Paying twice for services already paid for for 2018.

Technical Details

Forum version : #phpBB2
Position : Founder
Concerned browser(s) : Internet Explorer, Other
Who the problem concerns : Yourself
When the problem appeared : 29-4-2018
Forum link : http://rcmb.forumotion.com

Description of problem

Yesterday I logged onto my admin panel to find that without warning the host now offers packages.

This wasn’t a problem, the problem is that I’ve been forced to pay for a premium package to the forum to keep my domain and other features a I had already paid for using the older system of modules.

Right now to combat this almost triple cost I’ve setup the bill Monthly rather than a lump sum until I can get a decent explanation this is change and why I currently belive I’m paying for services I had already paid for at the end of feb 2018 to cover the year.

Will I be entitled to a domain credit refund and other expenses I paid out for in feb of 2018 to now find I’m paying monthly for the same features due to a package?

I dont mind the price hike is just annoyed it seams like I now am paying almost 3 times as much as I originally was for services I had already paid for to cover the year and with no warning nor any real information about my preciouses payments on modules and domain name payments.

If someone could explain to be pretty much what the hell is going on, I my forum for almost a decade with no issues and no where near this price range and am now forced if it’s to continue to start asking members to contribute more extensively than th odd £ or 2 to just help me out on a much smaller bill than what it looks like I have to pay out now.

So I’m summary will I get a refund on services already paid? How do I go about that if I’m entitled and why was there very little info given about what’s happening so I was able to prepare earlier and not waste my money and now stuck with a monthly bill I didn’t orgianlly agree to when I founded the forum all those years ago?

Yours hopefully... one not very happy forum owner at present!

quiet if you review your credit management you will see that you have deducted the days you had consumed from your renewals, and discounted the days that you had, and you will see a refund of those credits

Hello @Tugtower,

Forumotion packages have been launched on the forums on April 9th, as we announced here. When purchasing a package, as @jucarese explained to you, the features already paid for and included in the package you purchase are refunded for the part that has not been used.

As the tutorial explains:

If you had already acquired some features before the packages launch (removal of ads, SSL certificate activation,...), the forum will take them into account when calculating the price of the package which includes these features. Indeed, a refund equivalent to the amount paid, less the time already elapsed, will be deducted from the purchase price of the package or added to the forum.

If you choose an annual payment, this refund is made directly on the amount to pay (ex: if the package costs 6000 credits and the refund is equivalent to 3400 credits, you will pay only 2600 credits). If you choose the monthly payment, the refunded credits are added directly to the forum and the number of credits available increases accordingly. So if you want to use that refund to buy the package, you should choose an annual payment.

Regards,
Shadow

Thanks for the reply’s, and that solves most of my problem, as for being informed about the changes linked above that I wasn’t aware of and to be 100% honest I never check the help section of this forum as I’ve never had an issues I could not resolve on my own so finding out about packages this was not the best way to go about handling this information.

I would have liked to see an email sent to forum owners or just a simple note linked in my forums admin panel to be made aware of these changes, I’m also pretty sure a large % of owners who don’t Experiance issues with their forums will be in the same boat as me on this, I’ve seen many notes and links appear on my admin panel in the past with changes etc but this one wasn’t and this one was a large change.

I would make a suggestion in future for the hosts to ensure all forum owners do recive information better than this was handled!

Besides that thanks for the info it’s resolved the issue.

Regards

You should check this part of your admin panel from time to time: