February 24, 2005, I bought SkypeOut calling worth €10.00. I used a tiny amount of it once for a phone call that failed due to bad quality. Today I wanted to use it again. It was gone.
What the fuck?
My Skype Credit Balance **0.00 remaining Skype Credit.** You have days (until ) to use this balance.
Oh, so the money just disappears if I don’t use it? Looks like robbery to me!
When I click on the “Buy Skype Credit” button, this is what I see:
“Apologies, but due to security measures, we can not process your request at this time. As a new SkypeOut user, you are restricted to one purchase at a time. The option to purchase more credit will reappear well before your existing credit runs out. Thank you for using Skype.” ¹
Uh?
Luxembourg, November 26, 2004
When Skype first launched our SkypeOut service, we didn’t realise exactly how long 10 Euro would last. At our launch, we announced a policy that unused credits would expire after 180 days (6 months). Well, we’re soon reaching 180 days from our beta launch, and can see that many of you still haven’t used all of your original credit.
As a result, we are pleased to tell you that Skype has revised our policy. We won’t be clearing any balances until 6 months after you have made your last SkypeOut call. So, if you make just one paid call every 6 months, we’ll not touch your account of unused credit.
However, if you don’t use SkypeOut (that is, don’t make any additional purchases nor place any SkypeOut calls in 6 months), we’ll zero your Skype balance, simply to ensure that we aren’t using expensive systems to maintain accounts for people who don’t need it. Your Skype Name will be unaffected and you will be able to still use free Skype-to-Skype calling, file transfer, and all of the other free services you’ve come to enjoy.
We believe this policy is both market leading and the right way to keep our costs down, so we can pass savings on to you. ²
I can’t believe this...
#Skype