posted on October 4, 2004 04:06:29 PM new
I just do not understand my invoice. And, before I close my Vendio store, I wish someone would explain why my bill has increased so much.
If you log in and click on the tab for the previous month's billing, you'll see a list of charges. At the end of your billing cycle you get the credit for image hosting, provided the usage is less than your Sales Manager fees. Already, you have an image hosting credit there. If you have any more questions please let us know or you can email [email protected].
posted on October 4, 2004 06:59:13 PM new
Hi kozersky,
Just to follow on what Sonya said, Image Hosting now serves as a monthly minimum for Vendio Stores fees (see announcement). You will pay the higher of your Stores fees OR the Image Hosting fee.
Your first bill under this new plan may appear larger simply because Image Hosting is prepaid just like our other subscriptions. The Image Hosting credit you receive for this prepay must necessarily appear in the next statement when we can total the Stores subscription you paid with your other listing/final value fees. Your subsequent bills should return to your usual levels as long as you stay above the minimum set by your Image Hosting plan.
In your case, you have enough images to warrant a $9.95 plan while your Stores fees are $4.95 plus final value fees. If you can reduce your image use, you can avoid additional Image Hosting fees.
posted on October 5, 2004 07:58:09 AM new
I understand the pricing policy and it is justified; the bigger problem is with its notification. After reading many of the posts on this topic it is clear that a lot of people were caught off guard. I think that, like myself, most casual and light sellers just don’t sell in the summer months. Basically, I didn’t need to log onto Vendio until this past week when I decided it was time to gear up for the selling season, therefore I didn’t know about the price change until it was too late. I really had no need to keep 135MB of images on your server, and would have gladly deleted all of them back in July had I known. But here had been no email announcement, not to my regular account nor to the Customer Manager, and I think that is very unfair.
I’ve been with this service since 1999, when it was Auction Watch and free. I remember the Exodus after the per-listing charges started, but I stayed on because it was fair and a valuable resource. I have told countless eBay users about the service spreading the word about my success and its ease of use. The bottom line is that I expected to be treated fairly when it comes to fee increases, and this one could have been made easier to take had the notifications been sent.
I do not want to sound cynical and say this was a planned sneak attack, but to be fair I think that we should be refunded, and then given the opportunity to clean up our image accounts to levels that are really needed. To a light seller like me, $20 up front without warning is a bit much to take.
posted on October 5, 2004 10:59:19 AM new
Hi samplingman,
I believe Vendio continues to be fair and more valuable now. We spent more time than you know to be fair. Consider this:
1. Our Image Hosting pricing by itself continues to be exceptionally low compared to our competitors. See our pricing comparison.
2. We went out of our way to keep Image Hosting free for Sales Manager, Tickets and Stores users. We could have simply added on Image Hosting fees like other companies do.
3. We went above our legal obligation as specified in our User Agreement to notify users of this pricing change.
3a. We notified users 2 weeks in advance instead of the required 1 week in advance. If you look through this forum, you'll see dialog about pricing started 2 weeks ago.
3b. We are not required to notify users by email though we tried to anyway.
4. If you read the announcement posted, it is very detailed and tries to make clear all the changes. The pre-announcement was this way as well, even specifying an exact time down to the hour the pricing will take effect so users could adjust accordingly. There are also notes to click on the Online Statements.
We have tens of thousands of users so it's understandable that some still miss our communcations. I hope you can see we've gone out of our way to communicate the changes and be fair. And I hope you can see that Vendio continues to be a great deal for the features we offer.
posted on October 5, 2004 11:19:37 AM new
There is also an issue that no one from Vendio has answered or at least they keep answering off the specific subject.
The thing is when I signed up for Variable Package, it was clearly stated that I would be getting unlimited image hosting. All of sudden, they changed it to 50mb space. I sent numerous email asking about this, but they kept telling me about new image hosting pricing and policy. Totally off my question. Unlimited image hosting was a part of reason I signed up. Not so happy about few things, but in general, I find many useful features that I decided to stick with Vendio.
posted on October 5, 2004 11:54:07 AM new
Hi azpirin,
The shift from free unlimited to storage-based pricing is exactly what we're talking about. Pricing changes are always possible. In Vendio's case, I think this is the first Image Hosting pricing change in years. And as I've mentioned, we're still a great deal.
1. Our Image Hosting pricing by itself continues to be exceptionally
low compared to our competitors. See our pricing comparison.
I don't believe the complaint is about the pricing!
2. We went out of our way to keep Image Hosting free for Sales Manager,
Tickets and Stores users. We could have simply added on Image Hosting
fees like other companies do.
WHY didn't you?? then at least we may have understood your other wise complicated
method of calculation
3. We went above our legal obligation as specified in our User
Agreement to notify users of this pricing change.
LEGALLY....... Jezzzzzze who's talking legal how about deceit common courtesy
???
I always thought if I paid by the month I would get at least a months notice of
any significant changes
3a. We notified users 2 weeks in advance instead of the required
1 week in advance. If you look through this forum, you'll see dialog
about pricing started 2 weeks ago.
You put up a deceitful notice which indicated changes to image plans had changed I don't and many others have a sales manager plan. So why would a image plan change affect me. Had I understood the changes I would have been more then happy to clean up my image files........
If you truly wanted to us to be informed you would put a notice
"Sales Manager Plan Change Clean up your image files"
Frankly I think the plan was to blind side us........ make the notice obscure so we won't read it
make it so complicated we can't understand. This is the perfect time to do this ....the beginning of the Christmas season.
posted on October 5, 2004 12:53:17 PM new
sarniaflower,
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But please consider this: "Why would we deceive you about pricing that you seem to agree is low?" And while you might choose higher prices over complexity, I think most of our users would choose differently.
posted on October 5, 2004 01:36:34 PM new
NO! I did not say your prices are low!
You are missing the point!! Had I been properly notified I would have lessed the load in my image file thus my normal bill of 40.00 would't have jumped to 82.00
Why would we deceive you i will answer with a question WHY Didn't you Anounce CLEARLY that a change was happining with Sales Manager NO more free Imaging. If I would have seen that I would have reduced my file load thus saving myself money.......
I feel that I was not given proper notication to remove the files there is no reason for me to pay for image storage my ISP offers me free space the realty is I am now facing a double invoice and paying for something that i could get somewhere else for FREE!!
I guess the point I was trying to make was not regarding any illegality of the notification, or even whether there was a better service, but rather common courtesy. I certainly receive the invoice every month via email, so it didn’t seem like much of a stretch to request one for such an important price modification.
With all due respects, it was sellers like me who basically promoted this company to the world, free of charge. The issue here is that Vendio should take great efforts not to alienate the core customers.
posted on October 5, 2004 04:09:17 PM new
Hi samplingman,
First, I know everyone here at Vendio appreciates our customers and understands the role they play in where the company is today. I personally was amazed when I first joined by the number of longtime users like yourself who started from the very beginning. We've done everything I listed - keeping prices low, maintaining a free level of Image Hosting, etc. precisely because we do value our user base.
We can continue to go in circles about how we could have notified users. But the fact remains that we went above and beyond our duty to notify everyone.
I have reviewed this situation with others in the company - they regret the situation as I do but agree refunds cannot be granted in this case.
posted on October 10, 2004 10:33:05 AM new
I agree that the notification process was lousy as i just found out about it today. You are determined to run me off. That is too bad, because I have been here since the early years and I value this site. But at some point, I have to ask, is the added convienence worth it. Bumping my fee up by $35 in a month where I didn't list any auctions is outrageous. I've got to go now and delete evey image I can. I thought that people that used sales manager didn't have to worry about the amount of images stored. What a rip!!
posted on October 10, 2004 12:30:47 PM new
I no longer care about the details regarding the notification of fee increases. The fact is that VENDIO pulled a fast one, so shame on them. All I want to know is, how do I cancel my subscription? I do not want to give my money to a company that thinks things like price increases arent serious enough to notify their customers about THOROUGHLY. When PAYPAL and EBAY do these sort of things they MAKE IT VERY WELL KNOWN for months before the fact! So I ask again, how do I cancel my account?
posted on October 10, 2004 04:22:16 PM new
I knew about the price change at least two weeks before it started. A lot of other people did also. Everyone on the Community Boards were talking about dumping pictures to lower their usage.
Be kind. Everyone is fighting their own secret battles.
...Author Unknown
posted on October 10, 2004 05:13:19 PM new
First off: How to cancel...
As soon as you determine you would like to cancel your account, please write back using the Contact Us form on our website, and choose the Account Cancellation option from the drop-down menu (or send an email to [email protected] and enter Immediate Closure in the subject line of your email.) Make sure you send the request from your registered email address.
Secondly, If you are using Sales Manager to list, and you're on a monthly subscription fee based plan, Image Hosting will continue to be free as long as the following applies:
1. You are using Sales Manager to create and launch your listings.
2. The amount you are paying for the use of Sales Manager is greater than or equal to the amount you would have paid for stand-alone Image Hosting.
Note that if your Image Hosting charges end up being more than your Sales Manager charges (a rare circumstance) you ONLY pay the difference, not the entire cost of the Image Hosting on top of the Sales Manager fees. Sales Manager fees work to offset Image Hosting fees in all cases.
For example, if you were on the Premium Flat rate plan ($12.95 per month), but you had so many images that you would be in the $19.95 / 135MB Image Hosting plan range, you would only pay $12.95 (Sales Manager) + $7.00 (difference between Sales Manager and Image Hosting plan), or $19.95 total. Incremental listing fees for Sales Manager plans also add up to offset Image Fees as well, so if you were to list 35 auctions on the same plan in the same billing cycle as above, your Image Hosting fees would be totally offset by the Sales Manager fees (35 x .20 per listing = $7.00)
Most of our customers will not end up being charged additionally for image hosting, assuming that the images being stored are reasonably sized and are actually being used in listings consistently.
The reason your bill appears larger this billing cycle is because Image Hosting is a prepaid amount, just like our other subscriptions. The credit for Sales Manager fees are applied at the end of your billing cycle. It is really a matter of timing - your first bill appears larger because of the time difference between the charge and the credit (which will appear at the end of your next billing cycle.)
The reason why the credit is applied at the end is because at that point we will have a total for all your Sales Manager subscription fees, listing fees and final value fees so we can apply them towards the Image Hosting amount.
After this first billing cycle, as long as your fees stay above the monthly minimum Image Hosting fee, you should see your bills go back to the amounts similar to what they were previously.
I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any additional questions.
posted on October 10, 2004 07:13:23 PM new
BOB: Why am I paying fees in excess of my image hosting plan AND the image hosting plan amount. This is in direct contrast to what you are telling people. No one will address my specific questions about this, why? Everyone, check your bill. Here is mine. As you can see, my fees are greater than $50 but I am still being charged the addtional fee for a total of over hundred dollars. BOB...this is not what you will say will happen:
