Two friends of mine who both have Burlee as a host (which says they have unlimted bandwith and space, we all know this is never the case but this isn't why Burlee is bad). Anyways, in March Friend #1 was charged $800 because of using too much bandwith. Now his site is about 1/2 the size of mine, and I get ~1.2mil impressions/month, so he used less then 600,000 impressions and was billed $800 for ONE MONTH! Now Friend #2 also has a site about the same size if not smalelr then Friend #1. For April, he too went over the limit for data transfer and was billed $600.

This is outrageous. Now while both have sites that get a decent amt. of traffic, the plan they were one may have been too small for them. But to DIRECTLY CHARGE THEIR CREDIT CARDS in the amount of 600 & 800 dollars !?!?!?!?!??!!?! This is INSANITY!: :kaioken:

edit: I should probably add that Burlee is good for small sites but if you get over 20% of your data transfer coming from images and media, LOOK OUT!! (this is what happened to the guys above)

2nd edit: http://burlee.com/webhosting/unlimited_intro.asp thats their plan (or WAS their plan)

wtf
that's crazy

$800!!!!

You can get dedicated hosting service for like 8 months!

Does seem a bit excessive. Hmm. Not that I like *any* unlimited host all that much anyhow.

Originally posted by Chicken
Does seem a bit excessive. Hmm. Not that I like *any* unlimited host all that much anyhow.

Oh I know you have to take these 'unlimted' plans with a grain of salt... but wouldn't a.. $40 penalty be sufficent? I seriously doubt that with under 20GB of transfer they seriously hurt $800 worth of their precious servers!

That is pretty bad that they would directly bill your credit card without telling you before hand...

I hosted my site with Burlee for this past year. I found the service to be good, and generally knowledgable, although there were a few cases where I got some conflicting info -- but all in all, it was a pretty good experience.

That having been said, though, the reason why I switched from Burlee to my current provider was that at Burlee, everything had a big old price tag on it, forcing me to take my growing website elsewhere. They nickel and dime you, plain and simple.

I think, if you read their TOS for the unlimited plan, those charges are in there... And they hold you to that stuff. All in all, I think they're good if you can afford it, or if you're like 98% of all net-people out there who just want a web page just for the hell of it.

Originally posted by bigmattyh
I think, if you read their TOS for the unlimited plan, those charges are in there... And they hold you to that stuff.

Quite possibly, however I know that a vast majority of people who sign up don't read the TOS even though they should, and Burlee knows this, so they slip these huge penatly fees in there and then they can say 'but you agreed to the TOS!' This thread was just to let people know so that if they are considering Burlee or are already hosted with them to read over their terms and usage guidelines.

Originally posted by purewwfrage
... Burlee knows this, so they slip these huge penatly fees in there and then they can say 'but you agreed to the TOS!'

Yeah, I know. That's why this thread -- and this forum --are such good things. And it's not like you can file a complaint with the BBB when you yourself signed the TOS agreement.

It's frustrating to me to see this stuff go on, because before I found this forum, there was nowhere else I could go to get info like this. Seriously, let's face it. ALL of the web hosting directories -- which are, in my mind, the typical places where 98% of the world goes to find web hosts -- are there for their advertisers, and this kind of info does not get out there. I only found this board 2 weeks ago, as I was desperately looking for a new host, and there's no way I'd have made as well-informed a decision as I did without it.

I'm sure I not the only person to see people come along from Burlee. A few weeks ago I was chatting with someone on Human Click for a while (about an hour all up I think it was). At the end of the conversation he informed me that had he been asking Burlee the same questions (as a client) for the same amount of time, it would have cost him $150

Nice work if you can get it...

Greg Moore

This is outrageous. Now while both have sites that get a decent amt. of traffic, the plan they were one may have been too small for them. But to DIRECTLY CHARGE THEIR CREDIT CARDS in the amount of 600 & 800 dollars !?!?!?!?!??!!?! This is INSANITY!: :kaioken:

This is a touchy one, but it's a common issue with customers who get assessed overage charges for either server space, connect time, or traffic. It's easy to get angry when you get charged for a service and see it as a penalty and try to negotiate a lower fee, but think about a few things first.

Bandwidth usage is a measured service, like cell phones. If you get x amount of minutes in your calling plan and then go over it and keep making more calls, shouldn't you expect to pay for that usage? And if you have set up for your invoices to be paid by credit card, you should expect it to be deducted automatically. It's not a penalty, if you've used that time, you have an obligation to compensate your provider for that usage.

Bandwidth is also the biggest monthly recurring expense of providing web hosting after salaries (we are a very small company and we pay about $15,000 a month for our connectivity) that's why so little bandwidth is included with hosting plans, especially low-cost hosting plans-and why customers who use more than what is included pay an overage fee.

It's critical when choosing a hosting plan to not only know what your bandwidth needs are going to be and choose one that includes enough, but to read the TOS before agreeing to it and make sure that you understand all the limitations, and what your overage charges will be.

And, be a bit suspicious, if you see unlimited space and unlimited traffic for $15 bucks a month, you can figure that somewhere there is going to be a catch. An expensive one.

Originally posted by Phoenix
It's critical when choosing a hosting plan to not only know what your bandwidth needs are going to be and choose one that includes enough, but to read the TOS before agreeing to it and make sure that you understand all the limitations, and what your overage charges will be.

And, be a bit suspicious, if you see unlimited space and unlimited traffic for $15 bucks a month, you can figure that somewhere there is going to be a catch. An expensive one.

Exactly, I didn't bring this form up soley to bash Burlee for this crazy practice because probably it is listed somewhere keep in the TOS. But instead to let future and current custormers of their site to KNOW that if they do go over the limit they had better be prepared to dish out the cash. Since most people (that I know atleast) just GLANCE over the TOS, maybe this will remind folks it IS serious and they need to read it very carefully.

Wow, I could see a smaller fee, maybe under $100 that would be automatically billed. Unless they are on dedicated servers and already pay alot. But $800 additional charge for a $20/month plan is alot without notification.

They do say you can't have over 15MB of media files,
and that more then 20% of your D/Ls must not come from media.

Also, they list a $50/month fee for 1gig of bandwidth on regular accounts. If you used 20gigs, $800 probably was considered normal to them. :angry:

yeah
but I would be PRETTY shocked if I get a bill saying $800 was taken out of the credit card


scary