Question about monthly pledge payments

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Trenyc, Apr 11, 2014.

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  1. Trenyc

    Trenyc Avatar

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    A few questions I have about upgrading a pledge with monthly payments.

    The default payment period is 6 months, but you can alter the value of your monthly payment. Interestingly, the system overestimates your monthly payments such that you would overshoot your goal by a significant margin, which is a little shady IMO. If I were to pledge monthly payments toward the Lord tier from the Virtual Collector tier, I'd end up paying about $200 over what I'd pay for a direct donation to that same tier, which is nuts. If I lower my monthly payment by about $35, however, I still reach my goal in six months. Is there a reason for this?

    A question that came up when considering this is whether setting up monthly payments instantly grants you the pledge tier that is your goal (or if you only earn that tier when you actually reach it in dollar amount). I'm sure someone in the community has used monthly payments and can answer this. I'm curious because I would hate to set up a monthly payment only to have the price of my goal change in the middle of my payment period.

    All help is appreciated. :)
     
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  2. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    I thought the default payment period was however many months until launch.
    So, to be paid by October, your last payment would be September.
    So an initial payment now, and five more, May, June, July, August, September.

    You'll pay a service fee that adds to the cost as well. Maybe that makes it seem like it's overestimating.
    You will get access to the pledge tier rewards within a day or two of making a payment plan, but currently that's just access to the Dev+ forums, if you pledge high enough.

    That's all explained when you set up the plan.

    **edit** Also, we're into Benefactor pricing now, so if you're a founder, you'll be facing the increased price.
     
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  3. Trenyc

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    That's not it.

    If I have a Founder Virtual Collector pledge, I have $100 already put in (because I earned Virtual Collector during the special Founder pricing). A Lord pledge costs $1,600. The net difference should be $1,500. If I select monthly payments to upgrade, though, the default monthly payment is $287 per month for six months. That would indeed get me there by September, but $287 times 6 is $1,722--over $100 more than the cost of a Lord pledge by itself, even without the $100 I've already put in. The service fee per payment is calculated on the next page and is not a factor in what I'm describing here.

    As for all or any of this being described on the payment page, I'm pretty sure it's not. At least, I don't see it anywhere. Also, if this difference (almost 15%) really is the service fee, that's kind of absurd.
     
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  4. Bohica

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    sounds like to me you are trying to create a new pledge and not actually upgrade your current pledge. I would check to make sure you hit the "upgrade" button.
     
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  5. Bohica

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    Actually i am mistaken and you are correct it does over charge you. Anyone an check. I tried to start a new pledge to Lord and each monthly payment was $306 which comes out to $1,836. ($306 x 6 months) I think something got messed up in the code somewhere.

    Not to mention the service charge gets added during checkout and not before.

    It use to not be like this i think something got changed.

    You can change the monthly payment amount in the box if you wish to set up the plan still.
     
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  6. Trenyc

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    You can change it, yeah, but as soon as you click out of that box, it reverts to the calculated minimum. It also won't let you proceed without entering a value greater than the calculated minimum.

    Maybe I should email Portalarium support. Do you happen to know the address?
     
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  7. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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  8. Trenyc

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    Thank you kind sir.
     
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  9. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    So, I went in and set up a payment plan, and you are definitely correct.
    The payment plan would have me pay way too much.
     
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  10. Umbrae

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  11. Sir Frank

    Sir Frank Master of the Mint

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    On the initial page, all three payment plan options give me the same amount. I did not click through to see the fee, but I believe it is 10%.
    Still, I chose to start a new pledge to Duke, and it wants to charge me 6 easy payments of $1013, or $6078.
    Even with 10% fee, that should be $5830.

    Something is definitely bjorked.
     
  12. Bohica

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  13. Umbrae

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    In that case, I bet its the same as the referral bug, and contacting support it the way to go. Probably just something they did not think about when the old pricing went away.
     
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  14. FireLotus

    FireLotus Royal Bard & Master Dabbler Dev Emeritus

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    We're investigating this to be sure you guys are not being overcharged! :) Thank you for notifying us via the support@portalarium.coom email, as sometimes these things can get overlooked on the forums. :)
     
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  15. Ravenclaw [BEAR]

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    Just curious about when we get access to our pledge tiers as I did not see anything about it except this one sentence. Just want to ensure that my pledge payments would take effect prior to the upcoming lot selections when the game is released.

    This made sense and was encouraging however:
     
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  16. Bohica

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    Good question. As of now, we know that you get forum access automatically if you have started a payment plan that includes special access. It has yet to be determined how payment plans influence house placement.
     
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  17. Biblik

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    And by automatically you mean within 24-48 hours correct? I started a payment plan as soon as I saw the new rewards : )
     
  18. Sardonyx

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    The game is not being released in October. The payment plan date was extended through February 2015 and there are Pre-Alpha Releases on the calendar through December (Release 13).
     
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