I tried to convince my company to use Umbaco last year, so I went all out, learned it, converted our 120 page web site over to Umbraco. The site came out great! It took me 3 weeks of nights and weekends to learn Umbraco and implement everything cleanly, and although I'm a Win32 programmer from the early 90's, it was really easy to pick up. Umbraco's design actually hid away all the extraneous complexity I don't like about ASP.NET. It's got a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts thing going on. The Umbraco site would have revolutionized that ad agency's workflow and cut down the costs to 10%, literally!
Sadly, my company didn't except it, because their biggest client cancelled them altogether. They had been extremely wasteful without any computer science people involved at the top, and it was too late to do anything about it. And it's pharma, so the level of red tape was astounding. Without that client, I got laid off too, as did quite a few coworkers.
But here's my problem now. Umbraco.TV kept billing me in Euros for a year, through a paypal account I never even use, even though I have not visted or logged onto Umbraco.TV for that whole year. That ended up being 25 or 30 bucks a month due to the exchange rate. Paul Sterling (the name on the email, at least) refuses to refund me for a service I haven't even used. Why are they even billing for a month that you don't log on, anyhow? They KNOW this information, yet they still take your money? That's a form of theft. Had I actually USED the service, maybe they'd have a point.
Well, I'm out of work now, and my reserve account is depleted by Umraco and PayPal for something I never used. I tried my best to evangelize Umbraco, which was quite an effort. I missed sleep and absorbed all the expenses myself, and Umbraco still wants to keep my money simply because I forgot to opt out? Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, I was dead tired from fighting a losing battle, and upset for having lost something when I had a superior product. Had it worked, Umbraco would have picked up one of the biggest pharma companies in the world.
It's sad to hear that you got laid off and your efforts to get up to speed using Umbraco is wasted at first hand but I'm sure that these skills will at some point benefit you in the future when other companies need Umbraco work done.
About the Umbraco TV supscription...it's a service like pluralsight, peepcode, dating services, gridset etc. and I'm pretty sure these sites also keep billing your account every month even though you have or have not been logged in. It's a monthly supscription not a "pay-per-login" service. I don't think you can blame Umbraco for charging money for a service you have signed up for. It's your responsibility to opt out whenever you don't want to use the service anymore. I have not seen any service that works this way (Perhaps there is a potential in such a membership perhaps?). If I remember correctly you also agree to some terms where I'm sure all issues are covered.
However I do understand that you're unhappy about all that has happened in your work life and I believe that is the key to your frustrations. And I do also understand that you're feeling frustrated if it was actually the company you worked for that should have been billed for the Umbraco TV supscription.
Try to see if you can turn your this bad experience into something positive. I'm sure that you're a higly skilled developer that should be able to find a new job or do some interesting freelance work based on Umbraco in near future. I sense that many companies around the world are looking for highly skilled Umbraco developers for both short and long term work.
Just my 2 cents - I hope that everything works out for you :)
As I mentioned in my response to your email we are not set up for refunds for the subscription products and in lieu of that I had added a 1-year premium video subscription to your account. I understand you are in a tough spot financially – we feel bad for you, and everyone else in the same situation. That said, I’m not sure it’s fair to point to the recurring billing for the Umbraco TV subscription that you had signed up for as the cause of your less than ideal situation.
We try to be clear about the fact that this is a monthly subscription and allow you to cancel at any time. I think the terms you accepted here (http://umbraco.com/subscriptions/order.aspx) are quite clear. We don’t track when a site member logs in to our sites, so we really didn’t know you weren’t using the service.
Still, as you are in a unique situation and we are not in the habit of unfairly treating our community, I will work with our accounting folks to get you a payment equal the subscription fees you have paid in 2012. I’m sure, when the opportunity arises in the future you will give Umbraco another look. Can you respond on your original contact email thread with your contact and payment details?
Yeah, that's true Jan. I was sure disppointed but that was a year ago. The point being, not only did I have to spend my own time to evangelize Umbraco, but I had to pay umbraco.tv too. And not only did I pay them for one month like I had planned, but they just kept taking and taking from me, and would not give back my money, saying instead that it was my own mistake for giving it to them, as if that somehow means I deserve to be fleeced.
Now I just find it bothersome that someone or something has been depleting my paypal account unbeknownst to me, right when I finally need it. Just because I accidentally forgot to cancel a billing bot does not give someone the right to bill me a few hundred dollars--and keep it. The ability, yes, but not the moral right. So I have a hard time remembering sometimes. Does that mean I don't deserve to keep my money? I still worked hard for it. They did NOTHING for it. I used no services to burden umbraco.tv for this whole year, I have asked nothing of them, and I have passed on no costs to them. What moral claim do they have to my property? That I forgot to tell a computer to stop giving them my money is not moral claim, but a technicality. This is the point when human beings must intervene for the sake of reason and compassion, because computers cannot.
Paul, that's also true. It would be absurd to imply that your company is responsible for my situation. Your company is only responsible for accepting my money for a service I did not use for most of a year. That is a matter of record, if you have the wherewithall to track logins. It's certainly not a horrible thing that your company takes money that people give you. That is standard behavior. But your company is responsible for keeping my money, even after I told you that I did not need, want, or even use your service.
Your terms say this "We believe this is pretty fair and transparent, if you disagree, please get in touch so we can improve our conditions."
Well, I am in touch, and I disagree. Here's how you can improve: If a person doesn't even use your site for a year and then asks for their money back, give it to them, because you have taken their money without ever doing anything for them. That's what I would do if someone accidentally gave me too much money and asked for it back. That is also standard human behavior, in my experience.
Well, I am in touch, and I disagree. Here's how you can improve: If a person doesn't even use your site for a year and then asks for their money back, give it to them, because you have taken their money without ever doing anything for them.
Are you aware of the time (and thereby cost) put in to making the videos, coordinating, setting up the payment flow, pages etc.?
Excuse me, but this is beyond what one could expect. I would like to see you getting i.e. your fitness payments back after a whole year because you didn't go. (or anything similar).
Of course you should be able to get your fitness payments back if you didn't go for a year, too. Whoever uses something should pay for it. I won't argue further since it would just waste the company's time and they already agreed to refund my money. So thanks for that.
All I can say is wow.... I almost can't believe what I just read.
Todd, I bet if you call the cable company, you could get a refund for the days you were not home to watch TV. Hey maybe you can covince your lender to refund car payments on months you don't drive your car! What about that magazine subscription and the newspapers you let lay in the rain, should you get a refund because you did not read them?
Todd, your mentality is a microcosm of what is wrong with the world today. You earnestly feel that others are to blame for your actions and somehow owe you even though those parties have not only been, but have bent over backward to accomodate your asenine perspective. Grow up and take some respnsibility for your actions, as this nonsense is spreading like a disease and costing us all dearly.
"Dear Umbraco,
I attempted to have my employer adopt Umbraco CMS for our biggest client. In the process I made the mistake of paying for an Umbraco.tv account out of my own pocket instead of asking my employer to pay for it. Since that time (about 8 months) I have been layed off and as such have not used the umbraco.tv subscription for those 8 months. In fact, because I have been out of work and trying to find a job, I simply forgot that I signed up for a recurring monthly fee for umbraco.tv until I logged into paypal to scrape together some cash to pay my rent. Sadly, my previous employer has refused to reimburse me for the cost becuase I took it upon myself to sign up for the training. I do understand that I did agree to a monthly automatic charge for my subscription and that I did derive value during the months that I did use the service. I feel somewhat ashamed for asking, but Iam in a dire financial situation and am kindly asking that in light of my circumstances, that you find it in your hearts to credit me for the months I did not use the service. I fully understand that you are under no obligation to do so and that I am responsible for the full cost of the subscription. Thank you for taking the time to consider my awkward request.
Actually you're precisely wrong. The reason the world economy is collapsing is that people are being forced to pay for things they do not use, put into debt for it, and then also forced to pay interest on that debt. (It's mathematically infeasable too, and will collapse very soon, most likely into world war.) The profit mechanism has been destroyed as an indicator of economic value. People have elected to move their decision-making power and monetary policy to centralized planners. In order for an economy to functionn efficiently, choices must be distributed evenly to the people (the leaf nodes) in order for spending choices to corrrelate 1:1 with each perrson's knowlege and demand.
Your car/lender analogy is not valid because ownership of the car has continuous devaluation. Even if one does not drive a car, the machine is wearing down, oxidating, baking in the sun, the battery cells drain, the tires become stiff, the freon leaks. Regardless of whether one drives it or not, it's always losing value. Furthermore, your analogy is wrong because the loan itself is a completely separate service which is priced according to time and interest rates. There is no link to the car.
Cable TV, which you also mentioned, is also an obsolete paradigm that is indicative of the problem as well. TV shows that one might want to watch come on at a certain time, and the viewer must match that arbitrary schedule. DVR is a silly solution that requires everyone to have their own storage space on a hard drive one must rent from the cable company! That's an inefficient and inelegant solution. This Umbraco.TV model is actually better for the consumer. It's not as profitable, and not as abusive to its customers--not abuseive at all I have learned. When Umbraco.TV earns money, it deserves that money. That denotes a purposeful transfer of funds, savings that represent work I have done in the past, to Umbraco.TV, so they can pay people, expand, and hopefully make a profit.
The thing that prevents Umbraco or any company from making a profit is that most the money in the world is being allocated by governments according to the whims of special interests. That goes to government debt which banks are purchasing in the form of treasury bonds, which starves businesses of capital. Small businesses which are most likely to enerate economic production are being regulated, paying highly for that unwanted regulation, and squeezed out of existence by huge corporations which have enough power to generate such regulations. Short term that's good for the big banks and corporations. They even get bailed out long after they should have failed. But long term, it's bad, and like I had said, we are headed to collapse and war in the near future.
The analogy was valid in the context it was used. ANY analogy can be destoyed by the application of the literal differences between it and the reality it is applied against. The point was that YOU SUBSCRIBED to a service and the TERMS of that service were a monthly recurring contract that was not contingent upon your login status. In that context, you are asserting that not only are you owed a refund (due in whole to your own stupidity), but that Umbraco is negligent because they did not have the insight to prevent you from being an idiot.
If you rent a movie and don't watch it are you due a refund? If you go to a movie theater and fall asleep during the movie, are you entitled to a refund? You already insist that if you sign up for a monthly fitness club membership that you are entitled to a refund for the days or months that you choose not to use it.
Nobody has done you wrong, lied to you, deceived you, baited you, extorted you or otherwise tricked you. To argue that anybody else is to blame for the situation or owes you a refund or some other compensation is asenine, if not in fact outright sad.
If you rent a movie, you have to pay because you physically have held some DVD for a span of time which incurs opportunity costs for the owner of that DVD.
If you go to a theater and fall asleep, that's the same deal. You have occupied a seat. If the theater is empty, which is too common these days, then talk to the manager, and he might give you a free ticket. They want to keep you happy, so you buy more tickets and popcorn.
Once again, I never said Umbraco deeceeived me. I said that paypal's automatic billing system was a mismatch for my scenario. Maybe I did cancel it or tried to cancel it at some point last year. Going on 3 or 4 hours of sleep for a few weeks, it's hard to remember. I just know that I WANTED to cancel it, I fully intended to, and I did not want to pay several hundred dollars for a few days of service usage.
We are human beings, not machines. A law that is absolute cannot also be just. Sometimes cases need direct attention. A company that charges people money for services that have gone unused is on shaky ground with the FTC. A few complaints will trigger an investigation, and possibly regulatory action which will be very expensive. I have complained to have adware companies shut down. They, too, have legal agreements that people accept, but that doesn't make them legit. They still get shut down even when they require "users" to agree to their terms. So the law is not as simple nor absolute as you seem to think.
Todd, in your opening stanza you claim it is a form of theft. Ridiculous! They've agreed to pay the money back - maybe you should say Thanks and leave it at that (and learn to take some responsability for your actions.) And good luck taking a case to the FTC against an open source product company based in Europe
My analogies are just fine, it is your defect in reasoning and logic that is causing you to not understand their relevance. You are caught up in the physical consumption of space or material, something not relevant to the analogy. You agreed to the terms of a service and want a regfun because you did not leverage the service to your advantage. No more, no less.
Regarding "paypal". If you DID cancel according to the terms and the service was still billed after the cancellation, then of course you are owed money. That is NOT what ANY of your posts portrayed and was not your argument. If you WANTED to cancel the service but did not take the responsibility to do so, then you are 100% at fault. It is not the prerogative of the vendor to read your mind.
Yes Todd, sometimes cases need direct attention. The problem here is that you have no case and your request (and followup logic) shows your utter disregard for personal responsibility.The provider is in no way obligated to offer you a refund for services you agreed to pay for but opted not to use. The fact that they gave you a refund only indicates their kindness and in no way validates your position.
The fact that you would infer that the agreemnt was on shaky ground or that somehow the FTC would agree illustrates how literaly devoid of reason (or understanding of the law) you are.
Lastly and with regard to invalid analogies. There is no parallel betweem your situation with umbraco.tv and "malware". You netered into a clearly defined agreement with a reputable company that honored their end of the agreement by offering you acces to their content in return for a monthly fee. The malware provider uses deception and other illegal tactics to knowingly cause harm or financial loss.
I am honestly not sure what else to say other than to quote Billy Madison:
Todd, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
Get your facts straight and pay special attention to the order in which thing happen. I have said thanks to Paul a couple of times already. In his original customer support message he flat out refused to refund my money. Only when I complained publicly did he offer to refund me partially (for this year only).
Everything I have said is correct, so if you disagree, then instead of quoting an Adam Sandler movie (wow--strong moral fiber there), you should give me a direct example of something I've written and explain exactly how it's wrong. You won't be able to do that because I never write anything until I'm certain it's correct.
You're wrong about another thing, William. I did not say anything about malware. The word I used is "adware." There was nothing malicious about the one I'm talking about. It only did things stated in the agreement. According to your theory, an agreement makes everything perfectly legal. That's totally wrong. When the FTC gets several complaints, it "investigates" a situation. In the process, the FBI raids the business location and all of the owners within US jurisdiction at the same moment, which is usually very early in the morning, to confiscate all PCs and cell phones. They keep them for over a year, and when you finally get them back, they're broken. Since legal defense is too expensive, and all their assets are confiscated, these companies end up dissolving. I don't think it's because the government likes to be nice to consumers. It's because big corporations make the laws and they lobby our government to be able to destroy small companies that might otherwise become competitive against them.
Nobody has distorted any facts or the "order" in which they were presented. You said "thank you" but have continued to push the notion that umbraco.tv was in the wrong and owed you money.
Your refund was clearly a token of sympathy and not an attempt to correct a wrong or avoid trouble. To that end, I would imagine that at this point Paul fully regrets doing you the favor, as you clearly don't understand the context that it was done in and are still asserting and infering that you were wronged and owed the refund. If it was not so sadly pathetic, it would be funny.
I quoted the Adam Sandler movie in attempt to take the edge off of directly calling you an absolute blithering idiot in a public forum. So much for beating around the bush. Todd, you are a bona fide blithering idiot and this entire thread is irrefutable proof.
If some of you are right and I am an idiot, stupid, and all the other names a couple people in this community have so gratiously called me, then you should ask yourselves whether it's ethical to continually bill a mentally disadvantaged person for a whole year. Are they so desperate they need retarded people like me to fund this company? I sure hope not.
By the way, William, the "bonafied" (sic) is not a word meaning "to make boned" as you seem to think. It's Latin bona fide, two words meaning good faith. (This blithering has 4 years of Latin under his belt.)
Your entire premise is pathetic, umbraco would have no way of knowing your mental state. Your request for a refund was (is) framed (and clearly articulated) upon the fact that you were wronged by umbraco.tv becaue YOU did not consume services you paid a subscription for. You clearly stated that a refund was owed, even if you only intended to cancel but failed to follow through. Sadly, if you were to go to a court and fake mental retardation and diminished metnal capacity, you may in fact be awarded your refund in a case like this. The act would only further illustrate your pathetic behavior and ignorance.
Bona Fida:
Yes, In my haste to call you an idiot, I neglected to check spelling. Happily the meaning was still conveyed. Sadly, those (4) years of Latin do not appear to have helped your ability to reason, argue, or accept personal responsibility. Good luck Todd :)
Is this really "our" Umbraco?
I tried to convince my company to use Umbaco last year, so I went all out, learned it, converted our 120 page web site over to Umbraco. The site came out great! It took me 3 weeks of nights and weekends to learn Umbraco and implement everything cleanly, and although I'm a Win32 programmer from the early 90's, it was really easy to pick up. Umbraco's design actually hid away all the extraneous complexity I don't like about ASP.NET. It's got a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts thing going on. The Umbraco site would have revolutionized that ad agency's workflow and cut down the costs to 10%, literally!
Sadly, my company didn't except it, because their biggest client cancelled them altogether. They had been extremely wasteful without any computer science people involved at the top, and it was too late to do anything about it. And it's pharma, so the level of red tape was astounding. Without that client, I got laid off too, as did quite a few coworkers.
But here's my problem now. Umbraco.TV kept billing me in Euros for a year, through a paypal account I never even use, even though I have not visted or logged onto Umbraco.TV for that whole year. That ended up being 25 or 30 bucks a month due to the exchange rate. Paul Sterling (the name on the email, at least) refuses to refund me for a service I haven't even used. Why are they even billing for a month that you don't log on, anyhow? They KNOW this information, yet they still take your money? That's a form of theft. Had I actually USED the service, maybe they'd have a point.
Well, I'm out of work now, and my reserve account is depleted by Umraco and PayPal for something I never used. I tried my best to evangelize Umbraco, which was quite an effort. I missed sleep and absorbed all the expenses myself, and Umbraco still wants to keep my money simply because I forgot to opt out? Talk about adding insult to injury. Well, I was dead tired from fighting a losing battle, and upset for having lost something when I had a superior product. Had it worked, Umbraco would have picked up one of the biggest pharma companies in the world.
Hi Todd
It's sad to hear that you got laid off and your efforts to get up to speed using Umbraco is wasted at first hand but I'm sure that these skills will at some point benefit you in the future when other companies need Umbraco work done.
About the Umbraco TV supscription...it's a service like pluralsight, peepcode, dating services, gridset etc. and I'm pretty sure these sites also keep billing your account every month even though you have or have not been logged in. It's a monthly supscription not a "pay-per-login" service. I don't think you can blame Umbraco for charging money for a service you have signed up for. It's your responsibility to opt out whenever you don't want to use the service anymore. I have not seen any service that works this way (Perhaps there is a potential in such a membership perhaps?). If I remember correctly you also agree to some terms where I'm sure all issues are covered.
However I do understand that you're unhappy about all that has happened in your work life and I believe that is the key to your frustrations. And I do also understand that you're feeling frustrated if it was actually the company you worked for that should have been billed for the Umbraco TV supscription.
Try to see if you can turn your this bad experience into something positive. I'm sure that you're a higly skilled developer that should be able to find a new job or do some interesting freelance work based on Umbraco in near future. I sense that many companies around the world are looking for highly skilled Umbraco developers for both short and long term work.
Just my 2 cents - I hope that everything works out for you :)
Cheers,
Jan
Hi Todd –
As I mentioned in my response to your email we are not set up for refunds for the subscription products and in lieu of that I had added a 1-year premium video subscription to your account. I understand you are in a tough spot financially – we feel bad for you, and everyone else in the same situation. That said, I’m not sure it’s fair to point to the recurring billing for the Umbraco TV subscription that you had signed up for as the cause of your less than ideal situation.
We try to be clear about the fact that this is a monthly subscription and allow you to cancel at any time. I think the terms you accepted here (http://umbraco.com/subscriptions/order.aspx) are quite clear. We don’t track when a site member logs in to our sites, so we really didn’t know you weren’t using the service.
Still, as you are in a unique situation and we are not in the habit of unfairly treating our community, I will work with our accounting folks to get you a payment equal the subscription fees you have paid in 2012. I’m sure, when the opportunity arises in the future you will give Umbraco another look. Can you respond on your original contact email thread with your contact and payment details?
Best,
-Paul
Yeah, that's true Jan. I was sure disppointed but that was a year ago. The point being, not only did I have to spend my own time to evangelize Umbraco, but I had to pay umbraco.tv too. And not only did I pay them for one month like I had planned, but they just kept taking and taking from me, and would not give back my money, saying instead that it was my own mistake for giving it to them, as if that somehow means I deserve to be fleeced.
Now I just find it bothersome that someone or something has been depleting my paypal account unbeknownst to me, right when I finally need it. Just because I accidentally forgot to cancel a billing bot does not give someone the right to bill me a few hundred dollars--and keep it. The ability, yes, but not the moral right. So I have a hard time remembering sometimes. Does that mean I don't deserve to keep my money? I still worked hard for it. They did NOTHING for it. I used no services to burden umbraco.tv for this whole year, I have asked nothing of them, and I have passed on no costs to them. What moral claim do they have to my property? That I forgot to tell a computer to stop giving them my money is not moral claim, but a technicality. This is the point when human beings must intervene for the sake of reason and compassion, because computers cannot.
Paul, that's also true. It would be absurd to imply that your company is responsible for my situation. Your company is only responsible for accepting my money for a service I did not use for most of a year. That is a matter of record, if you have the wherewithall to track logins. It's certainly not a horrible thing that your company takes money that people give you. That is standard behavior. But your company is responsible for keeping my money, even after I told you that I did not need, want, or even use your service.
Your terms say this "We believe this is pretty fair and transparent, if you disagree, please get in touch so we can improve our conditions."
Well, I am in touch, and I disagree. Here's how you can improve: If a person doesn't even use your site for a year and then asks for their money back, give it to them, because you have taken their money without ever doing anything for them. That's what I would do if someone accidentally gave me too much money and asked for it back. That is also standard human behavior, in my experience.
Are you aware of the time (and thereby cost) put in to making the videos, coordinating, setting up the payment flow, pages etc.?
Excuse me, but this is beyond what one could expect. I would like to see you getting i.e. your fitness payments back after a whole year because you didn't go. (or anything similar).
Hats off to Paul for agreeing to this nonesense.
Of course you should be able to get your fitness payments back if you didn't go for a year, too. Whoever uses something should pay for it. I won't argue further since it would just waste the company's time and they already agreed to refund my money. So thanks for that.
All I can say is wow.... I almost can't believe what I just read.
Todd, I bet if you call the cable company, you could get a refund for the days you were not home to watch TV. Hey maybe you can covince your lender to refund car payments on months you don't drive your car! What about that magazine subscription and the newspapers you let lay in the rain, should you get a refund because you did not read them?
Todd, your mentality is a microcosm of what is wrong with the world today. You earnestly feel that others are to blame for your actions and somehow owe you even though those parties have not only been, but have bent over backward to accomodate your asenine perspective. Grow up and take some respnsibility for your actions, as this nonsense is spreading like a disease and costing us all dearly.
"Dear Umbraco,
I attempted to have my employer adopt Umbraco CMS for our biggest client. In the process I made the mistake of paying for an Umbraco.tv account out of my own pocket instead of asking my employer to pay for it. Since that time (about 8 months) I have been layed off and as such have not used the umbraco.tv subscription for those 8 months. In fact, because I have been out of work and trying to find a job, I simply forgot that I signed up for a recurring monthly fee for umbraco.tv until I logged into paypal to scrape together some cash to pay my rent. Sadly, my previous employer has refused to reimburse me for the cost becuase I took it upon myself to sign up for the training. I do understand that I did agree to a monthly automatic charge for my subscription and that I did derive value during the months that I did use the service. I feel somewhat ashamed for asking, but Iam in a dire financial situation and am kindly asking that in light of my circumstances, that you find it in your hearts to credit me for the months I did not use the service. I fully understand that you are under no obligation to do so and that I am responsible for the full cost of the subscription. Thank you for taking the time to consider my awkward request.
Thank You,
Todd"
Actually you're precisely wrong. The reason the world economy is collapsing is that people are being forced to pay for things they do not use, put into debt for it, and then also forced to pay interest on that debt. (It's mathematically infeasable too, and will collapse very soon, most likely into world war.) The profit mechanism has been destroyed as an indicator of economic value. People have elected to move their decision-making power and monetary policy to centralized planners. In order for an economy to functionn efficiently, choices must be distributed evenly to the people (the leaf nodes) in order for spending choices to corrrelate 1:1 with each perrson's knowlege and demand.
Your car/lender analogy is not valid because ownership of the car has continuous devaluation. Even if one does not drive a car, the machine is wearing down, oxidating, baking in the sun, the battery cells drain, the tires become stiff, the freon leaks. Regardless of whether one drives it or not, it's always losing value. Furthermore, your analogy is wrong because the loan itself is a completely separate service which is priced according to time and interest rates. There is no link to the car.
Cable TV, which you also mentioned, is also an obsolete paradigm that is indicative of the problem as well. TV shows that one might want to watch come on at a certain time, and the viewer must match that arbitrary schedule. DVR is a silly solution that requires everyone to have their own storage space on a hard drive one must rent from the cable company! That's an inefficient and inelegant solution. This Umbraco.TV model is actually better for the consumer. It's not as profitable, and not as abusive to its customers--not abuseive at all I have learned. When Umbraco.TV earns money, it deserves that money. That denotes a purposeful transfer of funds, savings that represent work I have done in the past, to Umbraco.TV, so they can pay people, expand, and hopefully make a profit.
The thing that prevents Umbraco or any company from making a profit is that most the money in the world is being allocated by governments according to the whims of special interests. That goes to government debt which banks are purchasing in the form of treasury bonds, which starves businesses of capital. Small businesses which are most likely to enerate economic production are being regulated, paying highly for that unwanted regulation, and squeezed out of existence by huge corporations which have enough power to generate such regulations. Short term that's good for the big banks and corporations. They even get bailed out long after they should have failed. But long term, it's bad, and like I had said, we are headed to collapse and war in the near future.
Todd,
The analogy was valid in the context it was used. ANY analogy can be destoyed by the application of the literal differences between it and the reality it is applied against. The point was that YOU SUBSCRIBED to a service and the TERMS of that service were a monthly recurring contract that was not contingent upon your login status. In that context, you are asserting that not only are you owed a refund (due in whole to your own stupidity), but that Umbraco is negligent because they did not have the insight to prevent you from being an idiot.
If you rent a movie and don't watch it are you due a refund? If you go to a movie theater and fall asleep during the movie, are you entitled to a refund? You already insist that if you sign up for a monthly fitness club membership that you are entitled to a refund for the days or months that you choose not to use it.
Nobody has done you wrong, lied to you, deceived you, baited you, extorted you or otherwise tricked you. To argue that anybody else is to blame for the situation or owes you a refund or some other compensation is asenine, if not in fact outright sad.
Your analogies are terrible Williamm.
If you rent a movie, you have to pay because you physically have held some DVD for a span of time which incurs opportunity costs for the owner of that DVD.
If you go to a theater and fall asleep, that's the same deal. You have occupied a seat. If the theater is empty, which is too common these days, then talk to the manager, and he might give you a free ticket. They want to keep you happy, so you buy more tickets and popcorn.
Once again, I never said Umbraco deeceeived me. I said that paypal's automatic billing system was a mismatch for my scenario. Maybe I did cancel it or tried to cancel it at some point last year. Going on 3 or 4 hours of sleep for a few weeks, it's hard to remember. I just know that I WANTED to cancel it, I fully intended to, and I did not want to pay several hundred dollars for a few days of service usage.
We are human beings, not machines. A law that is absolute cannot also be just. Sometimes cases need direct attention. A company that charges people money for services that have gone unused is on shaky ground with the FTC. A few complaints will trigger an investigation, and possibly regulatory action which will be very expensive. I have complained to have adware companies shut down. They, too, have legal agreements that people accept, but that doesn't make them legit. They still get shut down even when they require "users" to agree to their terms. So the law is not as simple nor absolute as you seem to think.
Todd, in your opening stanza you claim it is a form of theft. Ridiculous! They've agreed to pay the money back - maybe you should say Thanks and leave it at that (and learn to take some responsability for your actions.) And good luck taking a case to the FTC against an open source product company based in Europe
My analogies are just fine, it is your defect in reasoning and logic that is causing you to not understand their relevance. You are caught up in the physical consumption of space or material, something not relevant to the analogy. You agreed to the terms of a service and want a regfun because you did not leverage the service to your advantage. No more, no less.
Regarding "paypal". If you DID cancel according to the terms and the service was still billed after the cancellation, then of course you are owed money. That is NOT what ANY of your posts portrayed and was not your argument. If you WANTED to cancel the service but did not take the responsibility to do so, then you are 100% at fault. It is not the prerogative of the vendor to read your mind.
Yes Todd, sometimes cases need direct attention. The problem here is that you have no case and your request (and followup logic) shows your utter disregard for personal responsibility.The provider is in no way obligated to offer you a refund for services you agreed to pay for but opted not to use. The fact that they gave you a refund only indicates their kindness and in no way validates your position.
The fact that you would infer that the agreemnt was on shaky ground or that somehow the FTC would agree illustrates how literaly devoid of reason (or understanding of the law) you are.
Lastly and with regard to invalid analogies. There is no parallel betweem your situation with umbraco.tv and "malware". You netered into a clearly defined agreement with a reputable company that honored their end of the agreement by offering you acces to their content in return for a monthly fee. The malware provider uses deception and other illegal tactics to knowingly cause harm or financial loss.
I am honestly not sure what else to say other than to quote Billy Madison:
Todd, what you have just said, is the most insanely idiotic thing I have ever heard. At no point, in your rambling incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.Get your facts straight and pay special attention to the order in which thing happen. I have said thanks to Paul a couple of times already. In his original customer support message he flat out refused to refund my money. Only when I complained publicly did he offer to refund me partially (for this year only).
Everything I have said is correct, so if you disagree, then instead of quoting an Adam Sandler movie (wow--strong moral fiber there), you should give me a direct example of something I've written and explain exactly how it's wrong. You won't be able to do that because I never write anything until I'm certain it's correct.
You're wrong about another thing, William. I did not say anything about malware. The word I used is "adware." There was nothing malicious about the one I'm talking about. It only did things stated in the agreement. According to your theory, an agreement makes everything perfectly legal. That's totally wrong. When the FTC gets several complaints, it "investigates" a situation. In the process, the FBI raids the business location and all of the owners within US jurisdiction at the same moment, which is usually very early in the morning, to confiscate all PCs and cell phones. They keep them for over a year, and when you finally get them back, they're broken. Since legal defense is too expensive, and all their assets are confiscated, these companies end up dissolving. I don't think it's because the government likes to be nice to consumers. It's because big corporations make the laws and they lobby our government to be able to destroy small companies that might otherwise become competitive against them.
Todd,
Nobody has distorted any facts or the "order" in which they were presented. You said "thank you" but have continued to push the notion that umbraco.tv was in the wrong and owed you money.
Your refund was clearly a token of sympathy and not an attempt to correct a wrong or avoid trouble. To that end, I would imagine that at this point Paul fully regrets doing you the favor, as you clearly don't understand the context that it was done in and are still asserting and infering that you were wronged and owed the refund. If it was not so sadly pathetic, it would be funny.
I quoted the Adam Sandler movie in attempt to take the edge off of directly calling you an absolute blithering idiot in a public forum. So much for beating around the bush. Todd, you are a bona fide blithering idiot and this entire thread is irrefutable proof.
If some of you are right and I am an idiot, stupid, and all the other names a couple people in this community have so gratiously called me, then you should ask yourselves whether it's ethical to continually bill a mentally disadvantaged person for a whole year. Are they so desperate they need retarded people like me to fund this company? I sure hope not.
By the way, William, the "bonafied" (sic) is not a word meaning "to make boned" as you seem to think. It's Latin bona fide, two words meaning good faith. (This blithering has 4 years of Latin under his belt.)
Paul,
Your entire premise is pathetic, umbraco would have no way of knowing your mental state. Your request for a refund was (is) framed (and clearly articulated) upon the fact that you were wronged by umbraco.tv becaue YOU did not consume services you paid a subscription for. You clearly stated that a refund was owed, even if you only intended to cancel but failed to follow through. Sadly, if you were to go to a court and fake mental retardation and diminished metnal capacity, you may in fact be awarded your refund in a case like this. The act would only further illustrate your pathetic behavior and ignorance.
Bona Fida:
Yes, In my haste to call you an idiot, I neglected to check spelling. Happily the meaning was still conveyed. Sadly, those (4) years of Latin do not appear to have helped your ability to reason, argue, or accept personal responsibility. Good luck Todd :)
Hey guys, I am going to stop this thread right here as it is going downhill fast and it certainly isn't what Our Umbraco should be used for.
As it stands, we're still offering Todd the money back for 2012 and it's being dealt with privately, through the support ticket he has sent in.
Please stop the discussion here as it is not constructive and does not help anybody at this point.
Thanks.
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