TrexHost.com Deletes My Reseller Account

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Posted by raceway, 11-01-2007, 11:02 AM
My reseller account was just deleted last night with TrexHost because of non payment for two weeks. I never received one invoice from them, wrote to them last night asking why my sites were down and this is the conversation we have been having about this issue: img220.imageshack.us/img220/7919/trexhopy8.jpg img116.imageshack.us/img116/4527/texhost1qz1.jpg I do admit that I should keep better records to remind me of when to make the payment but I also signed up for innohosting (Who are really good) at the same time and they pro rate the billing so it is due on the first and I got there invoice on Oct 29/07. I still think that any professional hosting company should at least have the decency to put up a suspended page in this event, just in case there valued customer did not receive any invoices from them.
Posted by ldcdc, 11-01-2007, 11:22 AM
While it's their right to terminate accounts for non payment, suspensions would work better if you have some interest in retaining the customer. Termination and data deletion does seem harsh. after all, communication failure (not receiving notices/invoices) isn't unheard of. While the reseller may deserve a harsh treatment, I like to think that a hosts would hold it in the back of their mind that there are also some end users in the grand scheme of things, and they may be irreversibly affected by this. It's a business, but it's also about people.
Posted by web_host_guy_007, 11-01-2007, 11:33 AM
It is sad that your account is deleted but I think you should keep a watch over emails as and when they are due so that even if you did not receive an invoice you can ask them.
Posted by wherrelz, 11-01-2007, 04:05 PM
Its quite natural to not some receive emails from time to time - the internet isnt perfect. Thats why most good reseller/vps hosting providers would keep your telephone/mobile number and have the decency to call first. Deletion would take just a few seconds.... and is usually irreversible even if paid later. Gosh thats painful. Imagine - all your data... lost, forever! And angry clients to deal with.
Posted by @Matt, 11-01-2007, 04:37 PM
How long were you with Trex? I think putting up a suspended page would of been a good way to grab your attention but if your 2 weeks late for a payment wouldn't you have noticed or said something? It sounds like to me you were aware of it and thought why pay for something if they haven't asked me. I think if anyone was in your shoes they would of did the exact same thing so shame on both parties. Trex should of at least sent out a notice daily about your account being late and you should of contacted them earlier. I do not buy the whole concept that you forgot because its not that hard to remember the time frame of your next billing date.
Posted by Jedito, 11-01-2007, 04:55 PM
Sorry, I feel funny this line "We do not suspend accounts, it is embarrassing to our customers, and disrepectful...your account data is gone" We suspend accounts for 30 days before deletion, sometimes people go out for vacations and don't check their emails, or they forget that they have to pay their monthly bills, it's quite natural.
Posted by raceway, 11-01-2007, 05:17 PM
I opened a ticket on Oct 23/07 nothing was said to me to remind me to make a payment: img70.imageshack.us/img70/7040/trex02bx7.jpg Matt, I was with trex host for a month. I see how you cannot understand how I totally forgot about this but Innohosting is prorated and every other hosting account I have ever had in seven years have been due on the first of the month. I lost about $25 in adsense just for being down for the day. The websites on that account were all mine except one was for my dads business. I found the backup but not the backup for the mysql. One of the other websites was a forum that was backed up two months ago. I just hope none of the backups are corrupted. All Trexhost.com had to do is throw up a suspended page and it would of been resolved right away. Instead I lose data and lose time with my son. Last edited by raceway; 11-01-2007 at 05:24 PM.
Posted by TonyB, 11-01-2007, 05:44 PM
Well assuming your account was not suspended before deletion this is a pretty bad policy. I really can't think of any hosts who do not suspend accounts before deleting them. I know we suspend accounts and leave them suspended for close to 30 days before actually removing them. Every month we have customers who do not pay invoices on time so it's a huge surprise to me that a host just deletes before suspending but that's just me. Now maybe you could try contacting trexhost and see if they at least have backups for you that you could use? Either way this is another example of why you make your own backups every week or however frequent you are modifying your data. Do not ever depend on your host who knows what could happen. They could just outright and delete your account like trexhost did in this case. Well best of luck with your situation
Posted by ldcdc, 11-01-2007, 06:00 PM
Perfectly said Jedito. The account termination (instead of suspension) might have been a mistake, and their representative tried to save face as best he could. It's a possibility. "We do not suspend accounts, it is embarrassing to our customers, and disrepectful...your account data is gone" makes too little sense.
Posted by Nnyan, 11-01-2007, 07:01 PM
man that's pretty harsh, you never know what can happen which is why I always have 3 copies of everything = )
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-01-2007, 07:46 PM
Hello WHT, we, unlike alot of hosts, do not believe in tarnishing a website by placing a suspension page on websites. While in this case, our billing team may have acted harshly, it was by all means warranted. Our billing system sent out 4 notifications to the client. As for your ticket about reminders, by no means is it, or will it ever be our job to remind you to pay a bill. Do you ask your other utility providers to remind you? You are expected to pay your bill's on time, and when you don't, what happens? The lights go off. Thanks for your time. TrexHost.com
Posted by Jedito, 11-01-2007, 07:57 PM
Do you honestly think that's better to delete all his data and get a timeout instead? The lights go off, but they don't take out the power line out of your house.
Posted by Outlaw Web Master, 11-01-2007, 08:06 PM
hmm...well I suppose no matter how harsh it seems...that's the way trex chooses to operate and it's their business. however...it make the sig look a bit misleading Trexhost.com- Choose With Confidence Secure, Reliable, Customer Friendly WebHosting owm
Posted by Nnyan, 11-01-2007, 08:14 PM
Trexhost As long as your policy is detailed in your TOS then you're fully in the right. But I think your logic is a bit off base here. You obviously believe that by not putting up a suspension page you're being customer friendly (not tarnishing a website) and I agree with the sentiment. Thats good customer support in looking at ways to enhance your customer experience. But then you take a complete 180 and toss out your focus on good customer service by deleting a customers data. Your right that it's the customers responsibility to pay, but how hard would it be to suspend the account and leave the data there for lets say 30 days or so? Put up a "Technical Problems" page instead of a suspended page? Your customer does one of two things, the first being that they notice this in time contact you and address the payment issue. Everyone is happy. The customer doesn't notice this and is unhappy but you are standing on solid ground with your actions (we waited X time, then we put up a "tech difficulties" page for X time, we kept your data for X time then it was removed, sorry). Again, all of this is within your rights but you guys have a weird dichotomy about customer service. And I for one would think twice about recommending you to anyone.
Posted by TonyB, 11-01-2007, 08:24 PM
If a suspension page is bad in your opinion for customers to see maybe the host name shows up or whatever. Get some random domain and use that for host names of machines and just put up a generic suspension notice on reseller accounts. That's what we've been doing and haven't had any complaints from customers about doing it this way. It's sort of like their final reminder to pay their bills. I think that's a whole lot better than them saying to their customers yeah all your data is gone.
Posted by PremiumHost, 11-01-2007, 08:25 PM
A custom suspended page will not embarrass website visitors. Also it's possible to restore the reseller account from backup.
Posted by raceway, 11-01-2007, 08:37 PM
Yes, but when the lights go off you pay your bill and a reconnection fee and they come back on. I lost time, money and data that I will never get back. I never got an invoice from trexhost, that is why the suspension page exists for this specific purpose and when the webmaster goes to his website for his daily check up he goes crap and opens a ticket right away to fix the problem. I own over 150 domain names and over 30 websites sometimes I can get a little forgetful.
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-01-2007, 10:13 PM
Hello, The customers account went by a few days, no payment, no suspension to respect his business. A week goes by, another warning that his account is overdue, and will be terminated within 2 hours. No response, no payment. So then, another 4 days goes by. We write a personal note on the invoice this time "Dear XX, your invoice is due, in order to respect your business, we have not suspended your account. Please reply and let us know if you have decided to cancel your account and have just failed to notiy us, so that we can move forward from here". No reply. So then, another 2 days goes by. This is your final warning. Nothing, no reply. We did in my opinion a great job in this matter. Were talking about a 2 week late invoice, and the above scenario. No one likes there account suspended over a few days. We dont do that. Being he was a new customer, we go to impress him or her, let them know hey, you may be late, mistakes happen, were not going to embarass you. In no way do we feel this was negative. We went above and beyond. The customer did not want to pay. We tried to be patient but we have our limits, and I stand behind my staff's actions 100%. No payment is equivalent to no service. In the future if your data is important to you, I hope that you will make sure to pay your hosts on time or keep your own backups. James Last edited by Tsohxert; 11-01-2007 at 10:18 PM.
Posted by Joe Mattos, 11-01-2007, 10:16 PM
Raceway dont feel bad about a year ago I had hosting with them and they did the same thing to me. I got no emails from them and never got one phone call and when my site was down I ask them what the heck had happen they said "You missed your payment". At trexhost what utility providers dont send you a paper bill in the mail?
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-01-2007, 10:21 PM
Being a new member to WHT, and us having a very flexible, customer friendly suspension/termination system, I find it hard to believe this story. Please state the domain you hosted with us so I can look you up. Thank you James
Posted by ldcdc, 11-02-2007, 05:15 AM
He's not that new judging by his sign up date here (Sep 2006). I don't really see how we can hold the OP responsible for emails that never arrived in his emails box (assuming he's telling the truth of course). Even if only as a courtesy, a host should not delete customer data hastily (IMO). What if in some ill fated scenario you fail to remember to pay your servers bills, the datacenter sends you emails that somehow manage not to get into your inbox, and two weeks later you find that your servers are not only offline, but all the data on them gone as well. Wouldn't you find this measure to be unacceptable? Wouldn't you think that other means of contact would have existed, that a short downtime was all needed to get you to contact them? Last edited by ldcdc; 11-02-2007 at 05:23 AM.
Posted by wherrelz, 11-02-2007, 05:29 AM
Hey trexhost, in your post #1 you say "customer's account this and customer's account that" and then in post #2 you ask flat "please state the domain etc etc" ???? Were you serious the first time? If so why do you need to ask the second time?
Posted by The3bl, 11-02-2007, 06:55 AM
I have seen some twisted logic here on WHT at times but this takes the cake. We didn't tarnish his web site with a suspension page we just wiped all his data out so we did a good thing. I think the OP would have preferred a little tarnish.
Posted by wherrelz, 11-02-2007, 07:28 AM
It gets better, techark 1. No suspension - flat wipe-O! 2. 'Its a good thing' 3. Customer this, customer that (as in the 2nd-last post by trexhost) 4. Whats your domain? (the latest post by trexhost) When they say 'treks' they sure mean it. Now that takes the icing right off the cake!
Posted by wherrelz, 11-02-2007, 07:34 AM
Now I remember why this 'whats your domain' is so funny - brought me back to my college days with the good old BOFH (simon Travaglia). Heres the article I'd remembered. Don't miss the 'whats your username' part. http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard1.html (sorry admins/mods - thats the name; not meant to be an insult) And you can catch his latest articles on http://theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh Last edited by wherrelz; 11-02-2007 at 07:35 AM. Reason: theregister reference
Posted by PH-Kev, 11-02-2007, 07:37 AM
Read the thread again..... Another customer (me102) mentioned his experience and Trexhost asked him what domain he had hosted with them. Edit: Wooo 300 posts
Posted by wherrelz, 11-02-2007, 07:41 AM
PH-Kev, I did read it, and I'm aware of the fact. I remembered a funny situation (one in those articles) when I read James' last posting, but took me a while to recall. Not sure if everyone will appreciate that sort of humour. Oh well - call it sharing. -> Congrats on the 300, PH-Kev
Posted by DevMonkey, 11-02-2007, 08:02 AM
Hello One thing that I'm interested in, is that if you were aware that you should have received an invoice - why didn't you contact them earlier?! I recently didn't receive an invoice from PoundHost when I was supposed to, I contacted them within a couple of days because I was worried of having service suspended for non-payment! It turns out that they where changing the way invoicing was made and I got full information on when my invoices would be
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-02-2007, 09:14 AM
Hello, As mentiond above, this was a different customer. We dont get these types of cases. We made every attempt and took every measure to try and get a hold of this customer. This customer had a support ticket submitted a week into his overdue invoice, we replied with a resolution, he replied, case closed. He got those emails ok.. The measures that were taken here, after again, an entire two weeks here as well as the invoice being sent 7 days in advance, making this three weeks, were due to his negligence to make a payment he was responsible for. We use the same email system, same email address, same email server, with our tickets, that we do with our invoices. It's not understood how this is being taken as a negative action on our part. No one likes to see there page suspended, accidents happen and people forget to make payments everyday. It happens. However, when a customer clearly refuses to make a payment, after being warned for three weeks, and being two weeks overdue, this becomes an issue and will not be tolerated. Customer see's his account is not suspended, and may have been thinking that he would not have to make a payment. Your going on almost your third week, even if you claimed you were not getting emails, which as mentioned above, clearly he was, you would have known something wasn't right. James
Posted by wherrelz, 11-02-2007, 09:27 AM
James, You didnt mention about the support tickets earlier (or maybe I need glasses). Either way - this is what we do - instead of deletion, suspension tends to work better. After all the effort, etc etc, suspend. Then of course you can charge a premium to re-enable the account at a later date if thet choose to return. I'll wager you suspended users will 99% come back and try to find out whats going on. Deleted users will bleat (no offence, anyone) HE DELETED MY ACCOUNT!!! and thats all. You'll lose the customer - even if a forgetful one. And you have a 2 week loss to go with it, too. Not saying anyone is wrong, just try it sometime. I'm sure you'll see more positive results, and less negative forum posts. Btw, Please don't mind the BOFH links I posted above - just a bit of antipodean humour; not meant as a jibe (just so you don't misunderstand).
Posted by rv_irl, 11-02-2007, 09:31 AM
Regardless of what TrexHost has said, it has to be understood that these problems do rarely happen. It is possible TrexHost sent the emails, and the OP didn't get them. TrexHost may have no way of knowing and neither would the OP. A little advice to the host: When the client does not pay, it is either because they canceled, or they are not receiving your emails for whatever reason. To combat this, simply suspend the account instead. Once the customer notices the account suspended, they will contact you themselves. If after a while they do not contact you, then go ahead with termination.
Posted by ldcdc, 11-02-2007, 09:44 AM
I guess we don't see it as clearly, though some of the details you now share help to understand why you considered that he was receiving your invoices. Still, he did not say that "I'm not going to pay you!". There was no actual refusal, just lack of action, which is only interpretable as a refusal. Perfectly agreed. Only that the action here was not suspension, but termination. You did have reason to believe that he was intentionally disregarding your warnings, but the classical (I'm not saying "proper" as it could be contended) way of dealing with this kind of issue is to intercede a suspension period before the actual termination (and deletion of files).
Posted by raceway, 11-02-2007, 10:13 AM
Thanks for all of your input guys & gals, nice to know your outlook on this. I told my dad that his database was gone. He started to laugh, what kind of F#^* person would delete all your files because you forgot to pay them $13! I replied TREXHOST.com
Posted by Maybe, 11-02-2007, 10:32 AM
I think Trexhost have displayed immaturity, and a poor understanding of customer service in their responses. Clients are allowed to make mistakes. It happens. But web hosts can't - and if they do they should be nothing less than very apologetic. Describing the billing action as "a bit harsh" but not "unwarranted" shows that in operation they consider themselves before clients. At the end of the day a business is indebted to their clients for being with them. If all of your clients had failed to pay I can tell you now that you would not have terminated them all. You want and need them. Start treating them like it. You should have suspended, or attempted to contact the client via another avenue before terminating them. This represents good customer service - something I feel (from my own experience) you are lacking. Treat your clients nicely!
Posted by Outlaw Web Master, 11-02-2007, 11:20 AM
if anything....there's a lesson to be learned here. don't take anything for granted and if you're gonna go on holiday...remember to pay the bills in advance. it's easy to say trex should have done this or that....but trex host has the right to run their business the way they like. owm
Posted by MentholHost, 11-02-2007, 11:36 AM
It kinda sucks reading this about them and how people are saying what they did was wrong - I been with them for about a good year, thats alot of time, under two different accounts, and I've been treated nothing short of excellence. Some hosts out there will put on a smile for the first week, then throw you in the dirt. Trex haven't. I always liked that policy, they avoid suspending you. It keeps things clean, and if you been with them for a while, you miss a bill, you come back and fix it, they always were really leniant on that for me. This guy was here only a month, first time making a payment after his initial and he's three weeks due? I don't blame 'em, and then the guy is replying to support tickets but not billing ones. Gotta side with the host, they been there for me, and even if not the story makes sense. They have a real customer sided system that they stick to and I've been extremely happy hosting with them.
Posted by James Daniels, 11-02-2007, 11:43 AM
Maybe I am missing something, but who said that this is his first payment after his initial? And how do you know he is responding to support tickets and not billing tickets? And finally, the point is rather than suspending, they went right ahead and deleted the account instead. I think people would prefer suspension over termination. Something seems fishy to me!
Posted by MentholHost, 11-02-2007, 11:47 AM
Op said it there. Then the host said they had replied to support tickets. Its all right here on the thread. Pretty Black and White there James Daniels. try reading before posting Last edited by MentholHost; 11-02-2007 at 11:51 AM.
Posted by TonyB, 11-02-2007, 11:53 AM
I really don't understand how you can argue that having an account deleted without any suspension is a good policy. Your invoice mail is getting tagged as spam they do not receive invoice emails. As a result their account eventually gets deleted. If the user is receiving support ticket responses does not mean they are receiving invoice ones. Lots of spam blocking systems base it off of content so maybe something in the invoice is getting flagged? What is the problem with after say an invoice being overdue to suspend the account for another 7 days so they notice. If their site is still pointing to the server how exactly is having the data wiped out going to look any better than a suspension notice? If they're resellers use a generic suspension page say in cPanel case the default one. That'll get their attention and it will hurt them a lot less than saying yeah my 30 sites I host are all gone the data was deleted. All this policy does it make Trexhost look really bad
Posted by raceway, 11-02-2007, 12:00 PM
It should not matter how long I hosted with them? I was with BudgetReseller for over a year before TrexHost. I also host with innohosting. We as customers have to trust are valuable information with are web host and never should feel that are data is at stake. Sometimes stuff happens and the host apologizes. No one can control how a server will act up that is understandable. TrexHost just deleted my files, they could of put up a suspended page and charged me a late fee. They had no idea that I was not getting there invoices. I opened up that ticket because there mysql was down, if I was late on my payment they should of let me know. I wrote to them trying to find out why my websites where down his first response was "what is your ip address it might be blocked". It sounds to me that they do not even look into there customers requests. If I was going to host somewhere else and just skip out on them I would of changed my nameservers. I did not, my websites are still showing up as 404's. A good host does not delete there customers data until they are sure that the client has gone somewhere else. That is just human decency. I would of been happy to pay a late fee.
Posted by TonyB, 11-02-2007, 12:09 PM
I almost agree with you up to this point. We've had some customers continue to point stuff at our servers for a long time (some cases 100+ days after suspension and deletion). I think they just sort of forgot about their site completely. But I'd say leaving data for 14 days after suspension is good and 30 days is great. But after that then it's costing money and at that point the customer really is out of luck even if their sites are still pointing to the host.
Posted by James Daniels, 11-02-2007, 12:23 PM
Where does he say he was responding to support tickets? Try not telling me what to do
Posted by jon-f, 11-02-2007, 12:31 PM
Bad situation, and if that is routinely how they handle such situations thats pretty bad. But... I done a similar thing once and learnt from my mistake. I had some customers from way back before I got my current billing system. Some of the directadmin customers didnt get entered into the system. Got to looking through the accounts one day and seen there was a customer who hadnt paid for his reseller for over 3 months so I terminated the account. I figured they had just let it go. It was on paypal subscription, I had seen where their subscription was cancelled 3 months earlier. Turns out they had just changed their credit card on their account and it automatically cancelled their subscription. As soon as I terminated the account they sent an email asking what was up. I explained and got a pretty good lashing from them, they was upset that I had never even notified them. They said they never received anything from paypal regarding the subscription being cancelled. I knew I was totally in the wrong and I was lucky they never posted a bad review on me. They never paid the 3 months they owed, just took their business elsewhere. I guess its all part of being a newbie host at the time but since then anytime there is any payment problems I will contact the person first or make sure my billing system has even before suspension. Reason I told that story is because you can learn from situations like that or you can continue and actually make it your policy and here we are with a customer complaint and a valid one at that in a public forum. Good luck trexhost and I hope you can learn a lil from this situation. I know I did from mine a while back. Oh and it never hurts to admit you was in the wrong and that you plan to change things
Posted by James Daniels, 11-02-2007, 12:39 PM
Why don't you provide the client with a copy of backups or just restored the account, suspended and provided the opportunity to pay to retrieve the data? Your site says you do backups.
Posted by JohnJ, 11-02-2007, 12:47 PM
TrexHost can run its business the way it wants. We can do nothing about that, so we must live with it. I trust James so I know he's doing a good job!
Posted by Nnyan, 11-02-2007, 02:49 PM
I do not think anyone is saying that Trexhost is a bad host or that they need to change the way they run their business. The issue here is the claim that they never suspend accounts b/c they care about the impact this has on their customer but then feel absolutely OK with deleting the account over what could very well be some missed e-mails. I'm also not giving the OP a pass, you really need to keep in touch with your accounts and notice when one is late. But the bottom line is that hosting is a customer service intensive business. To often the better hosts have little to differentiate themselves from others. Having excellent CS policies is a very good way of doing this. IMHO Trexhost policies are NOT customer friendly. To automatically assume that a customer is refusing to pay over what could very well be some missed e-mails and rather then staying consistent with their own claims over customer service they delete the account rather then suspend. You're right, to each their own. I for one will just cross out Trexhost from my list of hosts to test based on the fact that they pay lip service to good customer service. That's how I'll live with it.
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-02-2007, 05:18 PM
We at Trexhost do not like suspending accounts, we really do pride ourselves on our support and we really do go above and beyond what many other hosts would do for their customers. We went out of our way to contact raceway, he was sent multiple invoices; we sent him multiple emails, and never received a response, and finally we decided to remove him from our servers for non payment. If other hosts choose to keep customers who don't pay on their servers for 30+ days, that is their decision. Like any other hosting company, we can only do so much and we were more than patient. Hosting providers have a responsibility to ensure customers have reliable service, the same way customers have a responsibility to ensure their invoices are paid to their provider. If we did not pay our server invoices for two weeks, ignored our provider's phone calls, ignored their emails over a two week period of time our machines would have been formatted and recycled. We are not a small hosting company, and on a daily basis we have to deal with fraud orders, customers not paying bills, and the list goes on. We went above and beyond what any other provider would do for any of their customers, but we have our limits and that limit is two weeks without payment. A good host won't delete their customer's data as long as a customer pays their bills promptly, and frankly I feel it's far too strange that the only thing this user could not get from us where our invoices. Raceway, I wish you the best of luck with your future hosting provider, just make sure to stay on top of your bills so you don't lose anymore of your data. It is unfortunate tht it came to that. <> Last edited by bear; 11-03-2007 at 07:58 AM.
Posted by Outlaw Web Master, 11-02-2007, 05:56 PM
well to be honest... regardless of the ifs and the buts... I've ran many business at the top level. Rules are made to be adhered to and I could never fault anyone running their company their way bang to rights.. even if the rule of others' thought is that it could be run a bit differently....but that's just it...it's not their companyand they don't make the decisions. I don't see trex as too harsh and if anything I'm sure someone on this thread has learned a lesson...albeit the hard way. owm
Posted by eLief, 11-02-2007, 11:57 PM
If you really pride yourself in going "above and beyond" maybe you should of backed up his data and set it aside for him before deletion. Not that I would delete accounts anyways in the first place. Also from what I read he wasn't nonpaying for "30+ days" as you stated, it was only 2 weeks. Other then support tickets and an email it doesn't look like you tried to contact him at all. Try calling him? Send a letter to his address? Deleting after 2 weeks of non payment...thats not very patient. Personal stabs, very professional....
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-03-2007, 01:28 AM
I normally don’t get involved in these types of things, but in this case I will have to make an exception. I may not post on this forum too often but I do speak to many people from this forum on a regular basis and one of the people I speak to fairly often is Trexhost, and I know for a fact how hard he works for his customers since he is always talking about his business, and I won’t allow him to get smacked around any further, so I am going to have to start setting some people straight since James is being far too nice. I don’t know if there is a backup of his data or not since I don’t have any inside information, but he’s done more than enough. The guy is a non paying customer, why would he have to take backups? What more do you want? Should he call the guy up and schedule time to come clean his house too? Should he cut his lawn too? He lost the right to support, backups and his data the day he decided to stop paying his bills. This may shock you but that’s how the real world works. Don’t pay your rent and you get evicted, don’t pay for your car and it might be repossessed. Why should backups be made for this free loader when backups could be made for a paying customer? I only had to read this thread once to fully understand the situation. Did you read post #6 in this thread, or did you just decide to jump in and start bashing? <> What would satisfy you? Him flying down to visit the free loader in person to ask why he decided to skip out on paying his bill? The man would go broke. I have servers in various datacenters, and my bill is due at the end of the month, do you know what would happen if I did not pay my server bill on the first of the month? It would be formatted and all my data would be gone, this is how the REAL world works, you pay for service and it’s provided to you, why should he keep this free loader on his server for two weeks without payment? If I ran a hosting company, I would terminate him after 2 days of non payment. Two weeks is more than generous. If anything this free loader should be thanking him for keeping his account active as long as he did. We never heard back from the original poster, but did this free loader ever offer to pay for the 14 days of service he used without sending payment? Probably not as free loaders do not think of others. <> Last edited by bear; 11-03-2007 at 07:53 AM.
Posted by bear, 11-03-2007, 07:54 AM
Thread cleaned. Discuss the issue, not each other, please.
Posted by raceway, 11-03-2007, 10:33 AM
Free loader? who do you think you are? you want to get disrespectful towards me? If I would of got an invoice it would of been paid, if I saw a suspension page I would of paid it, when I opened a ticket on Oct 23/07 they could of said something to remind and it would of got paid. I just totally forgot about it. Last edited by raceway; 11-03-2007 at 10:43 AM.
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-03-2007, 09:13 PM
Ive said it multiple times and I have no problem saying it again, it sounds like you like hearing it. FREE LOADER! Im guessing you forgot who I am because youve been so busy looking for other hosts to leech off and steal hosting from, now that youve been exposed and shutdown here, so Ill be happy to introduce myself to you. Im joepeshi539890. No, I dont want to. I dont like giving people lectures, but its not my fault you were brought up this way, I am not faulting you, I am faulting your parents on this one, but someone has to set you straight, I guess that will need to be me. If you were to pay your bills I would not be in this position. Yeah yeah yeah yeah Im sure you would have paid your bills, the same way we can trust people who open phishing sites to keep our credit card information safe, and the same way we can expect those who uses stolen or fake credit cards to pay the stores back once they get the money. You been exposed. Its over. Im sure you move from host to host after you get shutdown, like many other people. Did you really think you could signup at a hosting company, and not pay your bills and continue to have them host you for free for weeks? Not only that, but you have the nerve to complain once they delete your accounts for non payment? Why is it you cant get a job and pay your bills like the rest of us? What exactly is it that is so special about you that everyone should just give you things for nothing free loader? Its time for you to own up to your responsibilities, pay your bill and stop your whining. What you should have done was be a man, you should have contacted them, and explained you forgot to pay your bill, apologize and pay your bill and ask them to restore your backups, its probably too late for that though. This whole situation its pretty simple, you sure as hell got those support ticket emails, welcome emails, and whatever other emails they sent out, but mysteriously the only thing you did not get was something that said you owed money. If you are going to lie about something, you might as well lie about something you can get away with. If I were you I would not have ignored the invoices, I would have said Im in Iraq, My father died and I used all my money to pay for his funeral or I do not know who I am. You can use those if you want with the future hosts you decide to free load off of. Im a little curious, since you decided to quote me but not answer my question, did you ever decide to pay your next invoice or have you still forgotten all about it? There are far too many people like you in this world, you will take and take and take but give nothing in return, unless you count starting threads bashing companies because you decided to skip out on your bill, leaving them with a lot of work trying to defend their company. Do you do this same thing when you go out and eat? You leave the waiter paying the bill because you dont know if you owe anything? You probably think people should be glad to give you things for free huh you free loader? I dont care if you think youre special because thats what your parents tell you each night, you have the responsibility to pay your bills like everyone else, learn to be more responsible and pay your bills like everyone else and dont complain each time you get shutdown for non payment.
Posted by raceway, 11-03-2007, 09:35 PM
Thats what I tried to do, but they told me it was to late. I cannot even login to pay my bill at TrexHost because my account was deleted. I would of gladly paid the $13 + a late fee for them to reinstate the account. They told me it was deleted and that they were unable to get the data back. How am I whining in this post? I was just simply letting members know what TrexHost policy is. TrexHost admitted that is what they do if anybody does not pay there bill.
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-03-2007, 09:45 PM
I guess thats too bad for you then, next time pay more attention to your invoices, and dont ignore them. If you are so unorganized, perhaps you should start writing things down on a calendar or notes and stick them on your desk so you dont forget to pay other bills. Do you really think you need to go around opening threads letting people know that if they dont pay their bill they will be terminated and their data will be deleted? I hope you realize that anyone with an IQ of 15 or above would realize this right off the back of their hand, its common sense. If you are looking for free hosting, you might want to visit freewebspace.net, but otherwise stop winning that you tried to skip out on your bill and your data was lost. You are lucky you were able to cheat them out of payment for so long, I would have cut you off at two days.
Posted by subzer0, 11-03-2007, 10:13 PM
LOL! Well said.
Posted by Skylar MacMinn, 11-03-2007, 10:29 PM
Clearly you don't own a webhost and aren't apart of the problem, so why bother getting involved? I think somebody should close this thread before it gets any worse.
Posted by subzer0, 11-03-2007, 10:30 PM
If you really cared for the customer, you would never just delete someone's data. Whatever you say, it was a bad decision. If it's in your TOS, then is't a bad policy. If you are going to wipe out someone's account, at least do a full backup "just in case". That would have been the smart thing to do if you really did care for your company's support reputation.
Posted by clayt0n, 11-03-2007, 10:49 PM
James, not to bash Trex or anything because I love ya'll, but I had the same problem with getting some e-mails from you as well when your support system was being redone. Your e-mails didn't even reach my spam folder. Maybe ya'll should come up with an alternative way to contact the customers if you get no response from them, because I'm sure others aren't getting some of the e-mails. Last edited by clayt0n; 11-03-2007 at 10:53 PM.
Posted by JohnJ, 11-03-2007, 11:06 PM
When I was working at TrexHost, there were a few email issues, but that is beside the point. They have a telephone number listed on their contact page, so there are no excuses for contact. Toll Free: 1 877-322-3266 You should always stay on top of your bills. Just because it's web hosting doesn't mean you don't have to pay it on time.
Posted by clayt0n, 11-03-2007, 11:10 PM
It's rare to get a hold of anyone on the phone line, Only person I've ever talked to was James. What I was getting at was the fact of the OP forgetting about his hosting bill because he didn't receive the invoices, so maybe Trex should take an extra step to find out whether or not their client received the invoices.
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-03-2007, 11:17 PM
Clearly I don't, and clearly you did not read my post explaining why I am here going against what seems to be the majority of this forum that thinks it’s ok for free loaders to skip out on their payment and somehow think they are entitled to their data. I for one hope this thread remains open, I hope the free loader comes back and again try to explain why it’s ok for him to free load off hosts and why he is entitled to do it, and I hope the signature advertisement helps your business grow. If he did not care why would he have kept the reseller account active for two weeks while trying to contact the user? He’s stated his cut off deadline is two weeks without payment, and the guy has a reseller account. What if he had 100+ accounts? Should he still take the time out of his day to backup and save his accounts on a backup server? What if two weeks later and the customer comes back wanting his data but the data was deleted? You see where I am going with this? He would be in the same situation. As many people have said many many times in various other threads, it is the customers job to keep backups of their data, and to be honest, if the customer is deciding to not pay their bill, why should the customer be entitled to any support or even backups for that matter? This is the real world, think of cell phone providers and how they operate, don’t pay your cell phone bill quickly enough and you might lose your number, they are not going to keep your number reserved in case you might come back, why should a hosting provider keep a customers data if they are not paying? I don’t think they should, and from the looks of things, the provider agrees with me. They are going to assign it to a paying customer, the kind of customer that will keep them up and running. The lesson here is to pay your bills and be more responsible. There is no hand holding in the real world, we are all on our own, and if some people cannot handle it, perhaps they should go back and live with their folks so they can be taken care of. Last edited by joepeshi539890; 11-03-2007 at 11:21 PM.
Posted by TonyB, 11-03-2007, 11:37 PM
The issue here is trexhost just deletes accounts after 2 weeks of non payment there is no inbetween point at all. The majority of hosts run say a week of active without payment. Then a week of suspended and after that the account is deleted. As much as you want to say this guy is a freeloader this and that, that is not really what it sounds like at all. It's so easy for emails to simply not make it to someone. Look at a few people who've already posted in this topic saying they had issues receiving emails from trexhost in the past. The user could have been waiting for an invoice email never got one and figured may they had paid it already or whatever it does not matter. Not very many people bring out this big calendar and say I pay this host then, this host at this day ect. They base it off of the invoices they get sent. If they ever miss one their site is just suspended. The user may have forgot to pay and should have had backups. But the trexhost policy on this whole thing makes them look bad. Email is unreliable so having leeway with a suspension buffer is a whole lot better. As a result of this topic they've lost this customer and probably many others due to the fact that people will be weary of just missing the invoice email then having their account deleted when they forget to pay an invoice they never received.
Posted by clayt0n, 11-03-2007, 11:44 PM
Wow, my reseller account with Trex just got shut down while I was talking in this thread, and their support phones are down. It gives a message from phonepeople.com....maybe they didn't pay their phone bill. So ironic... Last edited by clayt0n; 11-03-2007 at 11:49 PM.
Posted by JohnJ, 11-03-2007, 11:52 PM
I agree with you on that one.
Posted by clayt0n, 11-04-2007, 12:10 AM
Let me rephrase that, it went down. Not shut down. Figured I should clear that up real quick But it's still down
Posted by wherrelz, 11-04-2007, 01:17 AM
hostnewb - any progress? you could try: 1. sales@trexhost.com 2. Contact form on http://www.trexhost.com/contents/contact.php 3. Toll free 1 877-322-3266 4. support@trexhost.com (this is also their paypal, so mostly they will read it) 5. hosting23-sales@yahoo.com (its given on the page http://www.trexhost.com/contents/autobillingsys.php) 6. trexhost.com@domainsbyproxy.com (they'll forward it) 7. (480) 624-2599 (from their whois info - this will be domainsbyproxy and you can ask for trexhost.com's contact info as a customer) 8. PM 'trexhost' on this forum you'll find them earlier in this thread 9. If you feel your email isnt able to get through (happens sometimes with adsense also) go to groups.google.com and put trexhost's emails in the CC: while making a new post. Googles mail servers are amazing, so it will 99.99% get through better than most others. 10. will update you if I find any more. Last edited by wherrelz; 11-04-2007 at 01:21 AM.
Posted by Swizi, 11-04-2007, 01:21 AM
As Trex said on the other forum you posted in (Namepros). Looks like this will go nowhere as it's earning them nothing. Move on, and take it in your stride.
Posted by wherrelz, 11-04-2007, 01:23 AM
And trip over it
Posted by clayt0n, 11-04-2007, 01:30 AM
Well I'm back online I thought it was weird that I was posting in this thread, and my sites went down.
Posted by subzer0, 11-04-2007, 01:32 AM
You got everything. Damn you are good and I think you should be on the CSI Miami team for sure.
Posted by clayt0n, 11-04-2007, 02:04 AM
Next time I have a host that I can't get a hold of, I know who I'm coming to But there phone is down because they are switching to VOIP is what I was told.
Posted by eclouds, 11-04-2007, 02:52 AM
Let's not bring this up here. Your thread was for a $0.00 invoice and you had no services with them how can it be a bad experience?
Posted by JohnJ, 11-04-2007, 03:00 AM
The bad experience is my work email getting spammed.
Posted by PH-Kev, 11-04-2007, 03:02 AM
shock horror, now take it to the little thread you created specifically for your spam email
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-04-2007, 09:57 PM
That’s not the issue I see here, but for my own amusement let’s go with that for a moment. Trexhost stated they don’t like to suspend accounts, which is why he tries to contact them before hand. What the “majority” of hosts do or don’t do does not have anything to do with Trexhost. He hosted with them for another two weeks and has still not paid. If that is not a free loader, then what is? It would have taken him only a moment to send payment directly to them, then he could walk away saying he at least paid, but he does not have any intention of doing that, and there is a reason for that, a lack of moral integrity, if you take or use something, you should pay for it, at least I would, what would you do? It would be interesting to take a poll and see if they were using a major free email provider such as yahoo or gmail or if they were running their own email server, but I don’t have enough information to really comment at this time, hosts from time to time do have email issues that I have no doubt so maybe Trexhost does, but I think it’s a little strange that it appears the free loader here could get every other email from them except the one requesting money. If he cannot remember if he has paid or not, he better get out that big calendar. I keep an excel spreadsheet, it tells me the names of my hosts and the date my bill is due and a few other various details so I know who I need to pay and when. You see how I decided to take matters into my own hands and keep track of things on my own? That’s what everyone else should do, and if you don’t do that, you might end up like the thread starter, no hosting, no women and no data. What policy would that be? The policy of deleting non paying customers, who ignore multiple invoices and emails asking for payment? Don’t you also have a policy like that? If not I am going to signup with you right away. For anyone competent reading this thread I am sure everyone will see this guy for what he is, a free loader skipping out on payment and still trying to justify not paying his bills. I just did a search on you and the reading material was pretty interesting, bad mouthing your former employer because you were fired for not having the right skills or for any other reason is never a good idea, and I say that from experience. It’s time for you to move on. All you are doing is hurting your own reputation, you’re young and you don’t have the technical skills required for this kind of industry, so I don’t foresee your hosting company lasting too long and perhaps one day in the years to come your next employer might just do a Google search on you and come across everything here, and you won’t get the job.
Posted by TonyB, 11-04-2007, 11:24 PM
It's quite clear you just aren't understanding what I am trying to get at. In essence I am saying this is terrible customer service and it just makes the host look bad when it could be easily avoided and make them look much more customer friendly. The delete before suspension policy is bad and that is what I am getting at here. All you do with their sort of policy is lose customers. No one is perfect with bills people forget at times. Suspending the accounts after a week or whatever is a lot better. It gets the customers attention they pay the bill and they continue to be a happy customer. If they did not intend on paying then a week later they're deleted. No foul here at all and the possibility of saving a customer. I'd say the chance at saving 1 in 3 customers is a lot better than losing those 3 customers every time that do not pay. I don't understand how you can argue it's a better policy to get rid of a customer opposed to retaining them in case they made a mistake. Now about the user not receiving invoice emails. I guess you have not heard about spam detections system going based on content? Lets take WHMCS invoices they all look pretty much the same from host to host. A bunch of gmail users all report this as spam. Then maybe gmail decides this type of email is spam and it now lands in the spam folder. The support emails are going through fine but not the invoices. If you look back a bit there were lots of hosts using Kayako Support Suite reporting their support emails were getting flagged by hotmail, gmail, aol ect. as spam. All different hosts with different IP's and such. They even said they sent test mails to addresses that were not done by the system and they went through fine. I would not be surprised if lots of hosts have issues with their invoices getting flagged for the same reasons. And for the record we don't allow freeloaders either. But I think the policy of say a week of free service on an unpaid invoice before suspension. Then a week after before deletion is a lot better than well lets delete their account. That ends up always with lost customers and unhappy people. Opposed to a few lost customers and several you retain after they realize they did not pay an invoice or they thought they paid it already but in fact did not.
Posted by wherrelz, 11-05-2007, 01:42 AM
Starsky: maybe. but I find defective serials a bore. Hostnewb: glad to hear its all ok. VOIP is as good a reason as any to take them sites down Oh, apparently on the other thread linked above, trexhost believes themselves to be a very 'delete' team. Hang on - maybe it says 'elite'.... Looks like my tourettes syndrome kicking in
Posted by joepeshi539890, 11-05-2007, 02:17 AM
I understand things quite well, but I am still amazed that a free loader is being defended. Maybe you should contact him so you can host him? If you dont agree with Trexhosts policies, dont host with them. If a host decides enough is enough with chasing a customer down, then perhaps losing their data will teach them a lesson, like Ive already said people need to be responsible for their debts and keep on top of them, I just hope one day your mistakes of also forgetting to pay your bills does not affect your innocent customers who might lose valuable business. When you get tired of contacting someone asking for payment, its time for them to go. They can free load off another company. No, I have never heard of these spam detection systems, even though I continue to install and configure them on what seems to be a daily basis, perhaps you can fill me in? What do I know though, Im just a sucker who actually pays his hosting bills, this free loader probably did setup a spam filter to block anything that says he owes money, that way he can come here and honestly say he never received his invoice. He had the nerve to admit he was a free loader and even come here to complain, so we really dont know what he is capable of, but we can come to a few conclusions. He lacks good judgment, has no morals or integrity. He sees nothing wrong with leaving hosts high and dry and thinks he deserves free hosting from paid hosts. He is not a man who can be trusted. It would be interesting to know if he is white and lives in a trailer park, then we really could call him what he is. In reality it does not matter, you dont pay your credit cards because you claim you did not get the bill, do they care? No, your interest rate might rise, you will get hit with late fees, your credit score might go down and who know what else. Do you know why this is? You still have an obligation to pay your bills, and its your job to ensure you pay them regardless of if invoices are received or you get anything in the mail. You should be expecting it. Its the consumers job to keep track of their debts. Im glad you do not allow free loaders, but I am still confused at why a free loader is being defended, but I guess you have your reasons. Regardless of what you decide to do with your business, it has no bearing in comparison to another business, each business owner is entitled to make and enforce their own rules, and if a customer does not agree with those policies they are entitled to take their business elsewhere, but James is not coming back and their position is pretty clear, free loaders wont be tolerated.
Posted by ldcdc, 11-05-2007, 12:09 PM
This is not about a "freeloader" as you insist on putting it, it's about a particular type of policy. Just as most resellers don't want their entire account being suspended when an end user's sites bogs down the server and have just that site suspended, most resellers would not want termination to come without a period suspension and chance to make things right. But that doesn't mean a provider can't choose to do things the other way around. We're free to discuss the different policies though, and make judgements, as will the resellers themselves.
Posted by TonyB, 11-05-2007, 01:13 PM
I am talking not just about this user but all users in general. This user may be a freeloader but how about the next guy who runs into this? From my experience users are not perfect and I'd rather suspend them and then them pay then delete their accounts and lose those customers forever and have them say nothing but bad things about us. I'll take this situation in another way so I can relate it back to you opposed to this freeloader user. You receive an invoice from trexhost like always and you pay it like normal. You receive the confirmation and mark it off on your giant calendar as I paid for my hosting for trexhost it is due on the 15th next month now. 2 weeks later you receive account termination notice. You instantly freak out email support and they tell you they do not suspend accounts they terminate for past due. Turns out another guy paid his invoice then it got refunded. By mistake they marked your invoice unpaid. The next time their system ran it saw your now very overdue invoice and terminated your account. Your data and backups are now gone and you're simply out of luck. Unlikely to happen but just reading WHT tells you hosts make mistakes and mark invoices unpaid or make mistakes on billing all the time. So I assume you'd be fine with the situation of your account being terminated then even if you did nothing wrong?
Posted by Nnyan, 11-05-2007, 08:12 PM
joepeshi539890 Just a word of advice (and based on your posts I don't think you're the type to take advice even if it's good advice) but you're really not doing Trexhost any favors here. You make broad assumptions and hazy logic in order to go on the defense by attacking. Trexhost's actions are enough to turn away customers but you're posts are doing even more damage. As ldcdc said this is not about freeloading. Keep saying it is if it makes you feel better about things but really no one is buying it. The original OP may or may not be a good guy or even a "freeloader" as you keep saying. And so what? That's not the topic that is being discussed here. How Trexhost handled this customer FREELOADER or NOT is besides the point since Trexhost would do the exact same thing to any other customer EVEN IF THEY WERE NOT A FREELOADER. Or are you saying that EVERY single customer that for whatever reason is late paying (even those customers that may have been late during the technical issues Trexhost previously had, as reported here by several past customers) are freeloaders? For argument's sake lets hop on your bus for a moment and just accept that the OP WAS a freeloader of the worst kind and he got two weeks free hosting. The issue for most of the people is NOT that we're defending someone who is late paying (if you read my previous post I took the OP to task about keeping up with bills) but how Trexhost's policies (no suspension direct to deletion) are NOT customer friendly and conducive to getting more customers. I myself am very careful about not being late with any payments b/c I'm anal about maintaining my credit score. I set everything up on automatic payments and take other precautions. But life sometimes gets in the way and occasionally the stars align and for one reason or another a bill gets paid late. I never carry a balance on anything so it gets taken care of promptly, but I can remember on occasion that b/c of multiple issues (some mine others the host) the bill for one of my hosting accounts went unpaid for almost a month. If my host had handled that incident like Trexhost had I would have been very unhappy. Thankfully despite what you claim most hosts (that I've delt with) do not handle accounts in this manner. Signed (by your definition) a freeloader.
Posted by Tsohxert, 11-05-2007, 11:29 PM
Nnyan, We would like to clear somethings up here from our organization. Obviously, there is an individual here who lost there data, something no one wants to face. Its understandable that he is upset, he lost his data However, we need to take into consideration alot of the common factors. This customer truly was informed of the late invoices, please remember in our earlier post, we stated how we sent him a personal message along side that 3rd warning invoice, that personal message we sent to him, was not through our billing system, it was through the same system he was using to submit his tickets, I could and should have cleared that up earlier. I can understand, completely, how billing emails can be mistaken as spam. We have indeed even openly talked about our communication issues with previous customers, in which thankfully we resolved, ending in a positive experience for the end customer. But again, this was not a billing email. This was a personal email using the same system he was using for tickets. In this situation, that was not the case. There was a personal note sent out, during the same time frame that he was submitting tickets back and forth, using the same procedure. There is just no way for the email to have not arrived. We have customers that we call, many of them, of course you never hear those things when it comes to reviews, takes 10 rights for one good, and 1 wrong for 1 bad. Thats the way it goes. But we call, leave a message, let them know where they stand, and do add a deny from all to there account as a last resort. As mentioned, yes, we are strongly against suspending an account. But we DO have our procedures for it. There has never been a story in two years, and two years we have had the same policy, like this. Never. The reason is, you can bet were out there doing what it takes to get this customers attention and make sure they know whats going on. This was a different case. There actions were clearly aimed at taking advantage of the situation. As mentioned above, no one wants to lose there data. But were on the third week here, with communication that we know got through. That is something we do not tolerate, but as mentioned, we did go to very extent to get this customers attention, failure to comply resulted in the termination of his account. I hope I cleared things up on this post, it seems I may have been out of this thread more then what I would have liked, we have our customers we do care about to tend to, and sometimes finding time to post replies to threads defending ourselves is something we can not find. Now, I think this thread has gone long enough, and the point has gotten across. I would like to request the close of this thread if possible in moving forward. Thank you , James Last edited by Tsohxert; 11-05-2007 at 11:33 PM.
Posted by anon-e-mouse, 11-06-2007, 07:35 AM
Thread cleaned again.
Posted by Nnyan, 11-06-2007, 03:36 PM
Trexhost Thank you for pointing that out I had missed that fact in my reading of the thread. Now after doing a bit of research I really wasn't able to find other instances (if anyone else has let me know) of data deletion so I'm more then willing to give you guys the benefit of the doubt based on your last response. Just to be clear with my postings if I was off the mark in any way, I wasn't coming down on you guys over this certain person/post. My primary concern was if this incident (the guy being a freeloader or not) uncovered a potential issue with your customer service. Even bad people/situations can help illuminate potential issues. I also realize that things happen and every host has different policies, as one of my early mentors taught me, "if you don't have at least three copies of anything you don't have any...". I think every customer should have a independent backup plan and not solely rely on the host for data backups. If everything went down the way you state (and I have no reason not to believe you) then I agree that there comes a time where a host needs cut ties and eventually delete data. Now we can quibble about timing and retention time but ultimately that decision belongs to each host (with the understanding that these can affect a customer's choice). I for one am of the belief that even when dealing with a customer that is a bad one and attempting to take advantage of the situation it is the more professional route to take the high road. I'm a big proponent of having a policy that clearly outlines your responsibility for customer data in your TOS. The best ones that I've found outline the conditions for account suspension an then the time frame AFTER suspenion/termination for data deletion. Bottom line for me is that you're the host and occasionally you have to make a judgment call. And I have no problems at all with suspending or terminating the account. My only quibble is that with slightly longer data retention you minimize these types of complaints.