why $ 190 instead of $ 130 ?

[slinky]

Photoguy & Thread starter, they did not advertise on there site that you are eligible for the license, they advertised that it is only available for active license members, so the law that you stated would'nt apply even if the company was in Canada, as the email said active lince members, you should of read the email properly, it says for active license members, so they did'nt give false advertisement, they just sent the advertisment to the wrong people,
they should've said if your licence is still active........bla bla, but it was a mass email to everyone about the new product & offer and it clearly said for active members, I got the email, and my license is'nt active and has'nt been for over a year!
-------------
So shame on NO one in this case!!!!!!!!

I snipped the rest of your legal analysis. The facts are simple and you can do the research if you want.

1) If your license is not active, then you have no right to run your forum. If your maintenance agrement is not active, it has no bearing on whether your license is active.

2) In general, under contract law, if one party makes an offer that contains a non-obvious mistake and the other party accepts that offer, there is a binding agreement. In this instance, the mistake (which we are inferring) was not obvious. Hence the confusion here because every vBulletin forums owner, who has an active license, came here thinking he was buying an upgrade for $130.

I worked for several public companies and also had to deal with press releases, product sales, etc. You can look up the terms "unilateral mistake" and "contract" yourself. I'm not going to comment here on the rest but with regard to the law, you're probably best not to flame the poster, whether he's from Canada, the UK or Oz.

[dmh]

Wacodep, you're entirely missing the point! How about some corporate responsibility? Whoever approved the text of this email, which was obviously sent out to every registered VBulletin user, should be taken to task on it. The email is VERY misleading...and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks that.

photoguy

I got the email, read it and understood it. I also got my license renewed till VB5 for $130.00....

[ahmednadir]

Photoguy & Thread starter, they did not advertise on there site that you are eligible for the license, they advertised that it is only available for active license members, so the law that you stated would'nt apply even if the company was in Canada, as the email said active lince members, you should of read the email properly, it says for active license members, so they did'nt give false advertisement, they just sent the advertisment to the wrong people,
they should've said if your licence is still active........bla bla, but it was a mass email to everyone about the new product & offer and it clearly said for active members, I got the email, and my license is'nt active and has'nt been for over a year!

instead of picking the active from the expired and waisting a hell of a long time, they sent an email stating its for active members so you shoulda known from the email that its not for you, and its a common mistake that any business company can make

So who's responsibility is it to keep track of YOUR purchases and subscriptions?

Well, we all know what they say about assuming ...

If your driver's license or license plates expire, do you blame the Department of Motor Vehicles?
If your magazine subscriptions expire, do you blame the magazine?
If your milk expires, do you blame the cow?

Shame on vBulletin? How about shame on YOU?!

Come on - how about a little bit of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABLITY here?

well, I'd say to you
1. If my drivers license or license plate expires, they send me a notfication that it has expired, NOT an OFFER that I'm not eligible for or aloud to have
2. if my magazine subscription expires, they don't send anything but a renewell form, and NOT an OFFER that I'm not eligible for or aloud to have.
3. If my milk Expires, I buy it from the shop, and a COW does'nt send me an OFFER that I'm not eligible for or aloud to have.

don't try to be clever mate, vbulletin sent mass emails to everyone that have and had active licenses, which was inapropriate, but a mistake that any business can make, as long as they stated the terms in the email, and the emails said active licences, yes, but some of us should'nt have got them, so don't go acting all clever and defending them, cause they don't need yor defence.

So shame on NO one in this case!!!!!!!!

[ruinernix]

Let's imagine two case scenarios here, these are just examples and not my own experience, but it seems a lot of people seem to think people who have expired licenses should pay more than people who have active licenses.. Let's take, Customer A and B.

Customer A bought vBulletin in September 2005, and paid 160. He has kept is license up to date every year, except the past 12 months. So add let's add 160,30,40,40. Total paid: 270$.
Customer B bought vBulletin in January 2009, and paid 180. He didn't have to pay for any updates yet. Total paid: 180$.

Come the pre-sale event. Customer A gets to pay 210$, but Customer B gets to pay 130$.

Customer A ends up paying 480$.
Customer B ends up paying 310$.

It's impossible to have a fair system going both ways. What they needed to do is give a real value to vBulletin 3.x to move to the new licensing. vBulletin 3.x's value: 180$. Pre-sale upgrade: 130$. The correct pricing for the upgrade should've been something like:

Customer A: 270-180 = 90. 130-90 = 40$. (Has paid extra according to new licensing terms, so the extra money should be credited to the upgrade price)
Customer B: 130$. (Hasn't paid anything extra)

This is the only possible fair system. Then, people who bought the blog should also be credited on the upgrade to the full suite as it's the only way for them to get the blog.

[Ian Cunningham]

Yeah I tried to order a version last night but the price went up before I did

[slinky]

now was showing as $205 and it supposses the promotion is up to 12 pacific and now it's 11 center :/

if i pay now can i get back those extra $15 that is showing?

I've also got the same. Apparently it has been jiggered to early. They may need to extend this offer for those of us with problems. Mine says $205 too if I wanted to upgrade any of the expired licenses. Whatever.... this can be taken care of Monday when the staff are back in. It's late Friday night and everyone but poor vbulletin license holders are out having fun doing something else other than upgrading.

[ZapFlash]

now was showing as $205 and it supposses the promotion is up to 12 pacific and now it's 11 center :/

if i pay now can i get back those extra $15 that is showing?

[Webmist]

I have plenty of personal responsibility and accountablity. I don't like the fact I am being asked to pay so far in advanced just to get a 'deal'. Last time I checked a pre-order ment anytime you ordered up to the actual release.

[dimitrios]

the whole marketing of vb4 is rather badly planned...



If you see so many dissatisfied customers then no doubt, there must be something wrong with the service.

[slinky]

Yes, there is. If you're an active licensee, you get a discount. If you're not, why should YOU get the same discount as someone who IS an active licensee?

Nobody is forcing you to upgrade. If you don't want to, then don't. You weren't powerless. All you had to do was maintain an active license. You chose to NOT do this. The world is full of choices. If you don't like what's presented, then do as you've stated - don't renew and move in some other direction. It's called FREEDOM OF CHOICE, which you have.Best of luck!

Why don't you take time to read and understand before preaching?

I'm not saying expired licenses should pay the same as current. Expired licenses should pay the same difference as they always have - $40 more which is the cost of annual maintenance. So why was it made $60? To squeeze those customers more because you can? Because we still have a "savings" off the MSRP?

With regard to your blaming the customer for expired maintenance, you're completely unjustified. Perhaps you have the ability to sit in your parents' home all day watching TV and taking care of your forum. Most of us work hard and, like everyone in life, plan our days based upon reasonable expectations. For almost 9 years we had the same renewal options and everyone here relied upon the fact that they if maintenance expired today, there wasn't any alarm to wait a day or two to pay at a more convenient time. Now if policy and licensing was going to change dramatically that would affect all of us financially if we didn't do something TODAY, why weren't all customers notified in advance? Heck, all of us would actually then have SAVED a bundle. Customers with expired licenses could have made sure to have maintenance fees paid up so they wouldn't be beat up for an additional $20 just a day later.

Yes, you are right about freedom of choice and, unfortunately in this case, between the lesser of two evils. At this point, I'm not sure that "moving in another direction" is an evil but a necessity in life. Considering we have several forums which we will lose money because of the lack of reasonable notice, we aren't really faced with a choice but an economic and practical reality with regard to several of these licenses. I'm not a single license hobbyist although I feel for them too.

[photoguy]

So who's responsibility is it to keep track of YOUR purchases and subscriptions?

Well, we all know what they say about assuming ...

If your driver's license or license plates expire, do you blame the Department of Motor Vehicles?
If your magazine subscriptions expire, do you blame the magazine?
If your milk expires, do you blame the cow?

Shame on vBulletin? How about shame on YOU?!

Come on - how about a little bit of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABLITY here?

Wacodep, you're entirely missing the point! How about some corporate responsibility? Whoever approved the text of this email, which was obviously sent out to every registered VBulletin user, should be taken to task on it. The email is VERY misleading...and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks that.

photoguy

[wacodep]

There also isn't any good reason why customers whose licenses recently expired should be paying $60 more instead of the $40 difference

Yes, there is. If you're an active licensee, you get a discount. If you're not, why should YOU get the same discount as someone who IS an active licensee?

for this forced upgrade to the vb 4 suite

Nobody is forcing you to upgrade. If you don't want to, then don't.

none whatsoever except for the fact that customers are powerless to prevent being financially punished with some arbitrary number.

You weren't powerless. All you had to do was maintain an active license. You chose to NOT do this.

Unfortunately this issue has nothing to do with a move to a new licensing structure but an ability to punish without apparent repercussions. Going forward with our new projects and current projects, we'll have to make some changes and several of our licenses we don't anticipate renewing. Hard to believe.

The world is full of choices. If you don't like what's presented, then do as you've stated - don't renew and move in some other direction. It's called FREEDOM OF CHOICE, which you have.

Best of luck!

[wacodep]

I have no idea of the current status of my VBulletin software licence

So who's responsibility is it to keep track of YOUR purchases and subscriptions?

but, according to the email from VBulletin I assumed that THEY did.

Well, we all know what they say about assuming ...

As you can tell from the above, I'm NOT impressed! Shame on you VBulletin!!!

If your driver's license or license plates expire, do you blame the Department of Motor Vehicles?
If your magazine subscriptions expire, do you blame the magazine?
If your milk expires, do you blame the cow?

Shame on vBulletin? How about shame on YOU?!

Come on - how about a little bit of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and ACCOUNTABLITY here?

[slinky]

There also isn't any good reason why customers whose licenses recently expired should be paying $60 more instead of the $40 difference for this forced upgrade to the vb 4 suite - none whatsoever except for the fact that customers are powerless to prevent being financially punished with some arbitrary number. At $190, it's $5 less than buying a brand new forum outright, which is outrageous but the only other option is to wait and pay $175 and get even less for our money.

Unfortunately this issue has nothing to do with a move to a new licensing structure but an ability to punish without apparent repercussions. Going forward with our new projects and current projects, we'll have to make some changes and several of our licenses we don't anticipate renewing. Hard to believe.

[photoguy]

How Do I Get The Promised $ 130 Promotional Price?

On October 13th I received an email from VBulletin telling me about a new version of their software with a built-in CMS. The email said, in part...

"As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price). This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009."

When I went to take advantage of this offer today, I found that there was no way for me to obtain this price when trying to checkout. And then I came accross this post!

I have no idea of the current status of my VBulletin software licence, but, according to the email from VBulletin I assumed that THEY did. Why on Earth would a company send out a special offer to me when they have no plans to follow through? Here in Canada, there are laws on the books that state if a product is mislabeled with a wrong price (lower than it should be) in a store, that store is legally obligated to sell the item to that consumer for the 'advertised' price. In this case here, VBulletin sent me a message advertising a price. Good business practices should dictate that they sell it to me (and anyone else they sent this misleading offer to) for the $ 130 price.

As you can tell from the above, I'm NOT impressed! Shame on you VBulletin!!!

photoguy