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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Miami, FL
    Posts
    15

    Talking tell us your nightmares! (customers)

    Webhosters, tell us your stories, funny incident, or a worst customer you had to dealt with!

    I've been browsing the forum for a bit, and found good stories we could all laugh at. I'm sure there's more! Customer calling your house at 2A.M. and to find that the problem were on their end, or any other incident you've had.

    Feel free to keep your identity. I don't want to know who, I want to know what happened

    Thanks and keep the stories coming!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2000
    Location
    Liberty Hill, TX
    Posts
    338
    I had a client who designed a site for someone else - the someone else never had an account directly with us, and never had any direct relationship with our company. We'll call them Client A, and Non-Client B.

    Client A stopped being the designer and hoster for Non-Client B, and Non-Client B moved off our hosting service. They had the domain name through us, controlled by us, and we have a policy of not managing domain names for clients once they don't host with us (think the old BulkRegister) so Non-Client B, in addition to moving his hosting needed to move his domain registration since Client A was not paying for it anymore, and he had no billing account with us.

    With me so far?

    So, Client A gets the domain name unlocked by us. We give him access to the name, and he asks us to also send the info to Non-Client B and it's ok to talk to him because it would just make things easier. We send him a nice letter telling him that we've sent the EPP code, he needs to change info on the account and get it gone, and needs to do so by X date before it renews or it will not be renewed.

    We hear nothing until X date, when the site goes down because he didn't transfer the domain name. He emails the help desk literally frothing at the mouth (its bad service, we're destroying his business, how dare we, ect.) We explain calmly that he'll need to pay us the renewal fee, and again send him the outline of information explaining how to change registrars outlining that we have done all we can do to facilitate the transfer and the domain is ready to go, waiting for his action.
    He grudgingly pays the fee, we renew it, and ensure it is all ready to transfer - he just has to do his part.

    Next year, the domain comes up for renewal again - to avoid being called a plethora of four letter words, we renew it and send him a sternly worded letter that he owes us the renewal, he has to get it transferred out and that if it comes up for renewal again, we will not renew it as he will have had three years to do so.

    Needless to say, we never hear from him until...

    The following year. It comes up again, and I've about had it. I let it lapse. I get an email from BR, now owned by Enom, that Non-Client B emailed them that we are holding his domain hostage, he he cannot get a hold of us, we won't talk to him and that he wants his domain name OMGRIGHTNOW!!! because he owns it.

    Of course, he doesn't own it, we do, because he didn't pay for the last year, didn't pay for the renewal, and of course, he's totally full of it when he claims he couldn't contact us because when I copy in my response with our terms to him and Enom together, he emails back within minutes. I mean, the email he sent Enom was masterful - complete bull, but masterful.

    It went on for two days at the helpdesk back and forth "Just Gimme, you stupid ___!" "Sir, you need to pay to own the name." and on and on - suffice it to say, Enom refused to give him the domain because, well, he hadn't paid for it. He goes around for two days screaming and attacking us and complaining in email and threatening, I in turn copy the emails from him from years past, what we said, what he had paid and how long he had used it without paying and I finally just lose all patience - pay, or stop. That's it. Those are the options.

    I also tell him if he sends one more single email to the helpdesk in a belligerent manner, I will cease dealing with him and that will be it and that I won't have me, or my staff, continually harassed. I also outline the fact that because of his behavior, I need a non-chargeback-able method of payment because I simply don't trust him, and I give him those options. He finally submits a credit card - AFTER sending yet another scathing and abusive email.

    I deleted the card and put the domain up for sale, and blocked his email from being able to email the help desk. In retaliation, he and his friends went to every review that they could find saying negative things about how he was treated as our "client" and how incompetent we were that we couldn't get them their domain name in three or four years - when he never had an account with us, and had never saw a transfer through to the end.

    It was one of the most unpleasant situations I had ever found myself in, and for crimeny's sake, he wasn't even *our* client.
    Jen Lepp
    “Customer service represents the heart of a brand in the hearts of its customers.” – Kate Nasser

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    24,027
    Had a client a few days ago who went right off, over a billing issue. Now I've dealt with thousands and thousands of billing tickets over the years, but none as arrogant and abusive as this. You know the usual, law suit threats, over a very small amount of money. Yes, I believe you when you threaten me with your "team of lawyers". Yes, I'm shaking in my shorts over that.

    I quickly resolved the issue and apologised, but noooooo, that wasn't enough. I then continue to receive condescending abuse, so my last reply was find another host, account cancelled, money refunded. Goodbye.

    I will turn the other cheek to a degree, when it comes to dealing with customers, but there's a line and when that line is crossed, you're out the door.
    • WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    4,332
    Interesting topic. /subscribes
    [ James Lee - Cloud & Web Hosting Specialist • 10+ Years WHT Veteran]

    [ Magento Performance Consultation by Magento Master ]

  5. #5
    I designed a website for a guy that owns a charter boat business, and I host it. I walked through every step, and made sure he approved everything before I continued and fixed any issues. Did EVERYTHING professionally.

    Three months later, he calls me on my phone (at 9:30 PM) telling me the design sucks, all my web stats were wrong (explain?), and that I made him lose a $30,000 charter (who in their right mind pays $30k to go fishing on a crappy 37' 1980's boat?) because the new website isn't attractive and people aren't calling or e-mailing him. Off subject, but he's also advertising in news papers, stores, and so on. Why blame the website..? Perhaps "gas prices"? He tells me that he's going to get someone more professional, and proceeds to ask me if it would be OK with me if he hopped in my Jeep Wrangler and drove away with it, and asked how I would feel about that. I just agreed with him, and everything he said to me I made sure that he was always right.

    He told me he wanted his old website back up (horrible, uses DHTML, etc) so I agreed to do so and that night I put his old website right back up (basic HTML, no C# coding) as he asked.

    The next day he calls me up and apologizes, tells me that I did do a nice job but it just didn't fit what he wanted (even after I went through a step-by-step process with him on approval). Told me he's going to sit down with me and discuss exactly what he wants, and so on. My thing is, we did that.

    The best part is I cut him a break, $350 + $10 month for hosting on my dedicated server. He was paying $400 a year for the other crappy website and the people wouldn't even update it.

    And even better, he only gave me $200 so far and still owes me $150+$120 for the hosting!

    It's sad that I know this guy personally, he's just got the normal attitude of a old salt. It's not my fault gas costs so much money and no one wants to go fishing!

    Oh well, I'll design his new website and probably get blamed next year.

    Here is the website pand charters dot com (I don't want him to search google and find my post, haha)

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    24,027
    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasMack View Post
    . . . Here is the website pand charters dot com (I don't want him to search google and find my post, haha)
    Is that the new site you built, or the old sucky site?
    • WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
    • Increase your hosting profits by adding VPN to your product line up •

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    St. John's, NL
    Posts
    2,201
    Quote Originally Posted by Aussie Bob View Post
    Is that the new site you built, or the old sucky site?
    Given all the non-standard and poorly-coded HTML, I would hope it's the old site.
    Cpanel/WHM • PHP • Perl • Ruby • Full Time Support
    LCWSoft - Canada web hosting (based in Newfoundland) since 2007
    Servers based in the US and Canada (Uptime Report)

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by larwilliams View Post
    Given all the non-standard and poorly-coded HTML, I would hope it's the old site.
    Like I said, that is the old site. I would never develop a site like that. All my websites are 100% XHTML/CSS 1.1 compliant.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Miami, FL
    Posts
    15
    I'm glad to see good two posts, I'm liking Lhiannon, good story

    Come on people! Find this thread! I know you got some more for all of us

  10. #10
    I had a customer some 1 month back who receive google coupon from us. He signed up a new google account which required him to pay $ 5 to activate it. He started mailing me with threats that i made him loose his $ 5 (activation fee) he was asking me to pay those $ 5 tooo. However as per my hosting plans, he was only entitled for Google voucher worth $ 50 USD, which was already given to him...

    I simply replied saying "You can take legal action, please go ahead" haha

  11. #11

    * cant read my files ><

    A few years ago, my business partner was building a website for his accountant. One day he refers this client to me for support. I get the call, he tells me that he can't read his files. I get confused, I try to reset the ftp password, among other things. Nothing I did seemed to help him. Eventually he asks me if I have sh*t between my ears. 20 minutes on the phone, and I realize that he is trying to modify his site, but, he does not understand PHP. That phone call should have been taken by my business partner, but he had also misunderstood.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    /home/xeon/
    Posts
    245
    I think if i start posting my past experiences, this thread can be used to publish a book like "life of a dedicated host" or something similar.

    I've had lot of BAD customers, although i work hard and never leave tickets un-answered, server is well taken care mostly even at odd hours, the only problem people have with me is I don't give them option of book/use now pay later.

    A old customer calls and asks for refunds, cause he assumes domains come at $1 each what ever be the TLD and its my bad business for asking $8 against it.

    another customer who's past over due doesn't want to pay cause he says you have lot of customers and i can give him FREE services to resell to his client.

    A reseller who hosts 50 domains @$50/yr. had 99.8% uptime, calls and confesses he earned 2100$ in one yr. out of this plan says your plan is expensive and he's not liking it and would cancel soon.

    another old customer says your services sucks cause you don't allow bulk mails to be sent.

    Another friend whom i host for free wants 5 more free accounts for his distant relatives. may be he wants to resell cause he needs a option to bill them for don't know what.

    And to end this post.
    I get a support ticket from a customer asking that immediately give us root access to the server as we need to install something to our server and you have not provided us with root password and a copy of this mail is sent to our Legal desk as you've cheated us by not telling that shared accounts will not have the server root access with root SSH.
    I replied them to go ahead and sue me if they think anything committed is not being offered on $1/mo account and also help me find a provider who can give Root Access on shared servers to all account holders so when i get out of JAIL i can re-start my business the correct way...

    Never heard back from them and the account went past expiration without any renewal or reply.

  13. #13
    Xeonfan, can you give me some free hosting accounts and a option for billing... it's for my family. Oh, and can you give me root access?... haha that's classic man. I'm just starting my business now, and I'm I find this all to be very amusing hehe.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Devon, UK
    Posts
    1,307
    Heh, this is a great thread. /Subscribes.

    I can't say I've had to deal with any bad customers, although at the moment my client base is quite small which is good .

    I'd like to know who gives root SSH access on a shared server for whatever price...

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Quebec, Canada
    Posts
    128
    Here's my (long) story.

    A few months ago, I designed a website for a carpenter / gazebo maker.

    But first, a bit of background... this person was already a client of ours. I also work as a senior computer tech and he bought a PC from us maybe what... 4-5 months before that.

    The thing is, this guy is COMPLETELY clueless when it comes to technology. He calls his "tower" a "hard disk", and "the windows (not the OS)" becomes "tables". LOL

    So. He barely knew what he wanted for a website, but from what I understood, he wanted something prettier than one of his competitor, but nothing too much fancy, just a basic site where people could contact him, and see his products. So we settle for $800, and this included the domain name and hosting for 1 year.

    As I always do, we signed up a contract together, stating (I'll skip the legal stuff) that he has to pay 50% upfront, and the rest when the site is done and approved. Also, what I usually do is I ask for approbation at least 3-4 times during the process to see if the client is satisfied. Total website design time: 1 month. Every week, I show him the modifications, and everything but a few things (mainly colors / image size & location) was ok to him.

    Comes the time to actually host the site, so I setup his hosting account, webmail access, and analytics account.

    I happily contact him, and tell him that it's all up and running. And then all hell breaks loose.

    He says he can't see the page. His domain is quite long (it's made up of two french words, what do you expect ) and it's easy to make mistakes typing it, and remember he's clueless. I politely tell him it's probably a typo he made, and he replies something like "Aight, got stuff to work on today, will get back to you tomorrow."

    He seems to be a pretty busy man, so I don't botter him when... obviously I get no call from him the next day.

    I then proceed to call him. He says it finally worked, but now something didn't work right with his wireless mouse and keyboard, and obviously this was our fault since it was US that sold him the PC. Now we're mixing things up, aren't we.

    He tells me that he's going to come to the PC shop to get his mouse fixed.

    So the morning after that:

    "You'll have to buy new batteries, yours are empty now.", I tell him.

    Him: "OHH well, it's still under warranty, right?"

    Me: "These are not included in the warranty sir. They're consummables."

    So he's forced to spend 5 bucks. That hurts I guess.

    Me: "Also, since we're done with the website, we'd appreciate a final payment, so I can give you your passwords for the webmail and stats, etc?"

    Him: "Right, you can give me those."

    Me: "Absolutelly, but first, we will need the payment, sir."

    Him: "WHAT? Hey, I will send you a check tomorrow, by that time, can't I just access my emails?"

    Me: "Sorry, I'd like to, but it's the policy. We're not giving passwords until the total ammount is paid."

    Him: "That's ********, anyway, I'll send you that money, you better give me the passwords after that."

    Me: "No problem sir."

    So he's already being rude, but I've seen worse, so I stayed cool.

    Now guess what. After repeated phone calls, always directed to his voicemail, I have no news from him for 2 weeks.

    I get tired, and I suspend his account for non-payment.

    A few days later, he calls and threatens a co-worker of mine. Unfortunatelly, my co-worker is only a tech, and is NOT in charge of anything related to websites design/hosting.

    Him: "My website is not working! You guys fix it!"

    Co-worker: "Sir, what site is it about, are you able to browse to other sites?"

    Him: "Yes, I can go to other sites, only mine is broken. There's a blue bar saying my site is suspended."

    So my co-worker asks for his phone number and name, and since I was away that morning, he leaves me a note.

    When I get back in the afternoon, I call back the client, and tell him the facts. He gets REALLY angry, speaks loud, and tries to impress me. At that point, I also feel the anger growing.

    Me: "Basically, you haven't fully paid for that site. So I'm totally in my right to shut it off."

    Him: "*@%# off, I'm losing business, yada, yada, Put it back on, else you're not going to like me when you see me!"

    Me: "Are you threatening me?"

    Him: "You'll see! Put it back on NOW!"

    Me: "Not until you pay us. Is that all? Goodbye."

    Him: "WE'LL SEE THAT! I WILL PAY YOU TOMORROW, YOU BETTER PUT IT BACK ON NOW!"

    Me: "Heck no. No money, no site. Is that simple enough?"

    *click*

    He finally paid us, and is still hosting with us. Haven't heard of him since. But we'll see, in a few months, when comes the time to renew his domain and hosting. I guess I won't bother keeping him as a client.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    UK.
    Posts
    1,097
    The company I'm in have over 18million customers in the UK and about 99% of them really are fantastic. It's the rest of them that can make life really hellish.

    We had a gentleman who was so aggressive that he was informed he could only contact us by post - we refused to take any emails or phone calls from him.

    There was another guy who threatened to come to the office and kill the advisor who was dealing with his call.

    I've also dealt with a customer who refused to get off the phone until we would help him, but he wouldn't tell us what he needed help with.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Stephneville, TX, USA
    Posts
    1
    I lost a customer I have had for over four years over this past weekend. I hosted her web sites (6 or 7 of them), designed one web site and did a lot of web programming for her.

    She is a real estate investor and very successful. About three years ago I discovered that she had developed a curious negotiating tactic which I am convinced she was completely unaware of. I think she used it in complicated real estate deals and have received some confirmation of that over the years. She would dispute bills to delay payment or to get a price reduction.

    She would often pay her programming and webmaster bills more than 30 days after I sent the invoice (using Freshbooks). She took almost a year to pay one of them from August, 2007. She often disputed the charges on some bills. I set a bad precedence because I sometimes caved in and gave her a credit on her invoices.

    Earlier this year I started charging a 30 day finance charge on outstanding invoices and charged her a whopping $4.88 on the balance from her August invoice. She paid the invoice, but disputed the charges and the finance charge.

    Her dispute was credible. She complained that I had not carried out her wishes and that she shouldn't have to pay because I had misunderstood her instructions. The problem is that she gave the instructions by phone and we had nothing written down to confirm what she needed done.

    In my defense, I have written several emails to her over the years of our relationship stating that I would act on verbal instructions, but that they were much more prone to being misunderstood than written instructions. I even opened a Basecamp site for her to make written instruction as painless as possible.

    I had billed her for just over 6 hours of work and by Sunday, I had spent just under 4 hours justifying the charges via email. Since I don't charge for email support, I effectively dropped my hourly fee from $50 per hour to $30 per hour. And the problem was still not resolved.

    In her final email response she gave me two choices. The first included a $150 refund and some free work and the second included asking her to take her business elsewhere. It took me about 3 seconds to respond, asking her please take her business elsewhere.

    I am surprised by how much I wanted out of the relationship. I didn't realize how much stress the relationship was producing.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    Bath, UK
    Posts
    132
    Quote Originally Posted by RH-Scott View Post
    The company I'm in have over 18million customers in the UK
    Are you talking about a hosting company? If so that's total bull. That's almost a third of the population! And even if not a hosting company...what kind of company is it...

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Bay Area, California
    Posts
    309
    My nightmares recently all seem to be about expired domains. We are a reseller, not a registrar ourselves, so we are stuck in the middle between customers who don't think that they should have to remember to renew their domain or keep their contact address working, and the registrar who like most others, has this nearly $200 fee for recovering a domain name once it's in redemption status.

    I just hate it. I hate the recovery fee they charge, I hate that our customers blame us for it. Right now i just hate domains in general

    I don't want our company name associated in any way with this stupid, albeit legal, fee. Do you think we can just say that we don't do recoveries? That as far as we are concerned, once it is expired, then the games over?
    Sunwave Communications
    http://www.sunwave.com/
    Safety - Service - Economy

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Portugal
    Posts
    1,021
    I just want to say, that this thread is awesome!
    This made up my day
    I laugh so much with these customers...

    Keep them coming guys... post more
    Senior System Administrator / DevOp - LinkedIn / MailChannels Director of Sales, Europe
    MyW - Shared/Reseller Hosting & Server Management (cPanel/DA/Virtualization Servers)

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    /home/xeon/
    Posts
    245
    I've got another 3 bad customers, in queue to be KICKED OFF, Cause

    Cust. 1). No reply to mails, No reply to Invoice, No Payment, But he did went to whmcs to check the invoice details and all.
    Phone number in records is out of service.
    invoice is 10 days past over-due and runs a very Active Forum.

    Cust 2). Is a lawyer, thinks i cannot shut him cause i've been all good to him since last 4 years, but grace period of 90 days is biting my A** now. Phone calls answered but same answer, oh Dear having very busy schedules, can't spare a minute for a cheque or online payment, will do in 2-3 days.

    Cust 3). Another Old client started his business using a reseller a/c, has a lot of clients now, Renewal Over-due, he always been nice on phone, words very promising, shown respect since start in 2004, gave him 90 days, But last week he said :-

    I will pay you but don't know when, cause i now have a windows dedicated server, and have invested a lot in Rent, Ads, Etc, so all money is HARD EARNED and i cannot pay for linux at this time.

    I've Debited his Domain Account for Outstanding for 3 months and Asked him to leave cause Even I can't spare my HARD EARNED Money on such *********

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Italy
    Posts
    1,673
    Quote Originally Posted by Dolbz View Post
    Are you talking about a hosting company? If so that's total bull. That's almost a third of the population! And even if not a hosting company...what kind of company is it...
    A total joke.

  23. #23
    Great thread! It is good to see just how dedicated some people are to providing good customer service.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    3,110
    Heres one...

    A customer who contacted authority in the US to pretty much "start war" against our Terms of Service, just because he "did not agree to it"....and who accepted it when they signed up?

    Apparently our Terms of Service stopped him being able to do what he wanted. Well, wise-up and choose a different company

    Man.. I'm glad that's over

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    /home/xeon/
    Posts
    245
    Even though this thread is for customers, I've a interesting thing to share.

    in 2005 Just after my marriage when I was on way to my honeymoon and a stupid windows provider dis-appeared, that junk left me no where to spend my honeymoon sitting on hotel's internet room, signing up elsewhere, giving customers old manual backup and assisting then re-upload. lol.

    That crap (dis-appearing host) came back online after a week and didn't even cared to apologize, he's been discussed many times here and many people still get scammed by them.

    Thanks to alpshost whom i choose from my hotel suite, I've never faced any problem with them.
    don't know how big the company is, but the hard work is certainly visible with quality they offered.

    Sometimes my wife re-calls that incident and says "it was a scary moon, somewhat"

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