SkypeOut can eat money without warning

Steve Kennedy writes:-

Quote:

Skype are on to a money spinner here, if you buy SkypeOut - but do NOT use it they just cancel your credit.

From the SkypeOut webpage (which Steve considers most people won't read):-

"Your SkypeOut credits will remain active for 180 days after your last SkypeOut call"

Quote:

There's also no warning that it's about to expire, it just disappears from your options. Not really a good customer experience, and I hope they'll change their policy.

Doesn't sound pleasant to me either - I wonder how Skype will defend that position? Storing and accounting for data for extended periods of time isn't exactly "expensive". Nor is emailing a "warning" to say "....your funds are about to expire, if you want to preserve them, go make a call".

Can anyone think of a reason for this, other than the obvious financial one (from Skype's point of view)?

Dean

Reply from muppetmaster on Apr 19, 2005 - 11:40 AM

Most likely revenue recognition. You may only recognize the revenue if you have delivered the service. Therefore it is necessary to set an expirey in order to be able to ensure recognition at some date. More to guard against folks who sign up once, use it a few times and then forget about it.

Reply from dean on Apr 19, 2005 - 11:42 AM

Taking it without warning simply to factor into your accounts is a little unreasonable though, isn't it?

It's easy enough for Skype to send out an automated email, say 2 weeks before the due expiry date.

We do that here with user-reqeusted additional inbound PSTN numbers (the ones in the control panel).

If no calls are received on those within a period of 3-6 months, we send out an email to the user asking if they still want it. We don't simply reclaim it to the pool without warning.

Dean

Reply from muppetmaster on Apr 19, 2005 - 12:04 PM

dean :

Taking it without warning simply to factor into your accounts is a little unreasonable though, isn't it? It's easy enough for Skype to send out an automated email, say 2 weeks before the due expiry date. We do that here with user-reqeusted additional inbound PSTN numbers (the ones in the control panel). If no calls are received on those within a period of 3-6 months, we send out an email to the user asking if they still want it. We don't simply reclaim it to the pool without warning. Dean

I agree. Skype's track record in customer care is less than stellar.

Reply from dean on Apr 26, 2005 - 12:41 PM

James Enck has more to report on cases of dissappearing credit:-

Quote:

"A friend of mine had his SkypeOut account cleared out recently." I don't know if this is a case of some sort of outright hack, or merely an example of what Steve Kennedy has highlighted about SkypeOut dormancy policy. I suspect it's the latter, but I am trying to find out more background. UPDATE: My source reports that his friend's account was indeed compromised, and that calls were made to Australia.

So watch those passwords/pin numbers and change regularly.

It seems they're not all bad though (again, from James' blog):-

Quote:

First from a platinum value reader in Norway, a response he received to a problem with SkypeIn: "Hello, We are emailing you in regards to the Norwegian SkypeIn number that you recently purchased. As we explained yesterday due to technical reasons these numbers are currently out of service and will not work for incoming calls. Unfortunately we cannot guarantee when the numbers might become available again and therefore we have to reverse the purchase that you placed and cancel the number. We have refunded the entire purchase price to your credit card or Paypal/Moneybookers account.We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and as compensation for this we are adding 10EUR SkypeOut credit and 3 months of Voicemail to your account. We will also notify you via email as soon as we have Norwegian SkypeIn numbers available again so that you can place a new purchase. Regards, Skype Support"

Reply from joeturner on Apr 26, 2005 - 01:16 PM

I'm not sure there is a conspiracy going on really. I suspect the real reason is that there are costs involved in setting up each account, and if they don't get that back in calls, they need to take it back in credit. A pretty underhand way of behaving, admittedly, but presumably as telephony is moving fast, nobody knows what it will look like in six months time.

And the hacking isn't really news. The answer being never to put more money in any sip/voip/skype account than what you'd be prepared to lose. Presumably security is also a problem (anyone care to comment about this?) - I'm not sure I would give my credit card details over a sip phone or fax.

I guess the thing is that this is new technology so you'd expect there to be some teething problems.

Looking further ahead, I'd be interested in what everyone else thinks the future of voip/sip - and particularly skype - will be. Presumably the skype model only works if people are calling pstn numbers. So as the numbers of people with sip addresses or skype usernames increase, the amounts of capital raised should decrease. I guess they are banking on making a load of money first.

Similarly, sip providers will connect to another internet telephone for no cost - some even to pstn for no cost. I have heard the argument that free calls to pstns are just a marketing ploy, but surely the point is that in the end, it will be uneconomic to connect a sip-sip without cost.

How long have we got?

J

Reply from dean on Apr 26, 2005 - 01:35 PM

Thought provocing post Joe. Seemed to me to fit better on the Skype/SIP thread so I posted a response over there:-

http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_1252.html

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