An ad in Web Techniques a few months ago advertised DataPipes Power Plan for about $19.00 (it may have been less. The magazine is at home). About a month ago, I couldn't find the Power Plan advertised on DataPipe at all. Now they offer the same Power Plan for $40.00! Another host to cross off my list!

I wouldn't really call price changes in the plans a scam. Now if they changed prices on already paid customers and made them pay the extra it'd be something to yell about. Sometimes a host has to make changes to stay in business, maybe it was a special they had at the time and put in the magazine... regardless of that, the prices do change.

I'd like to know how long the cheaper price was in effect after the ad. Too short a time and I'd consider it bait and switch. Anyway, I think they're a big enough hosting company to have people working there who know about pricing. Miscalculating by 100% is a bit much.

You say you saw the ad a few months ago, and you went to the site a month ago. Months is alot of time for prices to change. It could have been a special for One month, not the few it took you to get to the site.

I'd be pissed off if I transferred my site there and the price doubled after a month or two. I see no excuse for doubling prices so soon after attracting customers with an ad, unless MAYBE if a host is just starting out and doesn't know how to set prices yet. If I was a host, I'd offer specials to people coming from hosts like DataPipe and I'd mention what they've done and that I'd never do it. I'd probably have a policy that nobody's price would go up AT ALL within six months of them signing up.

I wouldn't consider this a scam. Tricky advertising, maybe, but not a scam.

And how do you know if peoples prices went up after they signed with the lower price? For all you know they are still paying the lowerprice and the higher price is only for new customers after the price being raised.

That would be fair enough, if they didn't raise prices during the month of the ad and if they didn't raise the prices for new members too much until a fair amount of time passed.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that I never heard of a web host with a price guarentee like that. Well, now I have. Integrahosting says:

"Lifetime Price Guarantee - Once you sign up a domain, your monthly hosting price for that domain will never go up"!

Maybe I'm fickle, but I'm actually holding that against them. It goes too far and I think it demonstrates..... not sure what to say. Fill in your own words.

I've seen many hosts that have a 'price freeze'. Hosting prices have some down and the industry is still so young it is hard to tell what is going to hapen next year, let alone in 10 years.

I think I remember that ad. I believe it was a limited time offer. You really need to read the fine print in advertising. Wassercrats, did they actually raise your billing price? I would believe that they should grandfather current customers but I would not be surprised if your read your contract or TOS that this offer was for a "limited time" and they could raise the prices anytime they want.

Remember we live in a capitalistic society; price is driven by supply and demand. Maybe they have such a huge demand for the service that they can justify a price increase.

Scam.. Not at all.

I don't know about the TOS, but that quote I posted was all they said about the guarentee on the page I saw. Here is a reply to an email I sent Integrahosting questioning the guarentee. For some reason I can't cut and past it here, so I'll just type in the main part:

Lifetime guarentee - We mean it. If our costs rise, we charge our customers higher prices. You'll always be charged at your origional or upgraded rate (meaning that you upgrade your account at some point in the future - you pay the then current rate, but it too is then guarenteed.)

After you noticed a discrepancy between an advertised price and the one listed on their site, did you call to find out why? DataPipe may have raised virtual hosting prices but they've consolidated their virtual hosting packages and expanded the services they offer (i.e., double the disk storage, from 100 to 200 megs).

Discussion forums are great ways to share information!

13 posts in this thread already, and we still don't know whether they raised the rates after sign-up or not, Wassercrats doesn't seem to be a customer of theirs, etc.

What's the point of this thread?
I don't know Datapipe, but it seems to me this is a lot of fuss for nothing...I don't really like to see somebody dissing a host with virtually no argument whatsoever.

Sorry for the tests, but my logon didn't work four times in a row.

Even if they offer more for the increased price it's still bait and switch. I won't bother with the rest of my message because I have no confidence that I'll be able to save it.

Originally posted by Wassercrats
An ad in Web Techniques a few months ago advertised DataPipes Power Plan for about $19.00 (it may have been less. The magazine is at home). About a month ago, I couldn't find the Power Plan advertised on DataPipe at all. Now they offer the same Power Plan for $40.00! Another host to cross off my list!
A bait and switch example is when a car dealer advertises a car at a certain price $8,999 and when you call them about it, they 'just sold it but have another one like it for $9,899 that you can drive home today'. If you tried to sign up at the time of the ad and they wouldn't give you that price, then yes, it might be a bait and switch, but just because you couldn't find the same price months later, doesn't mean they were scamming you.

You are incorrect in this case, or at least have shown no evidence of any wrong doing on their part.