This is a continuation from Why Webhosting.uk.com Sucks – Part 1

In this post I will be discussing and reviewing my biggest grievance with Webhosting UK Com Ltd.

When it came to cancelling my services with them I put in a request to cancel it and expected to have the remaining time (25 days out of 30 which had been pre-paid) to be refunded on a prorated basis. As per their terms of service.

Their terms state:

Refund requests after 30 days will be refunded on a prorated basis of any unused time.

 

I thoroughly checked terms and there is NO limitation on VPS services or any other clause. So I expected that I would have been able to get the remaining time refunded with no problem, particularly considering I was leaving due to their poor service.

However this ended up turning into a lengthy dispute with the company, directly with Jenna Strong (Company Sectary) and John Strong (Managing Director).

They argue that they only provide refunds on a monthly basis, and because I didn’t have a full month remaining I couldn’t get it refunded. This seemed very unfair and a break of the terms which I agreed to, and which was a key reason to why I initially signed up.

After numerous tickets back and forth with Jenna, I emailed John Strong the MD in an attempt for someone to recognise the error in judgement on their part, his response:

Hello Dan,
Thank you for your e-mail.
I was already aware of this matter and it was me who informed Jenna when this was brought up.
Our packages are sold on a monthly, semi-annually and annual basis. We don’t sell packages on a daily or weekly basis and we therefore don’t issue refunds for unused weeks or days. We don’t classify weeks or days as an unused period and we never have done. We apply the same policy to all customers and I’m unaware of any other previous complaints. Webhosting UK COM Ltd is one of the most flexible webhosting companies when it comes to terms and conditions, particularly refunds. We offer an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee within the first 30 days of purchase on all plans other than Dedicated Servers. If a customer has paid on an annual basis for any hosting plan, we will always refund the remaining months should a customer request to cancel.
To be perfectly honest, I think you are being very unreasonable. However, should you wish to forward your complaint and our subsequent communication to Trading Standards, you may feel free to do so. I’m very satisfied that our Terms & Conditions are amongst the fairest in the industry and I don’t feel the need to change our policy or make a special exception for you.
Kind Regards,
John Strong
Managing Director
Webhosting UK COM Ltd

I naturally responded to this pointing out the issues with the stance, such as the fact that there is NO limitations mentioned on the website or Terms of the monthly clause, and that the recognised business & legal definition of pro-rated is normally by day, not month unless otherwise stated (which is wasn’t).

It is also worth noting that the Bodhost Terms state VERY clearly the monthly limitation which they are also applying to Webhosting UK – which kind of disputes the fact the webhosting uk terms are satisfactory don’t you think? Why make it clear on one but not the other?

I also made an enquiry with Consumer Direct (Part of the Office of Fair Trading) who after reviewing my complaint & webhosting UK Com Ltd’s terms of service concluded:

Having viewed the companies website it does appear that they should offer a refund for any unused time according to section 8.1 of their terms of service.

The complaint was also forwarded to Trading Standards for their own information & investigative purposes. It should also be noted that it was advised if direct communication with them was unsuccessful in reaching a resolution (which it obviously wasn’t) I can take the issue to court, where I would likely win.

Unfortunately as satisfying it would be to take a dishonest company such as Webhosting UK Com Ltd to court, it is currently not worth the time and costs. After all, I do have a honest business to run…

Please take this as a warning, anyone looking to use Webhosting UK Ltd should be aware of the dishonest ways they do business. A company which cannot honour their terms of service, provide decent, honest support is not someone worth spending your hard earned time and money on.

I am not a fan of mindlessly bashing companies, but as those who have known me for more than a few minutes will know I can rant. A lot. And when it comes to companies or people not playing fair, or providing abysmal service it really winds me up.

Because of this I have decided to share my bad experiences and provide an honest review of the service I have received to hopefully provide an insight into how they treat their customers, this is not trolling. It is fact and backed up by chat logs and personal experience.

Part 1: Why Webhosting.uk.com is a dishonest company.

Over my time of using Webhosting.uk.com services I noticed many similarities between themselves and other (supposedly) separate companies, such as Eukhost, Bodhost and others.

This became particularly obvious when I noticed IP addresses & cPanel licenses were actually registered to Eukhost not Webhosting UK. When I initially questioned this it was said that they companies were separate, and have separate ownership but had a working relationship – yea, right.

I then noticed a few months back that my payments instead of going to Webhosting UK Com Ltd on PayPal were now being directed to Bodhost. This was obviously a little concerning and I decided to query this using the live chat facility on Webhosting.uk.com’s website.

Chat Log:
Austin: Hello Dan.
Austin: How may I assist you today ?
Dan: Hi, just querying, why are my subscription payments showing “bodhost” as the recipient ?

- Long period of no response -
Dan: Hello?
Austin: Can you please let me know your primary domain name or the email address with which you have registered with us, as per our billing records?
Dan: my@email.addr
Dan: i have a VPS
Austin: We have no account with email address my@email.addr
Dan: Well you do.
Dan: And you have had for years now.
Austin: Our record shows that there is no account with email address (my@email.addr) in our bodhost system.
Dan: Well yes, because Its with Webhosting uk.
Austin: Webhosting.uk has nothing to do with Bodhost
Dan: If you read what I first said I was querying why my WebHosting UK invoice paid via Paypal subscription was addressed to bodhost…
Dan: Well, obviously not, as if they had nothing to do with it you wouldnt have just checked the bodhost system on a Webhosting uk chat.
Austin: I request you to send in an email to us at billing@bodhost.com. We will have to check this with our Senior Admin.
Austin: As I am new to this firm.
Dan: I opened this sales chat from WebHosting.uk.com. If a group of companies is going to share live chat, it is probably advisable that you keep track of which company you are supposed to be working for when you then deny that you are connected.
Dan: Also, unless there are more than one Austin’s I spoken with you well over a year ago.

This is one of many examples of support ops providing details of other companies (such as telling me to email support@eukhost.com) and then denying any connection between them when questioned.

Now just to be clear, I have no problem with companies which own and operate under different brand names, many do it perfectly well and it’s a perfectly viable business strategy. What I object to is being lied to, and the dishonesty in the company which YOU are paying your hard earned money to can’t be honest with you.

Also note that John Strong is the Managing Director of BOTH Webhosting UK Com Ltd AND Bodhost Ltd, both companies also share directors – including Jenna Strong.

There is no doubt that (at the least) Webhosting UK Com Ltd and Bodhost Ltd are owned and operated by the same people, share the same support staff, PayPal and their “offices” are within walking distance – one of which appears to be a rent-a-desk job, likely purely for the separate mailing address. All to enable them to deny the connection?

Does this sound like people you should trust with your money?

So I decided I simply HAVE to do some work, as seem to have an infinite number of deadlines and all seem to be approaching like a heard of angry coyotes.

My solution? Starbucks. I love nothing more than laptop and a Tall filtered coffee with unlimited refills, nothing better right?… Well no. Today I am sat in Starbucks in Swindon and all I can think about isn’t the work I should be doing but how much I am irritated by the situation.  It’s pretty close to my idea of hell, at least when I want to get some work done.

We have crying babies, odd guys rambling off who seem to be intoxicated, gossiping woman, sticky dirty tables, and in places an inch of left over food on the floor. This isn’t my idea of a good work environment and to add insult to injury? The coffee isn’t even that good. It tastes nice and then when I get to those last delicious mouthfuls I choke as there is a load of coffee beans in the bottom. It’s called FILTERED coffee for a reason Starbucks, you are supposed to FILTER it.

Sigh, ok enough ranting… I need to try and get some work done.

As they were offering .EU domains for around £1.20 I thought I would grab a few and grab myself a bargain, however I soon ran into problems when I tried to update the contact information for the domains.

As you can see below, for the technical contact on a .EU domain it clearly states that users need to contact support in order to have the Company/Organisation field for the Technical Contact changed.

So, I did as told and opened a ticket with 123-reg to have the detail changed… which they flat out refused to do – Read their reply below.

My Initial Message:

Please change the company on the technical contact from “Webfusion Ltd” to “XDnet Web Services” for the domain xdnet.eu

Thanks,
Dan

123-Reg Support Reply:

Dear Dan,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 01st April 2010.
The technical contact cannot be changed. This information will remain as it is on the domain as we are the technical contact of the domain if you have registered the domain with 123-reg.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Farhan
123-reg

My Second Reply:

123-reg and/or WebFusion Ltd is NOT the technical contact for my domain. You are the registrar.

I work in web hosting, I am my self a domain reseller and I know how the who is works. Please don’t BS me.

Your own system states that “* For .eu domains, please contact 123-reg support if you need to change the Company Name.” you also have support articles stating the same.

As I am the owner of the domain, and you are the registrar it is your responsibility to update the who is with the information the owner (that’s me) requires.

Please do so.

Regards,
Dan Rodgers
XDnet Web Services

123-reg support Second Reply:

Dear Dan,

Thank you for contacting 123-reg on the 01st April 2010.

I can confirm we can change the ownership details for the domain, however not the technical information unfortunately.

If we can be of any further help with regard to this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards

Faiza
123-reg

Now as you might imagine, while yes the technical contact company is only a small detail, I still found it unacceptable that 123-reg was actively choosing to deny a simple request which I am more than entitled to do as owner of the domain.

I decided I wouldn’t let it rest, so persisted. And it worked.

I thought I would give 123-reg the benefit of the doubt, and thought that perhaps there might be some kind of limitation for changing the Technical Contact Company, so I went straight to the source and contacted the dot EU registry (eurid.eu) which stated:

EURids accredited registrars should be able to make changes under
registrant technical contacts and this can be done without any fees from
EURid.

So, after I established that this wasn’t the Registry, this left one link in the chain to contact – Tucows which is the real registrar behind 123-reg (123-reg are a mere reseller of Tucows).

After a couple of emails to Tucows they went through proceedure of contacting 123-reg about it and requesting the login details for my domain to the central OpenSRS management system. After no response and 123-reg still not replying to my support ticket asking for the login Tucows forced it and sent me the login details themselves.

Which provide me full management of my domain, direct with the registrar! Win!

I decided I would share this little story, both to share my anger at 123-reg’s lack of co-operation in the matter and also to hopefully show other users who may be facing the same problem with 123-reg and their .eu domains a way to have the details on the domains THEY own correct for the owners.

I would also strongly encourage people facing this problems to get in contact with the Tucows Compliance department on compliance [at] opensrs.org who can hopefully help you resolve the problem and eventually gain full management over your domain. Please also drop a comment below as I would love to hear from others facing this problem.

Okay, i love my music, cant live without it… now more i work at the radio station more you can apprieciate a good flow with music…

Anyway was playing with my Windows Media Player settings and decided to turn on the Crossfading so now it should smoothly fade into the next song (set to 2 Seconds) but no, my computer which i point out isnt that bad compared to the average cant do it.

Its like theres a drunk presenter… the sound kind of wobbles, and dips for the cross over and its ALL WRONG… Just doing my head in. Just turned it off…

Also starting doing a bit more to the book

Dan