dodgy actinic copies being sold

[magicalwonders]

you could always look at the conversion rates for buying from another english speaking country

That sounds like a cool idea Greg.

I'd imagine a U.K. user would need to research the differences of the programs first though. I know that updates for U.S. appear to differ from the U.K. The shipping method would be different at least. I guess it depends how much work would have to be done on an import to make it viable.

Myles

[webyourbusiness]

the default settings are different in terms of shipping weight being in lbs, not kg. Some spellings, and the default currency. The Shipping methods can be overwritten using a provider import, as can the payment providers I think. Download a trial from actinic.com and see the differences.

regards

Greg

[B_Online]

the default settings are different in terms of shipping weight being in lbs, not kg. Some spellings, and the default currency. The Shipping methods can be overwritten using a provider import, as can the payment providers I think. Download a trial from actinic.com and see the differences.

If this is the case, then I think it is scandalous that we in the UK are yet again blatantly overcharged and not just by a couple of pence but hundreds of pounds for the same product than our American cousins… why are we constantly being ripped off in this country?

We the customers who create these sites are more than capable of finding work a rounds for all Actinic scenarios, so to find a work a round for shipping or payment methods which happens all the time, would be worth the hundreds of £s saved by buying from the USA, and surely if we bought from the USA wouldn’t someone come up with a bit of script to sort out any problems we have, that happens all the time too, so there is no excuse for the massive difference in price we in the UK have to pay!

If I want to buy Developer from the UK it would cost me approx £1,499.00 with TAX and if I bought the same product from the USA it would cost me $1,499.00 but if we convert Dollars into our English money GBP at the current rate of 1 US dollar = 0.5624 GBP, or £1 pound = $ 1.7778

So $1499.00 US Dollars multiplied by 0.5624 = £843.0376 GBP
£1,499.00 GBP take away £843.0376 GBP = £656.00

This means I would save approx £656.00 if I bought from the USA…even if postage cost £100 or £200 or even £300 which it obviously won’t; I stand to save over £300

Can someone from Actinic explain why this happens? Is this legal?

[wjcampbe]

John,

What I don't get is why you are surprised. For over 20 years multi-national companies have gouged the British customer, aided and abetted by the UK government. Hey - they even have the gall to set up manufacturing plants in Scotland, Ireland and Tees-side with UK taxpayer provided subsidies and still price dollar and pound at parity on Computer products.

Legal - it's almost mandatory!

They will tell you it's supply and demand, and it is - they supply a price and demand we pay it.

[Jan]

The UK subscription includes 1 days training and 1 year of cover, I don't think that the US subscription does. It is also £1250 + VAT not £1499, so the actual difference in price is around £407, 1 days training would usually cost £300 and cover for 1 year for developer costs £250.

If you compare the price of business which seems be more or less the same package :

$1199 * 0.5624 = £674.32

the retail price is £799 but you can buy if for a lot less if you shop around, for example I looked this morning and found it for £565 (but there was a hosting tie in at that price) and £625.

Regards,

[Mike Hughes]

Jan is almost right. Actinics price for Developer alone is £1,250 +VAT for Developer with Cover and training it's £1,500 +VAT.

For everyone who complains about the difference in pricing between here and the US they have to consider the realities of life. Salaries here are higher, taxes here are higher, welfare costs here are higher and commercial property costs here are higher. This feeds into the whole efficiency of the economy which means everything a business spends money on costs more here than in the US. So it's not too surprising that retailer mark ups are higher here than in the US and that to be competitive in the US you have to charge less for the same product.

If you really want to see things cost the same here as in the US you'd better be prepared to take a 50% pay cut, pay for your own health care, etc rather than have it provided free, and see your little property nest egg drop in value by something like two thirds.

Mike

[george]

This has been an interesting thread. Summarising though, seems that Actinic maybe need to streamline the `upgrading` process from Catalog to Business, etc, possibly cost wise but also maybe get the customer the correct product for their needs in the first place. I mean, how many went for Catalog, knowing they need Business, but wanted to save themselves money or the budget just wouldn't stretch that far? Yes, this costs, and I've pondered upgrading to Business for quite a while now but the cost of upgrading does not make it worthwhile for us `at the moment`.

New users do shy away from Actinic initially `due to the cost`, but hey, how many have a private reg number on their car worth more than the cost of Catalog? If you want a top drawer product, which it is in my opinion, then surely having to pay for it shouldn't be a surprise.

Not meaning to be cheeky to anyone here mind.

I've recently been looking at an mp3 player, the cost from America is much, much, less than it is in the UK. It'll be ordered from a UK company though. A mate of mine asked me to investigate a set of golf club irons for him, they were £600 a set over here, approx £400 in the US. Interesting.

[magicalwonders]

I remember comparing prices between U.K. and U.S. a couple of years ago and there wasn't that much in it. (Bit of British slang there!) Of course the exchange rate was very different, about $1.35 to the £1.00.

There are other costs attached to importing of course. VAT is charged on the cost of goods and the shipping, plus a very hefty charge for Duty. I don't know the rate of duty for software, but the goods I import have seen a rise from 4.1% to just under 16% in the last 12 months.

This increase in rate of duty is in retaliation by U.K. goverment for the U.S. Govt. subsidising exports.

Of course none of this is within the control of Actinic or any other company.
Anybody who imports or exports (or both) is reduced to being a mere bystander as far as these factors are concerned.

Myles

[Mike Hughes]

I do agree with George on this. If Actinic don't allow their users to resell the licence when they upgrade from catalog to business (or business to developer) then they need to have a decent upgrade policy.

From the user perspective, it's ridiculous if you have to pay full price to upgrade.

From a business perspective, it's mad to have unhappy customers who want to use your software but are feeling ripped off because you're making them write off their initial investment in your software.

Actinic need to do something about this and be sure to spell out the upgrade path on their website.

Mike

[B_Online]

The UK subscription includes 1 days training and 1 year of cover, I don't think that the US subscription does. It is also £1250 + VAT not £1499, so the actual difference in price is around £407, 1 days training would usually cost £300 and cover for 1 year for developer costs £250.

If you compare the price of business which seems be more or less the same package :

$1199 * 0.5624 = £674.32

the retail price is £799 but you can buy if for a lot less if you shop around, for example I looked this morning and found it for £565 (but there was a hosting tie in at that price) and £625.

Well Jan your entire post is inaccurate and if you had read and understood my post you would have seen my calculations are correct. £1,250.00 + VAT = £1,468.75 which is approx £1,499.00 and even if you calculate using the accurate price of £1,468.75 you will still end up saving approx £656.00.

Hi Bill…in truth, I was not really that surprised I just emphasised some points just for the post, but I do agree with your comments.

The whole essence of our business is trading and quite a few of us do actually trade with overseas customers, so what’s stopping Greg from Web Your Business or someone else for that matter from spending a couple of hundred dollars for someone to sort out the differences between the US and UK Actinic packages and start selling them to UK customers at cheaper prices than is currently available here, on eBay or other they would stand to make a couple of hundred on each product but we the customer would also save money? Surely that is business also?

I do agree with George on this. If Actinic don't allow their users to resell the licence when they upgrade from catalog to business (or business to developer) then they need to have a decent upgrade policy.

From the user perspective, it's ridiculous if you have to pay full price to upgrade.

From a business perspective, it's mad to have unhappy customers who want to use your software but are feeling ripped off because you're making them write off their initial investment in your software.

Actinic need to do something about this and be sure to spell out the upgrade path on their website.

I agree with this post entirely!

[Sales@Actinic]

I do agree with George on this. If Actinic don't allow their users to resell the licence when they upgrade from catalog to business (or business to developer) then they need to have a decent upgrade policy.

Mike

Hi Mike

I'm a little confused here. Actinic offers all customers upgrade paths and reductions. There is a section on our webstore specifically for upgrades and all customers that are registered with us receive regular emails promoting the upgrade paths available and the prices. Cover customers are entitled to special upgrade prices and being an active marketing company, mail shot our established customer base every so often promoting the upgrade prices.

It is in our own interest to encourage customers like you to upgrade as it increases our revenue and secondly keeps you within the Actinic Family.

Anyone in our sales team will explain the upgrade prices to you. If it is being suggested, and it appears not, that our sales staff purposely sold a new licence and refused to sell an upgrade then this is a different matter. However, without going into specifics there would be no benefit to the sales person to sell you a new licence over an upgrade and there would be swift action taken to ensure that this did not happen again.

The issue on licence transfers has been dealt with by over a dozen posts but appears to have been lost over the past few pages.

If the software has been used, in other words uploaded to a site for the purposes of financial benefit to the owner, then it cannot be resold. The owner can take the site down, create a new one on a different URL and start again. The ownership of that licence remains with this owner and can never be transferred.

If the box has been opened and it has never been uploaded, then it can be sold as used. The new owner will not be entitled to telephone support but will be able receive support from the knowledge base and via email.

The final area is if the software has been upgraded. Regardless whether the software has been used or not, an upgraded piece of software cannot resold. As part of the upgrde process, you retire the old (previous) product to us in exchange for a newer or different version.

We do our best to 'police' the ebay sales community. We ask for the seller to email me the key so we can test it and then either ask them to remove it or give them permision to sell it. Some sellers do not compliy and ignore our requests even though they know that the purchaser is buying ileagal copies of the software. In this case we ask ebay's IPR team to remove the auction as it breaks our licence agreements. Sometimes ebay respond quickly and remove the auction and put a hold on the account, other times not so quickly.

If you are in doubt about purchasing a second hand licence, don't purchase it, you can always ask us to check the keys for you.

[magicalwonders]

There is a section on our webstore specifically for upgrades and all customers that are registered with us receive regular emails promoting the upgrade paths available and the prices.

Hello Mark,

Do you have a URL for the upgrade info on the website. I purchased Catalog about a year ago, but have not had any emails promoting upgrades. Maybe I unticked a box or something that prevents that. I have registered the product but can't remember the options. Can they be changed?

Myles

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Mark,

Do please post the url for upgrades (as in going from catalog to business or business to developer). I've looked for this several times without sucess.

Mike

[B_Online]

Hi Mark you started your post with “I'm a little confused here”, all I can say is that sums up this thread.

It seems even senior members of this forum are not 100% sure of this problem

My understanding of transferring licenses was that you needed written pemission from Actinic to resell or transfer a license, whether it has been used or not.

You are of course right Jan, in that you do need actinic's permission before a license can be sold or transferred. What we were trying to cover were the different conditions under which Actinic would or wouldn't give their permission. To me Chris was pretty clear when he said:

You go on to say that the problem has been explained but lost in previous pages and then say

If the software has been used, in other words uploaded to a site for the purposes of financial benefit to the owner, then it cannot be resold. The owner can take the site down, create a new one on a different URL and start again. The ownership of that licence remains with this owner and can never be transferred.

There seems to be some confusion with regards to this comment, some in this forum seem to think that with Actinic’s permission it will be ok.

I myself have been told that it will be alright to sell a copy of Actinic Business (which has been used for trading) and transfer the licence providing that a letter has been sent to Actinic on letter headed paper explaining the situation of the sale and by whom and to who, this seems to have some support by comments made above and this comment below which talks about Actinic permission, something which you neglect to mention in your post

Yes it is easy to undertand. So why is it that some users who have built a site with the software are given the approval to resell and others are not. This is the point that confuses me. It seems inconsistent.

Your attempt to enlighten us in the way you have done here seems to be confusing also, instead of wasting your time writing your post why not just post us a link to the section on your website where it is obviously written in a clear and understanding way?

If it was so clear and has been explained in a simple way in previous posts, why have there been so many posts in this thread? This Thread has more replies than other threads have views! Looks like unhappy customers to me. Actinic should have better deals for their customers and not the mean deals that Actinic seem to have hidden away in lost pages.

[wesleythorne]

HI again, this all makes for a good read.
SO if I but Business from America for example i can save a few hundread pounds. Although the software is americanized it works out cheaper than teh upgrade option from catalog to business.
All that i really need to buy is the license key number.
Can i buy this from america and just enter it into the english version which is a free download for 30 days and thus have a fully working english business version.
Or are the keys from america inactive on english software.
I spoke to actinic about selling on my v6 catalog but i am not allowed. This means it has losy 100% of its asset value for my business.
I can however sell it on they said if i sold the business to someone else.
Not that i want to do that just yet!
wesley