Well, I decided to go with eMAX hosting for my site. But it seems that I'm unable to pay for a whole year's worth of hosting. They only allow for you to pay up to 3 months in advance. I'm okay with this but was wondering if this is becoming the routine practice by other hosting companies. eMAX said that this is due to security and to combat the problems with fraud.

What say you?


Kareem

Kareem,

Emax's reasoning is valid. Many fraud transactions with stolen credit cards usually try to purchase the most expensive packages, such as yearly hosting. I believe there was also some concern among the credit card companies in regards to accepting payment for service so far in advance.

Also, many of the hosts that have provided yearly hosting, have not remained open for an entire year, leaving customers high and dry. Why is it so important that you pay a year in advance?

Hello,
Our firm has a similar restriction in place as well, rarely do we allow a customer to pay a year in advance. Customers eager to pay a year in advance without even trying a day of our hosting service have a much higher chance of bringing in fraudalent transactions.
If the customer has been with us for a month or longer, then we will generally allow a year in advance payment to be made.

. eMAX said that this is due to security and to combat the problems with fraud.

?
maybe some truth in that
BUT
you can also validate a credit card in many other ways besides charging for 3months,12 months ect.:eek:

I would not pay for several months upfront to any host untill I tried out their services first.

We always take 12 months, most of our clients pay yearly or biyearly. Till now not an issue with fraud etc.

Originally posted by grace5
I would not pay for several months upfront to any host untill I tried out their services first.
I agree. Not a good idea in my book nor do I suggest it.

Aside from the reasons stated above and purely from a business prospective, it is often much more difficult to forecast future cash flow projections using annual payments, as oppose to those taken over a shorter period of time.

- Chris

From a merchant provider perspective - ie the banks - theres greater risk to the bank with yearly subscriptions vs quarterly or monthly - it is possible that particular host has had some issues in the past (probably out of their control) that resulted in their merchant provider laying off some sort of restriction on them..

Not a definite conclusion - but, just throwing out another alternative...

For us, it is a maximum $$ amount. If the customer is new and wants to pay for a year.. then we will allow them to do so ONLY if the total $$ is less then xyz amount.

Otherwise, we will only allow them to do 6 months or quarterly or monthly.. so that the total $$ is not over our set xyz limit.

This way, if there is a problem they do not have the opportunity to chargeback more then xyz amount.

If they are an existing customer of more then 1 year, then we will allow them to charge any amount they desire. (Within reason of course.)

In all situations, if the amount is over xyz then we require a faxed credit card authorization/signature, etc..

The reason i prefer to pay one year or so upfront is because i don't need to worry about the monthly renewals and to ensure that the card i'm using has not maxed out. I know they are usually small amounts, but it happens sometimes.