


BulletVPN Shuts Down, Killing Lifetime Members' Subscriptions 36
VPN provider BulletVPN has shut down its servers with immediate effect, leaving subscribers without service regardless of their subscription terms. The company announced the closure on its website, citing "shifts in market demand, evolving technology requirements, and sustainability of operations."
Users with active subscriptions can receive a free six-month subscription to competitor Windscribe, "along with discounted long-term plans." Windscribe clarified it has not acquired BulletVPN or assumed control of its operations, and no user data including email addresses or account information was shared between the companies.
Users with active subscriptions can receive a free six-month subscription to competitor Windscribe, "along with discounted long-term plans." Windscribe clarified it has not acquired BulletVPN or assumed control of its operations, and no user data including email addresses or account information was shared between the companies.
Lifetime has a special meaning (Score:3)
Re:Lifetime has a special meaning (Score:4, Insightful)
Not even that, it means 'whatever we want it to mean'. Many many years ago I purchased a 'lifetime' VPN via SlashDot Deals. Come to find out 'lifetime' was defined (unwritten) by the VPN company as 5 years. The dollar value was low enough that the 5 years worked out to a trivial amount per year so I didn't come out feeling outright swindled, but I was disappointed in the marketing gymnastics just the same. The company still lives on today.
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If you did order something you never received and you paid with a credit card you should have filed a chargeback. Having filed a police report and contacted whoever delivered the package to get a case number will certainly help, but the card com
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VPNSecure.
I too bought a "lifetime" VPN from them through Slashdot deals. Started off great, then one by one they shut down their nodes til only 5 eyes locations remained. By that point I'd switched to something else, but they sent out a long "woe is us" e.mail explaining why lifetime didn't mean that and if you'd be so kind as to buy it again at ~20$/year, we'd be ever so grateful.
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Username does *NOT* check out.
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Re: Lifetime has a special meaning (Score:2)
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This was prior to DoH / HTTPS ubiquity so public wifi hotspots still had some risk, plus it was a fun toy.
Inbound tunnel; IPv6 tunnel (Score:2)
One use case for a VPN is allowing incoming connections to a home PC that is behind an ISP's firewall and/or NAT. Such a PC might be running a game server or a low-traffic web server. Another is connecting to the IPv6 Internet from an IPv4-only home ISP such as Frontier.
Re: Inbound tunnel; IPv6 tunnel (Score:2)
Re: Lifetime has a special meaning (Score:2)
Most home users are not seeking privacy first, it's mostly about being able to appear to be coming from other countries, or at most just hiding from their ISP who is obligated to monitor them.
Re: Lifetime has a special meaning (Score:2)
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> Not even that, it means 'whatever we want it to mean'.
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.
As South Park taught us ... (Score:2)
Not even that, it means 'whatever we want it to mean'.
As South Park taught us. Always read the End User License Agreement. :-)
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Meaning of "lifetime" miss-understood by many (Score:2)
Re: Meaning of "lifetime" miss-understood by many (Score:2)
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A lifetime warranty refers to the life of the product. I.e. a pair of waterproof shoes with lifetime warranty, are warrantied to be waterproof until they have a hole.
FTFY. Guarantees legally have a different meaning than warranties. If my company offers a guarantee on a product and anything goes wrong, they have to repair/replace. If we only offer a warranty on the product, we warrant it against defects for that timeframe.
Interestingly to me, my understanding was that lifetime warranty/guarantee/support had legally-binding requirements that companies had to set aside certain amounts of capital to legally claim. It's partially why my company trained me to say, "Unlim
Entirely unsurprising (Score:5, Interesting)
When I had to drive to a particular part of town every now and then I'd use the carwash near my destination since they did a decent job and weren't overpriced. They always offered lifetime car washes as a rather expensive package.
Last time I was there they were still offering those expensive lifetime packages. Next time after that I was in that part of town, perhaps three weeks later, the carwash was fenced-off with rental chain-link fencing. When I drove past a month later the carwash wasn't only torn-down, but a crew was pouring a new foundation for an apartment complex.
Given the amount of time it takes to go through the permitting process for such construction, they would've known for well over a year before that the place was closing. They probably sold the land and worked out an agreement with the buyer to continue running the carwash until the buyer was ready to start construction.
I'm not inclined to purchase 'lifetime' anything unless my fairly short-term usage is going to be enough to offset it, because you never know for how long the place will be there, even if they are honest and attempting to keep operations running in perpetuity.
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Anyone who hasn't figured out that "lifetime" belongs in the same pile of terms as "unlimited" and similar marketing ilk has earned themselves the experience of learning a valuable life lesson.
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Actually that would be fraudulent contract since the terms under the contract were tied to information that one party could not possibly know. It's the same with knowingly selling a defective or stolen product. You are liable for this. The only issue here is that there's no entity left to sue - but in theory if this was proven to be a wide spread fraud the directors of the company could be barred from starting a new business in certain jurisdictions.
take they money and run (Score:2)
As many have stated, "lifetime" services often refer to the lifetime of the provider. This looks like a classic "pump and dump", as they saw their profits crest they closed the doors.
My Prediction (Score:2)
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More like PhallusVPN with all the dicking around going on.
Remember folks (Score:2)
Lifetime in the cloud means nothing when the wind can simply blow it away. There is no such thing as "ownership" or "lifetime" when the cloud is involved.
Who owned BulletVPN (Score:2)
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Maybe lifetime subscriptions are just not sustainable. Or people get bored of running a VPN service.
Re: Potential alternate explanation (Score:2)
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TLS provides security, a g trustworthy VPN provides privacy.
Without TLS not only the VPN provider can read your traffic, but also everyone else from the VPN endpoint to the website, so the security isn't much better than before. But if the VPN indeed does not keep logs, the privacy is much better.
People still falling for this? (Score:2)
Inconceivable!