Hello,
I need some advice. I currently have a reseller who is over 28 days past due. I have tried my best not to suspend the account out of good faith. I also feel sorry for the 12 customers that the reseller has. Of couse it is not fair to my company to give this person a free ride, but what can I do to make myself look like the big man.

I have also made no less then 10 attempts to contact the account owner to arrange a payment or even to see if he has intent to continue the service. I have also traced the nameservers of all of his domains to ensure that the have not moved to another host, but they are still pointing to me.

What is my best option in this case, I really want to avoid suspending all of his customer accounts. I also do not think it is ethical for me to contact his customers and offer to move them, but what do you all think.

Hah! The story of my life, let me tell you.

Suspend him. How much do you want to bet as soon as his sites go down he will be contacting you asking for an explanation.

The next thing you are going to hear is 'oh I didn't know my payment was overdue' and maybe an accusation that it is your fault because you didn't give him notices.

Don't let them fool you - they always know when they are overdue.

I don't have a problem suspending him, the big problem I have is suspending his customers. In the past I have been a victim of a reseller who decided to stop paying his bill. Fortunately I kept backups, but I still feel sorry for those who did not.

BTW - He cannot blame this one on me, I keep full records of any e-mail sent (and received if any in this case). I also left at least 4 voicemails with him (Phone Bill Logs can be provided if it comes to that).

Update : I dropped an .htaccess in the root of his domain to redirect everything over to my suspended.page file. That way his account appears suspended. Maybe he will take the bait.

Unlikely because he won't have his customers bitching at him because his sites are down. With that kind of pressure, he will HAVE to pay up. By just suspending his main site, you give him no incentive to pay his bill.

Does he owe a lot or just a month worth of service?

Suspend him and definitely do not contact their customers.

1) You've gone above and beyond -- more than what many folks would do in your position.
2) You don't want to be known as the host who tries to undercut its reseller customers.

You've taken a personal approach to the situation (which isn't bad mind you), but in the end, you're running a business.

Suspend him and definitely do not contact their customers. I agree, that is the way to go. I think that billing should be a well oiled machine, with a warning notice, a let-him-answer/pay time, and then suspension. Anything else just encourages late pay, and possibly a renegotiation of the fee. After months of not paying, you may feel like half pay is better than nothing at all. :)

Suspend him...

Does he owe a lot or just a month worth of service?

Yes - A total of roughly $18.00 + $5.99 (ClientExec).

To be honest I got the answer I expected and suspended the account this morning. This is the first time that I have had a reseller suspended for non payment. I have standard shared hosting accounts that get suspended all the time.

Now this brings me to the next question.

For the record. My servers are set as anonymous host names. I do not have servername.k-disk.net, rather servername.kdservers.com, because of this setup it is harder for one of his customers to find me. What should I do if one of his customers contacts me directly to attempt to get the data from their account.

why don't you move their client to main server and then suspend the reseller account?

why don't you move their client to main server and then suspend the reseller account?

I assume that that can be unethical and could involve legal actions (Since technically I would be stealing his customers at that point.

I agree, you really need a clear policy in place, and stick to it.

Make sure that you send out notices giving the client time to rectify the situation, for example:

1) generate/send the invoice 7 days before due date,
2) Send reminder 1 day before due date,
3) send overdue notice 1 day after due date,
4) Send second overdue notice 4 days after due date,
5) Send third (and final) overdue notice 6 days after due date, warning that the account will be suspended within 24 hours if payment is not received.
6) 24 hours after third overdue notice, suspend the account, and send them a notice of suspension.

(The time-frame can be altered to your policy).

I agree with a reseller account it's not just the reseller that's affected, but at the end of the day, that's the responsibility of the reseller, not you. You haven't been paid, so why should the reseller have free service

why don't you move their client to main server and then suspend the reseller account?

That could potentially cause a lot of issues, some being:

1) They are not your clients, so transferring them over, could have legal implications.
2) They have no contract with you, they have not (directly) agreed to your tos/aup.
3) Payment, how do you bill them when they have not signed up with you?
4) What happens if the reseller comes back, tells his clients that he had paid his bill, but you just pinched his clients? It can end up being very messy, and could, potentially tarnish your reputation.

Again, I would suspend the reseller account, but not terminate it for at least 30 days.

I agree, you really need a clear policy in place, and stick to it.

Make sure that you send out notices giving the client time to rectify the situation, for example:

1) generate/send the invoice 7 days before due date,
2) Send reminder 1 day before due date,
3) send overdue notice 1 day after due date,
4) Send second overdue notice 4 days after due date,
5) Send third (and final) overdue notice 6 days after due date, warning that the account will be suspended within 24 hours if payment is not received.
6) 24 hours after third overdue notice, suspend the account, and send them a notice of suspension.

(The time-frame can be altered to your policy).

I agree with a reseller account it's not just the reseller that's affected, but at the end of the day, that's the responsibility of the reseller, not you. You haven't been paid, so why should the reseller have free service

Dont worry about that part, the timeframes are defined clearly in my TOS. I just hate to ruin an innocent persons day.

Dont worry about that part, the timeframes are defined clearly in my TOS. I just hate to ruin an innocent persons day.

Yep I agree, not something that I would feel comfortable with, but if you do not stick to your policies then you will constantly have late payers.

Suspend him and definitely do not contact their customers.

1) You've gone above and beyond -- more than what many folks would do in your position.
2) You don't want to be known as the host who tries to undercut its reseller customers.

You've taken a personal approach to the situation (which isn't bad mind you), but in the end, you're running a business.

I completely agree. You can only bend the rules so far and the reseller is taking advantage of you. If he ends up leaving then you are the one losing out. He will probably end up paying though. Let us know what happens.

UPDATE : The reseller either has not noticed his site is suspended or has fallen off of the face of the planet. I was just sent an e-mail from one of his customers. I (regretfully) sent him back to his reseller. He even said he paid for his hosting renewal 3 days ago.

I really do feel bad for this guy. I will of course keep you all updated.

Also : This is officially my 400th post !!!

Yeah man, I know how it can be. However, when it gets down to it, you are in this business to make money and not to make friends.

It's not like the guy's customer is paying you to host his site. And its not like you are going to lose any money if his customer goes elsewhere. So really, you have nothing to worry about - except for getting your reseller to pay up.

You should except to see some sort of payment pretty soon. If not, you can assume the guy is dead or has totally given up on his web hosting service.

Yeah man, I know how it can be. However, when it gets down to it, you are in this business to make money and not to make friends.

It's not like the guy's customer is paying you to host his site. And its not like you are going to lose any money if his customer goes elsewhere. So really, you have nothing to worry about - except for getting your reseller to pay up.

You should except to see some sort of payment pretty soon. If not, you can assume the guy is dead or has totally given up on his web hosting service.

I am starting to think he may have given up. We will find out soon

Dont worry about that part, the timeframes are defined clearly in my TOS. I just hate to ruin an innocent persons day.

You're too kind for this industry, man. I like you. It's nice to see someone with ethics that wishes to help others around here.

(I say that with no sarcasm, unlike most of my posts here)

<<signatures to be set up in your profile>>

You're too kind for this industry, man. I like you. It's nice to see someone with ethics that wishes to help others around here.

(I say that with no sarcasm, unlike most of my posts here)

<<signatures to be set up in your profile>>


LOL Thanks,

In truth I this is my official statement, I do feel sorry for the end users impact. Becomming a web host (weather you are on a dedicated server, VPS or reseller) takes some responsibility. This reseller is not responsible. This forum is packed with loads of hosts who have bailed on their customers with no notice (and lined pockets).

It has been over 48 hours now and I still have yet to be contacted or paid. I have also left another friendly voicemail for him as well as an e-mail contact.

I never suspend resold accounts unless there is absolutely no other option, because it is not their fault. I suspend only the reseller's primary account if that is what it takes to get their attention. If that still doesn't work after a few days, I will suspend all sites for an hour or so. Its enough to get the reseller's customers to contact the reseller and get his attention.

If a few temporary blackouts still don't work, then the entire account is suspended.

The way I look at it with situations like this. If you forget to pay your bill is your server provider going to leave your machines up still? The answer is no regardless if you have customers. It's not your problem that the reseller did not pay.

We've dealt with resellers not paying in the past and we did not blink an eye to disabling the account. There is only so much you can do when you send 6 emails over 2 weeks and attempt to call and get no where what are you left to do? Eat the cost of their customers for months?

We've had resellers suspended for a month then terminate them and then they contact us. Their plan was actually just have them suspended for the foreseeable future. It was when the suspended notice on the accounts stopped coming up they decided to contact us.

People are going to attempt to take advantage of your good nature and it's going to cost you a lot more money then you gain. If it's not that then it's businesses going under. You cannot contact their customers so you gain nothing from letting them have a free ride. I bet some resellers if their customers were not suspended they'd still take in payments somehow via subscriptions or just getting users to send funds manually via paypal.

We used to have the same issue should we disable or not. After a while though we learned and just put in the automated systems to handle it. If the users are serious they'll pay if not we'll suspend and terminate eventually. It's resulted in a lot less work for us and we have far less delinquent accounts than before. People now know if they get the third suspension notice and a pending suspended notice we will do it it's not some sort of maybe we'll do it. So no one lets it get that far they either pay or at least contact us.

The way I look at it with situations like this. If you forget to pay your bill is your server provider going to leave your machines up still? The answer is no regardless if you have customers. It's not your problem that the reseller did not pay.

We've dealt with resellers not paying in the past and we did not blink an eye to disabling the account. There is only so much you can do when you send 6 emails over 2 weeks and attempt to call and get no where what are you left to do? Eat the cost of their customers for months?

We've had resellers suspended for a month then terminate them and then they contact us. Their plan was actually just have them suspended for the foreseeable future. It was when the suspended notice on the accounts stopped coming up they decided to contact us.

People are going to attempt to take advantage of your good nature and it's going to cost you a lot more money then you gain. If it's not that then it's businesses going under. You cannot contact their customers so you gain nothing from letting them have a free ride. I bet some resellers if their customers were not suspended they'd still take in payments somehow via subscriptions or just getting users to send funds manually via paypal.

We used to have the same issue should we disable or not. After a while though we learned and just put in the automated systems to handle it. If the users are serious they'll pay if not we'll suspend and terminate eventually. It's resulted in a lot less work for us and we have far less delinquent accounts than before. People now know if they get the third suspension notice and a pending suspended notice we will do it it's not some sort of maybe we'll do it. So no one lets it get that far they either pay or at least contact us.

I completely understand your policies and based on your answer, you are seasoned in this.

I sort of take this situation personally because something similar has happened to me. I was with a reseller and put up a very sweet site. It was not officially launched but alot of hard work went into it. I only had the site up for 2 weeks but when I went to log into the site I got the cPanel suspended message. That is how I found out that the host was a reseller.

I was mad because I did not make a backup. I hoped that it was a mistake and decided to check back later that day, no luck. A week later I decided to cut my losses and move to a new host.

I think it is a good idea to suspend him. You have a business that is your bread and butter at the end of the day. Imagine if everyone did not pay you on time!!! Then you will not be able to pay your own bills at the end of the day. Simply suspend him and once you can acquire the clients legally to make them happy then do it because you really should not make them suffer

UPDATE

Wow, The account owner just called, Out of respect of time and the fact that we have minors in this forum, I will paraphrase.

Customer : Hey, I just want to let you know that I have no intent in paying the bill and continuing the service. Go ahead and send me to collections, I am not paying.

Me : Was it something wth the service, is there anything I can do to help this

Customer : No, I just have no intrist in continuing

Me : Would you like me to unsuispend your account for a small window to allow your customers to copy their data.

Customer : Screw em


I am speachless...

UPDATE

Wow, The account owner just called, Out of respect of time and the fact that we have minors in this forum, I will paraphrase.

Customer : Hey, I just want to let you know that I have no intent in paying the bill and continuing the service. Go ahead and send me to collections, I am not paying.

Me : Was it something wth the service, is there anything I can do to help this

Customer : No, I just have no intrist in continuing

Me : Would you like me to unsuispend your account for a small window to allow your customers to copy their data.

Customer : Screw em


I am speachless...

Wow. Talk about total lack of regard for his client's businesses. Sounds like another kiddie who decided he was going to get rich off a reseller account but came to reality.

Wow. Talk about total lack of regard for his client's businesses. Sounds like another kiddie who decided he was going to get rich off a reseller account but came to reality.


No joke - I did not know that Summer Vacation was over yet... but he was a reseller for almost 6 months who was normally in good standings (except for 1 DMCA complaint on one of his customers, in which he handled promptly. I will keep his account suspended for a few more days and hope he calls me back to work this out. I am even willing to settle the balance for less then owed in this case as long as he lets he customers go properly.

I do not know the intenals of his business, but I can tell you this (nne of which can be used to identify the customer)

His Plan:
$17.99 per month (base 50 GB Space / 500 GB BW)
$05.99 per month (ClientExec)
$02.50 per month (Dedicated IP for a cstomer)
------------------------
$26.48 per month

His Plan (He only had one plan):
$6.99 per month
Unlimited Disk Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
He had a total of 11 customers so I will only assume he was making a reasonable profit, I am so sure if he was hosting any friends, but they were unique e-mail addresses
$76.89 (Base Invoice)
- 26.48 (Monthly Hosting)
-----------------------------
$50.24 PROFIT(ish)

Offer to write off his outstanding bill(s) if he agrees to allow you to contact the accounts. This way at least they get their sites back, and maybe you can pick up the accounts in an agreeable manner.

I would have at least an email from him agreeing to this, however.

I hope it works out for you!

The way I look at it with situations like this. If you forget to pay your bill is your server provider going to leave your machines up still? The answer is no regardless if you have customers. It's not your problem that the reseller did not pay.

We've dealt with resellers not paying in the past and we did not blink an eye to disabling the account. There is only so much you can do when you send 6 emails over 2 weeks and attempt to call and get no where what are you left to do? Eat the cost of their customers for months?

We've had resellers suspended for a month then terminate them and then they contact us. Their plan was actually just have them suspended for the foreseeable future. It was when the suspended notice on the accounts stopped coming up they decided to contact us.

People are going to attempt to take advantage of your good nature and it's going to cost you a lot more money then you gain. If it's not that then it's businesses going under. You cannot contact their customers so you gain nothing from letting them have a free ride. I bet some resellers if their customers were not suspended they'd still take in payments somehow via subscriptions or just getting users to send funds manually via paypal.

We used to have the same issue should we disable or not. After a while though we learned and just put in the automated systems to handle it. If the users are serious they'll pay if not we'll suspend and terminate eventually. It's resulted in a lot less work for us and we have far less delinquent accounts than before. People now know if they get the third suspension notice and a pending suspended notice we will do it it's not some sort of maybe we'll do it. So no one lets it get that far they either pay or at least contact us.

I would certainly not disagree with your policies on this. In fact, I used to deal with these situations in the same way. My only reason for being more lenient is that the end users are the ones who get punished when they haven't done anything wrong. I have no opposition whatsoever to sending the reseller to collections. In fact, if they don't have the courtesy to respond, that is what will happen. The end users, however, will generally figure it out with occasional blackouts and it gives them time to recover their sites and find another provider.

In this way, some of the loss can be recovered, and the end users don't lose their data, so it is a decent compromise. Again, I do believe that resellers who don't care about their customers and don't have the courtesy to at least cancel their accounts should be penalized, which is why I feel adding on a few extra fees (to compensate for the collection cost) and sending them to collections is totally justified.

His Plan:
$17.99 per month (base 50 GB Space / 500 GB BW)
$05.99 per month (ClientExec)
$02.50 per month (Dedicated IP for a cstomer)
------------------------
$26.48 per month

His Plan (He only had one plan):
$6.99 per month
Unlimited Disk Space
Unlimited Bandwidth
He had a total of 11 customers so I will only assume he was making a reasonable profit, I am so sure if he was hosting any friends, but they were unique e-mail addresses
$76.89 (Base Invoice)
- 26.48 (Monthly Hosting)
-----------------------------
$50.24 PROFIT(ish)


Profitable, until someone actually took him up on the "unlimited" part of his offer. Or I should say, actually used some resources.

It doesn't take much to burn through 50GB of disk space and/or 500 GB of bandwidth.

Profitable, until someone actually took him up on the "unlimited" part of his offer. Or I should say, actually used some resources.

It doesn't take much to burn through 50GB of disk space and/or 500 GB of bandwidth.

He was only using 12 percent

:)

I can think of several shared-hosting customers off the top of my head who have rather basic sites, but are popular with the fringe/cult following the sites have attracted.

Each falls under the limits of the shared plan they're on with us, but if any of them signed up with your reseller, they would blow the lid off his monthly allowances.

My point is, it only takes one customer to pinch a reseller's profit margin, especially if he (the reseller) is foolish enough to offer "unlimited" resources. And that's my whole point-- the lie of "unlimited".

(My comments were not directed at you personally. It sounds like you want to do the right thing.)

what we do with resellers is after a phone call and email and no response is - Suspend the account - but we go the extra mile like yourself not to suspend - unless no choice

but after 1 month of no contact, no response, etc - we suspend it

and we typically will get a call in a day or less with ...... you know

the cat ate the invoice - blah blah - and we say oh - we don't mail invoices its electronic -- LOL

the cat ate the invoice - blah blah - and we say oh - we don't mail invoices its electronic -- LOL

Best excuse ever :P.

We had a client that stopped paying, we haven't actually heard from him since but his NS Records are still pointing to us. Fortunately, he wasn't a reseller so it wasn't a problem to suspend his account.

We don't really get any overdue client's anymore, which is great.

LOL. I love the excuse!!! lol

I had an account who could not pay his bill because his cat was sick... I know it is not a chart topper but still an excuse (I wonder if it got sick from eating your clients bill). He was a shared account so WHMCS automatically suspended the account, which was paid a week later.

I had an account who could not pay his bill because his cat was sick...

Haha...Ohhh the excuses we hear. I have not heard one that good yet but definitely some strange ones. Sometimes I wish clients would just stop with their stories, because they just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper! :)

Sometimes I wish clients would just stop with their stories, because they just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper! :)
Ditto. The one we hear most often is, "You never sent me an invoice."

All of our invoices are electronic and are delivered by email. We have never mailed paper invoices. I've gotten a few particularly nasty folks calling me a liar, so I pulled the mail server logs and verified we not only sent the invoice notice, but received it as well because the recipient's mailbox was hosted with us. Hah!

Long-term customers who have gotten the same invoice, for the same dollar amount, on the same day of the month, to the same email address for the past several years use this excuse, too.

Even after the caller realizes they don't have a leg to stand on, they'll perpetuate the lie just to cover up their own mistake. (either out of pride or embarrassment)

Ditto. The one we hear most often is, "You never sent me an invoice."

While I don't like the long drawn out lies...this one...is the most annoying because we both know they are lying through their teeth! Another one I got recently was a client telling me that their client hasn't paid them and how much of a hassle it is to constantly call them for payment and hear excuse after excuse. I thought...Really?!?!...I have no idea how that feels!...ugh...I have absolutely no sympathy for him.

Anyway...enough ranting...I could go on but I'll spare everyone! :)

Hello All,
I just wanted to post an update to this situation. The customer still has not paid or contacted us. I have sent the final 48 hour "Account Termination Pending" Today and I will be removing the account on Sunday.

Hello All,
I just wanted to post an update to this situation. The customer still has not paid or contacted us. I have sent the final 48 hour "Account Termination Pending" Today and I will be removing the account on Sunday.


On the suspension pages of his clients sites could you potentially put a message to have them contact you? Maybe some of them are local to him and can raise a ruckus. Or perhaps some way to verify them and recover their data. A legal way. I'm known for saying things like I want to punch this guy in the face. But I really would want to punch him in the face for doing something like this.

Hello All,
I just wanted to post an update to this situation. The customer still has not paid or contacted us. I have sent the final 48 hour "Account Termination Pending" Today and I will be removing the account on Sunday.


You should change your tos so lets say in 30+ days without payment a suspension shows up with your logo or something? you would not really be stealing customers if he said screw em.

On the suspension pages of his clients sites could you potentially put a message to have them contact you? Maybe some of them are local to him and can raise a ruckus. Or perhaps some way to verify them and recover their data. A legal way. I'm known for saying things like I want to punch this guy in the face. But I really would want to punch him in the face for doing something like this.

Hello,
I actually consulted with a legal expert who said dont do that. He raised a good point. I do not have a way to verify if the customer is who they say they are. Only the reseller can keep those records...