Hi All,
Anyone host here ever had the problem of non-payers? or problems with someone who keeps asking for a refund?

What about if we start our own centralized database.....

Would hosts be interested in an online chat to discuss this?

Reply here and Ill get a chat setup...

Nice idea, but you should be able to look after yourself :)

We get payment up front for all service - I suggest you consider doing the same :)

Its not just about payment up front and so on as most of our clients do, just some like money order and so on....

This would just be a database accessed by hosts to see sorta like the background of payment terms on clients and so on.... Like a backup plan.....

While this isn't a bad idea, each host participating in this would have to tell their customers that their payment/personal information would be stored in a 3rd party database. As a customer, I would NOT agree to this.

Payment information will not be included..... as in credit card details and so on.... It would be like an Equifax service for hosts....

Originally posted by klooki
Payment information will not be included..... as in credit card details and so on.... It would be like an Equifax service for hosts....

If i'm not mistaken, equifax uses credit history which can be accessed by any approved financial organization. What you're talking about is just a reporting service for hosts, which would probably require customer approval.

In a way it would act the same way, if a client isnt a problem client then their details would not be included in the database....
This would be secure, each host will not have access to the full records of a client only partial details..... They would have a choice on what details they are looking for and it would search for only that information....

What record would you use to keep tabs then?

Clients could easily get around the system unless you used something like credit card info - which NO WAY would i give out to you from my clients lol :)

This would be sorted in the initial developement of the backend.... credit card details will not be held whatsoever just to insecure no matter how secure we think the backend is....

ok so the question is .. how WILL you work out if someone is in the database or not.. what information ARE you going to use to identify a problem client ?

About two or three years ago I had the same idea. After about five minutes of deliberation (one smoke with partners) it was decided the leave the idea outside to blow away with the rest of the smoke. You must have caught it, congratulations. We threw the idea out because customers just wouldn't agree to it, there are already credit reporting agencies out there that provide the same service but from all industries, not just web hosting, and web hosts wouldnt agree to entering all of their customers and weather they are good customers or not into a database (maybe you could just enter the bad ones but whatever.)

The real solution to your problem is to revise your payment terms. You need to get payment up front before any service is provided, and just cancel those accounts that do not pay.

"I will pay in a month" "check is in the mail" etc etc etc are all big lies 99% of the time. You need to answer them with "Great, your account will be re-activated when it arrives."

Once we started to do this, most of our "check is in the mail" accounts were sending in checks with the envelope post-dated after the account was suspended..

You have a receivables problem - not a customer credit problem. Revise your accounts receivables.

This isnt in relation to our business practices..... Its for overall problem clients with everything not just paying..... The hosting companies would only add clients who are problems and are leaving them and threatening them with slander and so on.....

Its basically to help other hosts so they dont get the same client who is going to leave them the first time an email goes astray or something and threaten to post everywhere that they are a bad company to work with..... and no, this hasnt happened to Klooki yet... but there is alot of posts in WHT relating to the above.

I like what this is saying, and you can probably do a reference by domain name, First and last name, and possibly telephone number.

While I get what others are saying, you can not use social secuity numbers, credit card, etc. - by using the above the system would be about 80% effective. For a disclaimer you would have to put on your order page something like "We use xyz to check for negative refrences" or there abouts.

While yes it is a receivables problem, and it is ultimatly up to the businesses to setup fraud/bad pay sequences to weed out the bad ones, we all know in hosting the number of fraud cards (especially the IRC Shell providers) that we deal with. This system would be great to see the customers that no ISP can make happy (the jumpers) and to find the ones that love to answer any question with a chargeback (we do not have this problem, but looking at the boards some do).

I agree with this if it can be setup so that there is no real information compromising to the customer, as it is more of a alliance site more than a "credit check" or other means. This system that is being talked about would not prevent someone from getting an account at a ISP, it would only make the host more aware of the past, if any, that customer has with other hosts/ISP's.

Myself, I would go with something as it would only be one more step in verification of orders that might be fraud or cause other issues by taking the customer on.

leave them the first time an email goes astray or something and threaten to post everywhere that they are a bad company to work with


If you cant handle someone posting something about your company that you know is not true then your in the wrong bussiness.

Yeah you know its not true.... but does your potential customers?

Originally posted by klooki
Yeah you know its not true.... but does your potential customers?


95% of customers sometimes use the company anyways no matter if theres a bad review or not .Coming from a customers point of view (me) i wouldnt really care if there were a few reviews that were putting down a host because i used to be in the hosting bussiness and i know how they can be sometimes if something is not done the way they think or want it to be done,but theres no company out there that has a A+ record with any customer and theres really no way to ever prevent them from writing a fake claim against you,just because one person has put your company down for a reason doesnt mean that just because a person read that one review that they will not be a customer.





:)