Hi all,

Foolish person that I am, I signed up with phpwebhosting.com a couple of weeks ago, thinking that their 30-day money-back guarantee would safely allow me to try their service. However, this was a bad assumption.

The website claims that you will have 'instant account activation', which did not happen when I signed up. A few days later, I got a message telling me that there'd been a delay while they checked my credit card and that my account should *now* be active. Although that explanation made sense, I found I still could not access my account! I sent messages to the company (which only has a web form for communication, though I also sent copies via email to webmaster@phpwebhosting.com, and sales@phpwebhosting.com)and had no reply.

A few days later, I wrote them, asking them to cancel my account, refund the initial payment - and to respond to my message. STILL no word from them! I have sent another message, repeating my requests and have had no response to that one either. :(

I know I was foolish to sign up with them ... but can anyone suggest how I can contact this company? I will contact my credit card company to prevent any further charges, I guess, but I'd still like to get this cleared up.

Any (helpful) comments would be appreciated ...



[This message has been edited by TanyaN (edited 08-12-2000).]

You can always process a chargeback. It will force them to justify the charge or pay it back. Call your credit card comapny and tell them what happened and that you'd like to process a chargeback. You should notify phpwebhosting before calling though as they may have extenuating circumstances you should be aware of and it may be enough for them to credit it back.

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Chris Marks
KBS Web Hosting (http://www.netfronts.com)
http://www.netfronts.com

I also should have mentioned for newbie's - there is no unlimited traffic and diskspace. You will be disappointed to find it is not unlimited - there is always a catch. If not yahoo would run off the unlimited hosts servers and save a lot of money.

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Chris Marks
KBS Web Hosting (http://www.netfronts.com)
http://www.netfronts.com

I've thought about trying to get my initial payment back - I am not sure if it is worth the hassle for the $10 (which I am kind of regarding as a stupidity tax right now.) I do think I am entitled to it, given:
a) the so-called 30 Day, 100% Money-back Guarantee (http://www.phpwebhosting.net/g.html)
b) I've never actually been provided the service that I was paying for.

But I am dreading having to deal with this at the credit card company level ... wish I could find a phone number or something for PHPwebhosting.com (I guess the lack of one should have been the big warning sign).

I can try to notify the company before talking to the credit card folks ... but so far, all my messages to them seem to be going into a black hole ...

-- Tanya

PS. I knew that the service was not going to be unlimited space, etc - I was mostly looking for a cheap-ish host that had MySQL, PHP, and CGI capability ...

Hi Tanya,

Aquick "whois" lookup shows this info:

phpwebhosting.com, llc
10408 Bristlecone Dr.
Fishers, IN 46038
US
(877) 582-9093
Fax- (877) 346-8599


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--
Steve Wood
Wood Interactive <A HREF="http://www.woodinteractive.com" TARGET=_blank>www.woodinteractive.com
</A>
Red Hot Hosting www.redhothosting.com (http://www.redhothosting.com)

Tanya,

While some people fraudulently use chargebacks, this is certainly a legitimate case. Th service was not as represented. That is reason enough, especially since it as hardly "instant activation". Please don't let them profit (even by $10) for their lies.

A guarantee is only as good as the company behind it. It means nothing on its own, yet many companies act as if were a magical thing, that you have no risk because you have a money back guarantee.

Horse feathers! There are lots of stories here and in other forums of people who were ignored when they requested their money back. Some only got it when they mentioned contacting the state attorney's office for the state the hosting company was located in.

You have a legitimate reason for handling it via a chargeback. Dont waste any more time on the company.

Originally posted by TanyaN:
a cheap-ish host that had MySQL, PHP, and CGI capability ...


Ive been in your boat Ive had 9 hosts in 20 months (Yikes) I finally found a good host veoweb.net I want to be honest with you that as of 9/1/00 I will be working for them ..leaving that aside I wouldnt keep my sites with them or have accepted a job from them if I didnt think they were a great host :)

Thanks to everyone for your replies! :) I feel a bit better now. (And, I'll definitely take a little time and do some more research before I sign up with another host.)

--Tanya

I work for phpwebhosting.com. I just checked on Tanya's account and though I am not aware of any of the circumstances surrounding her cancellation, I do know that her account was cancelled and all of her money was refunded.

We want to make all of our customers happy and if, for some reason, something has gone wrong on their account we will make amends.

We offer an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee and we stand behind this.

I should also mention that we never claimed to have unlimted diskspace or transfer. We offer unmetered diskspace and transfer, which means that there are general limits but they are not hard limits. Any hosting company that offers unlimited anything is lying.

Best regards,

Karen
Sales Department
phpwebhosting.com

I probably should have posted the resolution here earlier, but I was relieved just to have this matter finished.

For the record, after several emails, voice mail messages, a fax and a snail mail letter, I finally received email contact from someone at phpwebhosting.com. The email message mentioned that my (postal!) letter had been received, and: "We will contact you in a few hours with additional information regarding your account.". I was *not* contacted, but it appears that my account was put into order shortly after that.

The fees were refunded in full to my credit card. There was another charge against my card the next month, but that was also credited back a few days after the charge. Thankfully, I did not have to pursue a charge-back from the credit card company!

Good stuff TanyaN. Seems you were lucky to get a response finally after posting your problems with getting a refund on here.

Just for the record, i asked for a refund and got a reply back that it was being done. Nothing happened and i sent more emails and never heard a word back again. Also, on their t.o.s., they had about the acceptable usage in regards to their unmetered traffic claims but one would think using better terms instead of making people who know little will get more signups would be a better business practise.

Karen, I have seen more than one report of problems of this nature with your company. Customers should not have to jump through hoops to either access their new accounts or get guaranteed refunds. phpwebhosting.com is currently on my personal "watchlist," which is one step away from being added to the public "avoid" list on my "Finding a Web Host" page, link below. You need to clean up your act.

To Deb Suran,

What a great finding a web host site with useful and updated information, but the page is too long, break it up would be much easier to read, just an opinion :).

Well it STARTED as just one paragraph, but then it grew, and grew, and grew....

If I ever have the time I'll reorganize the page and break it up, but the stuff that brings in money has to come first. Getting the information out there is the main thing. Thanks for the compliment!

Originally posted by phpwebhosting.com
I should also mention that we never claimed to have unlimted diskspace or transfer. We offer unmetered diskspace and transfer, which means that there are general limits but they are not hard limits.[/B]It only "means" that because you say it does. The fact remains that for most potential customers reading that term, those not yet familiar with hosting industry doublespeak, there's no obvious difference between "unmetered" and "unlimited." Those hosts that do use the word "unlimited" do the same thing you do: they redefine it to fit their needs. And of course the most-asked question is: if you don't meter it, how do you know when the "general" "not hard" limit is reached? Any hosting company that offers unlimited anything is lying.Again, in the opinion of many, the term "unmetered" fits into this sentence as well as does "unlimited."