billing problems

[atavist]

My account was suspended today, I thought it was something I had done, did I breach the TOS? Did one of my sites throttle the server? Did a hacker get in and do something unbeknown to me? Or was it something else I should have been aware of.

I contacted the live help desk, seems I owe HG $0.10 so they suspended my account, despite it being (seemingly) paid up 2 days ago.

Now before you start complaining that I posted this in the wrong forum, I have a suggestion for you.... can you guess what it is? Probably not.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by atavist

seems I owe HG $0.10 so they suspended my account

How can you owe HG $0.10 ??????

[atavist]

I have no idea. What disturbs me more than this is the fact that they turned off all of my sites without even having the decency to email me and let me know. Sites are still off by the way, despite my having paid the ransom. Is it just me or is there something badly wrong with this picture?

[striddy]

Originally Posted by atavist

What disturbs me more than this is the fact that they turned off all of my sites without even having the decency to email me and let me know. Sites are still off by the way, despite my having paid the ransom. Is it just me or is there something badly wrong with this picture?

Sometimes ridiculously small amounts can cause so much anguish.

Give HG a call and I'm sure they will sort it.

[Adorkable]

Your suggestion could be providing correct billing information, lol.

[atavist]

Originally Posted by striddy

Give HG a call and I'm sure they will sort it.

I did and they didn't that was a couple of hours ago.

Originally Posted by Adorkable

Your suggestion could be providing correct billing information, lol.

Or it could be something a little more direct

[GatorWesley]

Hello,

Our billing system will automatically suspend any account that has a past due balance whether it is 10 cents or $1,000. You should have received multiple notifications to the primary email address on file about the past due balance which would have given you plenty of time to take care of the balance before your account was suspended.

Your Paypal subscription is currently set to pay after the 10 day grace period. You will need to cancel that old subscription and create a new one on your next invoice date to avoid this from happening again.

The 10 cent invoice was created from a remaining credit on file that did not completely cover your new invoice.

With that said, our company is not in any kind of financial trouble and bankruptcy is definitely not something that anyone will need to be concerned about.

I went ahead and activated your account, you will need to make sure your email address on file is current to be aware of any outstanding balances you may have in the future so you can keep your payments up to date.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by atavist

Now before you start complaining that I posted this in the wrong forum, I have a suggestion for you.... can you guess what it is? Probably not.

Ok, where do you want me to send the $0.10?
I'd be glad if I could help...

[doulos]

Originally Posted by GatorWesley

You should have received multiple notifications to the primary email address on file about the past due balance which would have given you plenty of time to take care of the balance before your account was suspended.

This is what I keep seeing in posts like this. Every one that I can remember claims no emails were received. I don't remember anyone saying they did get the email warnings, but just ignored them until they got shut off.

When do these emails get sent. I know I have never received any email warning me that a payment is due soon . I even paid the day it was due (never been late, though). Does HG only send out warning emails when a payment is already late? It would be nice to get an email when a payment is due soon. I get many such email from other companies I due business with electronically.

[GatorWesley]

Email notifications are sent if the invoice is not paid within 3 days after it is created.

[atavist]

Originally Posted by quietFinn

Ok, where do you want me to send the $0.10?
I'd be glad if I could help...

Thank you quietFinn you guessed it, I was broke and couldn't afford the $0.10 so I just ignored all the emails I got and hoped it would go away

Actually I shouldn't joke, I'm not sure that GatorWesley has a sense of humour.

No Wesley I didn't recieve a single email about this issue...

[Kris Siegel]

Originally Posted by atavist

No Wesley I didn't recieve a single email about this issue...

Then I would suggest following Wesley's advice and making sure you have the correct e-mail address on file. While it's always possible you didn't receive yours due to an error, most people I've seen on this forum have but ignore them so it should be working.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by atavist

Thank you quietFinn you guessed it, I was broke and couldn't afford the $0.10 so I just ignored all the emails I got and hoped it would go away

Actually I shouldn't joke, I'm not sure that GatorWesley has a sense of humour.

No Wesley I didn't recieve a single email about this issue...

You're sure the billing system has the right email address on file? Your original sign-up address can linger in the oddest places.

If not, you're sure that the email address the billing system is using does not belong to any of the domains you host at HG?

And how about the spam filter at work on the email address the billing system uses?

[GatorWesley]

Originally Posted by atavist

No Wesley I didn't recieve a single email about this issue...

You can login to http://www.hostgator.com/billing to update the email address on file. Our system sends these out automatically.

[atavist]

Only if you know what email address they have on file for you. Oh what a brilliant system.

[GatorWesley]

Originally Posted by atavist

Only if you know what email address they have on file for you. Oh what a brilliant system.

If you don't know what it is you can always contact our live chat who is online 24x7x365. I responded to the ticket that you submitted and the email address that you contacted us from is not what is listed in billing, which explains not getting any notices.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by GatorWesley

If you don't know what it is you can always contact our live chat who is online 24x7x365. I responded to the ticket that you submitted and the email address that you contacted us from is not what is listed in billing, which explains not getting any notices.

Atavist, you should read The must-do list to minimize potential trauma.

IMO, you should also delete this thread (thread tools) or PM Gator Wesley to change the title to something like "HG billing system". We know you meant to be humorous, but given the recent Planet outage and the fact that this is a public category, the title is extremely inflammatory and who knows which index skimmer, anonymous guest, etc. could retain just the title without reading the thread?

[GatorWesley]

I went ahead and updated it.

[atavist]

Hmmm, this is the 3rd (I believe) post I have made in a public forum criticising HG, this time I tried to do it with satire rather than out and out finger pointing. The last two times my posts were moved to a private forum lest members of Joe Public see it. This time you remove the satirical headline lest it attract undue attention.

Jeez, Brent himself told me you have more than 20,000 customers. The idea of HG going bankrupt is a stupid idea to anyone but the most hair brained, ergo humour.

You guys don't go in for Scientology do you? <-- JOKE.

At the moment you all come across as people with no sense of fun or humorless robots. Can't you just lighten up a bit and laugh at yourselves once in a while.

[Keith W]

Originally Posted by atavist

Only if you know what email address they have on file for you. Oh what a brilliant system.

Your kidding right?

You do not know what email you have for your billing account?

Makes me wonder how you can make the claim that you never got any of the emails that Host gator sent out.

If you don't know what the email was then it seems to me you were not fulfilling your obligations as a customer to keep your details correct and up to date.

IMHO it is you that are to blame for this situation and not Host Gator

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by atavist

Hmmm, this is the 3rd (I believe) post I have made in a public forum criticising HG, this time I tried to do it with satire rather than out and out finger pointing. The last two times my posts were moved to a private forum lest members of Joe Public see it. This time you remove the satirical headline lest it attract undue attention.

Jeez, Brent himself told me you have more than 20,000 customers. The idea of HG going bankrupt is a stupid idea to anyone but the most hair brained, ergo humour.

You guys don't go in for Scientology do you? <-- JOKE.

At the moment you all come across as people with no sense of fun or humorless robots. Can't you just lighten up a bit and laugh at yourselves once in a while.

I don't know about your first two attempts, but changing the title was my idea, not HG's.

Actually, GatorWesley changed the title to a more negative one than I suggested, and HG has been great about people criticizing things in the forum. Even though you contributed to your billing situation with an email address that was apparently not the one you check, a title such as "Awful, awful HG" would be OK, though exaggerated.

BUT, lots of people wouldn't see anything funny or even satirical with the nexus of the password thing, the outage, and bankruptcy, so it wouldn't occur to them that the title was "humor".

BTW, bankruptcy and business failure can happen to companies with many more than 20,000 customers. Your theory that nobody would believe it doesn't take that into account, and it's precisely people who don't know HG as well as you do who pass on rumors, half-truths, etc.

There may be plenty of reasons to criticize HG, but why risk an inaccurate brush fire?

[Serra]

Originally Posted by gwyneth

There may be plenty of reasons to criticize HG, but why risk an inaccurate brush fire?

One could make a reasonable argument that HG is going bankrupt. In fact, just last weekend, thePlanet turned off all of their dedicated servers. I wonder if it was a billing issue? Of course, they gave some cover story about an explosion or fire or something... but did anyone actually see a fire?

[GatorBrent]

That's pretty ridiculous to say were going bankrupt. Please get facts straight before posting lies. The fire affected about 200 dedicated customers out of the thousands we have. Even if the datacenter was going bankrupt which they are not that would have nothing to do with us.

They are backed by a billion dollar company and they are having to issue full refunds to everyone. Would it make sense if you're going bankrupt to start giving full refunds? Def not....

[striddy]

Originally Posted by Serra

One could make a reasonable argument that HG is going bankrupt. In fact, just last weekend, thePlanet turned off all of their dedicated servers. I wonder if it was a billing issue? Of course, they gave some cover story about an explosion or fire or something... but did anyone actually see a fire?

Darn it, there goes my coffee all over the desk again.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by GatorBrent

That's pretty ridiculous to say were going bankrupt. Please get facts straight before posting lies. The fire affected about 200 dedicated customers out of the thousands we have. Even if the datacenter was going bankrupt which they are not that would have nothing to do with us.

Add to that, the fact that Hostgator has never been a leader in dedicated server sales, so it's fairly clear that the fire only effected a small portion of their overall business.

Even if all of their dedicated servers were down, which that isn't the case, but if they were and all of those customers left for other companies, the overall impact on HG's financials would be rather small.

It is moronic to conclude that HG, who remains one of the leaders in hosting sales, is anything but solid. If they were not completely solid, there would be a ton of rumors about them being the target of take overs, as many other companies would love to buy HG's reputation and shed themselves of their own.