We hate to bring bad news but there's no nice way to say it - your Skype Credit has expired. This means that all your credit you had at your account is now gone. Normal accounting rules and cannot keep "dead" accounts in our databases forever

I just got this email this morning from noreply@share.skype.net. So my reply goes on this blog.  I hope there will be different rules and regulations for business users. I also wonder why they currently apply this rule and where does the unspent money go ? To some internal fund ? Anyways the way to keep your credit alive is to make one simple Skypeout call. Fair enough. Some of the statement in this email are not clear from the perspective a “rule”.  In a way I can understand thiI wish Skype would inform the user more than once before THIS happens. Now these kind of message come in like an exploding grenade : Here is the email-message I got :

 We hate to bring bad news but there's no nice way to say it - your Skype Credit has expired. This means that all your credit you had at your account is now gone.

== What is Skype Credit expiration policy? ==

We've tried to make our expiration policy as user friendly as possible. You just have to place one call every 6 months to keep your credit. Skype Credit expires 180 days after your last purchase or SkypeOut call. Extending the period is as simple as doing short call. This automatically extends the period for another 180 days.

== Why does Skype Credit expire? ==

There are several reasons why Skype expires Skype Credit that hasn't been used for 180 days - we have to comply with normal accounting rules and cannot keep "dead" accounts in our databases forever.

You can view your account history - including your Skype Credit expiry date - on http://www.skype.com/go/myaccount and get more information about our expiration policy here: http://www.skype.com/go/help.faq.expirationpolicy

Please note that after each purchase, it can take up to 10 days for the expiry date in Your Account to refresh.

== Getting help for Skype ==

While you cannot reply to this email directly, you can contact us through our Help section at www.skype.com/help for assistance or to correct any errors. You can also visit our forums at www.skype.com/go/forum.

Thank you very for much for using Skype and best regards, The people at Skype.

Yes thank you.