When I bought the software in 2004 the FREE junk filter was Incorporated to the software. Thats why i paid for the software. Lately the junk filter was removed and they no charge $29.00 to use the NEW junk filter.
Here are the legal issues with their actions:
1. You purchased fully-functional software last year from a company that is registered in the, USA. They are also an Israeli company, but for this analysis it is their US connection that is important.
2. The software had some functionality included (printing?) with the purchase price, and that price paid for a lifetime license. Now the company has canceled the functionality, instead substituting a "super-functionality" which you must pay for (again) — and you do not have the use of the original functionality you purchased for real money.
3. Clearly, this company is run by a bunch of people who think they can make up rules as they go along, and change them whenever they feel like it. It is absolutely clear that whoever purchased this software has the lifetime right of use of all of its functionality — and it is illegal and fraudulent to remove that functionality and force prior-paying customers to pay again. If they left the old functionality and gave people a choice to pay for the super-functionality, that would be OK — but they can't force the issue be removing the functionality that was purchased in good faith.
4. Remedies here are easy:
Civil class-action suit. Subpoena in federal court to get the company's complete customer list of all those who paid for the software, then communicating to them to determine who will join the class. Little doubt of how this will come out.
Case for civil fraud, as described above.
Possible case for criminal fraud, assuming these guys are smart enough to have criminal intent. Actually, I think they just don't know what they're doing — in other words, they cannot take away rights they already sold.
In certain states (Mass. And Calif., NY), consumers can recover 3 times their damages plus attorneys' fees, under the "Unfair and/or Deceptive Acts or Practices" law (93A MGL section 9 in Massachusetts; same law in NY under a different citation).
Punitive damages are possible, limited only by the court's imagination for giving a lesson to the "software cowboys" who don't respect business practices or laws.
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The Company responds:
My name is Yael Walt and I am the Public Relations Executive at IncrediMail Ltd. I received your e-mail from our Technical Support department and will be happy to offer my assistance with this issue.
I understand from your e-mail that you previously purchased IncrediMail Premium.
At the time of your purchase in IncrediMail Premium included the exact same features that it includes today. We have not removed any features from any of our products, as we most certainly would not remove features that our users paid to use.
IncrediMail's JunkFilter was introduced in 2004 as a separate offering. It was not a part of any of the other products we offered - rather, we made it available to all our users free of charge.
Recently, we introduced an upgraded version of JunkFilter which is subscription-based. I understand that you are frustrated as JunkFilter is now subscription-based, however it is important to note that JunkFilter is a separate offering and is not a part of any other products that we offer. The free JunkFilter proved itself as an inefficient anti-spam tool and we have therefore decided to remove it.in order to significantly improve our anti-spam capabilities, we have partnered with another company in order to jointly create a powerful anti-spam too. Please recognize that JunkFilter Plus is a powerful new product that in order to be provided to our users required much effort, time and technological enhancements. We therefore simply cannot offer such an advanced product free of charge.
I hope this information is helpful and clarifies this issue.
If you have any questions or if I can be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.
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THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE WRONG!
I bought the software in 12 and I showed the the receipt. SO THEY DID REMOVE THE FEATURE.!!!
I suggest a class act against them!
Arik
Karmiel
Israel
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