Can You Downgrade from Premier (and How Latest News Impacts)

[MikeekiM]

It seems pretty clear to me...

If you are an original hub user, in your free trial period or not... You have until the end of the calendar year to make a decision on whether you want to grab premier for the $99/year pricing... And if you do, you will keep that pricing for the foreseeable future...

The only thing that is a bit on the cloudy side is that there is no "commitment" to keep it as a grandfathered pricing...and that is a bit disturbing... But on the "honor system", they are saying that you will be charged $99 indefinitely (or until they change their mind)...

Bobby...do I have it right? And if so, is there anyway we can get more of a commitment here...like using the words "grandfathered" into the pricing for premier at $99 in the T&Cs? I am pretty sure that is the only missing piece of the puzzle for me anyway...

[niknak]

...So, am I correct in saying this? If I'm on the free trial now and I buy the Annual Premier this week. I will be grandfathered in for the 'forseeable' future at $99. I will pay $99 again in 2010...

this is only true if you activated your hub before 10/1/09...on that date the TOS changed and new premier subscriptions are $119 / yr

[MikeekiM]

this is only true if you activated your hub before 10/1/09...on that date the TOS changed and new premier subscriptions are $119 / yr

Have you read the most recent Ooma blog? It clearly states the following:

New or Unactivated Ooma Hub/Scout Combinations
a. No changes to your promised feature set, includes voicemail and a 60 day Premier Trial.
b. If you want to purchase an annual Ooma Premier subscription, you can do so until 12/31/09 at $99.99, after that the price will go up by $20 to $119.99
c. No regulatory recovery fee will be charged

It sounds like you are good to go... The above is for unactivated original Ooma hubs, so the 10/1/09 date is a non-issue... And you have until 12/31/09 to make a premier decision...

I think that Ooma has gone out of their way to listen to it's customers and has been very fair throughout this process. I think that they likely felt like their communication of the new T&Cs was clear and fair...but after hearing feedback from their user base, have reconsidered and adjusted accordingly...

I applaud Ooma for being so customer centric in this time of change and chaos... Nice job Ooma!

Update/Edit: The very latest blog entry (as of just a couple of minutes ago from my posting this) seem to indicate that there won't be a grandfathering of renewal pricing...that the $99/year rate is locked in based on how many years you want to pre-pay at this price... I asked for confirmation of this in the sticky thread...we'll see what comes back...

[niknak]

you are right, new pricing is for the Telo not hub

[MikeekiM]

you are right, new pricing is for the Telo not hub

Ahhhh.... I see what you are saying... I didn't know you were talking about the $99 rate for Telo customers...

OK...you are right... Anything Telo is on the new T&Cs... That's it...end of story... It's a new product with new pricing...

That's my understanding anyway...

[MikeekiM]

OK... Well... Looks like we got the answer from "up above"...

No one will get grandfathered...

You can prepay as many years as you want (I am sure there are limits somehow), and after your prepaid time is done (at $99/year), you revert to the $119.99/year pricing... No matter how long you've been an Ooma customer...

This actually makes my decision easy... There's no way I am going to pay $1,000 for 10 years of prepaid premier (as an example)... I may buy 1 or 2 years if it mattered to me...so now we are talking about a $40 impact...which is nothing...

While I have not completely made up my mind, I am more apt to stay with the free service... The only reason I was thinking about going premier was the promise of locking in the lower renewal pricing... I am pretty much done on this topic

Thanks for the conversation!

[niknak]

the difference in cost amounts to 5 cents a day

[MikeekiM]

the difference in cost amounts to 5 cents a day

Yup... good perspective...

[Lola]

I'm kind of glad I have read this. I purposely used a credit card that was expiring soon when ordering premier to make sure I didn't get charged again and I assumed it would just downgrade to basic IF I were to chose to not renew the annual premier service next year. I cant believe your account would be cancelled if the premier charges did not go through. I didn't even know for that matter that premier service would auto-renew unless it was monthly. It should definitely say so in the page.