a client just threatened to sue me cos he saw this on his domain index page: "account suspended due to non payment". payment finally been received almost a month after its due date and after his account was reactivated, he is still complaining about how the notice has "tarnished his reputation". oh well, people like these make me want to quit this business.

how do you guys deal with people who dont pay up?

keep on diong what u do. he deserved it. nice work.

if hes paying 1 month late, i dont think he has much of a good reputation...

There was no wrong doing on your part, so I don't see how his lawsuit can/will be successfull.

Also, did you include anything related to this in your TOS? (Account suspension policies...)

Ignore him.

If I were in your place I will delete his account if my client did pay after 7 days of the payment due date. Is not worth it to keep customers like those.

put a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep :D

Originally posted by JeremyV
put a flaming bag of poop on his doorstep :D

That's actually not a bad idea... :blush:

Originally posted by Synthetic


That's actually not a bad idea... :blush:

Guys, I think he wants legal advice.

Have your lawyer drop a breifcase with burning poop on his doorstep

My gosh... that's brilliant! :laugh:

Great thinking!

HAHA.. You guys are so funny. Thanks for making me laugh after a long day dealing with unreasonable people :D

Originally posted by watever
a client just threatened to sue me cos he saw this on his domain index page: "account suspended due to non payment".


Never do anything that can make you look like the bad guy, no matter how much of a dick you think your customer is. IMO, a simple "site temporarily disabled" page can serve the same purpose without causing undue embarrasment to your customer.

payment finally been received almost a month after its due date and after his account was reactivated, he is still complaining about how the notice has "tarnished his reputation".

Well, that's not such an entirely far-fetched possibility, particularly if your customer has a commercial site of some sort and his customers were to come upon that "non-payment" page. Suppose he could could prove that you did indeed tarnish his reputation - what then? The world is full of attorneys who would snatch up your customer's case in a heartbeat, and who could potentially put you right out of business. Don't think it can't happen, because it does, every single day.

If it were me, I'd apologize for the misunderstanding over the wording of the "account suspended" page, and possibly give him a free month just to underscore that I intended him no ill will.

I'd then change the wording of the "non-payment" page to something a bit less inflammatory.


-Bob

eh... i dont think he will sue.


1 month late? Counter sue for a $15,000 late fee :) Tell him he tarnished your reputation because customers like him not paying ensures you cant pay your bills so your reputation is tarnished - im not sure if that made sense - im tired - its too late

Originally posted by TMX


If it were me, I'd apologize for the misunderstanding over the wording of the "account suspended" page, and possibly give him a free month just to underscore that I intended him no ill will.



About a week after the payment due date, I received email from the client explaining that he was out of town and hence missed both the email and physical invoices. He promised to send payment "immediately" and I reactivated his account and renewed his domain (which already expired then) BEFORE I receive any payment. However, I still do not receive the payment a week after he said he would pay, and hence I put the acount into suspension again. It was only two weeks after that I receive full payment for the account. Given, most hosting companies would have deleted the account by now, and that no domain registrar would even renew your expired domain for you before receiving payment, I think I already have gone a step further then what I would have done if I were using my business sense.

Dont worry about him, its sad if he even has enough time to sue you because of his "reputation"

This where a good signup policy or contract comes into play, just make sure if he sues that the contract/service is covered in the state where you are, make him travel to you to sue. Also, be sure its spelled out in the policy that payment goes toward hosting services, if there is no payment there is no hosting services, I think as long as you make sure that your policy clearly shows this that you have no problem. Just make sure its easy reading material and understandable, if you do go to court it doesnt matter if you or your client understands it, the Judge has to be able to understand it, thats all that matters.

J

Don't worry about him. But if it bothers you, then change your default page to say that the site is down but do not give a reason for it being down.

We use the following error page for our suspended customers:

Error - Web Site Unavailable

The requested Web Site, http://www.domain.com/, is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.

If you are the owner of this web site, please contact (us).


That way the deadbeat customers get complaints from their customers, and those they don't ignore like the email and snail mail late notices.

Hello
I assume he toed the threat if suing to a demand for financial compensations of some sort.

We started getting regular blackmail attempts so we added a clause to our TOS allowing us to terminate customers accounts if they attempt to extort money or additional services for free.
Its rather a complex clause but it covers situations like people threatening to post bad reviews of us if we don't agree to give them additional services or treat them differently from all other customers.

Its worth considering whether you actually want to do business with dishonest people like that.

The classic one I had last week was someone losing $2000 per day because his site was down.
Site was down becaus ehe hadn't paid the renewal fee.
Site had had 2 hits inthe past 30 days.
I just e-mailed him and said we were not willing to host a site of that financial magnitude on a shared account and terminated him.

Gordon

If you were factually correct then he has little legal case, but that still doesn't prevent him from suing.

However,

I personally would never post such a page as that, however true it might be. Simply a sorry cant reach this page contact webmaster type message is plenty. That way you don't worry about legal problems, you sleep well by taking the high road, and you don't feel bad if you find out later there were extenuating circumstances.