opendownload.de – That’s EUR 96 please [Update]
I’ve read a lot about them already, and finally, I received my own Email charging me EUR 96. (YEY!)
Okay, the Emailaddress is missspelled (I get the Emails, though), the postal Address is totally absurd (considering the geographical distance from my real address that is), and the IP that registered the account (or at least the one the bill claims did it) belongs to the pool of Versatel (says WHOIS).
But aside from that, hey, I got the Email. So I’m paying, right? ;)
What I find funny is that, before they billed me, I got another Email, telling me to please activate and verify my account by logging in with the given password. I didn’t. And yet, ‘my’ account appears to be activated. Or not? And of course, by registering at this website, you have to resign your right of withdrawal.
Of course I won’t pay, I won’t do anything. But I’ll post here if anything new happens.
Update: I recently received another email demanding payment (now 99 eur, including a fee for reminding me) and threatening me that their lawyer will sue me if I don’t pay. How exciting.
Update: So.. after some time has passed I’m very sure I won’t hear from them again… I didn’t communicate with them at all, and that letter I talked about in the previous Update was the last I heard. So nothing to worry about.
Kommentar von jikyung — 23. März 2009 at 19:50
hey, it’s ji living in Germany happened to come across this website. the thing is, I was looking for MSN install program, and I ended up there, because for some reason, the windows website wasn’t working, and I needed it urgently and.. well long story short, I signed up for this website, without realizing that it costs you 99euros. And of course I couldn’t get the install file for MSN so that kinda sucked. And I totally forgot about it, and one day this email came saying all those things you wrote above. So I was like ‘..what?’ and then I wrote them back that I dont’ want to use this shit, (because I after I got the first email I looked around a little, all the files uploaded there is freewares or demos). I even wrote a letter. I tried calling them for 5times on several different dates, but apparently, everyone was busy at every single time I called them. And last Friday I got this second email, now I ended up with 99euro bills to pay. And I gotta say, this sucks!!! Since I tried to download something (which I didn’t succeed) I gotta pay this stupid thing. But I think it’s good that someone wrote about this. So others will know that they shouldn’t sign up for this shit. I mean, I’m really pissed off.. Anyways, I just wanted someone to know my story. Sorry for such a long comment. Hey, who knows, maybe we’ll bump into each other sometime in the future ;)
take care.
Kommentar von Max1 — 23. März 2009 at 19:59
Hey there,
please don’t consider my comment as valid legal advice, you should ask a lawyer for that. But, my oppinion (it’s been said in the press also):
You did not sign a contract. At least not one that is legal according to German law. There are various reasons for that: First of all the statement that the “Service” does indeed cost money is not made clearly above the “I accept” button. Second of all you agree to dismiss your right of withdrawal by accepting their policys. That again is believed not to be possible (according to German law). The bottom line in most cases with such websites is: The virtual “contract” is not legally binding due to the reasons I mentioned above. That’s all there is to it. I know about various people who were trapped by those kinds of website, especially opendownload, and I never heard that they’d sue anyone or press any legal charges at all, because they also know about their “scam” being not legally binding. But again, DO NOT TAKE MY OPPINION AS LEGAL ADVICE.
Kommentar von Adrianus — 14. April 2010 at 21:41
Ich bin zufaellig über Digg auf diesem Blog gelandet. Gute Artikel aber wo finde ich den RSS Feed für meinen Reader? Bin ich blind?
Kommentar von Max1 — 14. April 2010 at 21:44
Danke für die Blumen ;)
Ein Feed befindet sich unter dem Menüpunkt “meta” in der Navigationsleiste oben.
Ich weiß, ist alles andere als leicht zu finden, im Sommer wird die Seite auch komplett umgebaut.