Your biggest pain as a provider

[GoodHosting]

Unrelated: Took me about two minutes to figure out I had to go into full mode to get multi-quote to realize I wanted to actually write my message... I'm used to multi-quote stacking quotes in the quick reply immediately.

Our biggest pain was dealing with customers that wanted to run camfrog servers and not expect to get DDoS. Or get mad when we would null route them for 24 hours. True DDoS mitigation to absorb the attack is not cheap. We could provide if they were willing to pay. Solution was not allowing it in the end. 

Dealing with commoditized markets such as VPS. Not really a pain, but you have to definitely find a niche and stick with it.

This, This so much.  We have had serious issues with users running such crap services, as well as people running JingLing (spiritsoft) and HitLeap, as well as other sorts of "might as well be illegal" software, then asking us why we won't allow it / suspended them / they are getting DDoSed.

We've very recently had a HUGE influx (80+ tickets in the last four days) of users crying "I'm going to go drink bleach now because your staff aren't doing anything to stop the DDoS." ; that's a real quote, I'll post screenshots if anyone's interested.

PayPal subscriptions.

I hate them, I hate the disputes. I wish customers would read the terms of a PayPal sub.

This is a valid concern for us as well, we've just gone and disabled Subscriptions entirely to help prevent this.  We tell people that if they don't want to have to pay the invoice every month, to add some account credit; it's that simple.  Either that, or they can change to a quarterly plan, etc.

 

[SPINIKR-RO]

I dont think its been said here but the biggest pain is likely the hardest objective, subscription based businesses are very hard to start and grow without failing. Right up there with damn restaurant industry.

Why do we see folded companies so often here? Subscription model can be great but needs a large number of customers in a short period of time if you do not have the money available to float it. We see the most movement in the LEB sector because while some very enticing deals bring in the customers it is not enough to sustain the basic operating costs this is why you see a lot of people with lost yearly plans as well.

Another reason its hard is because people naturally very much dislike subscription based billing. Some we dont need, like getting your razors or coffee every week in the mail for some ridiculous price, but some we do like to manage our online assets. This is why a lot of people pay yearly and a lot of the corporate webhosts price only yearly and discount for X years. They can float their expenses, well probably dont need to. While small startups get 100 people in the first 2 months of business that pay yearly and now what? First month of hardware is paid for but no salary and no more money for a year. Now theres a rush to do heavy discounts and pay the next month and in 4-6 months its bankrupt.

 

[tragic]

Another reason its hard is because people naturally very much dislike subscription based billing. Some we dont need, like getting your razors or coffee every week in the mail for some ridiculous price, but some we do like to manage our online assets. This is why a lot of people pay yearly and a lot of the corporate webhosts price only yearly and discount for X years. They can float their expenses, well probably dont need to. While small startups get 100 people in the first 2 months of business that pay yearly and now what? First month of hardware is paid for but no salary and no more money for a year. Now theres a rush to do heavy discounts and pay the next month and in 4-6 months its bankrupt.

This is very true. We did monthly payments only for the first 8 months because of this. 

 

[MCH-Phil]

While small startups get 100 people in the first 2 months of business that pay yearly and now what? First month of hardware is paid for but no salary and no more money for a year. Now theres a rush to do heavy discounts and pay the next month and in 4-6 months its bankrupt.

Wouldn't a business that is not planning for these types of things fail for one reason or another at some point. Very likely. I don't see much wrong with yearly plans. As long as your budgeting things correctly it can be done. Though hard, and as you said you might float a month or two. Anyone that is in business but not willing to float their business, if need be. Eeeck.

I wonder if a lot of these businesses that go down and say it was related to plan unsustainability, if it is really a lack of them being able to manage money.

OT: I absolutely cannot stand customers that say they are "black" hat gods and threaten people when they don't get their way. Really? You read a forum that has the word black hat in the title and your suddenly a god? But can't figure out VNC? Take a hike.

 

[Francisco]

Wouldn't a business that is not planning for these types of things fail for one reason or another at some point. Very likely. I don't see much wrong with yearly plans. As long as your budgeting things correctly it can be done. Though hard, and as you said you might float a month or two. Anyone that is in business but not willing to float their business, if need be. Eeeck.

I wonder if a lot of these businesses that go down and say it was related to plan unsustainability, if it is really a lack of them being able to manage money.

OT: I absolutely cannot stand customers that say they are "black" hat gods and threaten people when they don't get their way. Really? You read a forum that has the word black hat in the title and your suddenly a god? But can't figure out VNC? Take a hike.

I'm sure some of it is that people expect to pull a good wage from the get go.

There's simply too few companies that put enough money to cover the company for a year away. Or, worse, their companies bank roll is covered heavily by a 2nd/3rd job they have.

There has been tons of cases on WHT of brands going down in a matter of a weekend because the owner got fired/laid off from their day time job and their brand simply didn't pay the bills.

Francisco

 

[Jeffrey]

The biggest pain would definitely have to be when a PayPal claim raises to a claim managed by a bank.

 

[Thelen]

Growth!

And 2nd, dealing with DDoS/nullroute (especially with providers like hetzner who take lots of forms to unblock an IP...)

 

[MCH-Phil]

Growth!

I'm confused, growth is good Plan smart and bam no stress. I have 3 nodes in Canada just because when I had only 1 it sold out in a matter of hours. I may be spending a little extra but you won't hear anyone complaining about performance Any I have the extra capacity in case someone decided to pick up a bunch of VM's. I personally don't like to operate slim.

 

[Roger]

Big pains: monitoring abusers, AUP compliance, Paypal not protecting virtual goods, customers wanting the best top-notch resources for ridiculous budgets.

 

[Thelen]

I'm confused, growth is good Plan smart and bam no stress. I have 3 nodes in Canada just because when I had only 1 it sold out in a matter of hours. I may be spending a little extra but you won't hear anyone complaining about performance Any I have the extra capacity in case someone decided to pick up a bunch of VM's. I personally don't like to operate slim.

Er, LACK of growth lol

 

[Kakashi]

The Book keeping at the end of the month and working with multiple currencies

 

[mtwiscool]

Checking for people coin mining .

 

[MartinD]

The Book keeping at the end of the month and working with multiple currencies

Pay someone else to do it - trust me, it's worth the cost lol

 

[SkylarM]

Lets add dealing with chargebacks related to Target sucking absolute ass to the list.

 

[toshost]

Charge-back is a big pain-full issue ..

 

[sundaymouse]

.voss

 

[splitice]

The Book keeping at the end of the month and working with multiple currencies

Ergh I just finished writing part one of my spreadsheet. Currency conversion is a massive PITA.

Although its a tie for the biggest pain with customer budget & expectations.

 

[Richard Leik]

Chargeback fraud. Takes up money, but also time, and time is money.

 

[LiamCyrus]

As a budget provider who sells $2 packages the most, I don't have that much of an issue with chargebacks. They rarely occur, and if they do it's typically not worth my time to fight. They've never come off as more than a small nuisance to me; I'm surprised that that seems to be a prevailing problem with you guys. 

Abuse isn't that much of an issue for me to deal with either, though that could be in part because I only offer shared hosting and not VPS hosting. Most of that can be automated, and while it could be a little time consuming to configure/setup/code, it's absolutely worth it in the end.

The clients who can not fathom that their 20% CPU usage on a $2 plan isn't okay are a little painful to deal with, though I have to agree that the biggest issue would be taxes. So many variables to consider when accepting payments online, and it's even harder when you're not using WHMCS or a fancy plugin to automate a lot of that!

 

[Navyn]

As a vps provider we face the biggest pain was Unauthorized payment and payment reversal.