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PIOHOST - Terrible company, avoid at all costs!

Posted by justanotheruser, 04-05-2017, 11:46 PM
To make this short I started hosting with piohost.co.uk a month ago and I created a recurring PayPal subscription billed monthly. My subscription was billed on time a few days ago, yet the incompetents at piohost did suspend my account due to late payment. My site was down 24 hours due to their mistake, and after waiting about 15 hours for somebody to unsuspend my site I received an email from them that they are cancelling my hosting account because apparently I behaved like a child demanding to reinstate the service I PAID FOR. So here is my review of this so called "hosting business" - incompetent losers, who instead of admitting that they made a mistake, made things worse my cancelling my account and causing additional downtime for me. If they were anywhere in North America I would sue them for their last penny (they probably have like 5 clients so this would be pointless). PIOHOST.CO.UK = BAD, BAD, BAD, AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE
Posted by DewlanceHosting, 04-06-2017, 12:39 AM
Sorry to hear about your situation, Sometimes subscription does not work due to some technical issue but hosting company should check it and fix it instead of cancellation. I mean it was fault of hosting company so they should apologize and this is unprofessional to cancel account however this is decision of your hosting company so take a backup and move on. I am not saying anything against your hosting company, I am only saying that this type of behavior is not professional.
Posted by MightWeb-Marcus, 04-06-2017, 12:46 AM
Billing automation issues can occur, but I find it odd that a provider would choose the option to cancel rather than apologize for it. Any chance you can share your ticket with us @justanotheruser?
Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 04-06-2017, 04:53 AM
True that, which why we decided to move to manual suspensions and terminations since a couple of years. Yes, it does increase the work load but often times clients may have certain issues preventing them from paying their invoice on time and as they say it, it is easier and cheaper to retain and generate revenue off an existing client than it is to acquire a new client.
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 05:20 AM
Hi, So I'd like to fill people in on the situation, The user is correct, he had paid for his service, however, we are having issues with the automatic payments sent out to us this was made clear to the client in the reply, However, this situation is normally cut and dry and would be a simple sorry and we would reactivate the account but the client wrote in his ticket and I do quote this "I'm heading don to WebHostingTalk.com to leave my bad review of your service." and this, of course, was a clear attempt at threatening the company, not i personally but another member of staff decided that they wished to no longer offer this client service as their behaviour was very childish and threatening, the way I explained this to the client after the initial ticket response was if he had gone into a store and made the same comment that he would make a bad review a shop also holds the same right to refuse service. The users site was suspended by the billing system however he complained that his business was affected however it took them over 24 hours to open a ticket and also the late response to the user was due to the fact he opened a ticket with billing who then passed the ticket to the Managing Director who as you can imagine is a very busy person. Lastly, I'd like to add that a FULL backup of the site was given to the user and a full refund of £0.69 was given back at the time of refusal of service.
Posted by steven99, 04-06-2017, 12:21 PM
@Piohost nothing against Piohost, but if you know you are having issues with automatic payments why not turn off auto suspend until those issues are fixed? I'm guessing the auto payment issue is that they are not getting credited to the account and have to manually be done? If that is the case, if not turn off auto suspend, then increase the number of days to allow the crediting to the account.
Posted by NameVictor, 04-06-2017, 01:33 PM
Was this the only "childish and threatening" message in the ticket? Sorry, but, in my personal opinion, this was a really bad over-reaction on the "other member of staff" side. The customer was upset because his site was down. This could have been handled a lot better. If he wanted to come here and post his complaint, all you had to do was come here and apologise, and explain what you did to rectify the situation. Again though, this is just my personal opinion, how you choose to run your business is entirely up to you. PS you might want to display your company address and company registration number/vat number on your website (it's a legal requirement in the UK).
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 02:10 PM
@steven99 The issue was only found out when said user had made his payment to us, it's a bad situation and the user was, in fact, told sorry about what had happened, The issue has been resolved now with our payments and this user was not the only user who was affected, I can tell you now that it was not a decision taken lightly and is in fact only the second time as a company we have ever denied someone service. This is one of those situations where it came down to the staff members decision and there are mix feeling about what has happened however after reading over the support tickets myself I can certainly see why the user was denied service however again this is one of those situations where some people will agree and some won't, @InCloudServe No, However, we won't release the conversation in the tickets without the client's permission, Also our company number is located on our website as for VAT we are not required as of yet to register for VAT, however, our voluntary application is in progress.
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 02:21 PM
Yes it seems that the built-in PayPal gateway for WHMCS was having some problems with automatic payments, we have however switched over to a much better module now, this was, however, the only case where someone allowed their account to get suspended before letting us know that there was a problem, Granted it was the first report that we got so after that we were somewhat on the ball about payments. However, We do apologise to any of our clients that faced this issue and are more than happy to provide refunds.
Posted by NameVictor, 04-06-2017, 03:13 PM
In that case, your reaction might have been justified, and you are right about not disclosing the full conversation. Good but you also need to display a business address. Reference: Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distan...stance-selling While you do not need to charge VAT to your UK customers (as you are below the threshold), you still need to charge VAT to customers from other EU countries, at the VAT rate of that country (for example, if your customer is from Germany, you would charge them 19% VAT). regardless of the fact that you are below the UK VAT threshold. You'll need to register with HMRC VAT MOSS service to process your MOSS VAT Reference: https://www.gov.uk/government/public...vate-consumers The only reason I am pointing these things out is it's better for you to get these things sorted now, especially regarding VAT, rather than later, when the tax man comes knocking, in which case you'd not only end up paying the backdated VAT, but interest, and possibly fines as well. Good luck with your business.
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 06:40 PM
@InCloudServer, Thank you for all the information, you are very clued up on the regulations aren't you, Anyway, i appreciate the information and yes we are well aware of all the regulations, MOSS registration requires a VAT number to start with hence why our voluntary application has been submitted, Also with the information, all our information is given before delivery however I'm led to believe from our accountant that we are exempt from having to supply certain information, I will, however, be double checking. Anyway, thank you for pointing these things out to me as its nice to see such a helpful response.
Posted by justanotheruser, 04-06-2017, 07:51 PM
I took me 2 hours to open a ticket after I saw the suspension email, because I needed to confirm that the billing hasn't failed and that it wasn't me who was at fault. It is entirely my business when and if I open a support ticket, however it took you over 12 hours to respond to my ticket, which is a terrible response time to begin with. The only thing I said was that I'm going to leave a bad review on WHT, which you truly deserve. I also called you incompetent, which you are, proven by the fact that you are suspending accounts in good standing. You are also negligent by cancelling my service, due to NO FAULT OF MY OWN, and causing additional downtime for me. I have the full right to share my opinion on how lousy your business is, and I stand behind it. If you think that sharing a review by unhappy customer is threatening you are really one big baby. Instead of apologizing for YOUR MISTAKE, you made matters worse. And on top of that you are spreading false accusations and causing additional trouble with this cancellation. You should treat your customers with respect, and learn to admit it when YOU ARE AT FAULT. This is all part of growing up. Now go to your Mom's basement and continue playing web host...
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 08:19 PM
I would like to point out that we have admitted to our mistake several times, We have not denied that it was our fault in the slightest, As for ticket times we are a UK based hosting company and you opened a ticket with billing who work in UK working hours. As for the childish name calling, I will refrain from acknowledging it, The problem here is an age old one, you can't make everyone happy and although we were at fault you were very rude to our staff, You do indeed have the right to make a review as you see fit and we are always looking for feedback good and bad, bad feedback shows us that we are doing something wrong and will highlight an area that we need to improve on, This thread has highlighted to us an issue and we have put in place measures to make sure that such a thing will not happen again. Again I'd like to stress that even our MD said sorry for the issues that you had, you even now are being very rude, I can understand your anger, however, throwing out childish insults is childish in its self, As for the whole basement comment well you clearly did not do you research on our company or else you would now we have office space in the heart of London. I'm certain that by now we are beyond the point of even resolving this issue and it is left with the person reading as to how they interpret the situation and how things were handled however id also like to ask users to take a look at what exactly you have used this forum for, mainly to provide bad reviews, I don't see a single good review that you have posted and all you reviews basically entail the same story and responses from yourself. Here is my last word, I am sorry that your service was suspended for no reason however we do stick to the refusal of service simply because of how you acted when speaking to our staff as we will not tolerate such abuse.
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 08:24 PM
Also, id like to ask @justanother user can I share your original ticket that you submitted to us which has caused all of this?
Posted by justanotheruser, 04-06-2017, 08:52 PM
So you said sorry by cancelling my account?!? You are a piece of work . I pity your customers, I truly do. Just to clue you in I use over 100 hosts that advertise here on WHT, and most of them are rock solid. You and a few others are unfortunately not. I share my BAD EXPERIENCES to save unsuspecting users of getting into trouble signing up with lousy hosting companies. And yes, your company is lousy which is evident by your responses to this thread. Instead of sending half-apologetic replies in the middle of the night, maybe focus on actually supporting your customers and not damaging their business. Web hosting is a 24/7 business in case you don't know, and if I paid for service I expect it to be there 24/7, no matter if it's slightly inconvenient for you. As you Englishmen say "Off you go to your basement"...
Posted by Mike_A, 04-06-2017, 08:58 PM
Piohost said they gave a full refund of 0.69p. If they cancel you for bad behavior towards their staff, I'd say it's justified for service under a dollar. Yes, they should have dealt with their automation issues quickly and better, of course. Still do people really think acting rude will yield better results than acting nice?
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 08:58 PM
Can i share the ticket with people here? Also, we don't offer 24/7 Billing support and that is made very clear when opening a ticket, most hosting companies work the same. and once again I will ignore your childish comments.
Posted by justanotheruser, 04-06-2017, 09:14 PM
Mike, I don't care about the refund, however I care about getting the service that was promised and paid for. Do you really think leaving a negative review is a "bad behavior" and "acting rude"? A justified negative review at that. If I were a potential customer reading this thread, I would NEVER even consider using their service. I'm not going to waste my time with this anymore, as I actually have a business to run. Good luck getting any customers piohost, I'm sure you won't be around for long
Posted by Piohost, 04-06-2017, 09:17 PM
I will ask you once more do you give me permission to post the initial ticket you submitted that has lead to your refusal of service
Posted by chrisnasah, 04-23-2017, 01:37 AM
Shame the user didn't see a thread I had started few months ago. I also had issues and it was a pain dealing with this so called MD Aaron. I was also called childish and over reacting etc etc. Yes I would say avoid this company at all cost if someone reads this. We all have rights to leave review to warn other users fullstop regardless of what the company thinks. This guys attitude is amazing when dealing with issues. I run a company too and employ 10 people and always train them, regardless of what happens remember the customer is always right regardless of what we think.
Posted by Piohost, 04-23-2017, 04:36 AM
Your case was a violation of TOS and people agreed with me on the thread found here http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1637650, This case however if you read it is much different as the customer although asked multiple times here won't allow me to provide the evidence of his first response Until they do I can't prove my point. I would also like to point out that we have MANY happy customers and unfortunately, we can't please everyone, however, its funny that the only people that moan are people that break TOS
Posted by westwing, 04-25-2017, 10:01 PM
so your "Managing Director" is really busy and you are not registered for VAT .... sounds like a one man band to me! I'd say you had a lucky escape justanotheruser !
Posted by asgard, 04-30-2017, 10:04 AM
Yes, they do and the number is bigger than one can imagine, sadly.