Overcharging
LesktheGlut_666
Member Posts: 84 ★
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...?
8
Comments
It’s from Apple or Google play.
I’m sure Kabam hates it as much as you.
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
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.
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..
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
Let’s see how that plays out.
It’s a bold strategy Cotton. Let’s see how it goes.
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.
NETMARBLED
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.
Also I know some places pay a sales tax... The way it works is a bit weird all around.
Last purchase was 80 quid which was the scream bundle
Now an odin is UK is effectively now costing $127 which is ridiculous
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
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.
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)
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.