Major issues with billing

[chadness]

As background, last June I paid ahead for a year, so I was paid up through 6/23/07. In october, I decide to do the lifetime hosting, and go ahead and place the order. On 10/15/06, I'm told my payment has been accepted.

The morning of Monday, 11/20/06, I try to log in to my cPanel, and cannot connect. I'm busy, so I figure I'll worry about it later.

An hour later, I notice I can't log in to my email, either (in fact, all my web sites are completely down). Also, when I try to reset my cPanel password, I get an account suspended message. So, around 10:30 AM I open a ticket with the technical department (IPI-66414), letting them know about the error message when I reset my cPanel password (though I got the error message wrong at that point). I do get a reply from Peter, but it's asking me to reset the password, which I had already done. He also sent me the link to do so. I try again, and get the same message.

So, I send a couple of replies to the ticket (one via email, one via the ticket form) letting them know I tried again and giving them the exact message.

I hear nothing all day. When I'm eventually free, I call in the evening, around 9:15 PM. I'm told the tech who was working on it earlier (Peter) said that my credit card did a charge back. Of course, he never contacted me about thi or updated the ticket. This charge back doesn't seem right to me - I certainly didn't have any charge backs done. The tech tells me he can look in to it and call me back. i ask him how long, since I hadn't heard anything all day. After pressing him to commit to actually getting back to me, he says he'll make sure I hear something within an half hour.

After I get off the phone, I decide I should look in to this credit card problem. I check the statement, then I call American Express (it's the only card I ever use for any business purposes, including all of my Micfo invoices), and they never saw a charge, nor did they do a charge back.

Now remember, even if the lifetime was cancelled, I still was paid up until 6/23/07.

So, I wait an hour and a half before giving up hope of ever hearing back from Micfo, and call again. This time I decide to choose billing, since it sounds like this may be a billing issue. I go through the whole story with the person on the phone, who insists I did a charge back. I know I didn't. I have the billing person check my credit card number against the one they are using, and it isn't the same. Just in case, I give them my other credit card number. It's not that one either. What (and who's) number they are using I have no idea. So, at this point the person in the billing department tells me she can't do anything for me, and I'll have to go online to update my credit card information first. I'm insistent that they need to unsuspend me accounts NOW, but I guess it's too bad. I'm just the customer, she has a note that says she needs a senior technical person to do it, and it has to be done online.

Well, I don't want this $300 charged to me until I figure out what's going on (I've already paid though 6/23/07 anyways), and decide that I really want to commit a lifetime to these people who have so far been EXTREMELY unhelpful. Remember, at this point, I was suspended without being notified, despite having paid through June of next year. Some random person's credit card was used instead of mine. No one seems to want to contact me. Really, this is not giving me the confidence to make a lifetime commitment.

OK, so this person in billing won't help me, but says I can use the live chat. Reluctantly, I hang up with her and go to live chat.

So, then I go in to live chat with Stacy. They say I need to update the ticket with the correct credit card information. I don't want them to charge anything to me at this point, I want to hear an explanation of how this happened, how I know I won't have any future problems, and how they'll compensate me for my trouble and lost revenue from today. I also want an explanation of why no one has contacted me all day, aside from the initial reply asking me to do what I said I already did.

So, per Stacy's recommendation, I note that in the ticket. She tells me she'll have an admin update my ticket ASAP. I posted my info at 10:40 PM. At 11:15 PM I'm still waiting. Stacy again tells me she'll have an admin update my ticket.

At 12:30 AM, still nothing. I contact Stacy again, explaining once again that since I am paid up until 6/23/07, no matter what, there is no excuse for me to be suspended. Now, I'm told that the owner, Amir is being notified, and that I'll be reinstated immediately once he says it's OK. So I ask when that will be, and am told it will be when they get an update from him. I ask when he'll even see the message, hours, minute, days? No real answer, but i'm told it should be soon. At 1:15 AM, a post is made on my ticket again stating that they are waiting to hear from Amir, then will immediately unsuspend my account.

At 1:45 AM I give up - I need some sleep. I check again at 7:00 AM. Still no change.

So now it's close to a day. Not only am I losing revenue from the site being down, all of my customers get to see the suspended message, and who knows how much the search engines will be de-ranking me as well.

[chadness]

It's now 9:45 AM here. Still no updates. I've contacted Angelo via live support, but he just tells me the same things - the issue has been forwarded to the owner, Amir, and the ticket will be updated when they get any updates from him. And, no, I can't contact Amir.

[chadness]

You know, if Peter had contacted me when he figured out that there was a chargeback, and worked with me on it, I would have given him the correct credit card (mine!) and would have stuck with the lifetime package. Instead, he ignored me and just put a note on my account stating not to unsuspend me.

If the tech person who informed me of this had called me back within an half hour and tried to help me resolve this, I also would have stuck with the lifetime hosting.

If the person I called in billing had tried to work things out, we probably could have resolved things then.

Now, I'm at the point where I'm seriously reconsidering committing to a "lifetime" of this service. And, it's quickly moving to the point where I'm seriously reconsidering another day of this service. I could have moved my accounts to a different hosting service, uploaded them, and been back up by now. What is going on?! This is ridiculous. You would think problems being brought up to the owner would help to resolve a situation quickly. In fact, last night I was told it would be resolved quickly.

Now, all I've been told is that I can email lifetime@micfo.com. I'll give it a shot, though I don't know what this will improve for me.

Oh, and if anyone is reading this, the main domain account is technoadvice.com - you can browse the notes there, I hope.

[chadness]

Apparently, I have been elevated to the highest levels of being ignored. Still have not heard anything about Amir's decision. Instead, I have been on the support chat with Jason, since I got tired of waiting. After a good hour of explaining the situation to him again, he finally came back and said he could reactivate me on my old server. Great! I said.

But, then he said only if I pay them for the lifetime hosting. So, now they want me to pay for lifetime hosting, and not even get unsuspended. Instead, I get bumped back down to my old service, and have to wait for my sites to be transferred over. I'm not sure how much more ridiculous this situation can get.

Wow. I don't know what else I can say, but wow.

[chadness]

After a couple of hours of chatting with Jason, and being told 1) it was my fault for not checking my credit card statement to see that I hadn't been billed, and 2) that if I really cared about my sites I would have paid via Paypal, I finally have some good news. They are unsuspending my account while i wait to hear from the owner, Amir! Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

[Janner]

Originally Posted by chadness

Maybe there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

Personally, I would see this as an opportunity to download backups of all my sites, and get myself off to a new host.

Look upon this whole 'chargeback' saga as somebody giving you a second chance. I bet there are many others out there who wish they could get theor lifetime hosting payment back!

[Charles]

This is just crazy!! I don't understand why it took them sooooo long to unsuspend your account. Yes it is probably time for you to make backups and download them and look for another host.
grrrrrr

[chadness]

I got another message today from Nancy on the ticket:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting micfo.com

we appreciate your patience. As per our investigation we have found that, we received notification via Fax, client have paid and the money was debited from the bank account. You should credit $300 to the bank account. Your chargeback was filed.
Unfortunately, we are sorry to say that we havn't received the payment again, as soon as we receive the payment confirmation we will unsuspend your account.

Regards,

Uhhh, thanks, Nancy, glad you're up to speed on what's been going on.

I'm really curious about what Amir might say to me, or if I'll ever hear from him.

[coder]

Thanks Chadness for sharing news of your misadventure with us.

Realistically it looks like you have been lucky and can now escape lightly. This new blunder by billing allows you to cut your losses and run away to another host without too many regrets.

Others who have taken up the "lifetime" offer and had their accounts duly debited will try to stay here in the hope that things soon improve. I wish them luck.

It appears that at Micfo we are the subjects of an interesting social experiment: to see how long people will remain on a slowly sinking, rat-infested ship, when fed repeated promises of cruises to paradise and sold cheap "lifetime" tickets to first-class cabins.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by chadness

I got another message today from Nancy on the ticket:

Uhhh, thanks, Nancy, glad you're up to speed on what's been going on.

I'm really curious about what Amir might say to me, or if I'll ever hear from him.

Greetings chadness ,

I have asked Amir about your issue. He will be taking care of that .

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by coder

Thanks Chadness for sharing news of your misadventure with us.

Realistically it looks like you have been lucky and can now escape lightly. This new blunder by billing allows you to cut your losses and run away to another host without too many regrets.

Others who have taken up the "lifetime" offer and had their accounts duly debited will try to stay here in the hope that things soon improve. I wish them luck.

It appears that at Micfo we are the subjects of an interesting social experiment: to see how long people will remain on a slowly sinking, rat-infested ship, when fed repeated promises of cruises to paradise and sold cheap "lifetime" tickets to first-class cabins.

Greetings coder ,

Things are running on Track now. If you have any issue you can explore here.
We should get aware if anything goes wrong, so that we can Fix it. You can point out where we are lagging (if you think ) , i will definately make it smoother.

[mojojuju]

Ha ha.

Billing at Micfo is very unpredictable.

I remember a while back, I received a credit card charge for a domain renewal from Micfo. Now, in my user settings, I have all of my domains set so that they are not supposed to renew automatically.

Well, apparently, Micfo ignores that.

After stating my case on the phone, through email, and through chat, Micfo would not admit a problem with their billing system and refused to refund me for a domain that I did not want to renew.

Micfo, you guys need to get your proverbial shit together and be grateful that your remaining customers are as patient and forgiving enough to accept your follies.

[steven22]

Greeting

We take this as a complement Micfo has thousands of customer and dealing with one account is not a major issue for us all the customers are notified 1 month before the renewal date and also the invoice is generated 15 days prior to the renewal date. So I am sure that you were aware of your domain renewal and the invoice.