I'm afraid I'm still confused. I registered in time, understanding that I could pay at the meeting by credit card without penalty. If this is not the case, then I would like a clear statement to this effect. Until this is clarified for me, it is not appropriate for me to say more. Niall O'Reilly
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 15:05:43 +0100 From: Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg@ripe.net> Subject: Payments of Meeting Fees & On-Site Payment Surcharge To: Steven Bakker <steven@icoe.att.com> Cc: Mike Norris <Mike.Norris@heanet.ie>, Turchanyi Geza <turchanyi.geza@matav.hu>, ripe-list@ripe.net
I apologise for the confusion that may be caused by the confusion that may heve been caused by traffic on this list. We sould have clarified things earlier. So -better late than never- here is the clarification.
Short version:
Asking for a surcharge on payments after a certain date is common practise and is done for a reason. There have been problems with credit card payments in the past but procedures have been significantly improved since then.
Long version:
The reason for charging an attendance fee has been discussed before. It is a combination of the increase in costs due to the size of the meeting and a sharp decline in sponsorship.
We have now started to charge an additional fee of ECU 50.- for payments made later than a few days before the meeting. The reason for this is that payment close to or at the meeting creates quite a number of problems such as long queues at the registration desk, error prone haste and the security concerns associated with keeping a lot of cash around. We believe it is much more convenient for everyone concerned to process payments in advance. This procedure is being used for quite some time by similar meetings such as the IETF, NANOG and APRICOT as well as just about any conference that you may care to attend.
Credit card payment problems have indeed occurred in the past. Some of these were due to processing errors made by us and others were due to the credit card companies. It was not always possible to determine exactly what went wrong. We have apologised to those affected and the errors have been corrected.
We have learned from this and changed our procedures. The stimulation of pre-payment is part of that change. Further we are now submitting payment data in electronic form rather than via error-prone paper slips and lists transmitted by fax. No it is not done via the Internet ;-). We now have a portable credit card machine that processes transactions electronically via telephone. We will have it available at the meeting also. This means you can also pay with PIN passes (EDC, Cirrus) if they are valid for international payments.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards
Daniel Karrenberg RIPE NCC Manager