Billing changing without customer approval

Question

Hi,

We have opened a new Trello board within the same Workspace and our billing has changed without an approval from $72 yearly, to one time unclear payment of $375.59, and a change to $1,080 yearly from the next billing period, just from opening a single blank board and adding the same team members to a new board!

Trello shouldn't change billing conditions without the customer's consent!

The whole billing plan is very confusing, and it is not clear if the biling is relevant for a Board, Workspace or different boards under the same Workspace.

Also, it is not possible reach the support center as the 'contact us' is blocked due to multiple defects.

1. Via the contact us billing menu, it is not possible to enter the invoice as the Trello invoice number is not accepeted (https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact/purchasing-licensing#/).

2. Not possible to submit a request without the invoice number that is not accepted due to issue number 1, and there is no 'submit' button, and user remains in an edit mode.

3. Contact us 'Compensation' menu selection is blank (https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/ >> Compensation request).

4. Not possible to open a defect for a contact page, as the URL ( https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/) is not recognied as a valid Atlassian URL in the defects openeing process ( https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/ >> Technical issues and bugs).

We are very dissapointed that Trello is using a very aggressive method of billing, and we are considering to stop the use of Trello a cross all of our technical teams after few years of using Trello.

It seems that it is not possible to reach Atlassian and Trello, or even to open a contact us ticket or a complaint.

Avi Wasserbach_st8a2q · Answer

@Rilwan Ahmed

Thank you, I was able to submit a request via the provided different contact us link.

The information that was shared in the 'How billing works with Trello Premium and Standard' arictle is confusing, misleading and potentialy can be a case for a lawsuit.

1. Billing owner is not notifed about the change of billing, customer laws state clearly that a customer should be notified and provide a consent.

2. "Upgrading a Workspace enables paid features on boards in that Workspace." - contractually it means that the subscription is applied for a Workspace.

While at the same time other section in the link states that if a user is a member of a board or many boards, within the same Workspace, but has not recieved a permissions to access the Workspace (a full access to all of the boards in the Workspace), that user is considered as a guest and causing over billing.

"A single-board guest is someone who is a member of one board in the Workspace but isn’t a Workspace member."

"A multi-board guest is someone who is a member of 2 or more boards in the Workspace but isn’t a Workspace member."

In simple words, if a user will get a full access to a Workspace they will fall under the subscriptions rules, but if users recieve an ad-hock access to only boards within the same Workspace, they are considered as seperate entities and will be charged multiple times.

Why a Workspace owner is forced to give an access to the whole Workspace and all the boards in it to allow a regular billing?

3. Increase of users (let's say by mistake) with a yearly subscription creates a one time payment till end of the next subscription billing period, and not calculated per a short period of time (i.e. monthly). Creating an increased subscription without an option for adjusment, and as mentioned in the provided link as an 'empty seater' until the end of the subscription / renewal.

"If you have empty seats when your Workspace subscription renews, you won’t be charged for them. The Workspace's seat count is reduced to match the number of billable users, preventing you from being charged for unoccupied seats."

i.e: If new subscription was created for 12 months, and the admin added same users to a new board by mistake, just for a minute, the billing will increase significally until the next billing period, for the next 12 months without an option to adjust or correct the mistake.

4. Trello gave then option only to see the purchased number of seats, but it is not possible to control them, and it happens automatically.

5. Billing can be inflated automatically from just tens of dollars to thouasands of dollars automatically, witout a control mechanism, and allowing human errors to classified as new subscriptions.

Rilwan Ahmed · Answer

Hi @Avi Wasserbach ,

Welcome to the community !!

Did you go through below link to know the billing

https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/how-billing-works-with-trello-premium-and-standard/

And also try creating support request from https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact/purchasing-licensing?redirectSource=sac-wac-redirect#/