August 06, 2000
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When I signed up for my domain (robh.net) I signed up through a domain host (http://www.sitehost4u.com/). They took care of the paperwork with registering my domain for me. I've been adding some pictures to my site, so I was running low on the 50megs of space provided by them, so I went looking for another host.
I came across PageCreators (http://www.pagecreators.net/) and they were offering a sale. The two packages are the same price and have similar features. The main difference is the amount of space provided. PageCreators had lots more.
So, I registered with them. The registration process (they were having a sale of sorts) ended up being two parts. The first part was all your information (name, address, domain, credit card, package, etc.) and the 2nd part was for an extra year of hosting. While this is cool for those that want to do so, I didn't, so I left the 2nd page blank, and hit submit again. PageCreators guarantees a near instantaneous response from them. After waiting a couple days with no response, I sent an e-mail. After waiting a few more days, I gave up waiting for a response and re-registered. This time filling in the information on the 2nd part, except for one thing. The box for the 1 year extra has to be checked if you want it. I filled out the rest of the information it asked for (like the last 4 digits of my credit card number) but left that box unchecked (it's unchecked by default). And hit submit. Low and behold, I get my near instantaneous response from them and assume that all is well. I actually felt good because I figured out on my own what the problem was with my original registration...
I received an invoice and a technical e-mail from PageCreators, so I
figure all is well. A few days later I get a 2nd invoice
billing me for an additional year. I signed up for a 4 month term, and I
imagine that I will be getting 1 year and 4 months paid for before I have
to pay another 4 month term, but I'll see about that when it happens.
Anyway, I reply to the e-mail asking why I was billed. They say I signed
up for it, this reply was pretty quick (same day). I explain the problem
with their form and mention that I did not have the 'bill me for a year'
box checked off. After waiting a week (give or take) I forward my reply to
them and ask if this has been resolved. Their response:
"Sir,Nice people, eh? While I can understand any no refund policy, I think this deserves some sort of investigation and looking into. I wonder how many other people signed up during the same period as me and also are getting invoiced for the additional year? The main problem I have with this is that you can't register without the 2nd page. And you have to fill in the information on the 2nd page for you to actually register with them. Why isn't the extra year deal on the first page with the rest of the billing options? I mean I do have to pick among the few choices the billing option I want (I took the 4 month one), so why the 2nd page? Why the problem with the form?
We have proof of you signing up for this service. We will not issue a refund on this."
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I did want the extra year. Hmm... Nope, sorry, didn't want it. I'm not really concerned with the charge, I'm more concerned with the proof and the principle of the thing. I must say that this is not a good way to handle a potential problem with their web page (in particular their money making registration form).
Chances are I'll be leaving this host once my 1 year and 4 months are up because of my principles. But then again, with the problems that they have been experiencing since I've signed up, I could leave for technical reasons as well, let's just say reliability has taken a turn for the worse with the change of hosts.
So far they haven't got my site working properly. Apparently it's too difficult to install and have FrontPage Extensions working properly on the server. It was apparently fixed (whatever was done didn't solve the problem), but I replied saying that the problem still exists.
Open technical support requests:
- [tracker #7043] submitted by (robh@robh.net) on Sunday, June 18, 2000 at 19:10:42
- [tracker #6480] half resolved on 06/06/2000, an e-mail was sent concerning the part that wasn't fixed, this is the part about publishing in FrontPage
Just for fun, I decided to submit a new technical support request concerning the FrontPage issues. Submitting the form works, but apparently there is a problem on their servers with permissions as well.
There has been an error:
There has been an error with your request:
You don't have permission to create requests in this queue
What does that say about their professionalism? Their registration process is messed and they can't do something simple like install FrontPage Extensions properly.
Update 23Jull00, 10:30PM:
They have finally fixed the permissions problem with my web site so that I can upload changed pages only instead of the whole site each time. They also say that their technical support form has been fixed.
Update 03Aug00, 4:00PM:
The FrontPage Extension permissions problem came back within a week of it being fixed. Technical support puts the blame on FrontPage... While it certainly could be something with FrontPage, the whole point is that if it's offered, the servers should be able to work properly with it installed. Blaming Microsoft here is not a solution.
Update 05Aug00, 8:50PM:
This is not good. It should not happen. I don't want to ask technical support to fix the permissions every few days or weeks or whatever. It should be fixed. My previous host installed FrontPage Extensions on Linux servers without a problem...
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