Hi! As an old HostPro customer, I have been asked from Interland to accept a contract (or this is what I understood)
By reading the contract I have found something which I'm not sure I understood well, since I'm neither a native English speaker nor a lawyer.
The contract is here: http://www.interland.com/legal40.asp

Please read it and tell me what you think, especially about the section that deals with termination: will I be bound to a twelve month contract in any case? What if I want to switch before? Could I tell them I want to go away 30 days before going away? Would this be enough?

Aarggh... I really really hate when two companies merge together...

Could you please help? Thanks.

First off, I am not a lawyer and the following is my educated opinion.
That being said, I find this contract a tad bit on the constraining side. For instance:

"Interland may increase the Service Fees (i) in the manner permitted in the Service Description and (ii) at any time on or after expiration of the Initial Term by providing ten (10) days prior written notice thereof to Customer. "

What this clause means that at anytime fater your inital term of service Interland can increase how much their plan is worth.

Example: You sign up for three months of hosting for $20 a month. During those three months the price, $20, never increases, but after those three months, Interland can raise the price to whatever they want and you have to pay it.

How this works: Interland has to give you 10 days notification of a price increase, but you have to give a 30 day notification before quiting Interland. In this instance, if you think the price is too high and put in your 30-days notice when you receive their price increase (10 days ahead of time like their contract says) you still have 20 days of service left and during these 20 days must pay for the increase.

You asked about a one year contract and about ending service.
It seems to me that you are not forced to take a year contract at first:

"Hosting Services will commence on the Effective Date indicated in the Order and continue for the duration of the Initial Term. "

The initial term is how long you sign up for when you order their services. If you sign up for six months then you will only be bound to a six month contract. If you sign up for 3 months you will only be bound to a three month contract. However, read the following:

"Thereafter, the Order will automatically renew for successive periods (i) of twelve months (with respect to Non-Prepaid Plans) or (ii) as specified in the Service Description (with respect to Prepaid Plans) unless the Order is earlier terminated in accordance with its terms, or either party gives written notice to the other party of non-renewal at least 30 days prior to expiration of the then-current term. "

What this means is if you don't end your contract by giving them 30 days prior notification or the use of their 'earlier termination,' then they will either automatically renew you for a year or the terms of a prepaid plan.

So example 1: You ask for Interland's 3 month plan and you decided to pay monthly (as opposed to prepaying). You like it so the thought of going some where else doesn't cross your mind. Interland then renews you for a year. You do not prepay the year, but continue on paying monthly.

Example 2: You ask to buy Interland's 3 month plan and you prepay. By the terms in their contract you continue to do business with them. At the end of the first three months, Interland renews you for another three months and you have to prepay those three months.

I hope this clarifies the contract. The rest of the contract is pretty much standard for all Host contracts. All in all it doesn't seem to be a bad contract except for that first part I talked about. Even then it doesn't mean they are going to raise their price, it just leaves the option open for them.
If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Jimmy

Thanks for the reply Jimmy, it was very helpful. I'm definitely going to go away since from what I've read (site contract and many, many, many posts around the net) Interland is not so good. I'll try to find some better webhost.

Thanks again. Cheers, :)

Marco:

I would think you should be able to find a good reliable host in the forum here. Look under "web hosting special offers" on the main page. The moderators do a pretty good job regarding what is allowed to be posted. Besides that, you can hang out here and get to really know your host!


sPoT!

good move

post an offer and see all the hosts respond and fight for your business :)

Hope for help from someone on this forum: we were with hostpro for 6months and then prepaid for one year (never again) which was up as of 1/11/00.
We notified them via email three times, but they refused to respond. We changed to another host on 10/1/00 even though we'd prepaid for that month just to be off hostpro.
On nov 6 hostpro got in touch about our "overdue" bill. I wrote again about our cancellation. Someone wrote back (email) that they were cancelling our contract at its termination date.

We were with that host until June, another until now, and a third as of this month. All have been paid in full and the dns addresses changed.

Now we're being dunned by a collection agency demanding payment for a year's service by Hostpro which apparently sold this nonexistent debt to them.

We tried to explain but the collection agency, of course, is not interested .

Can someone help us with info: anyone else run into this problem? Please.

and thank for helping.

Well, first things first. You have a right to not be hounded by an third party collection agency. You need to get thier address, (demand it by phone if they are only calling) and send a letter of cease and desist via "registered US mail" That will put you back on with just you and HostPro.

You then need to print out the emails (with the headers) and send them with a letter explaining *you* terminated your account at whatever date you did. This must be sent via registered mail also.

The reason you send it registered, is to confirm that it was received by the company; otherwise they will claim one of the $6 an hour clerks lost it, and that leaves you right where you started from.

Hopefully this will clear this up. If not, you will need to contact a lawyer. If you don't have one, I might suggest that you log on to your states' bar associations website, and do a search for someone local. The directory should list members details, and if so, contact a few with both email and web addresses available. Nothing worse than trying to use lawyer who doesn't at least have a grasp of the internet basics. Anyway, most Attorneys do the initial consultation for free, and can usually just right a letter on thier letterhead for you stating the case for very little. Hope that helps.

sPoT!

One more thing.... this should have gone in a new thread, as it is really O/T to the original. Mods, maybe you could move this one out??

sPoT!