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Moving On...

thiswebhost.com

51–60 of 117 posts

Re: Moving On...

#51

"I would like to remind people that contacting us with abusive e-mail messages is in fact illegal and we will be taking the appropriate steps to forward these messages and information gathered to both the relevant ISP’s and law enforcement agencies." So criticism is still not tolerated it sounds to me that these guys still dont get it.

Criticism is one thing, death-threats and hate mail are something entirely different.

Re: Moving On...

#52

As the Co-founder of a statup that has dealt directly with situations like this in the past, I don't see much wrong with how the situation was handled. You wouldn't expect a restaurant owner to put up with a rude and insulting customer being a dick to restaurant staff, so why should any other service have to put up with it? Some customers just aren't worth the hassle they put out PERIOD. I don't give a shit if you're…

This seems to be one of those stories which has mutated.

In the original account, the poster says they inquired about a problem, had their account terminated, and then flipped out.

Almost every commenter on HN seems to assume that the account termination happened after the flip-out, but from what I can tell that isn't correct?

Re: Moving On...

#54

As the Co-founder of a statup that has dealt directly with situations like this in the past, I don't see much wrong with how the situation was handled. You wouldn't expect a restaurant owner to put up with a rude and insulting customer being a dick to restaurant staff, so why should any other service have to put up with it? Some customers just aren't worth the hassle they put out PERIOD. I don't give a shit if you're…

They had ample opportunity to be the bigger men, but failed to do so at every step.

By all means, terminate troublesome customers, with whatever advance notice you're comfortable / obligated to give them. Remain courteous and professional no matter what they throw at you.

DON'T get in shouting matches with your (ex-)customers over the Internet, or take vindictive measures. It can't be worth it.

Re: Moving On...

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason. I'll agree with that, but with qualifications. Certainly you don't just cut off somebody's service. But there are pathological clients who aren't worth keeping on…

I understand 100%, as I'm a small shop and I turn away bad clients all the time. But if you're not going to provide the service, you return the money, and you _definately don't delete the backups_! What This* did is terminate the account, pocket the money, and delete the backups. Not only is that unprofessional, it's _illegal_. If it weren't it would give a legal defense to every person charged with fraud ("we just d…

I don't see it stated anywhere that they kept the money. Based upon the fact that a paypal dispute was behind the entire situation, it is very likely the customer simply filed a paypal dispute because he didn't agree with something that happened rather than outright asking for a refund.

As a company that has provided paypal support for products in the past, disputes can be a massive headache and there are certain customers that use the process to their advantage (i.e. using a service for 30 days then filing a paypal dispute claiming the service was broken etc.)

Re: Moving On...

#56

1. Are there seriously smiley faces in this serious post defending your company? 2. From what I can understand, they suspended multiple accounts, one of which was paid in full. The paid in full account's owner cursed out the company on twitter. I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't bei…

I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason. If I have a Rackspace account, I can go into twitter and say "Rackspace fucking sucks, everyone who works there can go fuck themselves," and there's no chance in hell my account would be canceled. The idea that they are still defending this action is unbelievable.

You are way off base on this point.

Any company can refuse service to an individual for any non discriminatory circumstance. A company can't refuse your business because your race, ethnicity, age or sex or any other determination of discrimination by law but they certainly don't have to do business with you if you're a dick (Pardon my language). If you want to badmouth a company's service or product that you are currently using they certainly can choose to let (force) you to take your business elsewhere (closing your account). You may be entitled to a refund matching the remaining duration on your account, maybe--but as a company they don't have to put up with you forever just because you gave them some money.

Now, I'm not defending This*'s customer service or actions, I'm simply pointing out a blatantly false presupposition you are making.

Re: Moving On...

#57

This blog post was preceded by a different post by Jules. That post was deleted and this post by Doug took it's place instead. Here's the google cache link of the deleted post: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=ca... Content of the deleted post: The Reddit Incident POSTED BY Jules ON August 16, 2011 AT 4:45 pm UNDER Uncategorized I’m sure you may have heard about it by now, and if not I’m sure you…

Oh man, I hope everyone reading this understands the consequence of putting a person who doesn't understand public relations or customer service, into a position such as customer service.

Re: Moving On...

#58
post #48
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree here. Nobody owes the world comments, and most particularly they do not owe the Reddit hivemind the opportunity for a good one-minute hate.

I agree that nobody owes the world comments but the point of a conciliatory blog post is to make people stop hating you. If they're still hating you to the point where you've had to turn off comments then your post isn't doing its job properly. (I also agree with your earlier post that if you're selling web hosting for $3/month you'll have to deal with quite a few difficult customers. Often the people who pay the lea…

What happens if the haters aren't interested in conciliation?

Re: Moving On...

#59

This blog post was preceded by a different post by Jules. That post was deleted and this post by Doug took it's place instead. Here's the google cache link of the deleted post: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=ca... Content of the deleted post: The Reddit Incident POSTED BY Jules ON August 16, 2011 AT 4:45 pm UNDER Uncategorized I’m sure you may have heard about it by now, and if not I’m sure you…

Direct enough. I know never to use their service. Thanks for the heads up.

Re: Moving On...

#60

1. Are there seriously smiley faces in this serious post defending your company? 2. From what I can understand, they suspended multiple accounts, one of which was paid in full. The paid in full account's owner cursed out the company on twitter. I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't bei…

I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason. If I have a Rackspace account, I can go into twitter and say "Rackspace fucking sucks, everyone who works there can go fuck themselves," and there's no chance in he…

You're making a statement about the law. I don't think the comment you're replying to was. "Can" is not identical to "may legally." A more reasonable reading of the parent would be "You can't cancel valid accounts and maintain any kind of credibility."
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