dartymoor

That's an interesting view, and I'm not qualified to say it's wrong - either in that facebook group or Germany as a whole. However, Germany is not the EU, and it's not sound to extrapolate a worldwide view from one group. It may be a small world, but cultural and societal differences are very real and confound marketing and businessmen the world over. As an Englishman who regularly does business with Germans and Americans, I can honestly say I've found both groups very different to each other, and each very different to the British. So please don't assume to include myself in your sweeping statements about the EU. That's exactly how we got here in the first place - from an American company thinking that everywhere else is the same.

A couple of months down the line, and well, I bought GSAK. Not to say the suggested options above weren't great, they all had something to give and were all improvements on the way I was working before. But on a local facebook group I was moaning about how long it takes to log and how often I have to flip back and forth to the maps to remind myself which cache I was logging so I could write a proper log - and geocaching.com was being horrendously slow and I mentioned "Wouldn't it be nice if there was an offline way to log?" and somebody said GSAK did that. That was it - the killer feature I needed. So I paid my money and registered the thing. And offline logging works like a dream. With split screens I can be writing the log on one monitor while the second automatically shows the cache on the satellite map, shows the description, name, hint (very good reminder, the hint) and previous logs. It's made things a world better. And it's changed the way I prepare for caching. It downloads my PQs automatically, adds everything to one database, and I can fire off 5,000 live and updated caches around the area I have in mind in less than a minute. So, as you've guessed, I'm a convert - and very quickly. I still favour FOSS before anything else, but this thing is actually worth spending money on. Be nice if it was cheaper of course, but it is good value even at $30us.

Quite right. (Although the reverse I'm sure is true when any non-american chooses to use an american company and contributes to tax payable in that country.) But if that is the case (and sorry, but third hand information isn't enough for me), then any historical fault was Groundspeak's, not the users (European or American) and any settlement must come from Groundspeak's profits. There is a statute of limitations on such things normally, although jail time does occur if there was an oversight of a large scale.

Just a thought; why not create a free email account elsewhere (gmail, hotmail) and point the address there for a few days? Should clear up whether it's a local (or even your upstream) issue. I get all I think I should (all but Found logs) within my region - it's just sometimes they take hours to come through, although that speed issue does seem to have improved over the past 2-3 weeks.

Very nicely put. Although I haven't posted much in this thread since the first few screens, I feel no less strongly about this and am appalled by the lack of communication and honesty from Groundspeak.

Hi Yes, I'm not far away from Newton. There's quite a few local cachers with the odd event and a Devon geocacher's facebook group that's reasonably active.

I wonder if it automatically raises the difficulty for caches that you do manage to find, despite the difficulties encountered using the website... Good job we British can maintain a sense of humour really, since Groundspeak responded to my contact response after four days with "We have implemented some changes that should resolve the issues with site slowness."

In addition to very slow accesses, I'm also getting occasional "The service is unavailable. Server is too busy" This isn't generally a bandwidth issue, more usually a server concurrency maximum. Groundspeak - any news on improving capacity?

I second the suggestion that European customers are ignored and treated lesser than the American ones. I think Australians also get a fairly poor deal. I'm also still very unhappy that a company I want to deal with is apparently breaking my country's tax laws at least two weeks after they were made aware of it (I've seen no proof to the contrary) But I know enough about IT systems to know that someone with high level access can delete posts from a forum without leaving any trace for normal moderators, so a count claim by a moderator is not necessarily going to be accurate.

Facebook's great for the "here and now", and as Amberel says, has the users - especially non technical one. Posting on a forum can be quite scary for some. Where FB falls down for me is the ability to search old posts. You see the same things cropping up over and over, and even if a subject was only discussed last week it's really hard to find it and link to it. Because of that, I tend to view FB less as a long term resource and more a quick chat and go place.

You'll have to point me at the press release where Groundspeak announce their intention to "play with the big boys". I just see a small, family-owned, cash-based company that has a nice near-monopoly on something that people apparently find it hard to do without. If people choose to project that onto some fictitious cigar-smoking evil capitalist with a shiny top hat, that's really their problem. And that was absolutely fine, right up to the point where Groundspeak decided they had outgrown that very thing and decided to up prices throughout Europe and claim they were doing so because they wanted to pay VAT in Europe and quoted EU Tax law they should have been following for a decade. And even THEN that would have been fine, right up to the point where they refused to provide the VAT number (which is illegal), and having talked some utter rubbish on here, and lied to us, they then went very quiet without explaining why they refused to give out something they are legally obliged to, leaving us to draw the conclusion that they are not in fact paying VAT in Europe and put the price up by lying to us. (Or they are so incompetent those involved need help putting on their own pants) That, in a nutshell, is why I'm not happy with the conduct of a "mom and pop business" in America that is screwing me personally, and my country's VAT system. If it had stayed pricing locally, something that's worked well so far, fine. One has to wonder whether you are an independant and unaffected bystander who is particularly obtuse, or a plant by Groundspeak to attempt to talk down this cockup of theirs. If the latter, it ain't working. Seems I'm not alone in being unhappy, as I'm aware that some people claim to have reported Groundspeak to the UK's tax agency, HMRC, as well as Germany's and probably more throughout Europe (This isn't the only place this is being discussed). Lots are also claiming that they'll not renew Premium membership when it comes around. Both of these *should* get us some attention from any business, but still... nothing. Even if this wasn't serious (Remember how they got Al Capone!), the mere fact that it's upsetting customers should make any business - big, small, top-hatted or mom-and-pop - respect its customers enough to engage with them.

I'm really fed up with these delays and lags, happening very often now over the past two weeks. Other sites are fine for me, just geocaching.com And again, no communication from gs. Tell us what's going on and what you're doing to fix it please - you'll find you actually get support from your customers instead of anger.

It's been a week since the announcement and the almost immediate pointing out by several that what they are doing is illegal. Apart from some ill-informed responses during the weekend there has been no communication, no explanation, no apology for untruths. I think that's plenty of time, myself. This is head-in-sand management, and it stinks.

I wondered if they were being slow in answering this because the weekend got in the way and the bosses weren't in until monday - but it's really starting to look like Groundspeak don't intend to address this issue at all.

Website been slow now for over 24 hours, not just me, seeing people avoiding logging finds because it's so frustrating. Eg, loading a simple cache page takes around 30-40 seconds. Usually 3-4. Map often doesn't show overlays, and when it does, you often can't click on a cache to bring up details. On the flip side, not seeing the huge delays of emails this weekend that has affected previous weekends going back for a month! (UK, Firefox and Chrome, win7x64 - all other websites fine)

Groundspeak: Don't take too long researching whether you "can" reveal your VAT number. Every sale you make until you do is breaking the law. You have no defence of ignorance (which is no defence anyway). If you wanted to apologise for this appalling blunder and lies to your European customers, and perhaps ease the acceptance of this price increase, why not give us, say, three months free to existing premium subscribers? If you're not already in damage limitation mode, imo you should be.

I am not opposed to paying VAT and other taxes where I'm required to by law, I enjoy numerous benefits my government provides for me with this money and by and large I'm a good citizen, but when I pay that tax I need to be sure it's ending up with that government, not illegally being shuffled off elsewhere. The system of VAT registration and numbers is designed to allow me to do exactly that. If somebody charges me vat and doesn't provide a vat registration number, I will be reporting them to customs and excise. There is only one reason that I can think of to withhold a VAT registration number, and I've been considering this all evening, and that is because there isn't one. As I've posted before, what's been said in here by a representative of Groundspeak is illegal. As a customer who pays and enjoys a service provided by Groundspeak, I'd rather they weren't dragged through the courts because when that happens, focus tends to shift away from what I want them to concentrate on - running the site. I'm choosing to hopefully believe this is just simple incompetence and miscommunication rather than fraud, and allowing Groundspeak a chance to react to these comments. I expect something to change, either a retraction of this entire claim for VAT, or a clarification and clarity. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if poor moun10bike was made a scapegoat and discredited as speaking out of turn. (Which if so, and he's not toed the company line, why wasn't he informed and trained?) I am staggered that a company that has made quite a lot of money from its customers (tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of premium members at $30us a year? That mounts up.) - doesn't apparently understand basic tax law in the areas it operates in or has the nous to consult a tax accountant or tax lawyer before making changes that could get it into quite serious legal difficulties. It's astonishing, it really is. Let me buy your company. I'd like to run it for a while.

Also, do you pay any taxes in America for your European customers? If you don't, yet the price was previously the same for all customers, why isn't this deducted before EU VAT is added?

You may want to check your legal status if you intend to stick by this statement as you are likely to be reported for VAT fraud. I'm not aware of *any* reason to deny a VAT registration number unless you don't have one. My understanding is that it is illegal to charge vat without a VAT registration number. A company charging VAT may not withhold a VAT receipt when requested which MUST contain the VAT number. References: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/charging/vat-invoices.htm#3 http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/sectors/consumers/basics.htm I'm interested in your reply, and whether this post gets deleted. Screenshotted just in case...

Not to deliberately make light, but that title suggested to me very very small criminals in stripey jumpers...

Hi SP - loved your log for Gibbet Hill. The chafing's much better now, btw. I generally cache alone, maybe with a dog, occasionally with a mate. I enjoy solitude. If a large group of about 20 came along, I'd try and avoid them, or wait. But I wouldn't be upset if they did my caches. Yes, 20 people make more disturbance than one, both walking and searching, but do they cause more damage than 20 individual cachers? Not convinced they do. My only concern is that with a large group like this, those at the back won't get any feel or meaning. By the time they get there, it will have been found by the same people. They might get a glimpse of tupperware but for them it'll just be a slow walk. IMO, it would be better to split the groups and find the caches several times. The most important thing is that they're well behaved.

Currently top thread in https://www.facebook.com/groups/reviewers/ (Before it digressed into an app issue which is mentioned on these forums elsewhere). It has been glaringly obvious for the past two weekends. I don't recall having noticed it before then. Email provider this end is gmail and I'm using the web interface. I believe they have adequate capacity. Proof is only going to be available to the mailserver admin (and I would hope there's more than one mailserver tbh!) so it might not be possible for me to prove it other than sporadically logging caches and timing responses. I've just posted a write note and it's come through within five seconds, but it's no longer the weekend...

A quick scan shows a couple of existing threads similar to this, but complaining of inconsistencies and new cache notifications not getting through. However, I've spotted a much wider issue: At weekends especially, ALL email notifications are taking hours to get through. Example: I had a new trail published last week. Gratifyingly, it's proved popular and it's had a lot of visitors in the past week. (Helped by school holidays here in the UK). These people are logging their finds and I'm getting the emails. However, these emails can be delayed by around anywhere from an hour to an estimated 14 hours (hard to check as no time of logging displayed on the website). I check the cache pages at the end of the day and see several logs for that day, but the actual emails take a very long time to arrive. They also arrive in chunks. Assuming not everyone is logging a few, then going away for a few hours before continuing to log the rest, it's coming through "bursty". A quick ask on Facebook suggests I'm not the only one to be experiencing this. During the week and low-level activity, stuff seems to be arriving almost immediately as I'd expect. As an email admin myself, this suggests mail servers that are way over capacity, so two questions: 1) Am I right? 2) If so, when are you going to fix it?

Might there be something "odd" about this specific cache? Unusual characters in the description etc.

I do wonder if veganbexx actually wanted this outcome... Can't help thinking perhaps they're regretting asking for help! veganbexx - If you think the site is worthy of a geocache, why not place your own there? It's an accepted way of keeping a site alive when an owner loses interest, and gives other local cachers another cache to grab. Even if you're new, it's quite an easy thing to do.