I've been sending small clients to burlee.com for about 2 years. Yesterday, I sent them a client who has an established email address with just two letters in it. After my client was set up, via their online system which accepted her two character email address, we learned that their email system requires minimum of 3 characters. We immediately told them we wouldn't be able to use them and asked for a refund. This was at 9AM on the day following our welcome email at 6PM. We were told we could have our unused hosting back, but not the set up fee. While this is indeed what their policy is, it is wildly unfair and unreasonable since we never used their service. I will never refer burlee.com again after having been treated this way.
Just my 2 cents.

They still had to set up the account, no? I think I take their side on this one. Many hosting companies use the setup fee to pay for initial set up of your account and initial support (the majority of support is needed when the account is first set up) both services you used, so I think it is definetly justified.

Do you work for them or is there something i'm missing here. Their system is not capable of setting up legal 2 character email addresses. That's the only reason we needed to cancel. There was no way for us to know this before we were all signed up -- They've wasted my and my clients time because of their system limitation. You really think we should pay to discover what their system can't do?
In that case, you should use burlee.com , but I'm staying away from it and would suggest the same for anyone who wants to deal with a fair company.

Setup fee is not refoudable once the account is set up.

SETUP FEE

Got an order, better log in and click the sign up account button..
Man this work is killing me, I better ask for a raise.

In this case I would refund the setup fee, and Im sure alot of host would.

Why didnt you set up a 3 char or higher eMail address and simply setup a 2 char alias to map to the eMail account?

Did you try this?

Cheers,

I would have refunded the setup fee also, If I have a client that refers customers to me all the time, I wouldn't want to lose thier business

Plus the majority of hosts do not use many resources to initially setup an account, it is to cover intial operating costs

just my 2 cents

Just one more reason as to why not use hosts who charge a setup fee. As I see it, it's simply a way to retain $$$ if an individual decides to leave with in the first 30 days.

Once I see a setup fee, I look no further.

Originally posted by jw
They still had to set up the account, no? I think I take their side on this one. Many hosting companies use the setup fee to pay for initial set up of your account and initial support (the majority of support is needed when the account is first set up) both services you used, so I think it is definetly justified.

Yea, I can see why you would take their side, I mean setting up accounts is so unbelievably difficult :rolleyes:

(Completely sarcastic, it takes next to no effort, and I refuse to have anyone tell me otherwise...As would any honest host)

Originally posted by jonny b
Why didnt you set up a 3 char or higher eMail address and simply setup a 2 char alias to map to the eMail account?

Did you try this?

Cheers,

Yes. You are on the right track. They could do this for an additioal setup fee of $25 plus additional 9.95 /mo. That's on a site that only costs $12.95 /mo. I'm not sure what the folks that are defending the original set up fee don't get, but it's not like we got anything for our time and trouble except to learn that you get penalized for their systems short comings or you take a $30 hit. This just seems like a rip off to me and that's why I'm bothering writing about it so other don't let burlee tkae $30 bucks from them too. I guess maybe I'm spoiled from doing business with good companies who do the right things with their customers even if they have a chance to get a few quick bucks off of them. I know I would appreciate it if someone warned me about this kind of a business before I got caught up with them.

Originally posted by Curtis H.
Just one more reason as to why not use hosts who charge a setup fee. As I see it, it's simply a way to retain $$$ if an individual decides to leave with in the first 30 days.

Once I see a setup fee, I look no further.

Although, of course, many hosts have an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee, including setup fees, and actually honor it. I know one good example. In light of that, you could consider setup fees as a way of covering costs and building a sustainable business model, rather than a cynical trick :)

Domain registration fees are usually a different matter, because you can't unregister a domain anymore.

Kevin

This is a complete rip off. If they knew their system could not do the job before setting up and incuring setup fees then they could have told you. You cant set an account up to find the system cant do it then charge some one else for finding out.
What a load of rubbish.
Its like not knowing if your server supports PHP, and telling someone they can pay to find out.

Again RIP OFF

Why dont you call your credit card company, and get a chargeback. I remember once a hosting company charged me $700 for bandwidth, I called my credit card, and got the credit, no questions asked.

i don't think that is unreasonable. keeping the setup fee is very fair. but they should have told you about the email.

Per their TOS, it isn't out of line. I think what it comes down to is that you (and probably others) feel that there are cases where a provider should take a more humanistic approach. Like you said, they got your set up fee but this experience has soured you on them. Most hosts wouldn't feel that's worth it, especially considering the circumstances.

Originally posted by roseberrye
I've been sending small clients to burlee.com for about 2 years. Yesterday, I sent them a client who has an established email address with just two letters in it. After my client was set up, via their online system which accepted her two character email address, we learned that their email system requires minimum of 3 characters. We immediately told them we wouldn't be able to use them and asked for a refund. This was at 9AM on the day following our welcome email at 6PM. We were told we could have our unused hosting back, but not the set up fee. While this is indeed what their policy is, it is wildly unfair and unreasonable since we never used their service. I will never refer burlee.com again after having been treated this way.
Just my 2 cents.

This is going to sound like a really dopey question but why would anyone have an email address that's just two characters long? And that isn't possible anyway. The @ sign is a character and so's the . After a minimum 2-character extension, that's 4 characters. Then at least one character for the domain is 5. And you haven't even entered anything before the @ sign yet.

Originally posted by TheGAME1264


This is going to sound like a really dopey question but why would anyone have an email address that's just two characters long?

They are using their initials. e.g. JS@theirdomain.com Anyway, they had been using them for 6 months and it is on all of their printed materials. My host, pair.com supports them no problem. So now they are back at pair with their own account and everything is fine. Next time one of my clients needs their own account, I'll just suggest they stay away from Burlee because of the way we were treated.

Forgive the copy and paste here but I've copied the following from Burlee's online signup page:

Sign Up for Email
Username for the "master" email account
Password
POP Special Instructions 1: User name must be at least three (3) characters and no more than 30, and password must be at least four (4) characters and no more than 30. Allowable characters include a-z (upper or lower case), numbers 0 through 9, dashes("-") and periods (".").


Seems to me that the 3 character restriction is quite clear. Not only that, they do have a JavaScript that appears to check the length of the email. Personally, I can see why they would keep the setup fee. They made it pretty clear to me.