The Gray Man

A warning for those who are relying on recurring membership to keep their sub to $29.99. If your payment method expires (as all credit cards do), you have to update it BEFORE Groundspeak attempts to take the payment. If you don't realise until after the payment fails, Groundspeak will send you nice emails asking you to update your payment information - but you won't be able to. You'll have to take out a new subscription at the higher rate. Ian

Hi Sara, Thank you for your concern about revealing personal information. However, as your reply to me via email actually contained no personal account information at all, and as I fear that if you didn't get my original email you won't get my next one, allow me to reproduce your reply (and my reply to it) here. Your reply to me was as follows: Hello Ian, I hope this message finds you well. I am generating a new email as I was unable to find one in our Inbox that matched your contact information - maybe you sent in from a different email address? Your current subscription is in a void period, this is where we keep your membership Premium for a period of 25 days while attempting to renew from your current payment details. If this renewal does not go through, then your current subscription is canceled. The reason you are unable to update payment information is due to the new VAT price change. If your current subscription is failing to renew, you are likely to have to create a new subscription in which the VAT price becomes effective. All geocachers with successful Premium recurring subscriptions continue to pay the USD price. We apologize for any frustration or concern. The price adjustment occurred to include of the cost of VAT. Geocachers in the European Union now pay the VAT inclusive price, which also accounts for fluctuation in currency exchanges. A geocacher with a successful recurring membership, prior to this change, continues to pay the pre-VAT cost of $30. Our intention is to be as transparent as possible and we appreciate your support. We believe that we are acting in accordance with applicable regulations regarding VAT. Please feel free to investigate further. To learn more about digital services and VAT, please visit: http://www.rkgconsulting.com/vat-issues/vat-digital-services-or-downloadable-products/. Please let me know if I have not addressed any of your questions or concerns, I am happy to assist further. Best Regards, Sara Community Manager My reply to that, sent just now by email, is this: Hello Sara, So what you’re telling me, is that if I miss the fact that my credit card has expired until after you try it (and as far as I’m aware I didn’t get any reminder from you before the event) that releases you from your promise to maintain the price at $29.99? You see, this just adds to my frustration with how Groundspeak have handled this whole affair. Of course people would have grumbled about paying VAT – who wants to pay more? But if it was as simple as that it would have just gone away. The fact is that the increased cost is significantly more than VAT. I know that we’re only talking about a few pounds/dollars at the end of the day – but it’s the principal and the feeling of being cheated that is rankling so many people here. I’m not impressed. Ian

This post isn't intended to stir up the whole debate about unfair charges for Europeans choosing premium membership. We know it's not fair and it's not transparent and it's been handled remarkably badly by Groundspeak, but we've all said that already and life is too short. My problem is this. I've been a recurring premium member since 2009, and earlier this month I had an automated mail from Groundspeak asking me to update my payment information - the mail was as follows: "Your Geocaching Premium membership is set up for automatic renewal. However, we have been unable to bill your credit card for 30.00 USD. Please update your billing information and renew your membership before October 22, 2013. After that date, your account will revert back to a Geocaching Basic membership. Don't worry, you'll keep all of your hides and finds." However, if I follow the link given, it takes me to a page telling me that I am a premium member, and gives me an option to renew my membership, but gives me no option to update my billing information. Why don't I just click on "renew membership" and start again? For three reasons: (1) because as a matter of principle if they ask me to update my billing information, I want to be able to do that; (2) because I'd be nervous that I'd somehow end up with 2 memberships (paying for both!), and (3) because Groundspeak have promised to maintain prices for those on recurring memberships, so I don't want to "break" my existing recurrence. If I were to be *really* cynical, I might think that this is some way for Groundspeak to get out of their promise. But I'm not going to be that cynical. I did email Groundspeak about this last Wednesday, but have so far had no reply. Ian

OK, I've got GSAK generating some pretty stats for me. The question I haven't seen answered anywhere is: do you have to manually re-run that (i.e. get the PQ, import it into GSAK, run the Stats macro, export that into your GC profile) every time you want to update your stats? Seems like an awful hassle - is there no way of getting some sort of automated stats? Ian