I am interested in some feedback from some other hosting companies.
We have been hosting websites since 1995 and we have always had the same cancellation clauses in our contracts. We ask people to give 30 days written notice for cancellation. The reason we do this is so that we can keep a guage on our bandwidth/servers. If we had alot of people leaving, we would not buy additional hardware/bandwidth. Its not like we can just call Frontier or Level3 and say "run out here and throw in another t3." I'm sure others try to plan forward rather than just use up all the bandwidth and then worry about it. Anyway, we have this clause no less than 3 places in our contract. The whole contract is displayed BEFORE anyone can place an order. Every email sent by our billing software has the same clause quoted at the bottom of the message saying not to forget that if you wish to cancel to make sure you give 30 days notice, etc.

We are not animals, if someone calls and says something like "sorry, we are no longer in business " or "we can't afford to pay" etc, we always work with people. (translation: we don't make them pay)

But there are other people, who use the service and use it and never complain or mention anything, they ignore their bills and finally get shut off.. we are pretty leanient I think, we don't shut people off until they are at LEAST 15 days past due (thats past the final day for payment, well into the next month, by this time they have gotten at least 5 past due invoices). Then they claim that they did not agree to have their acount automatically renew. We mention that it was in the contract before they signed up and if they did not agree they should not have signed up. People then either say "we never read contracts" or "I don't care, i'm not paying". Then they go on and on about how they are going to tell everyone in the world that we are deadbeats and trying to screw people.

On the other hand, when we tried (a few years ago) just turning people off the day of their renewal if they didn't pay or contact us, people call and yell that they thought we would auto bill them and why did we shut them off.

This must happen to other web hosts. What do you do?

Thanks!

Well I just bill them before the month even starts, so they are all pre-paid for the month. If they decide to cancel I just turn their website off at the end of the month. Makes it much easier that way.


James R. Clark II
Nethosters Inc.
http://www.nethosters.com

I have found that a tremendously large number of people completely ignore the Terms of Service, despite the fact that they have to knowingly agree (they must type "yes" in a box on our signup form stating they agree with our Terms of Service) before they sign up.

It's very annoying. We don't require advanced notice of cancellation, but we do require cancellation in writing (to protect ourselves). I've found that business customers rarely have a problem with cancelling in writing (they expect it), but individuals get very upset when you require it.

I had one lady actually tell me that she was going to sue us under the Americans with Disabilities Act, because she didn't own a fax machine and because she was house-bound due to a disability she couldn't get to the post office, and as such our written cancellation policy violated the ADA. I checked with my lawyer, of course, and our policy in no way violates that ADA - her argument was absurd. Plus, I had to wonder - if she has no fax machine, and can't get to the post office, how was she going to pay us in the first place?

I don't know - it's very annoying. I've turned a lot of these types of accounts over to a collection agency. Very rarely do they ever pay, but at least I get the satisfaction of seeing their credit get screwed up because they screwed me over.

My advice: don't change your policy. If they don't have the common sense to read the contract they are agreeing to, they deserve to get their account sent to a collection agency.

Jason

Couldn't she pay via credit card? Her argument is absurd. If she's housebound, then her mail is delivered so if she wants to send anything, it only has to be put in the mailbox for the postperson to pick up when delivering.

Couldn't she pay via credit card?

Yes, except when she signed up she indicated she preferred to be invoiced and pay by check.

Her argument is absurd. If she's housebound, then her mail is delivered so if she wants to send anything, it only has to be put in the mailbox for the postperson to pick up when delivering.

I agree wholeheartedly.

My whole point to the message was that customers need to learn to actually read Terms of Service (regardless of whether they're signing up for an ISP, web host, or simply installing new software), and if they didn't bother to read the terms of service, they should not get upset with the web host when the host tries to enforce that Terms of Service.

Unfortunately most people don't read the TOS for whatever they sign up for. While you don't want scare any one away, you may want to high light the section on cancellations.