I recently had my first experience with having to suspend a customer's account for non payment. I actually let it go way longer than I should have. This customer still had not paid for November 1st bill. Up until now, he has always wanted to pay by sending in a check every month, always late. This time, it got to December 5th (35 days overdue), and still no payment. His usual excuses - I lost your email with the amount due, I ran out of checks, I broke my hand so I can't sign a check. Pretty lame.

Anyways, after several reminder notices, I sent 2 emails confirming that his account would be suspended if payment was not received by Noon Friday. I ended up having to suspend the account.

I just used the Suspended Page that came by default with WHM. Upon seeing that his account was suspended, he promptly made a credit card payment, and I unsuspended the account. In his email to me afterwards he said
I think what you have done with the suspension of the web hosting and make it public was very unprofessional of you.
Here's my question. When you suspend someone's account for non payment, what do/should you say in your Suspension page?

His email got me thinking. It does seem a bit odd that the default suspension page refers to contacting the Billing Dept, inferring an overdue bill. In ground level businesses, if someone has an overdue hydro bill, their service is cut off, but the Hydro company does not slap a notice up on the front door for all to see.

Your thoughts?

Vito

vito,

the hydro company has a much better chance of collecting than you do. basically, it was unprofessional of him not to pay you and you are well within your rights to let everyone know what kind of person he is by posting a public notice to that effect.

after all, if he hadnt paid this would have been all that you could do.

cheers,
paul

Our page just says: "Site unavailable at this time"

Originally posted by AffordableHost
Our page just says: "Site unavailable at this time"

I think that sounds better. Thanks. I have just changed my page to say the same.

Vito

Oh, did I mention we have that copyrighted? :stickout: :)

--Tina

No problem just provide an email addy and I'll paypal you every time I suspend an account...:D

Vito

I think that there is a difference in someone who forgets once or twice - who doesn't? But for someone who persistently avoids paying on reasonable terms, it often takes a shock to make them act. It's my guess that you won't get any trouble from him in the future (possibly unless you "weaken" your suspension page).

Originally posted by vito
No problem just provide an email addy and I'll paypal you every time I suspend an account...:D

Vito


Nah, in the spirit of Christmas...you can use it for free. ;)

--Tina

I know what you mean, grandad. Clearly his tardiness in paying was not an oversight. He just didn't like paying his bill.

The implication of the wording in the default suspension page was that the account was overdue. Although that can be embarrassing for the site owner, I'm not sure that's what shocked him into making a prompt payment. I think it was more to do with the fact that the site was offline.

I like Tina's suggestion since it is more generic, and can apply to all cases regardless of the reason for suspension.

Vito

Hang this on the front door. :)

Gary

Hi, if you haven't received payment within six hours of first trying to bill their credit card, you should shut down the user's account/server and wipe their data. Hey - it works for United.Colo :laugh:

Originally posted by Editor
Hang this on the front door. :)

Gary

Hehe, that's nice :)

Here's my question. When you suspend someone's account for non payment, what do/should you say in your Suspension page?


http://eurofficial.com/suspended.page/

:)

LOL, did he really try the broken hand excuse?


But yeah, try to keep the information of why the account was suspended as vague as possible, and leave a number or e-mail address for them to contact you. It's tricky to try to get your point across without alienating the account holder. You want them to be punished but not put off.

Put up a page with the total amount owed, and a link to pay. Maybe one of his visitors really wants to see the website.

You cant really do that because if you are suspending multiple accounts it would show the same page and some people would owe different amounts!

Originally posted by dbodner
LOL, did he really try the broken hand excuse?

I haven't done a search, but I wonder if anyone here's had a thread about the strangest/funniest reasons customers give for not paying their bills...

Vito

I've only ever had to suspend one customer is the last couple years. He was local and we had worked out a deal with him so I didn't want to suspend him. Long story but he ended up owing me almost $2000 in fee's for his and all his customer's accounts. That's how long I let him go.

For about a week I called his office every day. I was always told he was out. My e-mails wern't returned. When I did some look up's on his domains I saw he was slowly moving them to another provider. I assumed at this point he was skipping out on me.

Our default suspended page is very vague, saying just that the account is temporarily unavailable and to contact support but for this guy I made up a new one that said that his accounts were x months overdue and that he should call billing to resolve his seriously delinquet accounts. I suspended all his accounts and all his customer's accounts with the same message.

Aaron

This is ours:
http://ip-sys.com/suspended.page/

Brief, and to the point without being too much of a riot act. As account suspension is due to people not doing the right thing we decided not to sugar-coat it very much

Greg Moore

Just curious. Aside from non payment, what are other reasons you have found it necessary to suspend accounts?

Vito

Spamming.

We use the same suspended page for all accounts, regardless of the reason. (non-payment, TOS violation, because we feel like suspending a random account, etc..)

So.. it is very generic and simply says the account has been suspended, with a nice graphic.. it looks pretty professional. I nice, professional-looking suspended page. haha.

There is a big "CONTACT US" link on the page that goes to a form they can fill out and submit for further info.. although if they have to ask why, then they are morons. (But this sometimes happens when they use up their disk quota and can't receive emails.. etc..)

We don't display our company info at all. (It is an anonymous suspend page.)

Be careful. If, by some fluke of a chance, you accidentally suspend the wrong account or something similar...you might get yourself into legal trouble if the page says "Suspended" or something that makes it look like the customer did something wrong.

That's why ours just says "Site Unavailable"

--Tina

http://www.darkblizzard.com/suspended.page/

Simple and to the point.

Originally posted by Typhoon
http://www.darkblizzard.com/suspended.page/

Simple and to the point.

This is exactly the type of page Tina was commenting about above. Yes it is simple and too the point. But imagine the person who was just late on a $10.00 payment, but now his visitors see "Hosting of illegal or questionable content ". This could damage a business.

We did something simialr to what Tina did. Just have it redirect to the admin login page.

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


This is exactly the type of page Tina was commenting about above. Yes it is simple and too the point. But imagine the person who was just late on a $10.00 payment, but now his visitors see "Hosting of illegal or questionable content ". This could damage a business.

We did something simialr to what Tina did. Just have it redirect to the admin login page.

Good point. However we give customers 2 weeks before even suspending an account after a late payment. And this doesn't include any arrangements we may make to push this time period to a greater length.

So, if the person was interested in keeping their business online, they would never see the page.

Changed it ;)

After a few seconds of thought, there is no other message needed except to contact us. :D

I recently had to do this - except my customer went much longer - over 60 days. It was a "hindu temple" - and they didn't respond to a paper invoice, repeated e-mails, and never returned 2 phone calls. Ok, time to get their attention.

I simply put up a page, with our logo, saying the site had been suspended due to non payment (a VERY subtle message - not saying "amt due" or anything like that.). I had payment in my hands in 24 hrs, and the customer was reactivated. Do I feel bad? Yes, but I did go 60 days without payment, the client had submitted over 20 support tickets in the first 60 days begging us to help him publish with Front Page (which I've NEVER used - and told him so). After payment was received, site was reactivated, and since then he's given us positive feedback (and endless apologies).

Just my (only) experience.

Joe

Originally posted by hostpc.com
After payment was received, site was reactivated, and since then he's given us positive feedback (and endless apologies).
My (ex)customer unfortunately does not see the error of his ways. In spite of the fact that I politely explained why his account was suspended, he sees me as the bad guy. Will be going elsewhere end of the month.

Oh well. Can't make everyone understand... :rolleyes:

Vito

I am less tolerant of non-paying customers now.

During our first 2-3 months we had a customer who failed to bill. We was told she would update her info during the week, we later found out she did this to buy time to download all her files and left.

We had some server issues, yet were unaware of these as she never sent in a ticket/email about it.

Some customers I prefer not having - liars.

Originally posted by Typhoon
Changed it ;)

After a few seconds of thought, there is no other message needed except to contact us. :D

From experience, this was wise. It only takes one lawyer's site to not pay for 14 days (because s/he was on vacation or something) and they see something like you had and find a way to get cash for it.

We found it just as effective to suspend with no information posted. The less words you use, the less you can be held reliable for. :)

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


We found it just as effective to suspend with no information posted. The less words you use, the less you can be held reliable for. :)

Extremely wise advice. :)

--Tina

Good advice. I changed our suspended page to remove the word "suspended", too.

Thanks! Now I can go to bed. I learned something.

my toughest part has always been what to do if you are hosting a friend and they don't pay. I know I'm always in the right to suspend them for non-payment, but obviously it still creates tension. Even if I tell them I don't want to host them for whatever reason, the same tension arises. It's not really the money that's the issue, it's the feeling that you are being taken advantage of. Some friends just are late in all their bills. It's always worked out eventually by sitting down and discussing it and putting clear guidelines down, but even then it's stressful. Hard to be parental to a friend sometimes about money issues.

I agree with affordablehost. Accidentally suspending a client due to a billing error or a problem with the software could make you guilty of libel.

Is this subtle enough?

http://www.waterhosting.com/suspended.page/

j/k :D :D :D


Vito

Originally posted by vito
Is this subtle enough?

http://www.waterhosting.com/suspended.page/

j/k :D :D :D


Vito

ROFL thats great :cool:

Believe it or not!

I moved one of my sites to a new host in August and the original host still has not caught on so I hung up my own suspension notice:

http://aspen.forest.net/softwaretimes/ :)

Originally posted by skelley1
my toughest part has always been what to do if you are hosting a friend and they don't pay. I know I'm always in the right to suspend them for non-payment, but obviously it still creates tension. Even if I tell them I don't want to host them for whatever reason, the same tension arises. It's not really the money that's the issue, it's the feeling that you are being taken advantage of. Some friends just are late in all their bills. It's always worked out eventually by sitting down and discussing it and putting clear guidelines down, but even then it's stressful. Hard to be parental to a friend sometimes about money issues.

I agree with affordablehost. Accidentally suspending a client due to a billing error or a problem with the software could make you guilty of libel.


When you host a friend or family member, and you plan on having them pay, you make it real clear in the beginning (when there is no animosity) that they will be treated like a customer and non-payment will result in account suspension

that is always the case, however i've found that I always feel guilty, even though i shouldn't, when i have to 'collect' from a friend. it's like when you lend someone your tools and they don't bring them back when they agreed to. I know i'm in the right, but it causes an uncomfortable situation when i have to go get it.

http://www.achost.ca/suspended.page/

Foruntly I've never had a need for using this since I started the company.

Originally posted by AffordableHost


Extremely wise advice. :)

--Tina
With time, we have learnt that not suspending a web site when the owner is not paying can be an extremely bad idea (sometimes they do some very bad things before bailing on you).
However we never put a page with anything like 'Please make your payment to us (www.hostinggroup.com)' because, well, if it's a reseller, then you're really making their day quite bad by exposing the name of another company (ours!).

why say anything in your suspension page? if they have failed billing or any billing things and you have already told them...they already know...we show just a blank page...with no access to ftp or mail or anything...most customers alreayd know what they did...and for those that dont...we send them a TOS warning or a Suspension message...then they will know...if they say they didn't get that e-mail try to send it twice..if then they say i changed my e -mail address say sorry this is what you have on file you need to update your information...that is there own fault i think...

Now guys. comeon if a person spams or does something horrible the best way to deal with it is put a suspension notice and why in the top frame. In the bottom frame you can have the page point to some hideous porn site. Or don't warn anyone and help some porn site drum up business by pointing there site to that.. ;-)

You would be surprised. Your suspension page is probably what prompted him to pay. ;)

We had a similar situation with a customer a few months back. The customer has been with us for 2 years now but just decided one month he wasn't going to pay. We sent 10+ reminder emails over the course of 2-3 months and never received a response to any of them so we went ahead and suspended him. Payment was made within 15 mins of suspension. :rolleyes:

Oh, and our suspension page reads "This account has been suspended due to non payment. Please contact the billing department." I don't believe in sugar coating it at all. I think 3 months is more than enough time.

Might pay to have something in your TOS along the lines of "...We shall further be entitled to post such notice in respect of the non-availability of your Web Site as we think fit." :)

I've always used a plain "Contact Us" type page. I'd say payment comes out of people so much easier when you're not publicly humiliating them :D

I think you did right in catching someone who found a 'lax' host. Every month when we suspend non-pays, over 50% pay within 12 hours. Pay the bill and no message. Many will get the hint if you have a consistent policy for the 'day of the month due date' and stick to it. Good luck!

Just one more reason why I like customers who are local businesses that like to pay annually. No hassles, very few support tickets, once a year payment. So only one transaction fee instead of twelve (I pay $0.45 per transaction). And if I'm lucky, they mail in a check - no cc fees at all.

I know alot of hosts don't like annual customers because they say that if they ever sell, those customers end up actually becoming a liability in the sale. I guess it doesn't bother me - I don't intend on selling anytime soon... :)

Vito

yep. i really enjoy having only 2 clients that pay monthly and the rest are annual. plus how i created my plans, its a way better deal if you pay yearly (like 9.5 months cost for 12 months of service)

http://server6.simplenethosting.com/suspended.page/

I don't really see the point, for those who do it, in avoiding the use of the word "suspended" on a page for which the url ends with "suspended.page". :)

'you have been 0wned by the allmighty admin! show me tha moneh baby' =]

Look what I found while searching for free counters(not for my site): http://upurls.com/suspended.page
It was supposed to be free-counters.com. I guess nothing is free anymore. LOL

Just be nice (http://www.mbshost.com/suspended.page/)

Be nice :)

Suspended.Page (http://www.darth.biz/suspended.page/index.swf)

http://goldnet.ca/better.html

:(

hehe

:angry: *goes back and makes something even better* you better run! :santa:

I have an industrial strength popup stopper you!

-

Originally posted by Samuel
http://goldnet.ca/better.html
:mad: YOU ARE NOW PERMANENTY IN THE PENALTY BOX :angry:

hahaha... that was so funny. Annoying .. but funny.. :D :D :D