After suspending one of our hosting accounts because of an spam complaint from the Google groups to us and our upstream provider we suspended the offending account immiadiately.
That's what we got today from the offending customer :D

I would like to begin by saying that I do not appreciate receiving an email regarding my account being suspended after the fact. Posting to newsgroups through an outside advertising source I did not realize was grounds for suspension. Nor do I understand why I could not have simply received an email warning so as to contact the advertising source to discontinue their current methods. Not only do I feel the service you provided less than adequate, but more like a complete rip off!! I had more problems initiating service and getting it up and running with your hosting company than any other company that came to offer service thereafter. You gave me no heads up regarding the situation and simply pulled my account without hesitation or warning which I consider completely unethical!! I do not have a problem adhering to rules regarding Spam, and would gladly have done so, as I said, if you had simply warned me of the problem. Therefore I am requesting a refund of any time I had left on my account. I believe I either paid for six months or a year, and whatever time I have left should be refunded due to the more than inadequate way you handled the situation. If a refund is not given then I will pursue this directly with my credit card company! You handled this improperly and poorly and I believe in bad faith. I would have gladly discontinued any further advertising if I had been given enough time to contact my outside agency to halt all further advertising through that means. Instead, you pulled my account, and did so at an ungodly time and hour, and I did not find out until my site was down for an entire day! You may not care about losing business, but I do, and I don't appreciate your methods at all. Not only will I never do business with your company again, but I will make sure any and everyone I know seeking hosting service, be told how horribly you treat your customers!! I do expect a partial refund for whatever time remained on my account with your company, within the next 72 hours or I will check with my credit card company about my options to get my money back!


Yeah, after 6 month the service was bad from the beginning. :o
We actually had to suspend the account every month because of late payment of this person and never charged him a reactivation fee. Haha, always the same. Is there any good worded person around who could help us to send them a cool answer on this one?
We have a 0 spam policy in our TOS to which the client actually has to agree before he's able to signup.

Well, I think this really depends on how your TOS is worded. If it is very clearly stated that spamming will result in immediate termination without notice or refund, then I would very simply quote that section or, better yet, refer him/her to that section (ie: Please refer to section 2.3 of our TOS which you agreeded to when ordering you account with us which clearly states that your account will be terminiated immediatly and without notification blah blah blah.). If it is not stated clearly, then change it immediatly! As for how to handle this client, he/she sounds like a problem child since Day One. You will not make them happy. But this does not mean that you should get into a flame war. Be cool, calm, and very precise about your service and the associted rules.

Hope that provides some help!

Well, I think this really depends on how your TOS is worded. If it is very clearly stated that spamming will result in immediate termination without notice or refund, then I would very simply quote that section or, better yet, refer him/her to that section (ie: Please refer to section 2.3 of our TOS which you agreeded to when ordering you account with us which clearly states that your account will be terminiated immediatly and without notification blah blah blah.). If it is not stated clearly, then change it immediatly! As for how to handle this client, he/she sounds like a problem child since Day One. You will not make them happy. But this does not mean that you should get into a flame war. Be cool, calm, and very precise about your service and the associted rules.

Hope that provides some help!

From Zamba Hosting's TOS (http://www.zabia.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=ezcms&file=index&menu=400&page_id=14)
Zabia Hosting feels that spam in any form, including but not limited to, unsolicited commercial email, irc messages and newsgroup postings is a serious abuse of the network and will not tolerate Zabia Hosting's name being used in such a way. If you choose to abuse the network or defame Zabia Hosting in any way, your host name will be immediately deleted and appropriate legal action will follow from Zabia Hosting, your ISP and the related parties.

I'd say that's pretty clear.

You definitely need to make it sound like you investigated the complaint and found it to be true. Maybe even provide them the newsgroup post with headers.

If you're policy is not to give prorated refunds on prepaid accounts, then don't do it if you terminated them for a violation of the contract.

What's funny is that it took them a day to realize that their site was shut down. Don't they check their email? If not, how do they expect that they lost any business anyway?

Um, you did email them, notifying them of the situation, right? Or call them?

I'm betting you wish that you had their non-digital signature on that credit card receipt right now, though.

Anyway, let them know the following:

"Please understand that even if you do not wish to pay us the money that you owe us with your credit card service, we will need you to settle your account by sending a check or money order, as you are not eligible for a refund when violating your contract.

Please make your check in the amount of xxx payable to xxx and mail to xxx, and we will promptly issue a refund to your credit card.

Thank you.

HTML Link (to the legalese in your agreement about due dilligence at collecting debts, collection agencies and fees, disputing charge backs, bringing the issue to court in your jurisdiction, and all the fun stuff about spam and no refunds)"

We got actually ALL evidence by a PGP signed message from one of the google groups administrators.
We terminated the account and forwarded the spam complaint to the customer with a notice saying that the account is suspended due to the complaint and the violation of our TOS.
Customer actually paid until April and not for a year.

We already mailed them back telling that if they try to chargeback we'll forward the complaint to their local authorities and hand this over to a collection agency adding our cost to handle this.
:D
We told them that if they have registered the domain throught us and paid for it we'll be happy to make changes to their DNS records to point to the new host they've chosen.
That's the answer:

Not only did I not register my domain with you (the smartest thing I ever did), but smartly avoided paying for a two year hosting service contract agreement going with a gut feeling that you wouldn't be worth my time or money! I would like to know how much time I paid for with you, and how much of that time remains? Based on that information, and considering it was paid for in advance I will make my own judgment calls about pursuing this with my bank. I also want you to know that my domain was successfully transferred through my own efforts, and the only thing remaining with you is to ensure that no use of my credit card information or account information is made. Since you have suspended my account, then I would like all account information deleted, including credit card billing and account setup. It is unfortunate that this situation has resulted in me terminating my account with you, but perhaps it has been a learning experience in getting what you pay for!! Cheap is not always better!! This may be a result of an error I made, which you called spamming, but you were a mistake, that I should have had the smarts to end a few months ago!

Again, I ask for the amount of time that was paid for, and a deletion of my account.
Please respond back with a confirmation, as soon as my account is closed.


Hmm, yeah :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Our answer was to login to their billing account, print it out and confirm it before we'll proceede to delete their information.


BTW: If phatmedia is posting here CAUTION you'll be the next victim!