I just went to renew my long-expired .Mac account. It’s only $99.95, and with the new iLife’08 stuff, and syncing, I thought it might be time to re-up. Went to the .Mac website, where I was greeted by a “Welcome back! We missed you!” message. That’s sweet. I see the $99.95 subscription, and click through to the .Mac Currency Table to see what the Canadian rate is. And, surprisingly, they’re asking a $34 premium just because I’m in Canada.
I expect it to be slightly more expensive, due to the exchange rate, but at the current rate (1 CAD = 0.948227 USD) $99.95US works out to only $105.41CDN. Not $139.00 CDN. It’s not like they had to pre-purchase and stock a large quantity of some inventory at an older exchange rate – it’s a website. I could easily be charged the current exchange rate. But, they want a $34 Canadian Tax.
I’ll pass for now.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
My suggestion? Buy the dead tree box from Amazon.com. It’s usually cheaper, and in the box is a code you enter online.
(Note .com, not .ca – no idea what they’ll charge you on .ca)
This has bugged me for a few years now. It was one thing for it to be $140 when the Canuck buck was around 65¢ US, but now? Especially when you consider that Apple has adujsted their prices on everything else. Heck, iWork and iLife are now at par–same price as the US folks pay: $79; same deal with the keyboards and mice too.
I have never once paid full price for .Mac; I’ve always got it on sale. Last year, I got a “dead tree box,” as PatrickQG puts is, from Future shop for half price. But I’d be happy to pay full price if that price at least reflected the exchange rate.
Grrr.
BTW, D’Arcy, I just blogged about this issue myelf. I think Canadian dotmac users should start a revolt.
It makes me mad how companies do this and it isn’t just software or subscriptions. So many things they swap the $ sign for £ for us. My 50mm lens was half the price on Amazon.com as it was on .co.uk, same with most of my text books. Mad though that an online service should be any more expensive, its not like the bits and bytes pay a toll on the border