Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Big Issue with Liquid Web... Looking for thoughts/ideas...

[raca21]

I had been using a dedicated server at Liquid Web for about a year, and in September of 2007 called to request an upgrade from a Professional Series to Enterprise Series, a change of $339 to $369 a month. Liquid Web moved all files and set up the new server and all was good.

27 months later we figured out that we have still been getting billed $339 for the Professional Series server in addition to the $369 for the Enterprise Series server for a total of $9153 in unintended charges.

My wife who is in charge of our bills/accounting had assumed the charges were correct, and invoices were being sent to two different e-mail addresses which had me assuming they were being CC'd, and my web developer only had access to one of the e-mail accounts so she did not detect anything wrong either.

I brought this to the attention of Liquid Web today, and they have only offered me a refund for one month, saying that it was our responsibility to terminate the older server. I really do not recall the process when it took place, I made a phone call to request the upgrade and I thought I was done with it. It is clearly evident that our intention was only to upgrade, and not add an additional server, and it is evident that the old server has not been used at all during the 27 months.

I am willing to take some responsibility for not identifying this sooner, but I think Liquid Web should also take more responsibility than a one month refund.

I am interested in hearing any thoughts, feedback, suggestions, experience, or recourse ideas to this situation.

Thanks in advance.


Edward

[UNIXy]

Hi Edward,

That is indeed unfortunate and certainly a source of frustration. The key word here is "upgrade." If you indeed used it in your request (do go over your emails with your provider to verify), you should absolutely quality for a full refund.

I hope you and your provider will resolve this matter. Perhaps you should PM the WHT LW rep so he can take a closer look.

Regards
Joe / UNIXy

[raca21]

I appreciate the reply.

What is the usual process for an upgrade as described above at Liquid Web? The person I spoke to was telling me it has always been their policy to start a new account for an upgrade and that they need a specific termination order before shutting down any old server to be sure that no data is lost. Is there any truth to this? I believed him when I first heard it, but then my web designer assured me that Liquid Web migrated all of the files over for us themselves, so what could possibly be left on the old server that could be needed?

Does anyone here have any recent or recallable experience doing a similar upgrade at Liquid Web?

Thanks.

[ItsJustHosting]

If the server was cancelled on LW's part and you were still billed for the two servers then that would be problematic. However if they still reserved that server for you (and hence didn't sell it to anyone else) and charged you for it as well, you can't expect them to refund more than the one month, since they would lose money due to lost income from not making use of that server over the time period. It is indeed your responsibility to cancel a server you will no longer use, and I don't think LW should pay for this mistake if they reserved two servers for you and you never indicated to them that you wanted one cancelled.

[raca21]

What is the actual process? When I placed the order (with at least the intention) to simply "upgrade" would I or should I have been told that the other account needs to be cancelled at some point? Would I be asked if I wanted to cancel or keep the older server? Or is the only stop check the invoices and bills that continued to come? I am sure in most cases this situation would have been resolved at the first bill, and that is my fault, but shouldn't there be some other measure to stop this type of unintended charge from happening? Where did the communication break down which caused even the first month to be double charged?

I do understand that they likely reserved the rack space and hardware for this box and will lose money by refunding the entire amount, but I still believe the responsibility should at least be shared more evenly between the two parties.

[raca21]

I don't think there is any dispute even from LW, that an upgrade was the intention of my initial order from 09/2007.

Here is the first reponse I received from LW's sales manager:

"Hello Edward, It appears that you issued an upgraded from the Professional series server to an Enterprise series server. I can provide you with a refund for the two (2) years you have not used this old account"

I assumed he gathered this from looking at the notes on the account. I believe at the time, we were simply trying to add more ram to the server and ended up going with the first upgrade that made sense.

There is also no dispute that there has been any activity on the server these past 27 months.

By the way, in subsequent e-mails, he changed his position on the refund and has only offered 1 month as I have indicated above.


Edward

[msmgaza]

Originally Posted by raca21

I had been using a dedicated server at Liquid Web for about a year, and in September of 2007 called to request an upgrade from a Professional Series to Enterprise Series, a change of $339 to $369 a month. Liquid Web moved all files and set up the new server and all was good.

27 months later we figured out that we have still been getting billed $339 for the Professional Series server in addition to the $369 for the Enterprise Series server for a total of $9153 in unintended charges.

My wife who is in charge of our bills/accounting had assumed the charges were correct, and invoices were being sent to two different e-mail addresses which had me assuming they were being CC'd, and my web developer only had access to one of the e-mail accounts so she did not detect anything wrong either.

I brought this to the attention of Liquid Web today, and they have only offered me a refund for one month, saying that it was our responsibility to terminate the older server. I really do not recall the process when it took place, I made a phone call to request the upgrade and I thought I was done with it. It is clearly evident that our intention was only to upgrade, and not add an additional server, and it is evident that the old server has not been used at all during the 27 months.

I am willing to take some responsibility for not identifying this sooner, but I think Liquid Web should also take more responsibility than a one month refund.

I am interested in hearing any thoughts, feedback, suggestions, experience, or recourse ideas to this situation.

Thanks in advance.


Edward

You paid two years for unused service !!
Do they email you with the invoice every month ?
if yes, did you ever open this email ??

i think its completely your fault

[Crothers]

2 years is a long time... I personally wouldn't refund you after 2 years. There has to be some limits...

[Cape Dave]

All I can say is "Ouch". I had a similar thing, not related to hosting, but a financial hit happen this week and I will probably have to eat it.

I truly hate it when stuff like this happens. Talk about "falling thru the cracks".

[Jedito]

Was the old server working too at the same time? or you were billed for two server but with access to only one?

[raca21]

Originally Posted by Jedito

Was the old server working too at the same time? or you were billed for two server but with access to only one?

I never dealt with backend stuff relating to the server, but to the best of my knowledge we did have access to it, but we never used it, that is not in dispute.

I am still interested in knowing the process of what caused this. How does a person calling to upgrade end up with two hosting accounts? Just because we received invoices and paid them does not mean they were valid or that there should not be more shared responsibility here.

[laswatech]

I really do not recall the process when it took place, I made a phone call to request the upgrade and I thought I was done with it.

Did you just request for an upgrade over phone. Do u have email conversation proof. If it was only through phone, then that practically means that you dont have any proof of asking LW for an upgrade. They might have misunderstood what you said or maybe you were not clear enough. 2 years is a long time and i don't think it is the responsibility of LW to see whether the server is being used by customers or not.

[raca21]

Originally Posted by laswatech

Did you just request for an upgrade over phone. Do u have email conversation proof. If it was only through phone, then that practically means that you dont have any proof of asking LW for an upgrade. They might have misunderstood what you said or maybe you were not clear enough. 2 years is a long time and i don't think it is the responsibility of LW to see whether the server is being used by customers or not.

No, I do not have any e-mail proof.

But look at the direct e-mail quote from the LW sales manager in post #6. It appears that the notes in my account clearly indicate that my intent was to upgrade, not add a new hosting account, when placing the order. The question still remains, what series of events led to me being given a new hosting account while the original was still kept open? Was it solely my doing and/or responsibility? Could there have been a mistake or oversight on LW's end?

[Scott.Mc]

It can be a complicated situation without all the facts. Chances are if going solely on their terms of service you likely did not cancel the old server and they do not have to offer you anything.

If they do not believe you canceled it they can see from the activity graphs that it's been idle so maybe you should try to work something out where you simply pay for the power+cooling costs over the course of the time that it has been online and they refund you the rest. If really do not budge from providing more than 1 month then I would move away from them immediately.

As for this,

Hello Edward, It appears that you issued an upgraded from the Professional series server to an Enterprise series server. I can provide you with a refund for the two (2) years you have not used this old account

I find this extremely disturbing if this is true that they did clearly acknowledge you had upgraded and even said you would be refunded then did a U-Turn. Again if they said the exact as above in which they clearly could see it was an upgrade and their mistake then there is no dispute - they should refund you. If it was my situation and they had acknowledged that you clearly upgraded and even specified they would refund you I would move from asking for a refund to insisting on one (one way or another).

[raca21]

Originally Posted by Scott.Mc

I find this extremely disturbing if this is true that they did clearly acknowledge you had upgraded and even said you would be refunded then did a U-Turn. Again if they said the exact as above in which they clearly could see it was an upgrade and their mistake then there is no dispute - they should refund you. If it was my situation and they had acknowledged that you clearly upgraded and even specified they would refund you I would move from asking for a refund to insisting on one (one way or another).

It is 100% true, and I have the e-mail as proof.

His first reason for not being able to do the refund was because the credit card processor only allowed him to do one month. I then said he could just issue me a check or credit me towards my future charges (guaranteeing my future business). He later told me on the phone that he decided it was not good business sense. I also suggested just charging me for the rack space, or splitting the cost down the middle. They were supposed to get back to me tonight but I have not from them. A follow up e-mail went unanswered.