Warning: Easyspace Web Hosting

[morturn]

I know some members are hosing their web space with Easyspace Web Hosting. In January 2008 they changed their Terms and Conditions to include an Automatic Service Renewal; they say to protect ‘your interests’.

I found myself in a position where I had a couple of domain names, that I took out in July 2006, and I no longer require them , and was going to let them expire. Under their new policy they have taken money out of my credit card account, with out prior notification, and are refusing to refund it, arguing that it is in their Terms and Conditions. Remember that when I took the service out, this was not a condition of the service.

The Terms and Conditions (small print) run to 17,167 words, 64 pages in a document, and you have to buy the service first, before you can opt out of automatic renewal. The only way you will know about this is to read the small print, and all subsequent revisions.

I have spoken to the credit card company, who say that if you buy a continuing service, then they cannot do anything. This is one of those frustrating things, where what they are doing is not illegal, but it’s not ethical either.

Open, honest and transparent, I think not, I will be looking for a new service provider.

[LumenLux]

Though I am not involved with this company, I thank you for the thorough report. It's valuable consideration for all of us.

[Almark]

Thank you. I had problems with provider, who I (as a web designer) thought I had good business relationships with. Every year i would outline which sites were to be renewed and which were to be stopped (i.e. the client didn't what it anymore or had refused to pay me). You can imagine my horror when at the 3rd year they ignored the ones that i asked to be stopped and billed me anyway. i told them that if they didn't fix it straight away i would walk away with all my sites. You may find this hard to believe, but I actually got an email back telling me to go and "donald duck" myself, and I could stick my sites up my ... - well you can imagine... I had to go to court to get it sorted out. I produced the 'Donald Duck' email in the small claims court and got all my money back. But it was a stressful time i must tell you.

In many respects I was lucky. A friend of mine, another 'one man web design outfit', had a similar situation and in response to his threat to walk away with all his sites, the hosting company disabled all his sites (including all the fully paid up ones) and asked him if he would like to reconsider! He reported them to the police - as a case of blackmail - the police said it was a civil matter, so he got all the web site owners to make a formal complaint of blackmail to the police and he also made an official complaint to the police ombudsman. It took months to get it sorted and while they did win in the end, my friend decided to leave the web design business.

SO, just as it is good to know about those that provide poor service it is also good to know those that provide excellent service, ones that can be strongly recommended. Of course, everyone has their favourite hosting company for various reasons. I have about 30 sites with Weycrest. I moved to them after I received the poor service mentioned above. Since then everything has worked out really well. For example, some time ago my Norway AV (links posted here and at Beechbrook) received so any hits that i went well over my bandwidth quota. I got a automatic warning email from weycrest to let me know about it, so I contacted them and said i know what is causing this, how much more do i owe you to keep it alive? The admin guy, came back and said; "no need, most of your sites never get anywhere near their limit, so if you have the odd peak on one site it is not a problem."

Clearly he could have charged me. But this is just one example of their superb customer service.