Dialog pricing

I've been using Dialog since 1978. Yes, 29 years. I've lived through all of Dialog's wild and crazy pricing changes, and wrote articles about each iteration, which attracted a fair bit of attention. (In fact, the CEO told his direct reports not to return any of my phone calls.)  For all the gory details, see:
"Dialog's DialUnits: a price increase in sheep's clothing" Searcher (September 1998) p. 56-65
"Dialog's DialUnits: There Is a Great Disturbance in the Force" Searcher (July/August 1999) p. 52-57
Dialog Pricing Redux: Deja Vu All Over Again" Searcher (March 2002)

For those of you who don't keep score, Dialog has two pricing schemes, both user-hostile. One of them bases your cost on connect time PLUS CPU processing time for some commands (e.g., Rank). The other one bases the cost entirely on CPU processing time. Irrational? you bet! Do I get paid more when I think harder? Don't I wish.

So, I run a search on Dialog today. I rank the results by author. I do this all the time; costs me around $8. This time, I typed   rank all au  instead of   rank au.  I got the same results, but the poor overworked CPU had to process more elements.

Result? I logged of to a bill of $17,334.78. (and another one for over $2K) Isn't it great that Dialog notified me of this charge?

Yes, I'll be calling Dialog first thing on Monday, but pricing schemes based on something as unauditable and unpredictable as CPU processing time is insane.

March 23 update:
After several phone conversations, my sales rep assured me that I'd be credited and that there were "16 people working on making sure this doesn't happen again." And I just got an email from Dialog customer service:

I have processed your credits in the amount of $20,217.77 and this credit will appear on your April 5th invoice.  Have a nice day.

Yep, just your everyday refund... $20K.

Comments

[CogSciLibrarian]

I still teach Dialog in (advanced) reference in library school -- mainly for the expert searching options. I explain a little about Dialog's pricing -- and I'll be sure to include this tidbit next time the topic comes up.

Cra-zee.

[Reva]

I'm perversely gleeful (now that I know you're getting your refund, of course) that this sort of thing is STILL happening. Aargh!!! WHEN will they Get It?

[mary ellen bates]

Unfortunately, the "notice" option does NOT work for RANK or DialUnits. It only notifies you of PRINT or REPORT costs. I already have my account set to notice 0

So using SET NOTICE as a safety net is not sufficient.

[Amelia Kassel]

Following up on Marydee's comment, I have a list of Dialog cost management techniques I recommend and one involves the set notice command. You can place it in your Profile and how to create or edit a profile is at http://support.dialog.com/searchaids/dialog/profileqrc.shtml. Or, you can use set notice at each logon by typing:

? set notice 100 (or whatever amount you wish not to exceed)

This command warns you if you issue a type command that costs above the amount beyond which you don't want to spend. The computer will prompt you before it types out results that will cost more than $100 (in this instance.) You can set notice to any amount.

[Marydee]

For some reason, and I'm honestly not sure why, about 6 weeks ago I changed my profile on Dialog to prompt me about charges before it went ahead and did whatever it was I "commanded" it to do. This would have caught that $17,000 charge. It's annoying to be asked if I want to spend a couple of dollars for full text articel, but now I see that it's a minor annoyance "ranked" against your experience!

[Christina Pikas]

Did it try to rank everything in the database? I tell you, this pricing thing has me so scared that I hop on and hop off really quickly and only when I have to. I also don't use a lot of the features I should for this reason... That can't be good for them.