what the?

Dear users of News.Individual.NET,

as announced via e-mail, news(*) and WWW(**) on February 15th, 2005,
use of News.Individual.NET will not be free of charge anymore
effective from April 1st, 2005. The news service will continue as a
fee-based service.

The fee for an account for News.Individual.NET is 10 EUR per year
(annual payment), that converts to only 0.84 EUR per month. The price
includes VAT at 16%.


Did I miss the first email?

--
Mike Buckley
RD350LC2
GSF600S
http://www.toastyhamster.org
BONY#38

 

Yup.

Time to pay up and look big, Mike.

 

And the fairly lengthy thread here.
--
Alex

Hermes: "We can't afford that! Especially not Zoidberg!"
Zoidberg: "They took away my credit cards!"

www.drzoidberg.co.uk
www.sffh.co.uk
www.ebayfaq.co.uk

 

Hm. I missed that as well. How does one pay, then? And when's the
deadline? 10 euros is cheap, considering how good the Goiman server is.

 

TOG@toil, ,

is.

Bad form etc.

Doh!

 

TOG@toil composed the following;:

http://news.individual.net/

Doh indeed.

Well worth it I think, I paid when the first emails came out from them,
though mine was in german it prompted me to look at their website ..

 

I was skiing when they announced it, which is why I missed the thread.
Strange I missed the email as well, mind, though I probably deleted it
with a million spams when I got back.

Anyway, signed up now. I'd be interested to know what their subs level
is. I reckon they must have a very interesting customer profile.

 

Hm. I missed that as well. How does one pay, then? And when's the
deadline? 10 euros is cheap, considering how good the Goiman server is.[/QUOTE]

"Holders of existing accounts who want to continue using their account
need to convert it into a pay account. This is also only possible
through our web site:
http://news.individual.net/ "

HTH

 

I tried to pay but they didn't offer a means of payment that I had to hand
so I'm now with Clara.net and to be honest the ability to get binaries too
might be a plus )

£29.99 per annum

 

Depends on what 'worth it' means, and why they're suddenly demanding money
when it was free before. Have the people who administer it suddenly
demanded a pay rise ? Have their upstream people suddenly increased their
charges ? Have the servers on which their INN was running all suddenly
caved in and they need to replace them ?

Or is it just that they've waited until a sufficient number of people have
got used to using their (admittedly very good) service, and they've now
decided to get rich by skimming 10EUR off each of us ?

Ten euros isn't much, but if it could be free before, then it should be
free now.

This is a cynical ploy to make doshers, and as far as I'm concerned, even
if their subscription was 50 centimes per ten years, they can go and get to
buggery-****.

 

In full:

[Deutsche Fassung unten!]

Dear users of News.Individual.NET,

as announced via e-mail, news(*) and WWW(**) on February 15th, 2005,
use of News.Individual.NET will not be free of charge anymore
effective from April 1st, 2005. The news service will continue as a
fee-based service.

The fee for an account for News.Individual.NET is 10 EUR per year
(annual payment), that converts to only 0.84 EUR per month. The price
includes VAT at 16%.

(*) Message-ID: <>
(**) http://news.individual.net/commercial.php

Up to now, the only payment option available was payment through the
financial service provider Firstgate (or their international partners,
see http://firstgate.com/EU/en/international.html).

We are pleased to announce that we are now able to offer an additional
payment option:

Bank transfer to bank account of Freie Universitaet Berlin

Within Germany (for holders of German bank accounts), bank transfer to
our bank account is done as usual with bank account number and BLZ
(Bankleitzahl, bank number).

For holders of non-German bank accounts, IBAN (International Bank
Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code, SWIFT address) are
available.

But please note that our bank account is configured to reject payments
that are subject to bank charges on our site (this can particularly
happen when transfering funds from foreign bank accounts). Please
contact
your financial institution before sending us money and ask them if and
what charges apply (the charges can be huge depending on where you
reside).
And please make sure only to send us money by bank transfer if you pay
for all charges.

To pay for your existing account for News.Individual.NET or to sign up
for a new account, please go to:

https://news.individual.net/register.php

You can choose your preferred payment option (Firstgate or bank
transfer) during the registration process. If you pay through
Firstgate, your account will be activated as soon as we receive the
acknowledgement of your payment from Firstgate. Normally, this happens
instantly (real time). If you pay by bank transfer, your account will
be activated as soon as your payment is booked to our bank account and
recorded in our user administration system. You will receive an e-mail
from us containing your account data when your account is activated
and ready to use.

Please note:

* Due to administrative reasons, the 3 Months Subscription (5 EUR) is
not available when paying by bank transfer. For this payment option,
only the Annual Subscription (10 EUR) is available. If you prefer
the 3 Months Subscription, please choose payment through Firstgate
as your payment option.

* Processing times at the banks involved may take some days even
when sending money from German bank accounts; bank transfers from
foreign bank accounts may take significant more time. There is
nothing we can do to speed up this process, and we cannot track your
money for you. If in doubt, please ask the financial institution
through which you made your payment.

* The fact that the payment has left your bank account does not mean
that we have already received it.

* Handling payments made by bank transfer to our bank account
is no fully automated process, it contains steps that require human
attention. Of course, we try to activate your account as soon as
possible, but we ask for your understanding that the time required
may vary highly due to the afore mentioned reasons. If you need
instant activation, please choose payment through Firstgate as your
payment option.

* It is very likely that our banking account details (or banking
account details allegedly ours) will soon circulate the net without
our knowledge and approval. To protect you from fraud, and because we
generate individual notes to payee for bank transfers to ensure
correct payment allocation, we ask you to only use the bank transfer
information that you receive from us during our web registration
process.

Thank you very much for your interest, and we would be happy if you
decide to stay or become our user even if our service is not free of
charge anymore.

Best regards,
the NetNews Team of Freie Universitaet Berlin


--
Mike Buckley
RD350LC2
GSF600S
http://www.toastyhamster.org
BONY#38

 

TOG@toil composed the following;:

If you're interested in that sort of thing, yes.

Mostly computer literate usenet users, I'd guess ..

 

genuine_froggie composed the following;:

Yes. Maybe ... Who cares? I don't begrudge paying them for what I've
already had and intend to have in future.

Why not though? That's been a commercial model for ..ooooh .. just
about forever I guess ..

LOL, nice way to put it, but I disagree. The service they have provided
me, whilst free, has been way better than _any_ service [1] I've paid
for, and at this price is an absolute steal. It seems naive to think
that free service of this calibre could carry on indefinitely. Are you
sure you're not cutting your nose off to spite your face?

[1] Must admit to only ever having used three other news servers, all of
whom had substantially higher subscription rates, though all also
offered binaries ..

 

I'm not comfortable putting in my real details, it must be said. Is
there any way of avoiding it? All I want to do is pay by credit card.

 

Why?

 

Nope.

news.sunsite.dk

For the time being.

I bet they'll all start charging before long.
I also reckon RedKen has a hand in this! ;o)

 

I don't mind paying, either. Well, yes I do. I'd rather that society
functioned such that money (and the ills to which our species is
subject) would disappear, but then that's not going to happen. What
bugs me is that it was free for years, and now it's not. Why ?

It's the cynical way they've gone about it, that bugs me. Get as many
people hooked, and then start charging them.. cunts.`

 

Coz he's an Alien...
Pays with star trek credits, like! ;o)

 

Right, that makes sense.

 

I'm a tight git, and as I already pay for TW, I'll go back to them.
(Unless they turn out *totally* pants)