Napster - a little warning....

[Mrs_Ryan]

I signed up to Napster on their 7-day 'free' trial - thinking it would be just that - free. When I signed up I was asked to supply debit or credit card details, and I supplied the details of my Alliance and Leicester Visa Debit card on the understanding I would not be charged, as I was desperately short of cash, and although the money was in the account I couldnt spare it.I cancelled the trial more or less straight away after finding they didnt have half the songs I wanted, and expected - as per the notes plastered all over their site - that I wouldnt have been charged. So imagine my surprise when i logged onto my Internet banking the next day to find they HAD charged me!!I sent them a furious email asking them why they had lied and also taken money from my account without my permission. In the meantime I discovered what they had done was something called an 'authorisation hold' or what we called a pre-auth in the hotel business, basically setting the money aside so they could take it later. I sent them another email asking them to remove this immediately, and the response I recieved was patronising to say the least, explaining to me in simple language what they had done and basically passing the buck, telling me the bank had to remove it - which isnt true as I knew when we did them only we could do that.By this point I was fuming and ready to actually issue a writ on Napster for the money, but thankfully my bank were absolute stars and refunded the money for me themselves. So just a small word of warning - the 'free' trial isnt free at all!!!!!!!!!!

[tiglet]

It's unfortunate when companies do this - I always say remember the old adage "There's no such thing as a free lunch"

[Conniff]

I had a look at Napster early last year, but just like you, I found they had nothing that interested me.
At that time you could search and listen to about 15 seconds of the track and didn't have to sign up, I suppose that has now changed as they realise they aren't getting the amount of people signing up as they thought they would.

The way to guarantee paying customers is to supply what they want. Napster has been going long enough now that every record ever made should be on there.

[tiglet]

Not like in the old days - not that i ever would have illegally downloaded music when I was a lot younger ...

[robin9342]

I highly recommend a program called Shareaza for file sharing (legally, of course). Its free, has no ads and is compatible with all the other well known programs such as Limewire, Gnutella, E-donkey etc.

[Mrs_Ryan]

thanks for the info Robin.. will have to give that a go

[honey5]

Originally Posted by robin9342

I highly recommend a program called Shareaza for file sharing (legally, of course). Its free, has no ads and is compatible with all the other well known programs such as Limewire, Gnutella, E-donkey etc.

naw you dont wanna be going there, unless you want a lot of work cleaning your puter up
honey x

[robin9342]

Originally Posted by honey5

naw you dont wanna be going there, unless you want a lot of work cleaning your puter up
honey x

What are you talking about? I have used Shareaza for 3 years plus and have never had a problem with it. Neither have my friends and relatives. I am a computer technician and I certainly would not go around recommending programs that cause such problems!

[robin9342]

Oh, there was a company impersonating Shareza recently!
MAKE SURE you are downloading the correct program. DO NOT download the one at w w w.shareaza.com- it is fake.

The correct link is:
Shareaza - Bringing P2P Together

(If this is against posting rules, apologies. Google it and dont use the first two links)

[Conniff]

Originally Posted by tiglet

Not like in the old days - not that i ever would have illegally downloaded music when I was a lot younger ...

I did in the old dial up days. Of course we didn't know that it was a no no then, no one ever said so.
I think they decided to take action against downloading because the stuff they were putting out was rubbish and sales of records dropped immensely because of that and not because of downloading.

I remember Paul Gambachini saying not so long ago - If you had sales of half a million or more then you stood a chance of getting into the top twenty. Sales now of around 25,000 will guarantee you a number one place.
Says it all really.

[dave]

...or Frostwire. No spyware - and as it's writen in Java it will run on Windows or Linux.