My host wont close my account! What can I do?
 

I wouldn't have posted this on the board as the people I talked to seemed like they wanted to help and were going to take care of things. But so much time has passed since I've put in my request and it almost seems like they have no intentions of closing my account..

I got a big charge on my credit card bill from my web host ( gighost.com ). I sent in emails asking why I got this charge from them but they went unanswered. I checked into it and found out myself that they didnt bill me for 3 months and then billed all the months at once. No big deal, I owed that money. But because of that and the down time I wanted to close my account.

I put in the request to have my account closed near the end of last month right after the big bill and it also went unanswered. I assumed they closed my account until I saw another charge on my credit card a few days after my request to have my account closed and it was for one more month of hosting. I talked with someone on ICQ and was told that my account would be closed and my money would be credited back to my account. This never happened.

I sent another email and talked to them on ICQ about every few days and each time they told me they put in the order to have it done/ it would be done tomorrow or soon. But it's still open! This past Friday I called billing and spoke with someone that said they would pass it on to the person that closes accounts and it would be done that day, but nothing. Today is Monday almost a half a month since I've put in the first request and all the others. And I'm back on ICQ getting the same story that it will be done. They are saying all they can do is email billing and have it taken care of, so in other words they will send more emails that wont get answered. Now my guess is that they are going to keep the account open and keep tring to bill me. And now their story has some what changed, they will credit back the last charge "if" they can "find" the first email I sent to have my account closed. So I guess as long as they dont accidentally delete all their emails I'll have no problem getting my money back.

What can I do? I've called my bank to get a charge back on the money they said they would credit back to my account (and I have this in writing), but the bank says I have to come in and fill out forms to have that done so thats more time I'll have to waste on this.

Whats the next step, I should take?

Send out 5 million emails, they'll close your account pretty quickly.

thats why i dont use my credit card for hosting. I dont want some fuck holding my credit card hostage.

go to their office with a bat?

Charge back everything they bill you after you closed your account, unless you signed a year contract or something. If that doesn't work, see Gary's idea.

put some CP/RAPE/BESTIALY/SHITEATING content on your account and then post a link to it on GFY - you will get closed in no time :1orglaugh

Get them on icq again and tell them to inform billing that you'll charge back any further invoices and that you'll contact the FTC, BBB, and any other agencies that need to know about their questionable business practices..

That'll speed things up a bit...

Don't keep charging back - you'll end up in negative databases potentially. Just close your creditcard and get a new one. You can just tell your bank that you're card is missing and that you'll like a new one.

Next time, wiretransfer or use paypal for your payments - this way you're more in control.

Good luck with it. It sucks.

Umatic, i can give you good hosting offer :) If you need sure :)

That may not work. I spent over 3 years working for Wells Fargo's Credit Card division. A closed account can still be billed reoccurring charges.

I very clearly remember the nightmares of iBill and DMR Internet charges. Customers often closed their accounts rather than contacting the billing companies to cancel the "unauthorized" charges. The next month...Another charge was added to their closed accounts.

I like Gary's idea and you can make some money at the same time. AMP has a good spam list if you want it.

Canceling your credit card to avoid one fee is not really worth the hassle. As long as you don't use chargebacks simply because you decided you didn't want to pay afterall, a chargeback is the right decision.

A chargeback should be used when you never authorized the charge in the first place. This clearly falls under that definition.

Yeah, I work Visa customer service, and you would not believe how many people don't seem to understand this.

When you give your credit card number + expiry date to a company, you're entering into a contract with that company, and using Visa/MC/Amex as the mode of payment.
Visa/MC/Amex cannot cancel payments to the company and they must allow them to go through even if the account is closed. Legally, Visa/MC/Amex cannot stop the payments as that would be a breach of contract.

I was with gighost to once, i got the same kind of support they suck ass.

Took me two months to get my money back.

I had a problem one time like that called the credit card company told then that i closed my account and i would throw away any mail i get from them in the future that they can not accept charges on a account i no longer have guess what never got any more statements from them.

How so, if VISA isn't a party to the contract?

Huh? Visa isn't a party to the contract, so they have no power to intervene in the contract.
If you sign a contract and pay cash, are you going to call your bank and ask them for your money back?

I suggest you order a copy of your credit file, because your account could very well be showing as R9 (an account that was written-off)

You're legally liable for any pre-authorized charge that goes thru on your account.

At least chargeback this most recent charge. Maybe it will get their attention. Also send them a link to this thread on icq.

In today's modern world, there's a high probablilty that "billing" has a telephone in their cubicle. (probably right next to the one belonging to whomever you talked to!) I would call back and INSIST on getting "billing's" phone number. Go to the source.
:2 cents:

Thanks for the replys!

I think I'll go with your idea Scootermuze and see what agencies they can be reported to, but before I go that far I'll let them know what I'm going to do and give them a last chance. I'm going to the bank within the next couple of days to put in the claim for the charge back. I just hope I dont have to make a charge back trip to the bank every month for this shit. I wasn't sure if doing a charge back on the last transaction would block all future charges they try to hit me with but from what I'm reading it doesn't look like it.

This whole situation is frustrating the fuck out of me. I've never had any problems like this. And what makes it worse is that it's just a simple request that I'm asking them and its been treated it like it can't or wont be done. I know they have had other people close accounts with them. So I cant see how they could put everyone through this BS just to get it done and if they do I cant see how they are still in business. I'll post back once / if the account gets closed.

thanks again for the replies and if anyone has any other ideas or steps I can take let me know.

That 5mil email thing sounds like it would be a sure fire way to get the site shut down but then they would probably just hit me with a mega bandwidth bill.

And Res I did find another host. But this time I did a search on GFY first and found one with a lot of positive info (webair.com) so far its been great.

That's what I did because Cologroup wouldn't close my account, so I say fuck'em, I'll cancel my credit card.. They sent me 3 invoices after that claiming there was a problem with the credit card.

Trust me, I'd rather cancel a credit card than having to deal with chargebacks. We don't have time for this shit.

Well the thing that happens often though - is that the billing company only have the cardnumber, expiration date, name and address.
When you get a new card (in a couple of my cases) they change the expiration date, and then the card will be rejected next time the billing company tries to take out money.

That way, you save yourself the hazzle.

I put in the claim for the charge back, sent a few more emails and I'll see what happens next. I'm going to give it another day to see if by chance they happen to read and act on one of my emails. If not I'm going to start making some calls.

gighost sucks, trust me.

oh btw try creating an urgent ticket :) ... or 10.

Smart, that what I do also.... World Money Orders is the way to go..... I had a similar problems with a company called abac, they forgot to charge me for overuse for about 5 months & they figured it out or this is a way to scam people & sent me all extra charges at once + errors & errors on top of it.

One of my friend that I referred to abac, add the same thing happened to him. It was much worse for him because he was uploading movies..... When he received is bill for overuse after about 6 months of abac forgetting or not charging him on previous statements. He got a bill for about 10 000 of overuse.... Luckily he was sending them World Money Orders also.

I have one thing to say, never do business with ABAC.COM - I have add my bad experiences & this goes for the others I referred to them, they add same problems....

+ Their customer service is the worse I have ever seen.

I really never thought of using other payment options. Credit card seemed like the easiest way to go. But after getting fucked around by gighost like this. The next time sign up for something I will be using a payment method I have more control over.

the account was closed!! :drinkup