Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I do "X" with product "Y"?
- I didn't receive my license code; where is it?
- Which payments service should I use? PayPal or Kagi?
- I am a resident in the European Union. Will I have to pay VAT?
- What is the Wincent refund policy?
How do I do "X" with product "Y"?
Each Wincent product has its own online documentation, including a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and answers). The FAQ you are currently reading is for general, site-wide questions that do not apply to any product in particular. If your question relates to a specific product, see the FAQ for that product.
I didn't receive my license code; where is it?
Once you have paid you will receive your license information via email. Messages are sent by a fully-automated system so you should receive the message within seconds or minutes of completing your payment depending on network conditions. If after waiting several minutes you still have not received your license notice check the following:
- Have you double-checked your registration email address?: The most common reason for not receiving a license notice is specifying an incorrect or out-of-date email address. Please log in to your PayPal account (if you paid via PayPal) or double-check with Kagi's records (if you paid via Kagi) and confirm the email address you have specified in your settings. You will need to check that account in order to receive your license notice. If the email address is out-of-date and you no longer have access to it you can open a support ticket and request that your license code be sent to a newer address (please supply your full name, old email address, new email address, product purchased, purchase date, and receipt or transaction number).
- Have you checked your junk mail filters?: Check that your license message did not get falsely identified as spam and diverted to your junk mail folder.
- Was the message blocked by a challenge-response system?: If you have a challenge-response system in place it may have bounced your license notice and prevented it from being delivered. Given that license notices are sent by an automated system there is no human that could respond to such a challenge; you'll therefore need to check your quarantined messages or add the appropriate wincent.dev address to your "whitelist". Please see the Wincent Anti-spam Policy page for a list of outgoing wincent.dev addresses that you may wish to add to your whitelists.
- Did you pay via eCheck?: If you paid using a PayPal "eCheck" then the transaction will not be completed until the payment has cleared. Just as it would for a real-world check, PayPal imposes a clearance delay of several days (typically about four business days) before allowing the funds to clear and the transaction to be completed. Immediately upon clearance PayPal's automated systems will cause your license notice to be sent to you via email. There is no human intervention required so there should be no additional delays.
You can have your license code resent to you at any time by using the lost license code form (this is an automated system).
Note that the automated systems apply to all Wincent products with the exception of Install; Install purchases are processed manually because they require special access to the Wincent server and must be set up manually. The expected processing times appear on the Install purchase page.
Which payments service should I use? PayPal or Kagi?
Wincent recommends PayPal, a very popular payments service with over 100 million users (as of October 2006) and available in over 103 countries including the United States. PayPal will automatically handle any currency conversions for you and they do not charge VAT on purchases made from within the European Union. Using PayPal you will be able to pay using a variety of means including credit card, "eCheck" and Bank Transfer (please note that in the case of "eCheck" and "Bank Transfer" payments your transaction will only be classified as "Completed" once your check or transfer has cleared. PayPal advises that it takes approximately four business days for checks to be marked as cleared).
Kagi is provided as an alternative payment processor. Kagi is less popular but it does have a long history and an excellent reputation as a payments service for Macintosh software. Please note that Kagi collects VAT on all purchases made from within the European Union which makes PayPal a better choice for people living there (see the following FAQ for more information about VAT). In addition, Kagi's higher merchant processing fees drive up the license prices; for most products Wincent absorbs these processing costs but in the case of products with extremely low prices such as Synergy there is a price differential (5 Euros for licenses purchased through PayPal but 10 Euros for those purchased via Kagi). Kagi provides many payment alternatives such as money order and cash which makes it an excellent choice for people who do not have an appropriate credit card or bank account to use with PayPal.
Both PayPal and Kagi provide automated systems which send you your license code immediately upon completion of your payment. In order to ensure that you get your license code as quickly as possible, please double-check that you have specified a current, working email address on a properly configured server that does not use any challenge/response anti-spam systems (as license codes are sent by an automated system which cannot reply to such challenges). Particularly in the case of PayPal you should check your settings before completing the purchase to make sure that you don't have an old email address set. Remember that in the case of eChecks and other pending payments license codes are only sent once your payment has cleared.
I am a resident in the European Union. Will I have to pay VAT?
If you choose to pay using the Kagi payment service then you will pay VAT on your purchase. This is because as a result of the legislation introduced by the EU on 1 July 2003 qualifying companies outside of the EU are required to collect and pay VAT on any sales to EU customers. Kagi has unfortunately chosen to "comply" with these new rules in a way that is not required by the legislation by automatically collecting VAT on all transactions at the correct rate depending on the purchaser's country and then remitting it to the appropriate agency in that country. This is unfortunate because it is an automatic process from which merchants cannot "opt-out", even those like Wincent whose annual turnovers fall below the threshold necessary to activate the regulations.
If you choose to pay using the PayPal payment service then you will not have to pay VAT on your purchase. Unlike Kagi, PayPal provides no mechanism for collecting and remitting VAT. This is acceptable in the terms of the new legislation because Wincent's annual turnover falls below the annual threshold above which they would be required to register for the VAT (for example, the threshold in the UK as definied in Notice 700/1 is £56,000).
What is the Wincent refund policy?
All sales are final and not refundable. Trial versions are available for download and evaluation so take advantage of the trial period to make an informed decision about whether to purchase a license. Wincent may waive this policy at its discretion under the appropriate circumstances; for example, if you accidentally hit the "Buy" button twice and end up buying two licenses only seconds apart when you intended to buy only one then Wincent will refund the duplicate payment on request.
