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di.fm malice billing practices
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di.fm malice billing practices

LeviLevi Member

I use di.fm as primary source for good music. Recently decided to buy 1 year membership. And I was stunned for what happened...

In their panel subscription plan shows 48€/year. When I submited payment via paypal they charged 50€ instead. When aproached support with the question wtf with that +2€. They said that this charge was due to the fact that I was from Lithuania.

This was not vat, as they show vat inclusive price. That was extra charge on country of origin basis.

My pms gone full Karen.I'am shocked. Fuck those 2€, but discrimination on country... Disgusting.

Comments

  • risharderisharde Patron Provider, Veteran

    @LTniger said:
    I use di.fm as primary source for good music. Recently decided to buy 1 year membership. And I was stunned for what happened...

    In their panel subscription plan shows 48€/year. When I submited payment via paypal they charged 50€ instead. When aproached support with the question wtf with that +2€. They said that this charge was due to the fact that I was from Lithuania.

    This was not vat, as they show vat inclusive price. That was extra charge on country of origin basis.

    My pms gone full Karen.I'am shocked. Fuck those 2€, but discrimination on country... Disgusting.

    That's really terrible! I would be upset as well. Question: why lithuania? Any ideas? Would be surprised that it could be to fraud but I don't know Lithuania very well

  • @risharde said:

    @LTniger said:
    I use di.fm as primary source for good music. Recently decided to buy 1 year membership. And I was stunned for what happened...

    In their panel subscription plan shows 48€/year. When I submited payment via paypal they charged 50€ instead. When aproached support with the question wtf with that +2€. They said that this charge was due to the fact that I was from Lithuania.

    This was not vat, as they show vat inclusive price. That was extra charge on country of origin basis.

    My pms gone full Karen.I'am shocked. Fuck those 2€, but discrimination on country... Disgusting.

    That's really terrible! I would be upset as well. Question: why lithuania? Any ideas? Would be surprised that it could be to fraud but I don't know Lithuania very well

    They say that such practice are among all big media and showing netflix with spotify as example.

  • @LTniger said:

    @risharde said:

    @LTniger said:
    I use di.fm as primary source for good music. Recently decided to buy 1 year membership. And I was stunned for what happened...

    In their panel subscription plan shows 48€/year. When I submited payment via paypal they charged 50€ instead. When aproached support with the question wtf with that +2€. They said that this charge was due to the fact that I was from Lithuania.

    This was not vat, as they show vat inclusive price. That was extra charge on country of origin basis.

    My pms gone full Karen.I'am shocked. Fuck those 2€, but discrimination on country... Disgusting.

    That's really terrible! I would be upset as well. Question: why lithuania? Any ideas? Would be surprised that it could be to fraud but I don't know Lithuania very well

    They say that such practice are among all big media and showing netflix with spotify as example.

    Regional pricing is normal. It happens for games, software, services etc. But normally, this means people from poorer countries get discounts not price hikes. If you were not on VPN and saw the correct VAT for Lithuania and they showed you 48 euros but charged 50 euros, that's fraud. I would think Lithuania isn't that rich and you should maybe be getting discounts instead, but they do lose some revenue to VAT.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @LTniger said: discrimination on country... Disgusting

    Then you will be extra-disgusted when you learn that they change little more than $1/month for the same service to some of your CIS neighbors as a token of appreciation for the rampant piracy of their service during the last decade.

  • Unless they charge those 2€ for all EU countries this practice violates EU laws. Sue them.

  • JabJabJabJab Member
    edited February 2022

    Hidden "fee" to counter paypal 'overseas' transaction fee I guess? :D

    @NoComment said: Regional pricing is normal.

    Regional pricing - only if the website would show 50€ straight out, not smuggling 2€ fee between "I want to pay 48€" into "Welcome to PayPal, merchant said you need to pay 50€". Pretty sure PayPal would be mad if someone would report that.

    @LTniger you paid? Invoice is for 48€ or 50€? :D

  • This might be their sloppy way of dealing with VAT MOSS rules - what’s the VAT rate in Lithuania? They’re required to collect vat at the rate of customer’s country.

  • tjntjn Member
    edited February 2022

    Interested to see what the emailed receipt/invoice looks like!
    Just FYI in the UK, DI Premium is £60/year.

    Edit: added price.

  • @Nyr said:

    @LTniger said: discrimination on country... Disgusting

    Then you will be extra-disgusted when you learn that they change little more than $1/month for the same service to some of your CIS neighbors as a token of appreciation for the rampant piracy of their service during the last decade.

    You know that's not the real reason. It's because they are relatively poorer and these CIS countries always get nice regional pricing of around 30-60% discounts. Less than $1/mth would be an insane discount though since that would be more than 75%.

    @JabJab said:
    Hidden "fee" to counter paypal 'overseas' transaction fee I guess? :D

    @NoComment said: Regional pricing is normal.

    Regional pricing - only if the website would show 50€ straight out, not smuggling 2€ fee between "I want to pay 48€" into "Welcome to PayPal, merchant said you need to pay 50€". Pretty sure PayPal would be mad if someone would report that.

    @LTniger you paid? Invoice is for 48€ or 50€? :D

    It's straight up fraud if they show everyone from Lithuania 48 euros then charge them 50 euros. My guess is that he was on VPN or their geo IP just wasn't working right and showed him 48 euros on the website, but they found out he was from Lithuania through paypal and decided to charge him the extra 2 euros.

  • @JabJab said: @LTniger you paid? Invoice is for 48€ or 50€?

    Invoice generated for 50EUR, but only after payment. There was no pro-forma invoice with 50 EUR. It was always 48 EUR until payment was submitted. They verify Paypal account, and then you submit "pay" from their panel. Always 48 EUR, but actual charge was 50 EUR.

  • @NoComment said: It's straight up fraud if they show everyone from Lithuania 48 euros then charge them 50 euros. My guess is that he was on VPN or their geo IP just wasn't working right and showed him 48 euros on the website, but they found out he was from Lithuania through paypal and decided to charge him the extra 2 euros.

    You are correct. Still, such practice is shitty.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @NoComment said: You know that's not the real reason. It's because they are relatively poorer and these CIS countries always get nice regional pricing of around 30-60% discounts. Less than $1/mth would be an insane discount though since that would be more than 75%.

    I was of course being ironic, but GDP per capita in Vilnius is similar to Moscow. Of course there are many poorer regions, but also poorer European countries which do not get discounted rates.

    di.fm was very popular in Russia in its heyday and a majority of listeners in the region came from one of the 3 pirate streaming sites operated by Russian nationals. This was most likely an important consideration when defining regional pricing for this specific market, as people will be more likely to "upgrade" from piracy if pricing is reasonable.

  • @Nyr said:

    @NoComment said: You know that's not the real reason. It's because they are relatively poorer and these CIS countries always get nice regional pricing of around 30-60% discounts. Less than $1/mth would be an insane discount though since that would be more than 75%.

    I was of course being ironic, but GDP per capita in Vilnius is similar to Moscow. Of course there are many poorer regions, but also poorer European countries which do not get discounted rates.

    di.fm was very popular in Russia in its heyday and a majority of listeners in the region came from one of the 3 pirate streaming sites operated by Russian nationals. This was most likely an important consideration when defining regional pricing for this specific market, as people will be more likely to "upgrade" from piracy if pricing is reasonable.

    There is still diforfree.org in vk.com group. But it is very closed and almost impossible to get invite. I remmember when they introduced streaming tokens due to mass ripping.

    Is there anything similar to di.fm except spotify and other "trendy" ones?

  • Although it is shitty that they would ghost charge you - di.fm is still the best place for listening to some good music. Been using it since 2005.

    Thanked by 1Levi
  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    @LTniger said: There is still diforfree.org in vk.com group. But it is very closed and almost impossible to get invite. I remmember when they introduced streaming tokens due to mass ripping.

    Is there anything similar to di.fm except spotify and other "trendy" ones?

    Not the same, but you can try hqradio.ru

    It was one of the pirate streaming sites, which has gone legit.

    Maintaining diforfree.org must be resource consuming as they likely need to deal with a limit of one or two connections per account and IP, need to sign up for all those trial accounts using valid CC details, etc...

  • @LTniger said:

    @NoComment said: It's straight up fraud if they show everyone from Lithuania 48 euros then charge them 50 euros. My guess is that he was on VPN or their geo IP just wasn't working right and showed him 48 euros on the website, but they found out he was from Lithuania through paypal and decided to charge him the extra 2 euros.

    You are correct. Still, such practice is shitty.

    So it was just that they charged the correct VAT amount then.

  • @cmeerw said:

    @LTniger said:

    @NoComment said: It's straight up fraud if they show everyone from Lithuania 48 euros then charge them 50 euros. My guess is that he was on VPN or their geo IP just wasn't working right and showed him 48 euros on the website, but they found out he was from Lithuania through paypal and decided to charge him the extra 2 euros.

    You are correct. Still, such practice is shitty.

    So it was just that they charged the correct VAT amount then.

    No, as my vpn is in norway (terrahost). Actually I have no clue what country they think I was in. That was determined by them I guess from IP address which is really bad practice.

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