vB Forum 4.0 upgrade no longer free!

[rldoughjr]

All I want is my money back on the owned license I just bought and let me start fresh with an expired upgrade. Has this been offered? No. And their response to my direct request? Sorry, SOOL. Oh, and we won't tell you when 5.0 will come out, so you will just have to trust us again to get your money's worth on the 4.x upgrade as well. Oh, and did you see the new announcement that they intend to enforce policing the forum so that a few disgruntled customers won't contaminate the blissfully happy upgraders who didn't get screwed by the timing of this offer? Got a new SEC filing to do, got to have a lot of licenses sold on a product that doesn't seem to exist beyond some static images they have posted. Got to get it done ASAP, so inject some urgency into the situation to push people into buying something they would llike to evaluate further first. Not even Microsoft is this arrogant and assuming.

[lazyseller]

Just wanted to add myself to the list of other unhappy customers here. Like many others in this thread will have to pack up our multiple licenses and jump ship to a more affordable alternative. I been using vbulletin for a decade as well and will continue to use it for my bigger sites but the setup cost seems to be a bit steep for existing customers.

It reminds me of sprint. Existing customers pay almost double of what new customers get the phones for.

[centris]

I think if you read your licence it states governed by the laws of England and Wales!!!!!!!!!!!

[shohin]

any money now ive said that, they will lock the thread and move it...

Nah...they won't lock it as that way it can still be read.
They'll more than likely just delete the entire thread as they've done on the "Licensed Customer Feedback" forum.

However what they can do and, probably will, is to possibly give me a warning or even ban me. Then again that's really of no consequence to me as soon I'll no longer be able to post seeing that my license for doing so is up in a few more days. That is how I actually found out about all of this as I tried to renew my license (as I always do) and then found out that I couldn't unless I purchased something I could not see! Seeing that I'm not the idiot that IB thinks everyone is I'll simply keep my old version but of course I will eventually no longer be given any support or be able to post. So, if they wish to ban me have at it as that would be like kicking a dead horse!

I'm also not one of the rich ones and only have a small nonprofit forum and I''m retired and living on a pension. No....I'm not trying to single myself out here as I'm very confident that there are many who are in the same situation as I am and that's just the way things are. I chose vB because I used to be a moderator on a site that went down (which had vB) and I decided to pick up the reigns as I hated the idea of letting all of those members being deserted. Well it (vB) was nice for the ride/service while it lasted but this 'ol guy just can't afford this crap any more since IB took over. Hey, it was nice while it lasted! I (we) will survive and just move on and simply try to find something more accommodating and more friendly to it's customers. It's a shame really in watching what was once such a great Internet forum software service turn into such a self absorbed business who no longer cares for their customers.

Will they in the end pay for what they are doing? Hell, I really no longer care anymore but there may be a good chance that they will but in the end that will not do me any good. My only concern is for my members and keeping up a site for them. Other than that IB can suck their members dry and go to hell. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean a tinkers damn to me. Other than that you had better post quickly and read all of this before it's is all deleted (and believe me...it will). Hey.....keep the faith and don't give up! Nice knowing you all for these past few years.

[taffy056]

You are right, they have moved across the pond when it was purchased by the looks of things

http://www.vbulletin.com/about.php

[The Smoking Gun!]

No they won't, I have been saying as much all along that this is not the case that we are bound by the term "we reserve the right to change this license agreement at any time with out notice" or to that effect, many sites and businesses say this in terms of use or eula, to ward off the idea that you have to agree to whatever change their whim's depict, but it never stands up in court, you are right.

But you missed the fact that their business registration is pending in the US so this is a risk for them if it does end up going legal since it is unlikely any state would grant approval or a FEIN number or certificate of authority, for collecting sales tax be issued to a company that starts out, at least in our minds, violating their own license terms, and having a court battle before completing registration review.
BTW that also means those living in CA. will then have topay sales tax on top of these significantly higer pricing structures.

People in other states, although not required to be CHARGED tax by a CA based company are stil required to claim their purchases and pay thier on state or county sale tax rate when filing thier income tax return!

TSG!

[tgcsniper]

Don't know about class action suits etc, but Jelsoft is a UK company bound by UK law, if they have unfair terms in their contract to us, it can be challenged according the OFT, I don't pretend to be knowledgeable in these areas, but they have done the worst thing a company can do for me, and that is to lose my faith in them, people are comparing them to other companies like Microsoft, but I never had faith in Microsoft to begin with, so nothing changes there

Still if anyone can make sense of gobbledygook from government speak go to this link

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_res...terms/guidance

Dont forget, Jelsoft is now/more or less IB. IB is bound by US law. vBulletin is a US co. Bound by US law. vBulletins terms are their own... Besides, uk law isnt very ambiguous on fair trading... especially internet (interlectual) trading. vBulletin/jelsoft/ib can put what they want in their terms of service/eula, but its the law that counts and not their terms of service etc... If you run mutiple copies on one website, and vbulletin tries to sue you etc... the courts would be in your favour... you bought it/paid for it, its yours and you can do what you want with it... and if they terminated your license, you could potentialy sue them for unfair traid, and first purchase laws. when you pay it says the license is for all of 4.x. and if they terminate your license because you are running more than one copy, you can sue the s*it outa vbulletin/ib/jelsoft because their tos means s*it... like i said, you paid for it and it becomes your interlectualy property...

any money now ive said that, they will lock the thread and move it...

[The Smoking Gun!]

Believe me, I’m not in any way shape or form defending what IB is doing here as I feel it’s outrageous but come on now; let’s not get carried away! There are obvious concerns, and rightfully so, as to the price structure, new policies, out and outright reneging on licenses, the time frame allowed to purchase something that is not even out yet, etc. but I’m quite confident that no one with an ounce of common sense for one moment thinks that this is any way a ploy to take in money and run! Sounds more like script from a grade B movie! What’s next, perhaps a Ponzi scheme for Internet forum software! Let's keep it real shall we.

Yes, I agree that IB or "whomever" needs to address these issues instead of doing nothing but giving political spin, then going back and closing and deleting entire threads on the license feedback forum when people say negative things about this entire fiasco. Just why the hell is there a “Licensed Customer Feedback” forum when posts and entire threads are deleted when the powers that be simply delete them because they don’t care for the feedback!!!

Despite being nothing but steamed over the treatment or rather the lack of fair concession between the licenses and the resulting product/services we are going to get as a result of following their staff's advice to not wait to purchase or renew.......and "apparently" losing as a result.
I agree with you, that is far fetched and uncalled for, and trust that I have probably been one of the most negative parties involved with this, having been given an infraction and the deletion of a post with content they do not want to be public, but this is not the way to start people thinking of unrealistic and far fetched paranoia and feeding such ideas in to already frenzied minds that are reeling enough by the actual facts let alone adding such flights of fantasy!


Good call putting on the brakes shohin!
Remember just because we are not feeling treated fairly, WE are the community not them, act like it and stand together and support one another!


Taffy I missed your addition before opening this reply, but the trade laws are not governed by the country of origin, in order to do trade in other countries they must abide by that country's by-laws concerning truth in advertising, as well as fair marketing practices and so forth, but this is not to say that many American companies are not pushing the envelope and getting away with murder lately, because of being big political supporters through campaign donations and what not, and our country is on the brink of economic ruin as a result of politico's capitulating to big business, but they are at a cross roads and have to answer to the people, as we are more and more becoming fed up with the poor decisions being made and bailouts being called "for economic recovery" when it only serves to keep the top dog's pockets lined despite the burdens placed on their company by all of those who are in default to their creditors.

This is why it is foolish of IB to think if a class action is filed, that they have any chance of recovering from the results. Again I will reference those Iphone pre-sales, and resulting court order to refund the difference when Apple saw their new product sales drop through the floor becuase of pricing, very few could fork out that much or thought it was wirth it once they got it.

TSG!

[taffy056]

Don't know about class action suits etc, but Jelsoft is a UK company bound by UK law, if they have unfair terms in their contract to us, it can be challenged according the OFT, I don't pretend to be knowledgeable in these areas, but they have done the worst thing a company can do for me, and that is to lose my faith in them, people are comparing them to other companies like Microsoft, but I never had faith in Microsoft to begin with, so nothing changes there

Still if anyone can make sense of gobbledygook from government speak go to this link

http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_res...terms/guidance

[shohin]

There does seem to be an underlying concern here, other than the confusion over costs.

What if there is not a real product yet and this only a ploy by IB to get an infusion of capital. Why would they need this now? Improve the books? Pay off debt? Make a quick buck then spin this off? Take our money and run?

Believe me, I’m not in any way shape or form defending what IB is doing here as I feel it’s outrageous but come on now; let’s not get carried away! There are obvious concerns, and rightfully so, as to the price structure, new policies, out and outright reneging on licenses, the time frame allowed to purchase something that is not even out yet, etc. but I’m quite confident that no one with an ounce of common sense for one moment thinks that this is any way a ploy to take in money and run! Sounds more like script from a grade B movie! What’s next, perhaps a Ponzi scheme for Internet forum software! Let's keep it real shall we.

Yes, I agree that IB or "whomever" needs to address these issues instead of doing nothing but giving political spin, then going back and closing and deleting entire threads on the license feedback forum when people say negative things about this entire fiasco. Just why the hell is there a “Licensed Customer Feedback” forum when posts and entire threads are deleted when the powers that be simply delete them because they don’t care for the feedback!!!

[The Smoking Gun!]

I got no issue with upgrading for my one licence as that is what i am looking for as I need a cms and its nice its all one package the only thing I don't like is that there is no sign of this coming out of alpha testing, and we must take a leap of faith by paying now, or it doubling in cost down the line,

I have an inactive licence and its going to cost me nigh on $200 when I only want 3.8.4 I can only get 3.7.1 now with it , imagine my shock when i came to renew a licence only to see the price has gone up by 300% !

I wouldn't mind either except that I and a number of others just laid out $240.00 just weeks ago and they are unwilling, according to a number of ticket responses, to budge on the fact they took our money for products they are stating they are not updating or supporting, unless we pay almost that much MORE for the suite since it is the only means of having blog too.

I don't know but this is looking more and more like the beginning of a joint lawsuit!

Yes I mentioned to them a number of times that there would be a class action suit unfolding and that would cost more than duplicating the intellectual property needed to satisfy those who are being cheated by the fact that our license says a year of support and updates, but this won't happen if we have blog, and we can't update to 4.0 with out losing the blog, so we lose out when 3.8 is left behind by OS, and server side language updates, on the servers we have no control of.

I understand a good amount of people already experienced this with 3.8 now, what's it going to be like in 6 months....

What about those of us with recent owned licenses. Meaning we just shelled out $180 for vb3.x.x and our license is new and active. We are still getting the shaft unless we upgrade NOW for $130. Give the discount to us until our license expires, seems like the fair thing to do. We get what we paid for, the full year of upgrades, then can still get a discount on the upgrade to 4.0 suite with out getting robbed.



I agree with you it is the best deal. But for a ghost product? We cant even see the functionality. This discount or upgrade scheme should have never been offered or required until there was an active demo of the script. We have no idea what this is going to do or how it will look besides some screen shots. Just not a good business practice IMO.



EXACTLY, as said as of right now it is a ghost. Nobody knows for sure when the release will be. Yet we have to pay now to avoid paying double.

Tisk Tisk VB/jelsoft. Please reconsider this or acknowledge the fact that you will lose a large customer base. I am not saying that I will leave, heck I dont know. But if I have to upgrade now, being that I shelled out $180 recently to avoid paying double it is a possibility.

I have tried to impress that upon them in my ticket that this was also the case, and that they are alienating the very source of their paychecks, but still no positive response but in my last response I requested the whole thing go before upper management and beyond the Jelsoft customer care, to be assured that this is still in fact their decision to not honor our recent combined license purchases or at least make the more popular combination of forums and blog available without CMS or having to pay for the suite, but don't expect a response for a day or so, as I doubt upper management is working the weekend.

If they stand by these terms, then when a class action suit is lost by them, which I don't think any court wil rule in their favor considering the economy, and the fact that any political or even judiciary ruling otherwise would only serve to ensure they are not re-elected or reappointed by the people's choice of big business over the middle class worker, and see a ruling similar to what Apple had to do when ordered to refund all those fist pre-sales buyers of Iphones a while back!

TSG!

[Shamil.]

There does seem to be an underlying concern here, other than the confusion over costs.

What if there is not a real product yet and this only a ploy by IB to get an infusion of capital. Why would they need this now? Improve the books? Pay off debt? Make a quick buck then spin this off? Take our money and run?

Is Lucas the only representative out there? We've beat him up pretty good at this point to no avail. Cannot someone higher up at JS/IB make an announcement to clarify their intentions with our money, set a release date, and state whether the terms they have set are final?

ANSWER these questions and we can make our decisions and put this controvery to rest.

Internet Brands are to report Q4 results on the 28th October.

http://investors.internetbrands.com/...leaseID=414873

[Sean James]

This is totally crazy, its going to cost me a fortune to update all my sites... and now i need to explain to my clients that they have to pay a certain amount in the next few weeks for an update they cannot even test out..

[rldoughjr]

There does seem to be an underlying concern here, other than the confusion over costs.

What if there is not a real product yet and this only a ploy by IB to get an infusion of capital. Why would they need this now? Improve the books? Pay off debt? Make a quick buck then spin this off? Take our money and run?

Is Lucas the only representative out there? We've beat him up pretty good at this point to no avail. Cannot someone higher up at JS/IB make an announcement to clarify their intentions with our money, set a release date, and state whether the terms they have set are final?

ANSWER these questions and we can make our decisions and put this controvery to rest.

[zappaDPJ]

Yes. It provides more though and gives you the tools to build a content publishing and networking site, not just a forum. I don't think we ever said that upgrading the Suite in the future would cost less than upgrading the Forum. Even then, it is still the better value because it gives you the tools to create a site where you can recoup that value, even if you're a hobbyist.

I'd promised myself not to get involved in these debates and move on but I can't let that go without making a comment.

With a few exceptions most of the vB sites I manage could be described as 'hobbyist'. They are sites that are paid for by contributions from their members. Without exception they all have up to date owned licences which means sometime within the last year they have paid to keep their sites updated and secure. They are all now being asked to pay again, within the same subscription period, an amount that is over three times that which they have already paid.

One of the principal questions I've been asked by these organisations is what do they get for such a massive increase in fees. The answer to that of course is nothing but a new set of terms and conditions and a pre-order for a product that from a consumer point of view doesn't exist. None of them can afford the huge hike in costs and the few that do have the funds immediately available will not pay out that amount of money on a product that isn't available.

So your assertion that hobbyists will recoup value is wrong because none of the ones under my management (26 licences) have the funds to do so. The real irony is if vBulletin had simply announced a doubling or even trebling of yearly support costs with some notice I would imagine most of the organisations I look after would have been able to increase their member subscriptions accordingly and wouldn't be moving away to a competitor product. I'd also go as far to say that if vB 4.0 was offered at the current special offer price at the end of their subscribed support period they would have all been able to plan and raise the required revenue.

I've been using vBulletin for nearly a decade. It's a great product and the support when it's been needed has been second to none. I have to say what I've seen in the last week has saddened me. I would never have thought a company which in the past has set such high standards could sink so low for such a short term gain.