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> We can whack this mole, but really we just need a credit law (or convention from VISA/Mastercard) applied in as many countries as possible that says all charg

> We can whack this mole, but really we just need a credit law (or convention from VISA/Mastercard) applied in as many countries as possible that says all charges on a credit card need to be pre-approved. That would help, but it wouldn't completely stop the abuse. I recently decided to try out the VPS offerings at [a major cloud provider]. I paid for one month of a VPS with Paypal, quit using it before the end of the month, and didn't pay for another month. Unlike every respectable cloud provider I've ever used, they apparently wanted me to navigate their interface to figure out how to cancel the VPS and do that. Instead they kept it running for another two months (they say), and after one attempt to contact me by email (which I missed), turned my entire account over to collections, with all the mess that entails for me. So even preventing recurring charges won't necessarily help if the companies move to claiming that you never canceled your subscription and then trying to bill you for it later, or sending your account to collections.

rurp 7y ago
That sounds awful. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to know which cloud provider this happened with.
- bscphil 7y ago
  That was Hetzner.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    They are quite loved on HN. Hopefully they'll change their process in response to being outed here :-)
    - bscphil 7y ago
      Run for your life. I've used probably 10 VPS services at various points, including some small enough that they're probably run by one person reselling from a dedicated server provider. Some of them have great customer service. Some of the don't. But I've never, not even once, had someone try to pull a billing scam on me. I will never consider Hetzner for anything again.
milankragujevic 7y ago
Awful. I had the same experience with Online.net. A prepaid service that was paid, and then I cancelled through the bank, forbidding them from charging me, YET the kept the service running for a month, but I couldn't cancel as they blocked my account for non-payment (impayé). In the end I left the account in this state and stopped caring. As far as I had understood it, if I don't pay, it SHOULD be suspended and deleted immidiately, NOT kept running and then the provider claiming I owe them for that service.
- bscphil 7y ago
  Yep! Very similar situation in my case. Since Hetzner requires you to give them a name, phone number, address, etc. it's very easy for them to track you down later when they want to pull this scam. > As far as I had understood it, if I don't pay, it SHOULD be suspended and deleted immidiately, NOT kept running and then the provider claiming I owe them for that service. With every VPS I've ever used, this is the case. The nice ones will send you a warning before shutting it down a few days later. I'll steer clear of online.net because of your warning.
- chatmasta 7y ago
  I had this situation in 2014 with Amex and a very large hosting bill from a server provider (non-cloud, it was a typical dedicated host LLC operation, although fairly reputable). In my case I had even explicitly instructed them to cancel and they did not. I went back and forth with Amex for about six months. The server provider even forged the date on PDFs to make me look wrong. I don’t remember the exact resolution, I might have partially recovered the money. But it was a nightmare.

rurp 7y ago

That sounds awful. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to know which cloud provider this happened with.

bscphil 7y ago
That was Hetzner.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  They are quite loved on HN. Hopefully they'll change their process in response to being outed here :-)
  - bscphil 7y ago
    Run for your life. I've used probably 10 VPS services at various points, including some small enough that they're probably run by one person reselling from a dedicated server provider. Some of them have great customer service. Some of the don't. But I've never, not even once, had someone try to pull a billing scam on me. I will never consider Hetzner for anything again.

milankragujevic 7y ago

Awful. I had the same experience with Online.net. A prepaid service that was paid, and then I cancelled through the bank, forbidding them from charging me, YET the kept the service running for a month, but I couldn't cancel as they blocked my account for non-payment (impayé). In the end I left the account in this state and stopped caring. As far as I had understood it, if I don't pay, it SHOULD be suspended and deleted immidiately, NOT kept running and then the provider claiming I owe them for that service.

bscphil 7y ago
Yep! Very similar situation in my case. Since Hetzner requires you to give them a name, phone number, address, etc. it's very easy for them to track you down later when they want to pull this scam. > As far as I had understood it, if I don't pay, it SHOULD be suspended and deleted immidiately, NOT kept running and then the provider claiming I owe them for that service. With every VPS I've ever used, this is the case. The nice ones will send you a warning before shutting it down a few days later. I'll steer clear of online.net because of your warning.
chatmasta 7y ago
I had this situation in 2014 with Amex and a very large hosting bill from a server provider (non-cloud, it was a typical dedicated host LLC operation, although fairly reputable). In my case I had even explicitly instructed them to cancel and they did not. I went back and forth with Amex for about six months. The server provider even forged the date on PDFs to make me look wrong. I don’t remember the exact resolution, I might have partially recovered the money. But it was a nightmare.