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Soundcloud Pro Plan, twice the price?

VgsA

Abel Vegas
Hi guys.

So I only recently found that SoundCloud charged me twice the price I was paying for the Pro plan (the same I've been using for years):

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I got this from their Twitter account:

"Hi there, this happened because you had an ongoing subscription of $31.50 but then the subscription chain was broken and the new price was $63. Once a subscription chain is broken, you can only re-subscribe at the current price /Jethro"

I think this is abusive, specially having in mind that SoundCloud charges automatically on your PayPal account and I didn't get any emails telling me that they would raise the price exactly x2 (for the same plan, same period of time). Is this even legal?

I felt like letting you guys know because you might find yourselves in this same situation (I hope not). This is the Twitter thread in case you want to let them know that this is unfair and abusive, I think we shouldn't stay silent and let them charge whatever they like without us knowing:


I'm personally done with SoundCloud, though. Even if they extend my subscription for another 365 days, I'm not giving them any more money. I'm sad for the people that follows me there and won't be able to find my tracks anymore, but I can't ignore this.

Thanks for reading.
 
How does a subscription chain get broken??

Beats me. Again, nobody told me that I would pay that amount, since the payment is automatic. As I told them just now, many other services (Netflix and such) operate the same way, and sometimes they change their pricing, but they notify you beforehand so you can make the decision.
 
Are they talking about the two month period from Mar 5 - May 5, 2018 where it looks like you didn’t have a subscription?

Could be, however I have the same thing where it looks I don't have a subscription on Feb 19 2015? Next year is March 4 2016 and the price was the same... no chain broken there?
 
The scattered billing dates do not conform to what you'd expect from an automatically renewed, annual subscription. Has the billing via PayPal always been fully automatic, or was there some action required on your part, such as approving the transactions?
 
The scattered billing dates do not conform to what you'd expect from an automatically renewed, annual subscription. Has the billing via PayPal always been fully automatic, or was there some action required on your part, such as approving the transactions?

As far as I know, it's fully automatic. I looked at my emails from them and a quick search revealed several emails like this one:

"Your Yearly Pro plan will renew in 14 days and we would like to say thanks by renewing your plan with a discount off the regular pricing. With the discount included, SoundCloud will charge your PayPal account on (insert date here)"

So I'd say it's indeed fully automatic.
 
The scattered billing dates do not conform to what you'd expect from an automatically renewed, annual subscription.

Also, while I can also see what you say here, how comes they only raised the price now? Wouldn't it be way more irregular amounts of money? And what do they mean with ''discount off the regular pricing''? It's always the same amount, where is the discount? Something doesn't add up...
 
One time I had my credit card stolen and was sent a new one with different numbers, and then forgot to update one of the companies I use pre-authorized billing with. Is it possible something like that happened?

Hmmm I don't remember PayPal having any problems with SoundCloud. Actually, there was my only subscription plan active, until recently. When I realized what they charged last year, I inmediately disabled the automatic payments (on PayPal). Other than that, I haven't touched my subscription...

(Thanks a lot for your input!)
 
how comes they only raised the price now?

Because they claim the subscription was broken. So they are charging the current subscription price.


Hmmm I don't remember PayPal having any problems with SoundCloud.

I think what ka00 was referring to is your credit card on file with PayPal. Is it possible your credit card on file may have gone out-of-date, and therefore the auto-renewal could not take place until you updated your card?


SoundCloud charged you $63 last year, but you didn't catch it last year. You did catch it this year, though. What changed? Is it possible you had problems last year with emails getting through to you?
 
SoundCloud have stopped sending the emails that let you know your subscription is going to renew. I just got a "You've been billed" email where they increased my payment from £66.66 to £75 with no warning. Maybe they're charging for each spam bot that follows you every time you upload a new track now?
 
Because they claim the subscription was broken. So they are charging the current subscription price.

Convenient, huh?

I think what ka00 was referring to is your credit card on file with PayPal. Is it possible your credit card on file may have gone out-of-date, and therefore the auto-renewal could not take place until you updated your card?


SoundCloud charged you $63 last year, but you didn't catch it last year. You did catch it this year, though. What changed? Is it possible you had problems last year with emails getting through to you?

Nope, everything fine there. I had zero issues with my credit card, that much I can assure.

Nothing changed, I was just browsing through the settings and I saw ''subscriptions'', I clicked and I saw what they charged last year. This is when I contacted them, more than one month ago, hoping to get another 365 days since the price was exactly twice what I was paying.

SoundCloud have stopped sending the emails that let you know your subscription is going to renew. I just got a "You've been billed" email where they increased my payment from £66.66 to £75 with no warning. Maybe they're charging for each spam bot that follows you every time you upload a new track now?

Awesome, another case where they raise the price for no reason. I don't think that's even legal. What happens if they decide to charge 200EUR per month? This is nuts, really. And yeah, I'm afraid those bots are going to lose their jobs in regards to my profile as soon as this subscription ends.

Thanks again everyone for your input, I better start uploading stuff to another platform soon.
 
Wait a minute, why are people paying to use SoundCloud? It’s free!

You only have a certain amount of minutes until you have to pay to keep uploading stuff. And then you have another plan which is unlimited, because the already expensive plan is also limited.
 
Convenient, huh?

This may or may not be a greedy cash grab. What you need to find out is what happened between March and May of 2018. Your Pro account subscription was apparently not auto-renewed in March, and yet you somehow kept receiving free Pro account service through May, at which time SoundCloud apparently auto-renewed what they allege was a broken subscription. Why did this happen? Have you asked SoundCloud?

When things like this happen to me, I overturn every rock to make sure I didn't miss any vital communications. Once I feel 100% confident that I have undoubtedly been screwed, I start demanding answers from the business, but I do it in a very calm, professional manner. And I never, ever give up. I remain a thorn in their side by escalating the matter until they realize they're not going to win. I don't do it for the money, but for the principle, although I've recovered hundreds of dollars over the years this way.
 
When things like this happen to me, I overturn every rock to make sure I didn't miss any vital communications. Once I feel 100% confident that I have undoubtedly been screwed, I start demanding answers from the business, but I do it in a very calm, professional manner. And I never, ever give up. I remain a thorn in their side by escalating the matter until they realize they're not going to win. I don't do it for the money, but for the principle, although I've recovered hundreds of dollars over the years this way.

100% with you. Although I've been in touch with SC and they simply stop responding to your emails. This is why I started the Twitter thingy. And they stopped responding too, until today. I sent them a ''new'' support request pointing them to the old thread. I'm pretty sure they know they screwed up, otherwise they would show me some proof, don't you think? I don't do it for the money either, but in this case, to be honest, I think they gave me the reason I needed to get away from SoundCloud for good, which I've been thinking of for years. So I think I'll keep pressing to some degree and I'll keep you guys posted, but I don't think I'm going to get anything back (money or service). I'm just a number in their lists, and they're clearly not wasting time with me. I think I shouldn't either.

In any case, thank you very, very much for all your attention and feedback, guys. Please, keep it coming if something crosses your mind.
 
I'm pretty sure they know they screwed up, otherwise they would show me some proof, don't you think?

Not necessarily. Right now, you're just a pin prick. 99.99% of complainers remain pin pricks -- they launch a little tirade and then disappear into the wind because their time is worth more than the monetary compensation they're seeking. SoundCloud is probably not going to bother spending their time dealing with you unless you become a thorn. It's the professional, organized, and absolutely unrelenting complainers who get results.

It far easier for a business to screw 100 people out of $10 than to screw one person out of $1,000.
 
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