Overcharging

This morning I logged on to the Kabam web store and the prices have changed from dollars to pounds, this incurs a much higher charge for British customers than Americans, why is Kabam robbing us Brits...?

Comments

LordSmasher

Hmm, yeh changed to my currency too - same as the in game store. Tad cheaper for AUD.

LesktheGlut_666

Exactly.. the exchange rate costs costs a lot more if you aren't in America.

smdam38

I don’t think Kabam sets the exchange rates.
It’s from Apple or Google play.

I’m sure Kabam hates it as much as you.

Monk1

The store is outside Apple..

I think that was the whole point of it in the first place.. to avoid Apple/google exchange rates. This feels like a real greedy move as the cost of items is now 15% more that yesterday

Bendy

Only reason i used the mcoc store was due to the discount now that kinda sucks

smdam38

Weird one then.
Everyone seems to be trying to cash in right now.

Hopefully just a glitch and not a cash grab.
Benefit of the doubt for now.

LesktheGlut_666

This morning I have spoken to Xsolla who run the Kabam store purchases and they tell me it's Kabam themselves that have altered the payment structure inline with Google.
It seems Kabam has become a little greedier and adjusted their pricing to suit so now everyone outside of the US will be forced to pay more for their items than if you were in the US and they no longer understand the exchange rate.
This will cost them even more due to less people buying stuff...
Very underhanded and deceitful..

Drago_von_Drago

This doesn’t impact me but it definitely seems like something that should have been communicated in advance. Especially if they planned to do it right before one of the biggest spend events of the year.

Monk1

Not surprised….

The level of excessive greed is unbelievable. Not sure why anyone thinks people should pay more for the same digital product due to geography.

Previously the store was working really well

smdam38

No words if this is true.
Let’s see how that plays out.

smdam38

Will lose money by trying to make more.
It’s a bold strategy Cotton. Let’s see how it goes.

Bendy

Also i will say even though sucks other games online stores never had their prices in usd for everyone but where u are so im guessing kabam just changed it to match other stores since msf never had a discount in price since went by ur country currency than usd and mff quite new but when launched also is full price in ur currency than just usd conversion price

PrimeSaviour_27

No reason to now go to that store ✌️ guess apple will keep getting its cut off kabams profits.

klobberintyme

Folks, if you missed the whole Epic Sues Apple lawsuit somehow, here's the Tldr: apple store and Google play take a nice skim. Here's Google:

Circumventing their skim by using a billing middleman like xsolla reduces that (xsolla's skim is less for now).

Xsolla gets a pricepoint list from Kabam and is responsible for collection and currency conversion, period. Like when someone buys my EBay product, I've listed it at a price in USD but have no idea what a winning bid in the UK ends up paying, nor do i care. If Kabam had decided to specify in their pricepoint list key currencies instead of the default USD, that'll be highly entertaining to watch.

CROSSHAIRS

Kabam and the player have been

NETMARBLED

Glassback

Ah that’s really rubbish, literally changes the deals, it was like 83 quid for the last banquet deals, now it’ll be 99. Makes a big difference, and massively changes the value of items outside of the US now👎🏼👎🏼

Glassback

And good spot OP, I wouldn’t have noticed until I was charged

BringPopcorn

Not sure exactly how long the market has been available; but it was this way on Google and Apple for the longest time. I guess some people got a discount for a while or something.
Not sure on the % difference either between exchange rates; but some credit cards have some WILD charges on non local currency. The difference might not be as bad.

Bendy

In uk at times i was getting £80 pound charges up to £83 then sometimes back down to 80 so it had around 20% discount then in game it be £99.99 so around 20 pounds at most was a quite a good deal for us brits to use online store than ingame

BringPopcorn

Did you check on your CC statement on a surcharge for conversion though?... Sometimes it can be between 5 -10% charge over the total.
Also I know some places pay a sales tax... The way it works is a bit weird all around.

Bendy

Yeah even on bank it was 80-83

Last purchase was 80 quid which was the scream bundle

Monk1

That is not how these online stores work as you get charged in £, not in $. The store works out the £ based on latest change rate at point of purchase. To me this is very fair for digital currency.

Now an odin is UK is effectively now costing $127 which is ridiculous

BringPopcorn

It was like that before the introduction of the web store for years.

Bendy

At times yes but for couple years it was always 80 pounds in game its why seeing 80 on online store was enticing

Monk1

I don’t believe we discussing that.

The point is the store has been around about 18 months and just flip it without saying anything is dis respectful to people. And basically a P**s take

JLordVileJ

Imagine having money to spend, could never be me🗣🗣🗣

Bendy

They should of 100% said something as its a big deal and a week before cyber which i was gonna budget for

Glassback

Most definitely. And timing just before cyber is a huge grab. They’ll say it’s part of the process with rolling out the daily super etc but there was absolutely no need to effectively increase the prices on the webstore.

I’m wondering if the webstore can be accessed using a vpn and purchase through the US version to still allow people outside the US to nor effective by paying a nearly 20% rise.

SummonerNR

It's been a long, long time since having one of these discussions (whether related to currency exchange, or charging Tax/Vat on Digital Goods by State or Country).

And no, Kabam is not sitting around, constantly setting and monitoring prices for the large number of Price Tiers (offers) they have, for each and every currency individually, around the globe.

There have been numerous very detailed threads about those subject matters in the past that can be referred to.

But in a very general matter, Kabam sets different PRICING TIERS, in which Apple/Google equate actual Prices to (not only for USD itself, but then also for each of the various other currencies around the world).

That was before XSolla and their WebStore, but I would imaging the Currency Equivalence’s for each Price Tier in the WebStore are similarly handled by XSolla, not by Kabam.

Kabam is able to offer lower pricing on WebStore, because they don’t have to pay Apple/Google their huge cut.
And (maybe ??) if Apple/Google are changing their pricing guidelines in general, then the WebStore might (??) have changes done to keep the “WebStore Discount vs Apple/Google” in line with what the “discount” was before.

(*but they’re still not micromanaging every price point, in every currency, around the world)

BringPopcorn

You are wrong.
If a store charges in $ you get charged on your side in £ at the exchanged rate + a percentage for the exchange rate which is why using a credit card abroad is always more expensive. Each bank or credit card might have a different exchance rate (difference in cents usuallly) and a different conversion fee.
A 99.99 deal on the webstore would translate right now around 80£ flat, but it could have fees attached because of a conversion rate.
The argument that you are now paying 127 dollars is not really a valid argument. You get paid in £ not in dollars. I would like to believe you don't write letters to you MPs that you are paying more for milk or tomatos than people do in the states.
Another reason of this was people using VPNs for the Google store or Apple store to pay less using the stores in other countries.

If anything you were being undercharged for a long time, compared to Google and Apple store.