Doing as many account transfers as we do, I notice a lot of providers go above and beyond to block outgoing account transfers, some of these providers, are considered "respectable" and often recommended. I'm not forming any judgement on these providers, but I'd like to ask those of you who do block outgoing transfers why you do it.

It's never good to burn bridges, and it seems by making it more difficult for a client to move away from you, it's only going to make them #1 want to move more, and #2 less likely to recommend you or ever come back to you.

What's the advantage? Do you find clients who try to transfer and than give up and decide to stay? :rolleyes:

This is a good post and an excellent point.  I was wondering when the issue would surface. 

One provider (I won't name names) offered to sell me a handful of clients at a rate that I would be mental to decline. Obviously I accepted, and we both signed contracts. I went to try and transfer the accounts out of his server, but he blocked it, I contacted him, mentioned it and he told me that because I wasn't able to bypass it that I didn't deserve his customers, and so I lost out on $50. I just sighed and decided not to persue it.
However, the very next day, my inbox had quite a few e-mails in it, so I had a quick browse, and found that all of the clients (plus several more) were having problems with his attitude, and so I got more than my moneys worth.

Moral Of The Story: No matter how hard you try, the client will ALWAYS get the last laugh. So just let them take their sites wherever they want, help them with it, and you'll find them more willing to recommend you to friends, it may just be that they didn't need your services anymore, or decided they found a cheaper / more extensive solution, and one day they may have been back.

yup, excellent post, i cannot see the point in blocking outgoing myself, if a client really wants to move they will.

Joseph : love that story, some hosts seem to forget that it is the clients that put the food on our tables and not the other way round.....

be interesting to hear from the hosts that do block outgoing transfers.

Personally, if a client wants to leave, I'll tell them to retrieve information such as IPs etc from their new host, and I'll forward their domain at my end to try and cut down on delays, as well as assisting in any way I can with the move. I've had customers leave, and come running back a month later waiving their credit cards telling me to open up their account again (one reason that we don't as a rule remove all of a client's files from all of our systems for at least a month. (They're kept on a backup server)

Jos, can you try to explain that part?
SO you tried transferring the account via the control panel's import feature and your server IP was blocked?

Plus the person who sold you the accounts is the one who is mental. You paid for his clients and he is giving you a hard time getting it????
Just like an psychotic icecream man who get the money from a 12 yr old and holding the ice cream so high that the boy couldn't reach it. He then said "If you can't reach it, you aren't going to get it."
That is just an analogy, I am not saying that you run your hosting like a 12 yrs old boy or something like that. Please do not misunderstand. :D
Disclaimer Done.

OK, regarding webhosts making it hard for disgruntled customers to leave is just asking for trouble.
Picture this. If you go into a store and you got the worst customer service ever, you decided to leave. Then the psychotic owner bolded the door preventing you from leaving.
Once you get out of that place, you will swear that you will try your best to get the words out about how bad that store is.

Originally posted by Joseph_M
I went to try and transfer the accounts out of his server, but he blocked it, I contacted him, mentioned it and he told me that because I wasn't able to bypass it that I didn't deserve his customers, and so I lost out on $50. I just sighed and decided not to persue it.

I read everyones point of view on this - which leaves me just one thought in my head !!
If the providers mentioned in the beginning of this thread are so respected clearly they are not by their clients or they would not be leaving - My companies been in business for years and I have watched a handful of customers over the years leave most of which do not run sites anymore at all -
It's all about service excellence - but you are all definitely correct holding them hostage is like lighting a fuse on a bomb it will explode on you -- let them go if they must send them with best wishes and offer them help to move - wave and smile as they go and leave your sentry to monitor their domain for a few months after they leave - I have found on the rare instance when a client does leave - If I catch their new server offline for more than an hour sometimes a polite jingle on the phone brings them back - Hey so and so this is blah blah from G2khstng - say I noticed you are having some downtime issues with your new host can we assist you at all?
Works like a charm !!
I;ve seen some hosts that just scare the hell out of me with their practices- I think some are retired car salesman :))

Aren't they kind of monopolozing the market by doing that? I know if windows ran the "fixmbr" program every time it was booted, in order to keep users from installing other boot managers, and thus using other operating systems, that they would probably be halled back into court.