Charging to make contact with EOS, whatever next?

This little beauty seemed to slip in quietly from the following page:http://www.eyeonspain.com/ContactUs-enquiry.aspx 

If you would still like to submit a question to us there is a €9 fee for each question submitted.

If it's been there a while I haven't seen it, but then Idon't feel the need to make contact on a regular basis. If I did see that notice however, I would probably be off like a shot.

Seems a little excessive to me and I can see no announcement about its' introduction anywhere in the forum. Times is hard we all know, but trying to send people away because you think it may reduce the "piffle" in the inbox isn't the way to go. Surely an auto responder on your contact address could refer to the FAQ's (which aren't very thorough it must be said) or the Search facility (which again leaves a lot to be desired) and a statement that not all emails can be replied to. You can then "cherry pick" the emails that need a reply whilst no- one feels ignored because they have received the auto response.

Bad way to go in my opinion .

Mark

Mark, that has been there for quite some time now and I'm not really sure what the problem with it is.

We introduced this for one very simple reason....we cannot handle over 400 emails every day.  It's just impossible.

You need to look at the main contact page first as there are some options there.  There is the paid service contact option, the technical support option and the advertising option.  There is no fee for these enquiries and using this system means we can properly log and answer enquiries.

If people want to contact me directly they can PM me, respond to a newsletter email, etc, etc, contact me via Facebook, Twitter and so on.

What we ARE charging for is if someone needs particular help on a subject NOT related to Eye on Spain.  The contact forum does state that they should put their question on the forum first, that's what it's there for.  If they really want our advice on something they have the OPTION to pay the €9 for our advice. It's just an option.

I have to disagree with you regarding autoresponders, I really don't like them.  People know they are automated so there is nothing positive about them unless it can actually state how long it will take you to get back to them.

Here's an example of the some of the questions we get asked:

Where can I take my dog to the vet in Javea?

What times are the supermarkets open during the holidays?

I want to move to Spain, where do you think I should move to?

And that's just one tiny example.  Can you imagine responding to 100 or so of these types of emails every day?

There really is no point people sending questions directly to me.  That is the whole point of a forum, where many people contribute their knowledge.

The €9 fee wasn't introduced to make money (in fact hardly anyone uses it, which is great).  The idea was to make sure we get emails we can answer, and we can answer those quicker, and get more people using the forums instead of asking me directly for advice.

Justin