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1.) Monthly web hosting invoice unpaid 2.) Customer informed and appropriate action taken for unpaid accounts (suspend account for non-payment) 3.) Customer's
by Isofarro 15y ago
1.) Monthly web hosting invoice unpaid
2.) Customer informed and appropriate action taken for unpaid accounts (suspend account for non-payment)
3.) Customer's friend makes a public complaint on Twitter
4.) Web host responds badly (but perhaps with some justification, outside parties getting involved in disputes, where a simple pay-the-outstanding-invoice would have resolved the situation)
5.) Non-payee gets abusive
6.) Web host deletes the account for abusive behaviour.
Apart from point 3, everything else seems in order. The customer's friend was provoking a reaction in public. What did he want, the webhost to publicly state that his friend's account had been suspended for non-payment? That seems worse than a firm private message to butt out of a contractual matter.
Suspending the customer's friend does seem harsh, but taken from the view that he's complaining publicly about a problem that doesn't involve him, it might be a long term justification of ejecting bad customers instead of just tolerating them (perhaps there's more to the story). That sort of approach is recommended by things like The 4-hour work week, firing your worst customers.
The guy should have paid his bill, either on time, or as soon as justified. There was no reason for his friend to escalate matters, there was no reason for the non-payee to escalate matters. You pay for the service, you get the service. You don't pay, then you get no service. Yes, the web host can be more lenient, but it's not something you should feel entitled to.
There are a number of extenuating circumstances that can warrant or could result in one or more of these points being appropriate responses.
And look at it, it's a cpanel / shared-hosting reseller - those margins are razor thin to non-existent, even loss-leading. If you're not paying at least $7 a month for a cpanel account, then expecting the host to be lenient for non-payment and subsequent abuse from the non-payee is unjustified.
- vitalysh 15y agoThis is the story from the guy who originally had a dispute with hosting provider. http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_fuck_away_from_this_thiswebhostcom/c2csnv7 http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_f...
- davidandgoliath 15y agoOdd, from what I've read all the accounts were paid up to date -- but paypal had taken a particular payment back for some new service (a domain name or something to that effect). #6a) Hosting provider deletes the backups as well.
- BrandonM 15y agoThat was my first thought, but it looks like this company has a trend of poor customer service: http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_fuck_away_from_this_thiswebhostcom/c2cuglx http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_f...
- mtogo 15y agoYeah, uh, no. Read the Reddit comments and this*'s twitter stream. This is the kind of support they provide.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago> That sort of approach is recommended by things like The 4-hour work week, firing your worst customers. Okay - but removing all of his backups? That's just petty and vindictive. There is zero justification for that.
- alex_c 15y agoI actually think it should be a good lesson not to tell people to go fuck themselves when you still need something from them.
- pavel_lishin 15y agoWhile I agree, the proper response to "fuck you" shouldn't be "lol, all your shit's gone now, sucker!"
- pbhjpbhj 15y agoNot even if the question was "kindly pay your hosting bill"? "Fuck you" then sounds like the equivalent of "kindly delete all my data", no?
- v21 15y ago(worth noting that two dudes had their stuff deleted - on paid on time, and the other hand paid for most of his services, but due to a PayPal error was unable to pay for all of them.)
- Vivtek 15y agoRemind me not to depend on you ever in any situation where tempers may rise.
- alex_c 15y agoDo you disagree that, generally speaking, it's a bad idea to tell someone to go fuck themselves when you still need something from them? Both sides acted childish, but I can't see why a negative outcome would come as a shock to anyone.
- cosgroveb 15y agoAlso, is this the same Reddit that does this [1] to clients with unpaid invoices? [1] http://www.reddit.com/comments/h2e2k/ http://www.reddit.com/comments/h2e2k/
- guywithabike 15y agoReddit is not a single entity. It is a diverse collection of millions of people.
- mikeash 15y agoI'd guess that they tried every other possibility to recover their money before pulling that stunt, rather than just flying off the handle and trashing stuff because the other guy said a bad word.
- sorbus 15y agoWhile I may be wrong, reading through the comments on Reddit it seems like 5) happened after 6), not before, and was followed by 7), deletion of all backups.
- dendory 15y agoSo if you ever happen to complain about your Comcast service or your phone service, you're fine with the company cutting you off if they ever see that? Right.