If a client's VPS is suspended, do you still send them an invoice for next month?
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AuroraZero
Active Member
Exactly get over it and move on. Do not pay it and tell them to GTFO. It is not like they are going to come knocking on your door tomorrow with gun and ball bats demanding their $1.50. Shit I have been billed by some comapnies months after I have lefted them and I do not go around posting all over. Shit happens you move on and life goes on. I have other stuff worry about, and could give two rat's asses if whcms or blesta bills if some one is suspended. I have my own bills to pay and even if it happened to me I would not care then, because I would be suspended and not paying anyways.
I tried using this argument today and my mortgage company said I still needed to pay them even if I wasn't able to live in the house. The car finance company also doesn't care that I'm not driving the car, I still have to make my monthly payments. It's a tough world we live in where we need to take responsibility for our own actions.
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AuroraZero
Active Member
Yeah I can see where you are coming from, in this instance. I am just trying to get him to nut up and be a man about things and stop this whining crap. I cancel any service I am not going to use and do not abuse the services I do use, so I have never had any terminated in this fashion, but even I had I would cancel them and move on.
I would not waste my time and the provider's over something so trivial as this, and I certainly would not post on two forums about it. In fact I have wasted too much of both of our time trying to get him to nut up over this crap as it is. I should have wrote him off as a lost cause and went about my day working on my project that I almost a year behind on now as it is, or fixing my seriously outdated blog.
I would not waste my time and the provider's over something so trivial as this, and I certainly would not post on two forums about it. In fact I have wasted too much of both of our time trying to get him to nut up over this crap as it is. I should have wrote him off as a lost cause and went about my day working on my project that I almost a year behind on now as it is, or fixing my seriously outdated blog.
@AuroraZero I want to clarify my last post wasn't directed at you, sorry if it seemed like it. 
AuroraZero
Active Member
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
I feel this is as a customer how I'd hope things go. I don't know if WHMCS supports such logic without more development / addon. It's in essence a paused / on vacation account. The VPS is still there using disk, but offline. Billing isn't really being incurred as offense happened in already paid for month.
I know I am stepping on landmines with this.. but.... isn't this really a problem with pre-billing vs. post billing. If you use a service like DigitalOcean, your invoice is for services prior rendered. If your container was put offline for abuse or other matters 15 days into the prior month, your end of month bill should reflect 50% of the monthly price. In these pre-billing models, you pay ahead $5 a month, run into abuse on the 15th, get account paused. Come end of month you are being pursued to pay for the next month, regardless of what the issue is or even if you have services. Short of them cancelling your account, the emails and payment requests will happen (precisely why the PayPal auto payment / subscription I do not use - EVER).
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
Also, KuJoe mentioned about car payments, mortgage, etc. All of those transactions involve heaps of paperwork and regulatory oversight from every side. You signed a legally binding contract, perhaps multiple to have that stuff. Your payment terms are linear EVERY month until the debt is satisfied. This is in stark contrast to hosting services that are at-will and bear no terms and no contract.
If you drive your car or not matters not a bit. All that matters is you entered into agreement to pay that month and all the others in order until the debt is satisfied. A VPS doesn't work like this, although lots of providers just love those customers on autobill and long pre-paid that never use their services. It allows for profit maximization by the host and more packing on nodes. In this way VPS and hosting is a unique animal. If automobile lender or real estate financier took your debt note and played games afterwards to maximize profits there would likely be issues. This happened with derivatives when banks/lenders got greedy and started selling real estate debts off in risk pools and also started leveraging insurance against said pools.
To parallel this all to VPS world though, a traditional lender would have to profit by diminishing the performance of your vehicle post purchase leading to profit opportunity increase. Something like remotely adjusting the onboard computers to break or perform wrong, thus forcing a service order where they get a referral fee. This will start happening soon enough. Probably already is from the manufacturers.
If you drive your car or not matters not a bit. All that matters is you entered into agreement to pay that month and all the others in order until the debt is satisfied. A VPS doesn't work like this, although lots of providers just love those customers on autobill and long pre-paid that never use their services. It allows for profit maximization by the host and more packing on nodes. In this way VPS and hosting is a unique animal. If automobile lender or real estate financier took your debt note and played games afterwards to maximize profits there would likely be issues. This happened with derivatives when banks/lenders got greedy and started selling real estate debts off in risk pools and also started leveraging insurance against said pools.
To parallel this all to VPS world though, a traditional lender would have to profit by diminishing the performance of your vehicle post purchase leading to profit opportunity increase. Something like remotely adjusting the onboard computers to break or perform wrong, thus forcing a service order where they get a referral fee. This will start happening soon enough. Probably already is from the manufacturers.
sleddog
New Member
It is, and it's called planned obsolescence. If you bought a major appliance like a refrigerator in 1980, you could expect it to last 20 years. Buy one now and you might, if you're lucky, have it for 10 years -- probably with a few service calls during that time to replace onboard electronics.
Mortgage is totally different than an invoice being sent when you have a non-working service... You didn't even use my argument / point correctly (most likely because you cannot comprehend what I'm saying), but I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. So let's say: Would you pay a mortgage on a house you don't even live in or own? (Hint: The answer is no)
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You think I'm embarrassed infront of provider's like yourself that don't open a line of communication to your client when they're suspended before you invoice them? Wow, you really showed me! I am so embarrassed.... God help me.
I can nit-pick any post from anyone, anywhere too. We're all not perfect.
If you're paying mortgage on a house u don't live in, why? Are you on vacation? Moving? That's fine, but how is that relevant to the discussion at hand or relevant to provider's just fishing invoices across their suspended client's VPS's in hopes of them of returning? Doesn't make sense.
Bottom line is, you need to open a line of communication with that client and be on good grounds/discuss the suspension before sending your invoice over. That is good business practice.
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I think that you are expecting too much from a $.75 plan. Any time that they talk to you they begin losing money. Those plans are at best marginally profitable, and any time spent on them is throwing profit out the window.
As for you receiving an invoice for a suspended service, the service is still technically active. They are just limiting your access to it because you are doing things that you shouldn't do on the server. If you contact them about the suspension, you will get the same machine back with all your data. Hence, the invoice is valid. If you don't care enough to contact them, that is on you.
As for you calling out their "shady business practices," you should point the finger at yourself. If you weren't doing things that you know you shouldn't do, you would have never gotten suspended. At this point, you are not winning anyone over to your side, and you aren't adding more value to a pretty lackluster argument on your end. I think you are just staring to piss people off.
If that is what you want to do, I guess continue with your actions. Unlike LET, we have some great mods on here that will lose interest with these shenanigans pretty quickly.
'The service is still technically active'. No it's not. MY VPS is offline, no OS is installed. Nothing, Zip, Zero, Nada.
That's the same logic as saying a phone provider invoices you for next month, but your plan doesn't even work, but they have your telephone # on file so technically it's still "active!". That doesn't make any sense and they would never do that, same thing here
The whole reason for cheap plans is to gain a larger customer pool, OR to fill up some over-crowded space to get some extra money on the side. They already achieved the second part, they got the 75 cents. But I'm pretty sure any business with a logical CEO would know if you can gain a long lasting customer for 75 cents would be... a steal.
But you don't retain customers by being disrespectful and not opening up a line of communication when they have a suspended VPS and then just invoice them for it. You lose customers that way. And it's NOT Good business practice, it's the opposite. Some of you providers here think it's okay just because WHCMS does it 'automatically', but you cannot use software as an excuse.
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You should be embarrassed. Your story/argument constantly changes to fit the pseudo-agenda you're trying to peddle here.
Yes, something you have been doing thus far but with very little success.
Edit: Even lower down bottom line; providers and customers are telling you that you are wrong here. If you decide not to listen, that's your business but ultimately, no-one's listening to you any longer.
We do open a line of communication with the suspension email - something I already mentioned. If customers chose not to reply then that is their issue, not ours.
Yes, something you have been doing thus far but with very little success.
I'm guessing in your little bubble-shielded, insular world you know of no people with more than one property. Out in the big bad world where the adults live, there are those with multiple properties. They could be sub let, they could be holiday homes but regardless, many of them are mortgaged and require payment. As @KuJoe mentioned, you can't simply stop paying your mortgage because someone else is living in your home or someone else is on vacation in your Spanish villa.
Bottom line is if the client has been knowingly and wilfully abusing the service they automatically forfeit the right to any kind of 'good grounds' on the providers' part.
Edit: Even lower down bottom line; providers and customers are telling you that you are wrong here. If you decide not to listen, that's your business but ultimately, no-one's listening to you any longer.
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And now you finally say that you do? After 4 pages? Hilarious. You are a very, very arrogant person is all I can say. Takes 4 pages of constant babbling to get that from you. That's all I wanted to know, thanks.
But, in my case, CVPS DID not open that line of communication and that is bad business practice. Don't defend them either, you know damn well you should talk with a client and be on good grounds before sending an invoice over.
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Then I suggest you take it up with them instead of bitching over here.
I'll use my arrogance to close of this ridiculous thread now. If you think it should remain open feel free to PM me.
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