to convert your license, but we did provide ample opportunity in the interests of giving our customers the choice.

[Luke]

Also, if I'm not mistaken, not only was it on the board, posted as an announcement, which is seen in everyone's ACP and everywhere on this site, but they also sent an email news letter about it.

I have 3-4 inactive licenses right now under the new licensing structure that I don't use currently. The licenses under the old structure that were expired I renewed for $69 even though I wasn't using them because I didn't want to spend ~$150 per license to reactivate it. Instead all I have to pay is $25 to renew my licenses when I choose to use them again with upgrades.

A lot of people did the same thing with their licenses, and if you didn't I'm sorry... There were plenty of warnings and ample time given to renew. And given that your license expired well before the change, you should have been thinking about it then anyway. If you didn't, that's your fault not IPS's.

[riven3d]

Yep its the same thing here, I received an email telling me about it, I renewed license, that now site unused, but I can renew them for only $25

[Stuart Elliott]

Yay for Lifetime Subscriptions.. Not helpful, but hey it's quarter to one in the morning, and I'm drunk..

[riven3d]

Ya I have 1 llifetime, 3 perpetual's and 2 standards, its so nice not having to pay for support

[Axel Slingerland]

If I may add my two cents worth here... I had a Yearly License, which was later automatically converted to a Standard License that is due to expire soon. I called the Billing Office at IPS to ask about what would happen if I let it expire and was told the same things as everyone is saying in this thread, that I can go ahead and let it expire and I can renew it later for $25.00. But I was told something else that nobody is mentioning here, so I think I should mention it.

I was told yes, I can let my license expire and renew it at any time in the future for $25.00, but only IF IPS still offers Standard Licenses at that time.

So in my opinion, that is a decidedly different answer than what everyone else is saying they got to the same question. That implies to me that if I let my license expire next week and IPS decides a week later that they will now offer Bi-Yearly Licenses instead of Standard Licenses, I would not be able to renew for $25.00.

Now from a practical standpoint, at least this is how I see it, what used to cost $69.95 a year is now $50.00 a year, since I had a Yearly License and it was converted to a Standard License. That is a savings of $19.95 a year. But considering that I don't use technical support (and never have), I have no plans to upgrade my board anymore since only my immediate family uses it, and they tell me that it is legal to continue to use the board after my license expires, I see no reason to keep paying a license fee under these circumstances. If it was a requirement to continue to use the software that would be different. But that was not the case when IPB 2.1.7 was released, and that is what I use.

I have been a loyal IPB user since before IPB even was IPB, and I have no intention to use anything else. But surely you can understand that some of your business practices need a little work. Didn't anyone ever tell you the story of The Mad Guest? It's a story that the people who give employee orientation tell new employees at some US National Park concessions. It basically goes like this:

If a guest leaves your hotel happy they will tell their friends what a good time they had at your hotel, and the possibility that you may get some new customers as a result of that is very high. On the other hand, if a guest leaves your hotel unhappy they will not just tell their friends what a lousy time they had at your hotel, they will tell everyone they know everything they can remember that was wrong with your hotel. The possibility of losing existing customers is very high, and the possibility of gaining any new ones is pretty slim.

The moral of this story is if a guest leaves happy it is good for business, and if a guest leaves unhappy it is not just bad, but very bad for business. Saying things like "I don't see a problem", "I'm afraid I don't see the unfairness in the issue.", or "for all purposes, you had no license" are not going to make your paying customers happy. If it were my company the deal would be that if I could find a record that someone had purchased a yearly license and wanted to renew it, I would simply say "Ok, I understand you had a yearly license and it is now expired. I am supposed to charge you $149.00 for a new license. But I will upgrade your old one for you. That will be $25.00." and they would pay it and that would be that. They would be happy because they would think they saved $124.95, and I would be happy because I made $25.00 I otherwise would not have made, and I retained a paying customer in the process. They would go tell their friends that I gave them a good deal, and maybe those friends would come do business some with me as well. Everyone would be happy.

But what do I know? I only ran my own business for 25 years...

[Mat Barrie]

I disagree with you, on the basis that those new customers will then also be expecting "a good deal". It's my take that the rules are unyielding unless there are exceptional circumstances. As in, with the story this poster is saying I would be of the opinion that "I understand you had a yearly license and it is now expired. Unfortunately this means you must purchase a new license". However, if they came up saying something exceptional like they had a family member die or something and they couldn't renew because of the funeral costs (I know, I know) I would be inclined to cut some slack.

You don't see Microsoft offering people a free upgrade to the latest version of Windows because they bought the second most recent one do you? Heck, if you conned by a very legitimate looking fake they STILL don't cut you much slack.

[Rikki]

The moral of this story is if a guest leaves happy it is good for business, and if a guest leaves unhappy it is not just bad, but

very

bad for business. Saying things like "

I don't see a problem

", "

I'm afraid I don't see the unfairness in the issue.

", or "

for all purposes, you had no license

" are not going to make your paying customers happy. If it were my company the deal would be that if I could find a record that someone had purchased a yearly license and wanted to renew it, I would simply say "

Ok, I understand you had a yearly license and it is now expired. I am supposed to charge you $149.00 for a new license. But I will upgrade your old one for you. That will be $25.00

." and they would pay it and that would be that. They would be happy because they would think they saved $124.95, and I would be happy because I made $25.00 I otherwise would not have made, and I retained a paying customer in the process. They would go tell their friends that I gave them a good deal, and maybe those friends would come do business some with me as well. Everyone would be happy.

I appreciate your point, but if we offer this reprieve to one customer, then to be fair we have to offer it to all customers who missed the window we publicized at the time. That in turn would probably upset all the customers who did pay to convert their license in the window given. I certainly understand the frustration of the original poster, but we did what we could to give people the opportunity to convert their license. Many other companies wouldn't even offer such a window to convert to a better deal. We feel we've done the best we can by our customers by offering that opportunity, but it's not something that can carry on indefinitely without boundary. We made that clear at the time.

[The Clash]

Regarding what Axel said, it's a really good point. I'm probably going off-topic, especially since I don't even own a standard license, but what happens if you want to do what one of the posters said, and upgrade only yearly. Say IPS decides to nix the standard license and replace it, while you're in that 6-month-non-upgraded period. Judging by what appears to have happened with the original poster, I take it you wouldn't be able to convert your standard license because it's not active, and end up having to buy a new license altogether?

[Lindy]

At the risk of making light of this, I've been doing this 15 years and I've never quite seen the oddities that IPS faces, anywhere else. For example: "I have no immediate intention of giving your company another dime, but should I decide to in the future, I want that price locked in forever." :)

The thing that seems to be baffling to some is, a yearly license that has expired (and thus not migrated to a standard license) is not a license at all. That certainly does not mean that we do not genuinely appreciate your past business, it simply means that you chose to become an inactive customer. For the lack of a better example, let's say you take out an annual subscription to TIME Magazine for $45. Towards the end of the term, you are notified that due to rising costs in printing and delivery, the subscription rate will be increasing to $60. You are, however, offered a one-chance returning customer subscription rate of $35. If you pass on that opportunity and cheerfully keep the magazines you paid for and received, then decide six months down the line that you want a new subscription, do you really expect the $35 price, simply because you were once a customer and chose to end that relationship when the previous offer was extended to you? Is it really "very bad business" for TIME to state "We're sorry, as much as we would love your business, the $35 price was a promotional offer extended to allow you to renew your then-active subscription. There is now no subscription to renew and thus, I'm afraid the $35 fee cannot apply."?

We absolutely subscribe to the practice of keeping your customers happy. Happy customers are the foundation of any organization. At the same time, we recognize that regardless of which direction you choose (short of giving the farm away for free, of course), it's a practical impossibility to please everyone, all the time. We can only do our best, which we take great pride in doing. :)

[Luke]

And at some point they have to draw the line, which they did. They gave ample warning and opportunity for those that had a license to renew to get the new rate... Those who didn't have to deal with the consequences.