VCP price change
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theczar
Posts: 1,590 ✭✭
Is there anyone else besides me who is displeased with VCP's price change? I signed up for the one year plan. Midway through they are raising their rates and for those with time left on their subscription their privleges will be reduced unless the fork over more money.
When my subscription is over they can charge me whatever they want and I'll decide what to do. But before that time I think they should their year long committment.
When my subscription is over they can charge me whatever they want and I'll decide what to do. But before that time I think they should their year long committment.
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Comments
Bob
email bcmiller7@comcast.net
Did you receive an explanation as to why the increase was necessary?
I pay by the month and thought $9.99 was a great price for what was offered.
Maybe Bobby will see this thread and respond.
As far as being displeased? .... No one likes price increases!
PoppaJ
If the fine print in the contract that you agreed to when you signed up says that they can raise their rates, then there is nothing unethical about what they are doing.
Gold Membership =$17.99 / Month
Heck, I don't even know what I have now (9.99 / Month)
an 80% price increase is steep. it's a lot more when you agree to a deal and they change it midstream.
i posted on the vcp website but no response yet from bobby. he blames the increase on new servers and uploading images. the images are cute but i didn't subscribe to see pictures of cards. they can get rid of images if that is there reason for increases.
Please feel free to contact through our site or I will try my best to answer all question you may ask.
Regards,
Bobby
<< <i>an 80% price increase is steep. it's a lot more when you agree to a deal and they change it midstream.
i posted on the vcp website but no response yet from bobby. he blames the increase on new servers and uploading images. the images are cute but i didn't subscribe to see pictures of cards. they can get rid of images if that is there reason for increases. >>
VCP's original announcement on Wednesday:
<< <i>Dear Valued VCP Members,
We will be restructuring our membership and implementing a fee increase. There will be two VIP membership types:
Silver Membership 12.99 p/month 129.90 p/year
Gold Membership 17.99 p/month 179.90 p/year
The only difference in site features between both member types is the ability to view links to past auctions/images, seller, buyer and bid count. These features will be available to Gold members only.
At the launch of VCP two years ago, we had a total of 150,000 price records that only covered baseball up to the year 1959. Today we have over 1.5 million records and now covering baseball, basketball, football, hockey, boxing and non-sports up to the year 1989. Our cost of operating has increased considerably since our inception as we now have 3 servers to effectively run the website and we are not very far from having to do a major upgrade on our server package. We now have about 300,000 images of cards from past auction and adding about 35,000 new ones every month.
In the coming weeks you will notice a yellow alert icon near your username in your user navigation bar. You'll need to click it to select a member type.
Thank you very much for your support and for solidifying VintageCardPrices.com as the authoritative sports card price guide.
- The VCP Team >>
In regards to those with current annual memberships, Bobby's response on VCP's website states:
<< <i>In regards to the annual memberships I believe that you will be switched to a Silver member and not be charged any extra until your membership expires. You will have a choice to become a Gold member then you would be charged a prorated fee of the current time you have left on your existing membership. >>
So my question is this...is all you lose is links to past auctions, images, buyer/seller info and bid counts...who gives a rip? You don't lose what the site was clearly developed for, so why the belly aching? I can't imagine that folks are signing up for the service to see buyer/seller info or bid counts. You have said you don't care about the images, so then what gives? Please explain what is materially different?
There is another option for you if it makes such a difference. Build your own site and do it yourself...that way you can choose your own business model.
will this cancel or is it just going to charge the higher amount.. I wasn't aware of the change..
and for the amount I use it.. I think I will just pass
80% increase for the gold membership.
<< <i>I will have to cancel. I love what vcp offers but it is slow, buggy and nothing new warrants a $3.00 dollar increase. >>
I have to agree that the slowness issue will cause me to let my 1 year subscription to run out. I like the added features, but the search has just slowed to a crawl since the images were added.
I would have thought it would be like 4.99-5.99 per.. like a magazine subscription
<< <i>I will have to cancel. I love what vcp offers but it is slow, buggy and nothing new warrants a $3.00 dollar increase. >>
I think VCP has saved me alot of money since Ive begun using it, alot more than $3.00 a month. Overpay once for a card and it may cost you more than that
Price wise, everything has gone up, gas, the electricity to cool the place they store the servers, etc, why not VCP?
I use the site mainly to automatically email me when a card i want comes available. I think about how much time I save by not having to search ebay every week for the cards i want, its automatically emailed to me when it comes up not only there, but auction houses, Im pretty sure my time is worth more than $3.
I agree the site has gotten pretty slow, hopefully some of the price increase will go to fixing that.
I plan on keeping my subscription, its a great service.
joe
<< <i>
<< <i>I will have to cancel. I love what vcp offers but it is slow, buggy and nothing new warrants a $3.00 dollar increase. >>
I think VCP has saved me alot of money since Ive begun using it, alot more than $3.00 a month. Overpay once for a card and it may cost you more than that
Price wise, everything has gone up, gas, the electricity to cool the place they store the servers, etc, why not VCP?
I use the site mainly to automatically email me when a card i want comes available. I think about how much time I save by not having to search ebay every week for the cards i want, its automatically emailed to me when it comes up not only there, but auction houses, Im pretty sure my time is worth more than $3.
I agree the site has gotten pretty slow, hopefully some of the price increase will go to fixing that.
I plan on keeping my subscription, its a great service.
joe >>
You make some good points Joe.
I know I've saved a lot since using VCP.
Plus, I've won $50 4x from Just Collects "TheClosingPrice.com" contests with the help of VCP.
PoppaJ
<< <i>Ebay will email auctions on their site and they do it faster. Vcp has saved me money but the way I read the new rates I will have to pay 17.99 a month for something i am getting for $9.99 now. >>
Ebay will only email you auctions from their site, not from auction houses.
I do both, I use ebay for the modern stuff VCP doesnt track, VCP for the vintage stuff.
Increased costs should come upon subscription renewal which if I'm reading this correctly is what is now going to happen after considerable protest was made by a number of subscribers. So what is a new or potential subscriber to think?
Hall of Famers from all 4 sports
THE RATE INCREASE HAPPENS ONLY ON RENEWAL.
You will not be charged anything extra for your current term. If you are a yearly member and joined on 6/1/08 then you will not be charged anything and have a GOLD member status with full access. Then next year on 6/1/09 you will be given a choice to choose the GOLD $179.99 or SILVER $129.99. Same thing applies for all monthly subscribers.
Matter of fact if you are smart you can go to your account on VCP and add a year at the current price structure. To this log in in the MY VCP pull down go to "ACCOUNT" and there is a button that allows you to add a year to your membership.
thank you for clarifying the renewal policy.
as far as adding another year to our subscription at current rates, i am having trouble finding in the "add a year" button in the my account section.
all i see is cancel membership or update credit card information along with the tell a friend about vcp section. any help you can give me to the "add a year" button would be greatly appreciated.
<< <i>bobby,
thank you for clarifying the renewal policy.
as far as adding another year to our subscription at current rates, i am having trouble finding in the "add a year" button in the my account section.
all i see is cancel membership or update credit card information along with the tell a friend about vcp section. any help you can give me to the "add a year" button would be greatly appreciated. >>
Click on "My VCP" and scroll to "My Account". Then you should see a brown box that says "Extend Membership - Add Year".
I have already had 4 users in the past 10 minutes use the Add a Year so I know that it for a fact is working. If you would like you can call me at the number on the VCP site and I can talk you through it on the phone.
Bobby
THE RATE INCREASE HAPPENS ONLY ON RENEWAL.
Some people just need something to complain about. Some people need to chime in and make ridiculous comments about cancelling a great service because it went up $3 per month. If people are playing their collections that close to the penny, maybe they should think about a different hobby.
<< <i>Price hike midway through????? I'll cancel my sub also. >>
Are you reading this thread? The increased subscription fees don't take effect until you renew your membership. So, the term for which you paid is still paid, and you won't be charged any more until you renew.
For me, VCP has been worth far more than the $9.99/month or $99.99/year. Most of the cards that I am pursuing have very limited recent sales, and I need to look back 1 to 2 years, or more to get a reasonable estimation of price. VCP provides this for eBay and many auction houses.
I used to keep track of prices on my own, using spreadsheets. It was very time consuming, and VCP has been a tremendous help. I don't like to see the rates increase, but their service is valuable to me. If anything, I've been getting more out of my membership than $99/year, so IMO their price was a real bargain before, and is now probably closer to optimized for what the market will bear.
As far as the pictures go, I like to see pictures of recently completed auctions. You'll sometimes see card(s) sell for less than expected -- you can bring up the scan and see if it was the card, or if the market is changing.
Doug
<< <i>Bobby...it's a battle you're not going to win around here. This is just this week's "the sky is falling" thread in the spirit of ebay's fees rising, PSA doing away with guaranteed service times, PSA adding the .5 grade, etc.
Some people just need something to complain about. Some people need to chime in and make ridiculous comments about cancelling a great service because it went up $3 per month. If people are playing their collections that close to the penny, maybe they should think about a different hobby. >>
When a business raises it's prices, it takes the risk of losing customers. No need to get your arms up over it just to appeal to Bobby. I canceled my subscription too simply because the value is no longer there for me. Period. It may still be for others.
For someone like yourself who's collecting raw, I can see your point. But if you're set building and collecting PSA graded cards, VCP will absolutely save you the membership fee many times over, as it's virtually impossible to track the true value of commons and low pop cards. SMR is way out of line on many cards, so it's also useful when planning to bid on star cards. I recall when you posted once in the official 1972 Topps thread, you were very surprised at the price that a PSA 9 1972 Topps Bench had just sold for, but with VCP data, the final price wasn't a surprise at all.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
It is NOW being widely speculated that EBAY will soon radically reduce the number of
completed listings that will be viewable. A pay-to-look scheme is being discussed.
I am not a VCP subscriber.
Just kidding. I don't currently subscribe to VCP but I can see how it could be a useful tool to a lot of dealers and collectors. I like having more info, but I don't like paying a premium for it.
With that said, as someone who's building vintage Football sets card by card, I could really care less what the last five average prices are for a card that's on my want list. I simply bid to within my means and let it go. If I win, great, I've added a card to my collection. If I don't have the high bid when the auction ends, I don't sweat it either, because I know another one will appear for sale in the near future. I'm not collecting to build my collection the fastest. I care about quality, not over paying. Because I don't feel I do over pay, because I pay to what I can afford. I also think about resale in my buying decisions.
I know what I can afford to bid on some cards, and that's what I bid. I've never really let a price guide (beckett, smr, vcp) really influence me to bid more or less on a card I want to own. But that's me.
The average price realized for a certain card means nothing to me either. Every card is different within the grade as far as eye appeal, centering, corner sharpness, focus, etc... . A price guide doesn't reflect any of these quality factors.
Anyone who's been on ebay any length of time knows realized prices are a like a roller coaster. One night a card in PSA 8 can sell for $50. Three days later another 8 of the same card sells for $90. We've all seen this time after time on ebay. There's no rhyme or reason to any of this.
As an example, just last month a '71 Namath PSA 8 that looked sweet, sold for around $165. It ended on a Tuesday evening. The same seller two weeks later and ending it on a Tues. night again, listed another one in the same grade that actually looked worse to my eyes, and it sold for over $300. Were the bidders using VCP, SMR, Beckett? Who knows. Probably nothing. They were just bidding to win and it just so happens another buyer or buyers also had a hard on for that card on the same night and they bid each other up. Quality of the latest Namath 8 didn't seem to matter either.
With all that said, I'm sure VCP is great for many here. Price increases in any service are hard to swallow in this economy.
My two cents.
Rich
<< <i>I have not heard any complaints for the past 2 months about the site being slow anymore since we made the changes. >>
The speed of the site is the exact reason I won't be renewing next month.
The price hike doesn't help either.
CDsNuts, 1/9/15
<< <i>Matter of fact if you are smart you can go to your account on VCP and add a year at the current price structure. To this log in in the MY VCP pull down go to "ACCOUNT" and there is a button that allows you to add a year to your membership. >>
Bobby - I'm not complaining about the price increase, but when I to go My VCP then My Account, there is no "Add a Year" button. I'd be happy to resubscribe at current rates for another year.
rarely for buying but do for that too sometimes..
not really to save money but to keep from losing by bidding too low
I rarely look at the images..
so if there was a limited access page that I could just compile prices
for like 6.99 I would be in.. I don't use / need or even truthfully know about the other
things the site offers because I don't need them
fyi I haven't had any issues with your site being slow maybe it is because I am in and out in a matter of minutes
and use if only for what I stated