Hello Trakt Team, top of the morning to you, I hope this message finds you well.
Today I am kindly informing you of some serious concerns I have regarding the morality and legality of your recent plan to increase VIP prices as stated in the forum announcement “Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes – Effective June 12, 2025” (Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes – Effective June 12, 2025)
As I have tried to post some concerns earlier, the post was promptly removed by a moderator and moved to direct messaging. I have since not heard anything, so I prefer to raise my concerns publicly to give you a chance to publicly and transparently address these valid concerns me and others have.
I truly hope this post will not be removed as it does not break any forum guidelines and is written politely and with the utmost respect towards Trakt, its staff and its members, with the intent to publicly and transparently find guidance and clarification on valid concerns me and others have regarding these announcements.
(Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes
and
Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes (2))
If this post is for whatever reason posted in the wrong subforum, please move it to the correct, public forum.
On May 13, forum-user “raluca” with the title “Product Manager”, made an announcement concerning “Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes – Effective May 20, 2025”. (Upcoming VIP Renewal Pricing Changes – Effective June 12, 2025)
This original announcement severely violated both your own Terms of Service (ToS) as well as general consumer protection laws, stating a minimum of 30 days notice is needed before implementing such changes.
After heavy forum backlash, stating this original 7-day period is in clear violation of the ToS, user “Justin Nemeth” with the title “Director”, on May 20 - a week after the date of May 20 had been announced, and only after VIP-subscribers pointed out this grave oversight - edited the original announcement’s date from May 20 to June 12.
Now, when such an amendment is made to an official announcement, the original 30-day notice requirement effectively resets to the date of the modification, which would make the 30-day period start on May 20, 2025 and go into effect on June 19. When this amendment is made, you also have to inform each and every VIP-member again, making them aware of any changes, through any way of direct communication, such as email. A mere forum-post does not suffice.
Since we now have established that Trakt has failed to comply with these basic guidelines, it is safe to assume that the current date of June 12, 2025 can currently not be accepted by any of Trakt’s subscribers and should be rectified at your earliest convenience, following the correct way to do these things.
The next thing I have sincere doubts about is the message posted by “Justin Nemeth”, one of the executive members and co-founders of Trakt, made in September 2024, stating this: (Price of VIP? - #12 by justin):
“If you’re existing VIP member, nothing changes and you keep your existing pricing. This means a Trakt OG on the $15/yr plan keeps their pricing. And it means Trakt VIPs paying $30/yr keep that pricing. As long as you remain an active VIP, you’re grandfathered in at your price point. If you have issue or a failed renewal, just contact support and we will honor the price.
We last increased prices 9 years ago in 2015. For new members, we now offer VIP paid yearly or monthly. You can still lock in the $30/yr price by signing up for yearly billing by September 5. After that, it will be $60/yr.
The Trakt team is growing (check About Trakt - Trakt) and increased VIP revenue helps fund all our salaries. We also removed programmatic ads since they really sucked, so VIP also helps cover that change in revenue as well.
We are of course open to feedback and welcome that. For everyone in this thread who is already a VIP, nothing really changes.”>
This is a specific and unconditional assurance to all existing VIP subscribers. One that directly influenced my decision to continue my support and maintain my subscription. The statement was made by a legal representative of Trakt and can thus be considered as legally binding.
Justin Nemeth could have written this message in many different ways, adding nuances and/or specific conditions, such as time-frames or other legal additions but alas, this is the message as is, written by an executive figure and should be construed at face value.
This message does not state a timeframe, nor does it specify the method of payment or state of subscription (cancelled or ongoing).
As a longstanding VIP-member with a seniority of 6 years and ongoing, Justin Nemeth’s message directly influenced me to renew my subscription as it would remain grandfathered for an indefinite period, as promised. Going back on this legally binding promise less than a year later is a legally and morally very dubious practice.
In my humble opinion, the promise made by Justin Nemeth in September 2024, should be honored to at least 1 year later, when all the active subscriptions on that day of writing have lapsed a full year and have all VIP-members eligible for early renewal at the grandfathered price.
Please, dear team of Trakt (About Trakt - Trakt), I kindly request of you to seriously address the above concerns that me and many other subscribers have, in a transparent and public way so that we can be better informed and act accordingly.
The bestest regards,
Staalplaat