Davey Winder
Tuesday, 22 July 2008 18:34
Your IT -
Mobility
Page 2 of 4
All of which is very nice to know, considering that early
adopters had stumped up USD $99 (AUD $101) for the privelege of not
being able to login, sync devices properly and having to wait a virtual
eternity for their emails, contacts and calendaring data.
Aha, says Apple, we have a fix for that. And so
it was that the email offered those users a free 30-day extension to
the service. yes, one month free to make up for the first week of end
user mayhem. So far so bad, but it was soon to get much, much worse for
Apple.
Next on the long list of cock-ups comes the strange but true question
of when does a free trial cost UKP £121 (AUD $248)? The answer being
when you happen to be an unlucky European user of the scheme who has
signed up not with a credit card but a bank debit card instead.
Reports started arriving online of Brits who had used a debit card to
provide the financial proof that they had an ability to pay for the
service, which Apple required before it would let them trial it for 60
days free, seeing money being removed from their bank accounts. A lot
of money as it happens.
The problem seems to have come about as credit card users go through a
pre-authorisation process which ensures that the account is in credit,
but debit cards have to take real money from the bank instead.
Unfortunately the amounts taken bore no resemblance to the actual
yearly subscription charge. So, no surprise that the very people Apple
was trying to tempt into becoming new users of the service were
actually feeling somewhat negative, to say the least, about their
treatment.
I smell another apology and some more free time coming from the direction of Apple. Read on for details...
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