Hi,

Just a question.

Please sign long contract for dedicated hosting. What happens if someone decided not to fulfill the contract. Cancel the credit card. What can the person (host) do?

Collection agency.

Originally posted by jayglate
Collection agency.

What can the collection agency do?

Well depening on how much they owe they will actually sue them.

Jay, Does the same apply to international clients as well?

Yes, if you find a good collections agency.

I got an opposite question...

What if you are a customer... You sign up the 12 months dedicated contract..
Everything was fine...But a few months later, their services become unacceptable. Things can change such as level tech support, network uptime...etc.

How can you break the contract without penalty???

error

I thought I would share my current situation with CommuniTech.net.

Last October I signed up for a dedicated Raq3 with 20GB for around $250/m. I signed a one year contract. Since I knew my contract was expiring (Oct 17, 2001) I wanted to get better pricing. So I starting emailing a guy from their sales department to get a new / lower contract. This was end of July through August. Every time I talked to him, he would give me different pricing, and renig his previous email quote.

I finally decided to phone their sales department and get a bid as if I were a new client. A sales person there gave me an even lower bid. I emailed the sales guy back, and he said that pricing is only for new customers. I told him straight up that it is dumb to give new customers better pricing than existing ones. He gave me stupid ideas like cancelling my existing Raq3, getting a new one and moving the files over. How dumb is that?

Anway, for many different reasons, I lost track of time and didn't finalize anything until late September after I received a bill notice. I quickly contacted the sales guy and he told me it was too late. You have to give 30 days notice before the contract is suppost to renew. I was like 20 days out. I asked could he check into further, and give me the new contract. I went back and read the fine print of my contract and it does say 30 days notice. He said it's company policy, and there is nothing he can do.

By this time, I was pissed off with CommuniTech. Instead of trying to lower my contract, I decided to leave their company all together. I've been using them for over 2yrs, since the days of reselling. It was now about 15 days away from the end of my contract. I told the sales person to cancel my server, faxed the request (policy) and he just let me know that there is nothing he can do to prevent me from being billed for the next 1 yr.

I called my credit card company, and asked that they not let CommuniTech bill my CC. They said they can't do that. My only option was to let the charge go through, and then contest it. I didn't want to go through that. I ended up cancelling my CC just to avoid being billed.

Even though I was working closely with this sales guy, with dozens of emails months in advance, this company would not budge. I was told that this will be handed over to a collection agency. I haven't heard anything since. It's only been a couple weeks.

Whew, that was long, but I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for listening. CommuniTech has a good network, and I've never had much downtime, but their sales and customer service is poor in my opinion.

yazzer, I don't see what's wrong with communitech in your case. They clearly abide to their contract; it's you that did not do a good job reading your contract thoroughly. I am sorry, but i don't see anything wrong with communictech in your case ... You can't just cancel your credit card ... it will go to collection agency and ruin your credit history

cheers,
:beer:

You are correct, CommuniTech followed the contract to the "T". That's the main problem, I had sent many emails asking for an updated contract and received different bids each time. I also specifically stated that I wanted to update my contract a couple months in advance.

When they showed absolute inflexability, and would not give me the pricing that a new customer would get without canceling my existing server and moving to another server of the same specs, I decided I didn't want to do business with them.

What started as a simple task of reducing my contract a little, ended up having me leave the company. BTW, I've had other small issues with them in the past regarding contract renewal and automated billing that were not my fault.

CT did nothing wrong, they just didnt' have good customer service IMHO!

Originally posted by yazzer
You are correct, CommuniTech followed the contract to the "T". That's the main problem, I had sent many emails asking for an updated contract and received different bids each time. I also specifically stated that I wanted to update my contract a couple months in advance.

Too bad ... you seem to forget about that yourself as you said:


Anway, for many different reasons, I lost track of time and didn't finalize anything until late September after I received a bill notice.


You should really have read your contract thoroughly before you signed ... Another negligence you did that did cost you something, money if not your credit history.


When they showed absolute inflexability, and would not give me the pricing that a new customer would get without canceling my existing server and moving to another server of the same specs, I decided I didn't want to do business with them.

They are under no obligation to give you the deal targeted for new customers only. Many hosts do this to attract potential new customers ... Nothing wrong with that ... You always have the option to leave them with one month prior notification if you don;t like the contract term. They do suggested you to cancel your current contract and get a new contract at the new price but you will have to do a little bit more (moving customers from one server to another, although I don't see the problem since at the end you had to move your customers anyway). If price does matter to you, I would take this option if I were you ... But anyhow ... There is nothing wrong with communitech with regard to this ...


CT did nothing wrong, they just didnt' have good customer service IMHO!

I can't tell it from the way you share your "bad experience" with them ... As you said, CT did nothing wrong ... you should probably resolve your contract problem instead of leaving them with a no payment ... You are breaching your term of contract and they are justified to bring you to the court or do whatever they think is needed to get you pay for your neglegence to fully read/understand the contract term ... Don't bad mouth them for something you did wrong ...

cheers,
:beer:

Contracts are made to be broken. If you sign a contract with a person or a company and break the contract without just cause you are only liable for the actual loss to the person you broke the contract with.

If you sign a year lease for an apartment and move out in 1 month you are only liable for the rent until the apartment is rented again and the landlord has to make a good faith effort to rent the apartment to another party.

I broke my contract before it renewed, but didn't fax my notice 30 days prior to the renewal as stated in the contract. I only asked for the new contract in an email a couple months before.

I went ahead and faxed my cancellation notice 15 days prior to the contract being renewed as requested by a sales person, but was told that it was too late and the contract will renew for another year. I then stopped using the server, they were notified, and I didn't pay.

I have now been contact by a collection agency asking for $3,2000. The $2,400 is the value of the original 1yr contract plus extra fees for collection and stuff like that. This is also described in the contract.

I'm just telling people this so that they know how firm the contract is. I've contacted a lawyer, and obviously don't want to go to court, but will try to settle this contract issue.

I'll try to remember to let you know what the final outcome is. What a headache! :(

I realize now how binding a contract can be. Lesson learned...

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Me being a former CT employee I can tell you it will be a very long and hard journey. Upper management there has a real temper and real ****ty attitude and usually does not take any crap from anybody. I can see it both ways and think yes what is going on is ****ty, but then again you did know about the 30 day deal. What I would have done is 30 days before it was up, I would have faxed in my cancel request. Once they gotten that any good sales department would call to see what was the problem or try to bleed you out of anything. Then you could have requested an updated contract or whatever. Also this way if they gave you any crap, then you can say, I faxed in my request 30 days before. So yes, it is a bad thing both ways. I think you'll be ok, for this ammount of money it is not worth going to court over.

Thanks for the advice! I could have used it a couple months ago. At that time, I had no intentions of leaving CT, but their sales people were not being helpful, and that is when I decided that instead of modifying my contract, I wasn't going to renew it.

Not a problem at all. Just keep us up to date on what is going on.

There are cases like mine where a cancellation fax is sent but the company acts as if it hasnt received it.

One company gave a 30 day trial period. I cancelled within the period but the company did not respond. after a couple of faxes along with some emails, the company then cancelled but after collecting/charging my card for amounts till the day they cancelled.

There are other cases where the company cancels the account for non payment of dues or other reasons but keeps charging credit cards.

Matra

I have had 4 web hosts since starting my online business in 1998, 3 without contracts, 1 with,

BY FAR, the most trouble I have had was the company that required a contract. (Not the same company that is the subject of this thread). They relied on their contracts to keep customers inline instead of providing superior SERVICE! When I became dissatisfied they started talking about their contract and their lawyers, instead of how they could satisfy me and correct the problem and I would be a happy customer! The problem was theirs by the way, but it did not matter to them, they had their "contract". Never again, with me will they or anyone else have a contract for web hosting!

DO NOT SIGN A CONTRACT for web hosting services for any reason. To get a slightly cheaper price is not a good reason, heck the company may or may not be in business to give you that great price in a few months! One company I was with went out of business, so anything they had promised me was out the window. The contract only benefits the HOSTING company, there is no benefit to you!

Now I am happy hosted with a great dedicated server with VO with NO contract and superior customer service!

HS

I think the same as HS.

A contract just benefits the Hosting Company and not the clients except in rare ocassion.

Im currently on a Contract with iCS, and i will just say "So far so good".

I've also had some problems with Communitech, for example, i pre payed them 1 Year, and within 3 Months to finish the contract they cancelled my account with the excuse that i was using too many resources, and that's completely impossible cause i wasnt using their Hosting, i had some files in their Server, but they were "un used" cause i got another hosting, so well, i wasnt using their service .. but well, the fact is that my Account got cancelled and they never re activate it or try to give me a better answer rather than "It uses too much resources from our Server" while i wasnt using their Service.

I don't see why a host wouldn't let you out of a contract if you have been with them a year, and were 10 days late faxing in the cancellation. You have to be pretty stubborn to not let someone out of a contract for that reason, and Try to make them pay for another year of something that they don't want. They would have a really hard time making anyone keep something they don't want for a year especially when it is in the $2k+ range. They should have just had a fee for canceling within 30 days. No one will keep what they don't want, and they really won't pay for it.
Unless you need the money so badly that you feel the need to trap them in the agreement, you should really let it go.

Also... a lot of the time, a contract doesn't just benfit the hosting company, they often give you a lower price because of the contract, and they expect you to keep that. So the only benefit to them on that side of things is keeping you there the whole twelve months. There are also other things that limit you etc... but they are usually standard, and if you don't care to abide by them, then you shouldn't agree to it in the first place. In this case I don't see how it hurts the host when canceling 29 days prior to the end of contract, or 20 days. It seems to me it is just greed on their side, and trying to keep you sending them money. All they need to know is they can get their workers, or who they buy from to take it away at the right time.