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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    277

    Infinitie.net + being charged when no credit card is on file

    fyi: this is a long post D:

    I found Infinitie.net through WHT back in 5/08 and immediately signed up after reading some reviews. Eventually I ended up using them solely for all of my services and at one point had either 4 or 5 total with them.

    When I first signed up I had my bank debit card on file with them, but soon removed it. Eventually I received an email stating I needed to have a CC on file however I replied and said I use multiple cards pending on their balance, and since then I have not had a credit card in file. As such I usually received 10 or so "ECC001 NOTICE" a month which states that I have no credit card on file.

    Earlier this year I was becoming more and more dissatisfied with the quality of service that I started to cancel [b]some[b] services and migrated them to another provider.

    Before I continue, I do admit that I was one to pay late frequently, but I would always log into my account and manually pay invoices. I never had it set up for automatically since a year ago.

    In April I came across another provider that I was very interested in and decided to migrate the remaining accounts at Infinitie.net. Unfortunately, I did not cancel the remaining services with them like I had previously.

    Instead I chose not to pay the upcoming bill, and as such I received the following (http://screencast.com/t/narc7Pem8ef):

    Sent May 19th, 2009
    SP026 EBI NOTICE: Your Infinitie Networks Account is On-Hold - Service Non-Payment

    We regret to inform you that your Infinitie account has been placed on hold at this time as a result of the following policy violation:

    * Service Non-Payment - Failure to pay outstanding invoices associated with your Infinitie Networks account

    Please note that at this time access to your account has been blocked, depending on the severity of this limitation your services may no longer be active on the internet, you will be unable to make changes in anyway or login to your services until this restriction has been lifted. Any fees due to Infinitie will immediately become due and payable.

    To reinstate your Line(s) of Service, please follow the 4 steps below to process your payment.

    1. Log on to www.infinitie.net
    2. At the top menu, enter your registered Username and Password
    3. Go to My Finances > My Invoices
    4. Review your outstanding invoice, and click on Pay Now

    If you do not have access to your account or prefer not to pay online, please mail your payment to:

    Eonix Corporation
    3155 E Patrick Lane Suite 1
    Las Vegas NV 89120 USA

    In order to remove this payment hold, we will require payment of any outstanding amounts owing to Infinitie.

    If non-payment is the only reason for this restriction, your account will be automatically reinstated once your balance has been cleared.

    Note: We will not consider reinstatement appeals, until the full outstanding balance has been paid on your account.

    If you have any questions or information regarding your restriction, please reply directly to this email.

    All accounts that remain unpaid are forwarded to a third-party debt collection agency for immediate collection. If the amounts remain unpaid we have authorized the collection agency to post a derogatory comment on delinquent customers credit bureaus which may effect your ability to obtain future credits or loans.

    If your account is on a contract term and your account remains suspended for over 30 days you will be assessed early termination fees as disclosed within your Infinitie Contract.

    If you wish to appeal this suspension notice, please Contact Customer Support.


    Once I read this email, I just blew it off since I wasn't using them anymore. If I were to have it sent to collections, I'd handle it then. Silly I know, but it was merely due to forgetting to cancel and I just didn't want to fork over another $75 for services I was NOT going to use at that time. An obvious mistake on my part.

    Fast foreword a few weeks. On 6/8 I was in a major car accident that sent me to the hospital for a month, so I had someone else managing my finances with Paypal.

    On July 4th, 2009 he was just looking through payments sent, and noticed on May 28, 2009 Infinitie.net charged my Paypal debit/credit card TWICE for two different amounts. Mind you, I have NO credit card on file with them, nor did I pay the ONE bill that I had with them that was outstanding as of May 19th, per their letter saying my services were suspended.

    He also saw that on July 3rd, I was charged again by Infinitie.

    How exactly is this happening? I tried to log into my Infinitie account but found out I was removed. I tried a password reset on the account thinking that perhaps I had the wrong password, only to find out that there was no account matching that email address.

    As one of the payments was still pending in Paypal, I decided to wait two more days until the payment cleared to contact Infinitie to receive a refund. I emailed them on July 6th the following:

    Hello,


    You are charging me for services that you no longer provide to me per your e-mail sent to me on May 19th (SP026 EBI Notice).


    3 transactions have occurred since having my account be put on hold by you on May 19th. On that date I received a "SP026 EBI Notice" stating that my account was put on-hold and awaiting payment for service I no longer required.


    Since then, May 28th/31st and July 3rd 2009 I have been billed for 3 transactions that I never approved of and was illegally billed for. All of my past invoices have been manually paid and not automatic.


    I am requesting a refunding for the following transactions below.


    Transaction ID #(removed) for $76.63
    Transaction ID #(removed) for $76.63
    Transaction ID #(removed) for $72.63


    I am not even able to access to my account since it says I no longer have an account with you. You have retained my credit card number and are just charging it at your leisure.


    I am demanding a FULL refund for those 3 transactions that have occured after May 19th when my account was put on-hold for non-payment.
    I then received this response:

    Hello,

    Thank you for writing Infinitie Networks Trust & Safety Department.

    I have reviewed your account, and found that these related charges are for the following months of service with Infinitie Networks.

    > Transaction ID # for $76.63 - May 2009
    > Transaction ID # for $76.63 - June 2009
    > Transaction ID # for $72.63 - July 2009

    In May of 2009, our records show that briefly your account was placed on hold due to non-payment, your billing did then process correctly, immediately reinstating your accounts with us, as per our User Agreement, we are not responsible, financially or otherwise against suspended or restricted accounts due to non-payment, and any such restriction does not release you of these obligations.

    Your account is currently still active as you have not requested any cancellation on these VPS servers you have with Infinitie Networks.

    If you wish to cancel and do not want to incur further charges, please visit our website and click on our "Close Your Account" Tab, prior to the 12th of July in order to have your accounts canceled without any further charges.

    If you wish to continue service with us, simply do nothing, and your services will then continue, as will recurring billing.

    We appreciate your understanding in this matter

    Sincerely,

    Rachel L.
    Customer Support (Trust & Safety)
    Investigations Team
    --------------------------------
    Infinitie Networks
    Are You Powered By The Ball?(sm)
    http://www.infinitie.net
    Odd, I don't have recurring billing set up. I can access my Paypal credit records, and I can pull up that each month I paid on different dates. NEVER the same date charged which would imply recurring billing. Not only that but how is charging me twice on the 28th and then on the 3rd constitute as recurring? That is not the same date each month.

    Since then my account has been suspended, and I've essentially been given the brush off by everyone at Infinitie. I even have John B's (CEO?) phone number and have communicated with him with txt prior, and even he ignores me on that now. Pathetic.

    What I want to know is should I follow through with Paypal and send in an affidavit for fraudulent credit card charges? I never approved of these, nor did I have this credit card on file. Since then I HAVE canceled the card so they can't continue to steal my money.

    I'm just so upset on how they're handling this knowing damn well that I did not post these payments, and that they charged my credit card at their leisure.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    277
    Odd, it appears I can access my account with them now.

    Invoices I have paid to them, oh and look at that, the dates paid aren't recurring! excluding the last three invoices paid, as they just charged my card at their leisure: http://screencast.com/t/hvc5hCcNuw

    Packages, and of course the account restrictions that say do not renew:
    http://screencast.com/t/H8KYmn1P

    My unanswered support tickets: http://screencast.com/t/JJi9e1gZI

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    1,717
    I don't think there's too many companies out there that accept "not using the services" as a method of cancellation. I don't think you'd owe them for the time the services were suspended (I can't tell from scanning the emails if that's what they're trying to charge for, and it may even be in their agreement that they can... because hey, the server is sitting there costing money), but you owe them the back invoices and can't just decide not to pay because you weren't using the services.

    Also, per their agreement, you would owe them for service from the time they reinstate the service (or from the suspended time if that's what's in the agreement) up until you cancel the service properly, which you seem to have not done yet. Don't get me wrong it seems a little shady to suspend a and when he pays up later, to just reinstate the entire account without some kind of a promise to pay on time in the future... but the argument all boils down to what's in the agreement.

    I hope you can come to some kind of agreement with them, and please, at your next provider cover all your bases.
    I used to run the oldest commercial Mumble host.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    277
    Where did I exclaim that I even bothered to use any excuse as a way to cancel? I simply stopped paying. Regardless of whether or not I canceled, the fact remains that they charged my credit card for three payments when I had no credit card on file for recurring payments. That means they looked up my information from previous invoices paid, in order to collect said money.

    I have NEVER had recurring billing or a credit card on file. If there's any invoice I "owe" its just ONE invoice that should have been sent to collecfions. Instead Infinitie decided to use my credit card at their leisure to pay for these invoices. Once I received the on-hold email, that implied that my services at that point were revoked and that was the major hault until *I* paid.

    But they took it upon themselves to go ahead and charge me for two invoices in one day. Not only that but even in their invoice emails, they all attempt to charge cards on the 1st of every month, for my invoices (http://screencast.com/t/uYCPxZjFkdf, http://screencast.com/t/bZOw8W4Wrvq, http://screencast.com/t/EOAKwHdC Now feel free to compare that with when I actually paid http://screencast.com/t/hvc5hCcNuw). If that's the case, if I had a credit card on file, the payment would have gone through automatically on the 1st of every month, including the month I stopped paying.

    And please, "cover my bases" means what? I should make sure I don't keep a credit card on file so this doesn't happen again? Cancellation or not, they still committed credit card fraud.
    Last edited by jordanriane; 07-18-2009 at 12:54 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    San Jose, CA.
    Posts
    1,624
    They didn't commit fraud. As best I can see they followed provisions laid out in their Tos you agreed to.

    Properly cancel your account and this is a non-issue.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Indiana, USA
    Posts
    19,196
    According to your screen-shots it looks like somebody (you, or whoever was handling your finances) logged into PayPal and sent the payment over.

    I don't know why on Earth they would list a payment as "PayPal" if they charged a Debit or Credit Card - how would they even know that the credit or debit card was a *PayPal* credit or debit card?
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    277
    @Lightwave, "non-issue"? You call a company going back and obtaining your CC info and then charging in at their leisure a non-issue? MK. Regardless, their "user agreement" states a few thinngs that have not happened:

    "If your payment method fails or your account is past due, we may collect fees owed using other collection mechanisms. (This includes charging other payment methods on file with us, retaining collection agencies and legal counsel." I had no other payment methods on file. The only information they would have had, is if they stored credit card data from previous invoices I had paid manually. However, that does not constitute as being "on file," as I do not have it stated in my infinitie.net user account. The only previous card that WAS stored last year would have been the one charged if they stuck with their own agreement and guess what, it wasn't charged.

    @MikeDVB Errr, if you look the first two payments I made to them last year was in fact through Paypal (that's why it was listed as so) but they ended up nixing paypal as a payment processor, so all other payments from then on were charged through my Paypal credit card, shown as credit card charges in screenshot..

    Anyway, I filed a chargeback as this was unauthorized use of my credit card as it was NOT stored under my account by myself.

    ETA: Now I'm yet again unable to access my Infinitie account after this thread was posted: http://screencast.com/t/M0MzvYdsDhj

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Northampton, UK
    Posts
    553
    I think you may be winning the battle and losing the war. I've no idea if taking the payments from your card was legal but you signed up for services which, by your own admission, you did not pay for.

    Surely if a collection agency gets involved this could end up costing you a lot more or even damaging your credit rating?
    SysAdminMan - Asterisk PBX hosting - FreePBX, A2Billing and Elastix

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Indiana, USA
    Posts
    19,196
    Oh, I looked at the records in reverse order - I guess next time I need to pay a bit more attention
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
    cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Location
    Chicago, IL
    Posts
    277
    Quote Originally Posted by bucasia View Post
    I think you may be winning the battle and losing the war. I've no idea if taking the payments from your card was legal but you signed up for services which, by your own admission, you did not pay for.

    Surely if a collection agency gets involved this could end up costing you a lot more or even damaging your credit rating?
    Eh, to be quite frank my credit rating is the least of my worries, which is why I don't mind if they wanted to bring the first unpaid invoice to a collections agency. I'm about $400k'ish in debt from my 32 day hospital stay.

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