Funny story, if it wasn’t so sad…
A few years ago we sold HubHop to KPN. During the negotiations we talked about a lot of stuff as you can imagine. One of the subjects was that we all wanted a lifetime subscription to HubHop (later rebranded to KPN Hotspots). The guys we talked with laughed and assured us that that wouldn’t be a problem. After all; it is always good to have the founders of a company using your service and saying positive stuff about the product.
After a few months I was sitting somewhere with Caspar Wenckebach (also a founder of HubHop) and stared at his laptop as he was logging into a HubHop Hotspot. My own account was valid until 2040 which seemed long enough to me. But Caspars account was valid until 2041! I immediatly emailed one of the technical guys and asked him to upgrade my account until 2080. He did and I felt better. Caspar and I had a good laugh about it and that was that.
Last week Caspar tried to log on to a HotSpot and couldn’t. His account had expired. I checked my account and it suddenly expired in 2007. Caspar emailed the new CEO of KPN Hotspots and asked him what happened and put my address in the CC field. The answer was this:
“I checked at KPN and nobody knows about the arrangement you mention. Your subscription will now expire on january 1, 2009″
I wrote back that the ‘lifetime subscription’ was a gentlemans agreement between us and KPN and that I hoped they would honor that agreement. A day later I got the reply:
“It is not possible to give someone a lifetime subscription with our current administration system. The best I can do is upgrade your subscription to 2010. That seams to be a reasonable compromise”
A subscription might not be expensive. And I can afford one. And in 2010 the whole world will look different. And I know there are more important issues in the world.
But come on.
How small can a big company get?
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4 Responses to “Funny story, if it wasn’t so sad…”
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The funny thing is that they are lying to you as well!!! I know a guy who actually still has an account until 2090! So the “It is not possible to give someone a lifetime subscription with our current administration system. The best I can do is upgrade your subscription to 2010. That seams to be a reasonable compromise†part is just pure BS!
But then a comfortable thought for you Boris. KPN will cease to exist by 2010 :)
Looks like they need the money..
They did the same with me, after I left my they cut my off within a few days.
But I was a mere employee, so no gentelemens agreement there, but it felt a bit cheap none the less.
Hi Boris, yeah that sucks too. I don’t think they have read The Tipping Point or any Seth Godin at KPN Hotspots…
;-)