How many class-action lawsuits will WHMCS get this year?

[ptoone]

I expect this could be costly for WHMCS: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/subscriptions/971878-siriusxm-to-pay-96m-to-end-lifetime-subscription-class-action/

[steven99]

The difference though is the owned / lifetime license still works but you just can't get updates.   In this case, you would have to show they took something away that was in the owned license or that was expected (by industry standards, reasonable person tests) to be in the license. 

Edited April 7, 2021 by steven99

[wsa]

also maybe check they terms also 

[zomex]

I can't see them being at any risk legally but time will tell.

[DennisHermannsen]

There's not being done anything illegal. You're still able to use your owned license. If you aren't going to convert your license, you're going to be stuck with the owned license - just like you would if WHMCS ceased existing.

 

[UnwilfulExpenditure]

Leave a review here: https://trustpilot.com/review/whmcs.com they actively encourage reviews so I say give them as many customer opinions as possible! At least explaining the situation will new potential customers to get a clear picture! 

[yggdrasil]

15 hours ago, DennisHermannsen said:

There's not being done anything illegal. You're still able to use your owned license. If you aren't going to convert your license, you're going to be stuck with the owned license - just like you would if WHMCS ceased existing.

 

That is very misleading because you don't get the ioncube to unlock the software. Your owned license is now worth $0. Wait until a new PHP version comes out, and it's not support by your operating system anymore. Wait until a security hole is discovered, and you cannot patch or close it because...YOU HAVE no access to the code.

They sold a lifetime owned software which is now obsolete. It's very misleading to say you can continue to use it when the software code is obfuscated, and they will refuse access. They sold one thing and they decided to change their initial purchase agreement.

Would people here had purchased the software if they knew this in advance? The question is no for tons of people. They paid thinking it was a long term investment. They did not receive that value because let's remember we still paid the yearly updates, but what happen to the initial price which was much higher than paying per month? Its now gone.

Edited April 8, 2021 by yggdrasil

[DennisHermannsen]

1 minute ago, yggdrasil said:

That is very misleading because you don't get the ioncube to unlock the software. Your owned license is now worth $0. Wait until a new PHP version comes out, and it's not support by your operating system anymore. Wait until a security hole is discovered, and you cannot patch or close it because...YOU HAVE no access to the code.

They sold a lifetime owned software which is now obsolete. Its very misleading to say you can continue to use it when the software code is obfuscated, and they will refuse access.

As far as I know, they don't state "Lifetime" anywhere, but that's besides the point. You still have every right to use the version of WHMCS that your license covers, you just can't upgrade it. I don't see why it's misleading - but it sucks.

[yggdrasil]

4 minutes ago, DennisHermannsen said:

As far as I know, they don't state "Lifetime" anywhere, but that's besides the point. You still have every right to use the version of WHMCS that your license covers, you just can't upgrade it. I don't see why it's misleading - but it sucks.

You sell one thing and then change the initial purchase agreement afterwards and is not misleading? They also said before they would HONOR existing owned licenses. They now are also breaking that promise.

[steven99]

7 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

They did not receive that value because let's remember we still paid the yearly updates, but what happen to the initial price which was much higher than paying per month? Its now gone.

So lets go off your screenshot, btw can you date that?    If you bought the one time payment unbranded license at $324 and lets say that was 5 years ago and yearly renewals was $60, that is a total of $624 to date.  Now lets say the monthly was $19 for majority of those years, you would have paid $1140 or more over those 5 years just for the monthly license.  So the one time is actually quite cheaper. 

7 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

You sell one thing and then change the initial purchase agreement afterwards and is not misleading? They also said before they would HONOR existing owned licenses. They now are also breaking that promise.

Right but if you see in the above, owned license only includes the first year and after that you need to renew the update subscription.  They just did away with that part and not the whole license.   Sure you can no longer update, but I have read that security patches would still be available.   I have not yet seen anywhere that updates were for life also. 

Honestly this whole thing has turned me off of owned / lifetime / one time payment licenses as they aren't that way.  Though I have not used owned licenses before.

 

[yggdrasil]

Of course, it's cheaper to pay monthly. You don't actually believe people that purchased owned licenses are stupid right? 😄

The reason a company sells one time payments for a higher price and people are willing to pay, is because you see it as an investment, not an expense or monthly subscription. This is also why you can book it in accounting, as digital assets vs expenses.

What has the date of the screenshot anything to do with this? If you purchased one-time before, you expect that purchase promise to be honored as long they are in business. Not new sales but previous sales? Every company honors them, unless they expect to never have new customers again which would be concerning for any company. And before you claim this is not sustainable plenty of companies do this as a reward to initial customers that made them who they are, at least with software that does not cost them anything as opposed to leased services. Affinity is one example. I truly have paid one time for both of their software and have received free updates for years now. Paul from Blesta said the same thing in a community recently, that they see it as a way to reward those that initially believe in his product and company. Its not as you will have one time sales forever, new purchases are a different story, you just honor those that actually made you as a brand and company and to finalize, it's not as they are not making any money from them anymore. I always have renewed support and updates and I also purchased all their extra add-ons and modules that are officially developed by WHMCS.

Don't even get me into that link that goes to their terms of service. You see their sales page, read one thing, and then they change it. This is a very gray area. To back pedal on your initial selling promise. I purchased ONE TIME because they promised me I could then later buy support and updates per year. Now they are telling me, sorry, your one time purchase is worthless, and we are not going to allow you to buy updates from us anymore in the future. Assuming it was cheaper for me to pay by month, then it was a deception trick. I paid a higher price expecting to receive something of value and instead I paid more for something that will be worthless soon.

How can you claim this is not deception? I paid for Unlimited Customers and Unlimited Staff and Unlimited products. Now WHMCS is forcing me to a limited customer model. This is not what I purchased initially. And they refuse to sell me further updates which is a way to force you out.

Just wait until WHMCS start to charge you extra for every staff account and wait until they charge extra per active product you have. All my predictions about WHMCS over the years have become true. I said this before, their customer license model is only the start. If you expect to run WHMCS in your existing plan then I have bad news for you.

Self-hosted licenses are completely going away. Even if they say the opposite today, they said the same thing about owned licenses in public. Trust me, self hosted WHMCS is dead. They will eventually start to push you out as they move to their SaaS whmcs hosted only. At that point, your database and customers are theirs, they can will probably move to a % model that charges you based on the amount of sales you make every month. Good luck if you don't believe me but that is what WHMCS is going for. They want to be sort of Apple that charges 30% cut to every developer and they force everyone to only be able to sell using Apple payments. WHMCS is going that way. I would not be surprised if in the future they completely ban modules like Stripe or Specific domain modules and force you to use their Reselling account and their merchant payment system. They want a cut of your business and they are not stopping here.

[bear]

46 minutes ago, steven99 said:

Sure you can no longer update, but I have read that security patches would still be available.

For a while. 
The most recent security issue proves it. They rolled out a patch, but went no further back than version 7.7. Anything earlier, go pound sand. 😉
It was only because of that I'd recently updated my support addons, or I'd be stuck in an insecure version.

[steven99]

10 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Of course, it's cheaper to pay monthly. You don't actually believe people that purchased owned licenses are stupid right? 😄

Short term, month to month yes monthly is cheaper but I was looking at long term, years out --  look at my math again.  Over 5 years if paying $19, it is $1140  compared to $624 .    They lost over $500 in potential income for one owned license during that time.   And thus is why owned / lifetime / one time pay licenses mean jack cheese to me and have not used them and with this probably wont.  I'd rather pay them that $500 and perhaps then the company may not do stuff like this.  (but obviously each company is different)

13 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

How can you claim this is not deception? I paid for Unlimited Customers and Unlimited Staff and Unlimited products. Now WHMCS is forcing me to a limited customer model. This is not what I purchased initially. And they refuse to sell me further updates which is a way to force you out.

Not sure if that is directed at me, but I never claimed it was or wasn't deception.   I think stopping renewal of support / updates is a bad / wrong move -- unless they are discontinuing WHMCS it self. 

21 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

They will eventually start to push you out as they move to their SaaS whmcs hosted only. At that point, your database and customers are theirs, they can will probably move to a % model that charges you based on the amount of sales you make every month. Good luck if you don't believe me but that is what WHMCS is going for. They want to be sort of Apple that charges 30% cut to every developer and they force everyone to only be able to sell using Apple payments. WHMCS is going that way. I would not be surprised if in the future they completely ban modules like Stripe or Specific domain modules and force you to use their Reselling account and their merchant payment system. They want a cut of your business and they are not stopping here.

I do not disagree with you and I have posted on other threads here or WHT about SaaS WHMCS.  At that point, if I am still using WHMCS, I would be switching to Blesta or something else -- even if I have to spend money or time and build modules or even building the system I have been thinking about for a while.   Heck I can barely stand them having call homes as it is.  Even before this I had started building modules that could potentially be used within other systems with coding to their own ways of doing stuff.  For my use case, Blesta would only need 2 or 3 modules built to cover everything in use now and could probably get away with just 1 and figure something out for the other.

[steven99]

35 minutes ago, bear said:

For a while. 
The most recent security issue proves it. They rolled out a patch, but went no further back than version 7.7. Anything earlier, go pound sand. 😉
It was only because of that I'd recently updated my support addons, or I'd be stuck in an insecure version.

Indeed.  Honestly the only business / person you can trust not to screw you over is your self and at times that might not be the case. 😉  

[LMC]

On 4/9/2021 at 2:06 AM, steven99 said:

Short term, month to month yes monthly is cheaper but I was looking at long term, years out --  look at my math again.  Over 5 years if paying $19, it is $1140  compared to $624 .    They lost over $500 in potential income for one owned license during that time.   And thus is why owned / lifetime / one time pay licenses mean jack cheese to me and have not used them and with this probably wont.  I'd rather pay them that $500 and perhaps then the company may not do stuff like this.  (but obviously each company is different)

 

You math may be sound right, but it is my fault that someone at WHMCS did invented a bad deal for himself? When I bought the license, as seen on those screenshot up here, it stated I can renew my update & support at $44.95... they never said that the option would ever disappear, because if that would be the case, no one would be buying it. The way it was marketed (and you can find loads of articles) was misleading. In the EU, in a case against how they did everything, they have very small chances of wining.

I did understood that a higher renewal fee is necessary at a point, and paid $120 instead of $45 per year... Now I would understand if that would be $200 per year, or maybe a bit more. But instead, you are telling me one week early "your support & updates expire on April 30, enter and renew" and one week later "we are discontinuing owned license support" and that sounds like "go to hell with your owned crap, I want to get rich because you where stupid enough to trust us". It's quite disturbing.

Also, that is insane to tell me that instead of $120 per year, I have to pay $300+ per month for updates over night, when I even have like 4 tickets with bugs you refuse to fix for some stupid reason like "our 2nd lever support team is not working right now" or is busy right now or whatever. You ask for $300+ per month for what the hell?

When HostBill started their change on licensing fees back in 2013, I was thinking it could not get worse. Well, time show me I was wrong. The difference is that HostBill actually it still keeps his promise on owned license and offers the updates and access to SDK. For some, HostBill is actually cheaper and even if support is paid, the quality of support is hundreds times over WHMCS. Even the quality of integrations in HostBill is over WHMCS. And there is also Blesta, Clientexec and some others that needs a bit more work, but will do the job well. Blesta is even 99% open-source and the code is so well organized that it is very easy to extend. The downside is that you have to pay again for something that you had and do al the setup and customization again, and that takes a LOT of time.

I do hope for a legal actions agains them, I do hope their clients will go away from then (there are many alternatives), and so on... and I suppose there are many like me, that feels really disappointed and tricked by this so called Web Pros, a bunch of greedy stupid little people... but all this are just wishes... time will tell.

[yggdrasil]

On 4/21/2021 at 7:39 AM, LMC said:

 

You math may be sound right, but it is my fault that someone at WHMCS did invented a bad deal for himself? When I bought the license, as seen on those screenshot up here, it stated I can renew my update & support at $44.95... they never said that the option would ever disappear, because if that would be the case, no one would be buying it. The way it was marketed (and you can find loads of articles) was misleading. In the EU, in a case against how they did everything, they have very small chances of wining.

I did understood that a higher renewal fee is necessary at a point, and paid $120 instead of $45 per year... Now I would understand if that would be $200 per year, or maybe a bit more. But instead, you are telling me one week early "your support & updates expire on April 30, enter and renew" and one week later "we are discontinuing owned license support" and that sounds like "go to hell with your owned crap, I want to get rich because you where stupid enough to trust us". It's quite disturbing.

Also, that is insane to tell me that instead of $120 per year, I have to pay $300+ per month for updates over night, when I even have like 4 tickets with bugs you refuse to fix for some stupid reason like "our 2nd lever support team is not working right now" or is busy right now or whatever. You ask for $300+ per month for what the hell?

When HostBill started their change on licensing fees back in 2013, I was thinking it could not get worse. Well, time show me I was wrong. The difference is that HostBill actually it still keeps his promise on owned license and offers the updates and access to SDK. For some, HostBill is actually cheaper and even if support is paid, the quality of support is hundreds times over WHMCS. Even the quality of integrations in HostBill is over WHMCS. And there is also Blesta, Clientexec and some others that needs a bit more work, but will do the job well. Blesta is even 99% open-source and the code is so well organized that it is very easy to extend. The downside is that you have to pay again for something that you had and do al the setup and customization again, and that takes a LOT of time.

I do hope for a legal actions agains them, I do hope their clients will go away from then (there are many alternatives), and so on... and I suppose there are many like me, that feels really disappointed and tricked by this so called Web Pros, a bunch of greedy stupid little people... but all this are just wishes... time will tell.

I also had a Hostbill license and while they did change their pricing several times I remember when I complained in a ticket they backpedaled and told me the change only applies to new licenses, and they would honor my current owned license term.

I agree with what you said. If WHMCS priced their products incorrectly, we are not blame. It was a bad business decision on their part and as you said, most people would never have purchased an owned license if they knew upfront they would not receive updates in the future. Companies change pricing all the time, but this is like cancelling a product guarantee which was advertised on the box. Like buying a product with lifetime guarantee advertised on the store and then the company telling you they will not honor it.

Owned licenses were advertised with specific features, one of those features are future updates for a fixed pricing and unlimited accounts + other stuff. They decided to take that important feature away and tell inform everyone it's now a leased price based on the number of accounts.

For those claiming you can still use the software, that is true either. You can't use the software for lifetime like the owned purchase that was sold. You can only keep using it for a while, which means it's not really owned anymore. The software was never yours in the first place when its encoded, and you rely on WHMCS for updates. At some point your owned license will stop working once your server gets updated or software changes, WHMCS has gazillion vendor bundles which need to get updated on a regular basis, without those updates your installation will become buggy and insecure quickly. If this was a software running in your TV or fridge which does not need an online connection this would be partially true, you can air gap the device and keep using it, but WHMCS does not work without an Internet connection, even the license checking stops working at some point if it misses the checks. Software that constantly is online and live on the internet without updates its just a disaster waiting to happen.

Is this immoral? Sure. Its somehow dishonest towards the initial purchase agreement. Is this legal? They probably covered that in the terms of license, which they probably eventually changed, and you accepted it again on a future update to keep using the  software.

Edited May 31, 2021 by yggdrasil