I have a question before I launch my reseller program.

If a reseller doesn't pay his monthly bills to my company what should I do?
- Suspend ALL accounts on that resellers account?
- Offer his clients the chance to move over and go directly through me?


I'm just curious how this would work? I don't want to be stealing his customers as we are already both benefiting, but what do you do if the reseller just decides to stop supporting his customers or paying his bills?

Would it be ethical to email his clients or would you just leave them alone and let them move wherever on their own?

Thanks!

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You would email the clients letting them know that (RESELLER-X) has closed, but your hosting service at (PRICEPERMONTH) with (PACKAGE) has been automatically transferred over to their parent hoster. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by (AMOUNTOFDOWNTIMEDURINGTRANSFER). Please feel free to email us with any questions regarding this change. Once the transfer is complete, your hosting service will be exactly the same as before. Thank you!

You would have to look up the legality of it, but I'm fairly sure you can just cancel the reseller account of the nonpayer and move the clients (who are already on your server, they were just paying the other guy before) over to you. If your prices are lower than the reseller's, inform the customers that their monthly fee has been lowered as a result and thank them for their understanding of the change. I had that happen with webhosting that I had bought once where the reseller didn't end up paying the main host and I was moved to the main host's server @ my current plan's price/package.

That may be a bad idea...IMO.

So there are no legal ramifications towards going after your reseller's accounts?

As I said, you would have to check the legality of it. I am NOT a lawyer, and my post may not be considered advice or recommendation under any circumstances.

Very bad idea in my opinion!

The only time I would think this would be even remotely a good idea would be if it was very obvious that the reseller went out of business, and there was no way to contact them at all.

I think there have been a few threads here on this... I believe CIHo** (you know) did this to one of their resellers a while back. You may want to do a search and see what people said about it. (I honestly can't remember if people thought it was good or bad )

Either way... if you decide it is your policy to do this, you should probably put something into your TOS about it to cover yourself.

personally i think it would be very bad idea doing that !

1. if thier customers paid yearly, you wouldnt get any money for mayby a whole year !

2. If the reseller didnt agree, u'd probably be liable to be sued, as ive stolen thier customers. Nothing to do with you.

id prob suspend the resellers account. thier customer would go nuts for the downtime, and force the reseller to pay you. if the reseller still wont pay you, so what ! backup the files, and sell the space to someone else!

cheers

If a reseller doesn't pay his monthly bills to my company what should I do?
>>> Suspend his, and his clients, accounts. Make your contact information clearly visible on the Suspended Account page.

As for your poll; it really depends on how you structure your company. It depends on your target clients. It depends on how you expect to make money.

I work for one site that only sells to resellers. So, income from resellers is very important.

I work for others that target shared hosting; not so important. And still another that targets both; again it would not be so important.

Suspend the resellers account wait a week or 2 send a few more emails, call their phone number, then suspend his customers accounts as a last resort.

At no time should you contact the resellers accounts directly and offer them hosting unless you have an agreement in writing stating you can if he defaults. If you want to stay in business as a reseller host the last thing you want is a reputation for stealing clients.

This is just my opinion of course and the way I conduct business, I could be wrong but my wife says I am right so I must be:D

It depends on how your reseller plan works. For us it's as simple as suspending any service that is unpaid. This may be the reseller's account or it may be one of their client's accounts. We do not collect the resold client info and therefore would not contact the resold clients. (Though some do tend to contact us when this happens).