Yes I believe they have not caught up with the times on standard MMO billing yet.
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As someone with the disk the actual wording is, and I quote: FREE Subscription for 30 Days*
* Some restrictions may apply.
Technically by law, they are fine, they never said you could play if for the whole month, only you have a 30 Day Subscription.
I still say they should include the remainder, then charge for the month or whatever, but they are not obliged to do so.
good point.., forgot about their CYA clause to protect them against server/ISP downtimes and such.
in the OP is not stated he bought the boxed game, he said that later... and buying 3 addon without trying first the game is really a bad move...or he decided before hand to play the game even if he didnt liked it
however i doubt u can do anything with that, if u created the account mid march u are not eligible to get the free month, even if it is a free trial
try to contact the billing support and ask if they can do an exception...an unhappy customer is the last thing they need now, so maybe they will do something exceptionally...
and guess what? it seems im not eligible too for the free months cause i use webmoney to pay and probably im not in the billing system XD
Unfortunately, the fees are pre-pay charges. Billing in April will be for you to play for the month of April. Biling in March was for you to play in March. There is also no QOS agreement stating that you are guaranteed access to the game x hours aday for x number of days in that month. ISP outages, server downtime for maintenances and updates, etc. have no remedy for issuing credit as the fees are not bound to play time, but subscription to a service. A lot of gray area there for some wiggle room, but I would expect you would still be billed on your normal schedule.
The system is kind of screwy. Depending on when you join, you may skip the first biling cycle that comes up because you are still in the free trial period. When the NEXT cycle comes up, they can legitimately charge pro-rated amount for the time you played in the previous month while not under the free trial agreement.
As for the April billing in this case, it looks like their criteria for who qualifies for the null billing for April are those who PAID for March. If the criteria was who was ACTIVE in March, then those who were in free trial would also qualify for waiver in April. But, essentially April billing will have a credit for subscription fees agains't the March billing only--any additional services, etc are still being billed on their normal schedule. It is safe to assum new subscribers who were in free trial will be treated as per the normal billing cycle rules.