Can a company degrade a service I paid for in advance without offering a pro-rata refund?

powerful_Rogue

olliebean said:

tightauldgit said:

I may be missing something obvious but you appear to be complaining that you signed up for a 12 month contract which now has 9 months to run and the service provider is telling you that the terms will change in 12 months time (3 months after your contract finishes)? 

What exactly are you asking for a refund FOR?

The service is changing soon (they haven't said exactly when yet), and will no longer offer the main feature that I use it for. I would like a refund for the 9-ish months of not being able to use the service in the way I want to, and have always previously been able to. Surely there must be something in consumer law about the right to a pro-rata refund if a company degrades a service after it has been paid for in advance?

So you don't know if it's actually happening or whether you was misinformed. If it is happening you don't know from when.

Why not get back in touch and try and clarify things?

km1500

tightauldgit said:

I may be missing something obvious but you appear to be complaining that you signed up for a 12 month contract which now has 9 months to run and the service provider is telling you that the terms will change in 12 months time (3 months after your contract finishes)? 

What exactly are you asking for a refund FOR?

the OP is saying the mail forwarding will be cancelled before the 9 months are up ie part way through the contract.

They are saying they would not have renewed had they known.

olliebean

powerful_Rogue said:

olliebean said:

tightauldgit said:

I may be missing something obvious but you appear to be complaining that you signed up for a 12 month contract which now has 9 months to run and the service provider is telling you that the terms will change in 12 months time (3 months after your contract finishes)? 

What exactly are you asking for a refund FOR?

The service is changing soon (they haven't said exactly when yet), and will no longer offer the main feature that I use it for. I would like a refund for the 9-ish months of not being able to use the service in the way I want to, and have always previously been able to. Surely there must be something in consumer law about the right to a pro-rata refund if a company degrades a service after it has been paid for in advance?

So you don't know if it's actually happening or whether you was misinformed. If it is happening you don't know from when.

Why not get back in touch and try and clarify things?

I have a support ticket in for precisely that purpose.

sheramber

km1500 said:

tightauldgit said:

I may be missing something obvious but you appear to be complaining that you signed up for a 12 month contract which now has 9 months to run and the service provider is telling you that the terms will change in 12 months time (3 months after your contract finishes)? 

What exactly are you asking for a refund FOR?

the OP is saying the mail forwarding will be cancelled before the 9 months are up ie part way through the contract.

They are saying they would not have renewed had they known.

He doesn't know when it is being cancelled

 (they haven't said exactly when yet), 

So, it may or may not be cancelled before his subscription is up.

born_again

The mailbox will be provided free for the first 12 months, but since a feature I regard as essential is being removed, I consider this a degradation of the service to the extent that I will have to switch my domains to a different registrar very soon

So you get it free for 12 months. After that you have to pay for it.
So switch before you have to start paying.
It really is not a degradation of service.
They are giving you a 12 month FREE trial, after which you have to pay. 

It maybe a lot of people are doing what you are, & it is costing them a lot of money to now provide the service. So they are moving to charge people for the service.

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:

The mailbox will be provided free for the first 12 months, but since a feature I regard as essential is being removed, I consider this a degradation of the service to the extent that I will have to switch my domains to a different registrar very soon

So you get it free for 12 months. After that you have to pay for it.
So switch before you have to start paying.
It really is not a degradation of service.
They are giving you a 12 month FREE trial, after which you have to pay. 

It maybe a lot of people are doing what you are, & it is costing them a lot of money to now provide the service. So they are moving to charge people for the service.

The issue will be that you buy and pay for a domain and get a free ancillary service. That ancillary service is changing and so the OP wants to end the full contract inc the bit they paid for and get a proportional refund.

There are workarounds, the ancillary service could be replaced by another free service from a third party but the OP doesnt want to do that 

olliebean

born_again said:

The mailbox will be provided free for the first 12 months, but since a feature I regard as essential is being removed, I consider this a degradation of the service to the extent that I will have to switch my domains to a different registrar very soon

So you get it free for 12 months. After that you have to pay for it.
So switch before you have to start paying.
It really is not a degradation of service.
They are giving you a 12 month FREE trial, after which you have to pay. 

It maybe a lot of people are doing what you are, & it is costing them a lot of money to now provide the service. So they are moving to charge people for the service.

It is a degradation of service. Currently I have a catch-all email forward to forward all email to my Gmail account by default. They are removing the option of having a catch-all email forward. (And, though this doesn't affect me, they are also reducing the usage limits on every other aspect of the mailbox service, which I daresay will lead to a fair number of other current customers rethinking their future arrangements.)

powerful_Rogue

I think there is some confusion.

Mailbox = paid for service.

Email forwarding  = Advertised as being free with a domain.

What do you actually have? Also all this speculation, isn't it best to wait for them to reply and clarify?

olliebean

powerful_Rogue said:

I think there is some confusion.

Mailbox = paid for service.

Email forwarding  = Advertised as being free with a domain.

What do you actually have? Also all this speculation, isn't it best to wait for them to reply and clarify?

As far as I'm aware, I have email forwarding free with my domains. I do not appear to have a mailbox, although they have sent me an email saying that my mailboxes would be migrated, and told me on live chat that I would have to have a mailbox in future to use the forwarding service that I currently use for . I am awaiting a response to my ticket asking for clarification on whether this is indeed the case. I suspect the catch-all forwarding is going to be removed either way, as evidently their new platform doesn't support it for some reason.

born_again

olliebean said:

powerful_Rogue said:

I think there is some confusion.

Mailbox = paid for service.

Email forwarding  = Advertised as being free with a domain.

What do you actually have? Also all this speculation, isn't it best to wait for them to reply and clarify?

As far as I'm aware, I have email forwarding free with my domains. I do not appear to have a mailbox, although they have sent me an email saying that my mailboxes would be migrated, and told me on live chat that I would have to have a mailbox in future to use the forwarding service that I currently use for . I am awaiting a response to my ticket asking for clarification on whether this is indeed the case. I suspect the catch-all forwarding is going to be removed either way, as evidently their new platform doesn't support it for some reason.

You right. According to this video, you can't forward from a mailbox.

https://youtu.be/6xVJBjoQjvc