I was hoping to get some opinions and perhaps some advice on my situation. Back in May 2002, I purchased a domain name through Catalog.com for $35.00; although this price was higher than average, Catalog.com did include "free" UNIX web hosting for the length of domain registration (i.e., May 2002 to May 2003).

Everything was great until August. I received an email notification from Catalog.com informing me of changes they have made to the pricing schedule. I was told that hosting was still free, but I had to join the "Free Hosting Club" for the one-time fee of $24.95. I immediately emailed them in order to deny permission to charge this new fee to my debit card. Luckily, I took the precautionary step of blocking that transaction from my credit union because Catalog.com attempted to charge me the $24.95 fee on four different occasions.

I realize that this is only $24.95. But what is to stop them from creating a new set of charges again? Furthermore, they have a blatant double-standard regarding the implementation of these new set of fees. With their new policy, a customer would pay $29.95 to register a domain for one year plus $24.95 to receive membership in the “Free Hosting Club” for that same time period; however, with all current customers that have already paid $35 for the domain with free hosting, they are still required to pay the same $24.95 “free” hosting fee in order to continue their hosting services, hence making this new policy retroactive. If this new policy is retroactive, logic would dictate that the new change in domain registration fee (from $35 to $29.95) would also be retroactive, yet it is not.

I have since tried to email and call them to work out the situation—their responses are always unyielding. All my conversations with these people have always been very courteous and demure; they are always pleasant and understanding, but unbending in their position.

So, my questions are:

1.) Is this a common practice among hosting providers?
2.) Should I just shut up and pay them? (Principles be damned.)
3.) It isn’t right, but is it legal?

Thank you for any ideas or comments.

Originally posted by Cardinal
3.) It isn’t right, but is it legal?

Thank you for any ideas or comments.

I am sure their TOS states somewhere that their services and billing can change at anytime and without notice, so it's probably buck up and pay it or transfer your domain to another service, doteasy.com provides a similar service, but for the 55.00 you'd actually be paying at catalog.com you could get great hosting with many more features somewhere like eryxma.com or ehostpros.com

Originally posted by Cardinal
I was hoping to get some opinions and perhaps some advice on my situation. Back in May 2002, I purchased a domain name through Catalog.com for $35.00; although this price was higher than average, Catalog.com did include "free" UNIX web hosting for the length of domain registration (i.e., May 2002 to May 2003).

Everything was great until August. I received an email notification from Catalog.com informing me of changes they have made to the pricing schedule. I was told that hosting was still free, but I had to join the "Free Hosting Club" for the one-time fee of $24.95. I immediately emailed them in order to deny permission to charge this new fee to my debit card. Luckily, I took the precautionary step of blocking that transaction from my credit union because Catalog.com attempted to charge me the $24.95 fee on four different occasions.

I realize that this is only $24.95. But what is to stop them from creating a new set of charges again? Furthermore, they have a blatant double-standard regarding the implementation of these new set of fees. With their new policy, a customer would pay $29.95 to register a domain for one year plus $24.95 to receive membership in the “Free Hosting Club” for that same time period; however, with all current customers that have already paid $35 for the domain with free hosting, they are still required to pay the same $24.95 “free” hosting fee in order to continue their hosting services, hence making this new policy retroactive. If this new policy is retroactive, logic would dictate that the new change in domain registration fee (from $35 to $29.95) would also be retroactive, yet it is not.

I have since tried to email and call them to work out the situation—their responses are always unyielding. All my conversations with these people have always been very courteous and demure; they are always pleasant and understanding, but unbending in their position.

So, my questions are:

1.) Is this a common practice among hosting providers?
2.) Should I just shut up and pay them? (Principles be damned.)
3.) It isn’t right, but is it legal?

Thank you for any ideas or comments.

That's the exact reason why I left them. I don't like to have the rules changed on me in midstream. All my domains are now with 1sthostweb.com - never had a problem, and their customeer service is down to earth and real, well, actually pretty good!
:D