VYKE Hikes its Txt Prices by 300%

Doodle2k

Having used the service successfully for a couple of weeks I thought it was excellent really cheap and reliable. However today I noticed that the current cost of sending a SMS Txt Message has increased massively from 1.1p to 3.2p basically a near 3 Fold increase and it was without any form of warning either.:mad: No email stating the change, nothing so much as a Txt message. This increase now makes the service much less competitive for domestic Txt messages; T-mobiles Txt appeal is now cheaper! Although Vyke is still pretty cheap for international SMS messages.

The ironic thing here is that VYKE has launched a new application Called "FreeTxt" the first line reads on the website reads “SMS shouldn't be expensive, it should be FREE!” I thought that constitutes something of a joke really after increasing the cost of sending SMS messages by nearly 300% without any warning at all. I have emailed Vyke for an explaination of the sudden price increases and will post it when I receive clarification. A heads up for all you Vyke users out there.

Aaron_Powers

Doodle2k,

Thank you for your post and I am sorry that you have had a bad experience.

There are two issues I would like to address based on your post.

1. Lack of notification of a price change: Unfortunately, this was due to a technical error that took a few days to correct. You should have received by now an email from Vyke telling you about the new service, FreeTxT, as well as our new rates page where the new rates are detailed. We had scheduled the update of SMS prices to coincide with the release of the new FreeTxT service. When FreeTxT was released on the Vyke Labs page, there was some instability in one of the supporting platforms and the technical team elected to hold the notification email until the instability was fixed so as to avoid sending many users into the new service. Unfortunately, when this occurred, the new SMS rates were not changed back – I am sorry, this was an error.

2. The fact that Vyke’s SMS prices increased by 2 pence: As part of the launch of FreeTxT, we decided to prioritize FreeTxT’s free message sending functionality. We feel that FreeTxT’s ease of use and its ability to maximize the number of free text messages between Vyke users are big steps ahead of its predecessor, Vyke Pro. Our goal is to have as many of your friends using FreeTxT as possible, meaning that your average per-message cost would be well below the 3.2p charged per message to a non-Vyke user. While T-Mobile’s Txt Appeal program is competitive, it does not allow you to send free text messages. As you also touch upon, Vyke still charges the same 3.2p to send a txt message to anywhere in the world, not only in the UK. Txt Appeal charges 20p for the same service. Are you going away this summer? I suggest you check how much it costs to you to send SMS while roaming internationally (40p is a typical price) – where FreeTxT is still 3.2p. Finally, if you and a friend living oversees are both using FreeTxT, the peer to peer messages are still free, regardless of that person’s location.

Once again, I apologize for the hiccup with the email notification and with explaining our new rates better. If you like, please let our support team know that you and I have communicated and to refer the support case directly to me – I will add credit to your account to compensate you for any difference in SMS rates for the last week.

I do however hope that you recognize that FreeTxT provides a great service at very competitive rates. Additionally, once you get it installed, it really could not be easier to use.

Sincerely,

Aaron Powers
Head of Business Development
Vyke Communications plc

For those of you not familiar with Vyke’s FreeTxT, please visit www.vyke.com and navigate to the “Labs” page. This software / service for Symbian-based mobile phones provides you with a phenomenally easy way to save money on text messaging.