clamhost.com - bad billing practices

[robbyhicks]

Clamhost refusing to refund overpayments. 

What do you guys think? Is this common pratice now? Hard to believe I'm in the wrong here. We have this happen all the time with our customers who forget to cancel their paypal subscriptions, but it's easily resolved with a refund or a paypal payment back to the original paypal account.

Given this is over a very small amount, it just left a very bad taste in my mouth, especially over something seemingly very trivial.
 


 

Quote:

Dave says:
Hi how may I assist you today?
Guest says:
Yes
Guest says:
I had a bunch of payments go through for something i cancelled a long time ago with blastvm
Guest says:
it wont let me submit a support ticket
Dave says:
Can you email
[email protected]
and it will submit a ticket for you 
Guest says:
sent
Dave says:
There seems to be a issue 1 moment
Dave says:
I have alerted our Billing Manager to look into it
Dave says:
what was it that you had with BlastVM?
Guest says:
a VPS
Dave says:
When was the last payment paid via the automatic subscription you had?
Dave says:
And how many payments (Total)
Guest says:
Jan 8, 2015
Dave says:
PayPal it was paid to we have 2
Guest says:
5 payments
Dave says:
And can you take a screen shot of the subscription / payment
Guest says:
sure
Dave says:
I cannot see any record of it if it was setup to our old PayPal then you'll have to dispute the transactions.
Guest says:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/q5h2b3hcnt...mhost.png?dl=0
Dave says:
as we are no longer able to access it as it has been closed due to a debt when we got scammed by a individual.
Guest says:
How is that my issue?
Dave says:
Well we are not able to access the PayPal so how can we refund it?
Dave says:
It's been closed for several months now.
Guest says:
Send the money back to my paypal account, you can take out paypal fees
Dave says:
Also how is our problem you failed to cancel a subscription?
Guest says:
It happens, and you should refund overpayments
Dave says:
Again you'll have to dispute it. as it was sent to our old PayPal.
Dave says:
There is over 1,000 active subscriptions on that PayPal
Dave says:
so how are we suppose to manage 1,000 + active subscriptions. it's the person who sets up the Subscription to cancel it when they no longer need to have that subscription open.
Guest says:
Use whmcs?
Guest says:
We have over 10,000 clients and do not have an issue tracking down and refunding clients who have forgotten to cancel a subscription. it happens all the time
Dave says:
WHMCS does not cancel subscriptions. It's your responsibility to moderate the subscription you have opened. Again I have alerted our Billing Manager I'm just telling you what I can see so far and that is that. the PayPal that subscription was opened with is now closed.
Dave says:
It's still your responsibility to track your subscriptions.
Dave says:
The only option you have is to dispute it.
Guest says:
And it's your responsibility not to defraud you customers in the event they do forget to cancel subscription
Guest says:
I will be posting a review to WHT 
Dave says:
How have we defrauded you?
Dave says:
Please go ahead that is completely up to you.
Guest says:
You're not refunding overpayments
Dave says:
And make sure you tell them that you forgot to end the subscription. Again how are we suppose to refund it when we have no control to refund it.
Please rate your customer service experience:
The Live Help chat session has been closed.

 

[tragic]

Did he even offer any type of account credit?

 

[DomainBop]

Clamhost...this is the company who just in the past 6 months has had "altercations" with its DCs and been asked, or force to move from both Centarra and Psychz?

Read this if you haven't already and you won't be surprised by your experience with ClamHost: http://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/32111/another-chris-scam-avantehosting-centarra-refusal-ship-of-our-hw/p1

We have this happen all the time with our customers who forget to cancel their paypal subscriptions, but it's easily resolved with a refund or a paypal payment back to the original paypal account.

I would issue a refund if a customer overpaid, but based on many similar threads there are many hosts who refuse to refund if the customer forgets to cancel their PayPal subscription.

And it's your responsibility not to defraud you customers in the event they do forget to cancel subscription

Agreed.

 

[robbyhicks]

Did he even offer any type of account credit?

They're not offering any solution as of now.  Dave had added me on Skype shortly after.

Here is how that dialogue went, hopefully Thomas will be able to resolve!

[9:00:33 AM] Dave (ClamHost)
Thank you for your bias thread I see you are a competitior quite funny. Considering as I told you that we have no control what so ever over that PayPal as it is closed.

[9:01:13 AM] Dave (ClamHost): Considering we both run in the same facility Core Site LA2 you are directly attempting to bash us because we are a competitior.

[9:01:19 AM] Robby Hicks: Are you serious?

[9:01:26 AM] Dave (ClamHost): Are you serious?

[9:01:44 AM] Dave (ClamHost): I told you that the account was closed and you did not Listen how can we refund something when we don't have access to the PayPal account.

[9:03:04 AM] Robby Hicks: I have nothing against your company, but I do have a problem with not being refunded my overpayments.

[9:03:34 AM] Robby Hicks: I understand you have paypal issues, but that can't mean you don't give customers their funds back.

[9:03:49 AM] Dave (ClamHost): Obviously you do. because that is why you jumped the gun and went and posted on WHT.

[9:04:02 AM] Dave (ClamHost): And again how are we suppose to refund something when it's in a Locked PayPal Account that is closed

[9:04:25 AM] Robby Hicks: I'm not sure, this is probably something you'd need to iron out with your management

[9:04:27 AM] Dave (ClamHost): I told you I alerted our Billing Manager I was telling you what I could see and that is that it's locked in a closed PayPal account only he can see about refunding them.

[9:05:00 AM] Dave (ClamHost): Anyway thank you for the free publicity.

 

[aggressivenetworks]

Most states have consumer protection laws where the provider must issue a refund for overpayments. It just depends on state laws.

 

[drmike]

Why is Clamhost's PayPal account LOCKED?

 

[tragic]

That's rude. I'm not sure why some people think bad publicity is good publicity.

 

[Licensecart]

Well as much as I hate Dave and Clamhost, they are right... You should have cancelled it, and if they state in their terms and conditions that's something you agreed to.

 

[SFTP]

I see failure to give sufficient attention, from both ends.

 

[drmike]

The PayPal autobill stuff irks me to no end.   I mean no one makes that extremely clear when a customer opts in.  Even stupid little me once in a while ends up in such.  When I see that (I audit PayPal every few months), I cancel the autopay and the service.

Autopay is ideal for smacking customers out of money, including customers who were about to bail.   I hate the practice, so I cancel on folks.

 

[splitice]

There is a few points I want to point out in this regard.

Dave is correct with the following points:

1. WHMCS does not cancel Paypal subscriptions
2. Paypal subscriptions are a nightmare to manage from the Paypal UI from the merchants perspective (and also from the clients!)
3. If an account with Paypal is frozen, the only way to get a refund is to open a dispute. You will win it, they are unable to do it on your behalf. Their UI is locked.
   NOTE: This is not a justification of the poor behaviour of cutting and running, something in violation of numerous agreements and entitles Paypal to claim the debt back if they so choose through appropriate means (see the User Agreement)

Furthermore it is very likely that only the "Billing Manager" (person / people with access to the Paypal account) can offer a refund. How long did you wait before posting this post? Think about it from a business perspective, how likely is it that the person answering the support chat (or whatever) is the owner / billing head / sufficiently privileged to event try and issue a refund?

I am not going to go into my opinion regarding Paypal Subscriptions. They are implemented in a very poor way in Paypals interface, and there is no "right" answer to whose responsibility it is to manage them. It's probably nice for the merchant to manage them, but in reality its your money - it is in your best interest to cancel payments for something when you cease the service.

 

[drmike]

I am not going to go into my opinion regarding Paypal Subscriptions. They are implemented in a very poor way in Paypals interface

They are buried in there  I waste time finding them each and every time I go pruning during audit.  PayPal doesn't want folks finding them.

At last check there is no mass disable either.  It's tedious and time consuming if you have multiples in there.

 

[ClamHost]

Clamhost...this is the company who just in the past 6 months has had "altercations" with its DCs and been asked, or force to move from both Centarra and Psychz?

Your comment is invalid.

ClamHost has not been forced out of any provider. We left Centarra on our own accord due to various different reasons, and we left Psychz due to various different reasons as well. It just wasn't viable for us, we needed to switch, as we're under NDA I can't go into specifics, but we weren't forced out.

However not able to discuss the Psychz situation as we are under a NDA. We have made a choice to move because it is better for our clients.

ClamHost was also with Psychz for 8 months in total until we did a 12 month contract with Globalfrag.

As we have told the OP who created this thread the funds have been going to a closed PayPal account for the last six months. He has not cancelled the subscription and let it continue to bill him for the last six months.

The OP even admitted that he is at fault via Skype.

- Dave.

I'll paste what Thomas has to say:

Dear Robby,

I apologize for all the inconvenience you've experienced, but we honestly don't have access to the old PayPal. We used to rent out dedicated servers on yearly leases as well as offer to build them and ship them to clients, and a client named M (I won't put his name here), scammed us out of nearly $2800. As he was a honest client from April all the way to September, then he blocked us on Skype and chargedback everything. PayPal refunded him everything, and the PayPal went negative. He even chargedback server management work, and hardware upgrades etc. Basically anything he could over the course of five months.

Rather than try to salvage the PayPal, we just opened a new account, as PayPal began refunding clients that claimed there yearly VPS ($112-$290 etc) we're "defective merchandise" or "Arrived not as described", and PayPal just refunded them. Before we knew it that PayPal was negative $3300.

That's the honest reason we couldn't refund you, as the PayPal account is locked.

I do apologize for Dave's tone, but disputing them is in the way to get your money back.

Here is a pic of the PayPal when I checked it in mid September before it got forcefully closed in October.  

Godbless,

Thomas

 

[DomainBop]

Rather than try to salvage the PayPal, we just opened a new account, as PayPal began refunding clients that claimed there yearly VPS ($112-$290 etc) we're "defective merchandise" or "Arrived not as described", and PayPal just refunded them. Before we knew it that PayPal was negative $3300.

That's the honest reason we couldn't refund you, as the PayPal account is locked.

So, three questions: 1. do you  intend to pay PayPal the $3300 you owe them? 2. isn't it a violation of PayPal's rules to open a new account when they close/lock an account and it has a negative balance? 3. if you can't refund Robbie through the closed PayPal account why don't you refund him through an alternate means...like say a company check?

ClamHost has not been forced out of any provider.

OK, so maybe "forced out" was the wrong phrase, but you Thomas and Dave aka Jordan do seem to have had difficulties with many of your past providers and have thrown whiny pissy public fits about them, like the LET Centarra thread, or this thread about Eleven2 where you were whining about $17 dollars.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1295818

I spent $12 on dedicated IP's, and $5 on WHMCS. I cancelled my account at Eleven2 within the 30 day guarantee period, and still have not received my money back. That is $17 I'm waiting on. I only received a refund for the cost of web hosting for the first month ($16). I will give Eleven2 till Monday, August 17, 2013 to issue the refund(s). If not I will take this to BBB, WHT (Web Hosting Talk) and other resources. I am not happy. Phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX ( censored number due to thread)

 

[ClamHost]

So, three questions: 1. do you  intend to pay PayPal the $3300 you owe them? 2. isn't it a violation of PayPal's rules to open a new account when they close/lock an account and it has a negative balance? 3. if you can't refund Robbie through the closed PayPal account why don't you refund him through an alternate means...like say a company check?

The client in question has been apologized to and we will work with him to ensure that he gets a refund. The ticket is open and will be fully assisted within 24 hours pending further communication.

Regarding our PayPal Account we have had no issue with our new account it has been open for 6 months now. the Debt with PayPal has been cleared. When we lost the dispute they closed the account. as I believe that is their policy when this happens as it was not a small amount. we have bought and sold over $10,000 in Hardware and have never had a dispute apart from this 1 transaction. The hit us fairly bad but we had to suffer because of what happened. I guess the deal did not go to plan and we got scammed.

 

[Munzy]

Remember, they have"...not been forced out of any provider."

Honestly, you lie so much that nothing @ClamHost says has any value anymore.

 

[ClamHost]

Remember, they have"...not been forced out of any provider."

Honestly, you lie so much that nothing @ClamHost says has any value anymore.

We had a problem with our switch. that would cause everyone to mass disconnect several times a day. Eventually the issue was isolated to the switch. So we was still discussing with psychz how ever after not getting what we needed for our clients we decided to move on. The reason why I said forceful termination was because after we said we was going to leave they said that it would be best that we look elsewhere. How ever I had mixed up what was said does that make me a Liar?

I don't see why we would have to lie.

Our priority here is to resolve this and not have to discuss internal issues on a public forum and that does not directly effect our service. The migration we did was done in a reasonable time frame we did it so we could offer our clients a better service. we won't be responding to this thread again.

 

[Munzy]

We had a problem with our switch. that would cause everyone to mass disconnect several times a day. Eventually the issue was isolated to the switch. So we was still discussing with psychz how ever after not getting what we needed for our clients we decided to move on. The reason why I said forceful termination was because after we said we was going to leave they said that it would be best that we look elsewhere. How ever I had mixed up what was said does that make me a Liar?

I don't see why we would have to lie.

Our priority here is to resolve this and not have to discuss internal issues on a public forum and that does not directly effect our service. The migration we did was done in a reasonable time frame we did it so we could offer our clients a better service. we won't be responding to this thread again.

Are you under a NDA or not, you said you couldn't talk about it, and now you are telling us it was a switch issue with Psychz. You keep changing your story hourly.

I'm very glad I'm not a client of yours.

 

[aggressivenetworks]

First thing did you even try to fight the charge backs? Are you going to find a way to recoup that 2800 dollars that was scammed from your company in small claims court? If the paypal account is closed how will he get his money? I am sorry by law you are still legally obligated to refund his money in some shape or form!  

 

[RLT]

Actually I blame many messes like this on PayPal. Their inconsistent or dare i say random policies. Cause the massive amounts of problems experienced by both customers and providers.