Re: [bitfolk] Some payment tweaks

At my last host, I also paid yearly, and I got reminder emails 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 week and 1 day before my plan was going to expire. I got zero days grace period; if I didn't pay, my account and all associated services were suspended. Frankly, that's fine with me - if I haven't paid for a service, I wouldn't expect to be able to use it. However, I think the regular reminder emails are key to this working efficiently. As soon as my account was disabled, I received an email telling me so, with another reminder to pay. This email was also sent to an alternative email address, as I suspect a lot of people hosting web services on their VPSes would also be hosting their own email and possibly DNS. I think you should advertise zero days grace, but then if you're feeling nice you can give some. This could be arranged on a case by case basis. Just my opinion. But in my experience, tough love really does work - there's nothing like an offline website/email domain to get the cash (or at the very least, communications) flowing!! Paul -----Original Message----- From: users-bounces+bitfolk=pjlewis.org(a)lists.bitfolk.com [mailto:users-bounces+bitfolk=pjlewis.org@lists.bitfolk.com] On Behalf Of Andy Smith Sent: 10 May 2009 16:30 To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com Subject: [bitfolk] Some payment tweaks Hi, A couple of things: 1) Those within ranting distance at the time may recall that I became a bit annoyed with Google back in March, as they have now hiked their Google Checkout transaction fees up some 250% to bring them in line with those of PayPal. It used to be that I encouraged people to pick Google Checkout over PayPal, but now that doesn't make sense as they cost BitFolk exactly the same. Also BitFolk is on the edge of qualifying for lower transaction fees with PayPal; this is based on gross sales put through, so it now makes even less sense to encourage use of Google Checkout. So, if you are flexible about how you pay, BitFolk's preferences are (in order): - Bank transfer or standing order (Faster Payments now in operation) - PayPal - Google Checkout - Cheque in the post (only for those paying quarterly or yearly) But please do pay by whichever means is best for you. 2) I'm considering doing direct debit via a third party. If you have a strong opinion either way about paying that way, would you mind letting me know? 3) Finally, the level of late payments has become quite high and it feels like the 30 days grace period extended beyond due date is being abused. I would rather not punish those who pay on time by raising prices to cover the hassle, so it is very likely that in the coming months we will instead be offering 7 days of credit and sticking firmly to it. Cheers, Andy -- http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB