Okay, this is mostly a personal rant, dissatisfaction over the poor service I’ve been getting from my web host. You may just want to skip down to the next entry, but if you like hearing people complain, then read on.

I have been sending people to a web host called Myacen.com, an Aussie web host. When recommending them, I have always cut them quite a bit of slack as I figure that every web host has their warts, and they have fair uptime. But I just got pushed over the edge.

I asked them last month about canceling one of my accounts, asking them specifically about how things would take place, with what timing. I mentioned that their billing site showed my account’s renewal date to be June 17th, and asked them to confirm this. Their answer was, “Cancellations apply immediately, once we receive the request you authorize us to remove the content.”

This brought up another problem I have always had with Myacen, one which I had put up with until now: their frustratingly vague answers via customer support (commonly called the “help desk” in the business). They did not answer many of my questions, particularly the one I asked them about when I would have to cancel in the billing cycle, and for them to confirm the date–just “cancellations apply immediately.” Since previous attempts to drag more specific information out of them usually failed, I simply took them at their most reasonably applied meaning–when I cancel the account, service will terminate immediately. Naturally, since they should not bill me for time I didn’t use, I presumed that I would be held accountable only for the services I did use; that I would be accountable for the time I had already paid for–as shown on their site–and not for anything more.

Well, I got kinda screwed on that one. It turns out that, according to them, because of billing problems–which were mostly Myacen’s fault–they had a discrepancy in what they showed and what they legally held me to. Their site informed me I was good until the 17th, but when I asked today, they said, “Because you had many overdue invoices in the first half of 2003 your renewal date varied on payments from the one when initally you started this account.” In other words, it’s all your fault, mate–we won’t be responsible for what we tell you. We just billed you for the 7th, despite our site saying you were good till the 17th.

As for the overdue invoices, this was due primarily to Myacen’s screwed-up billing system. When I signed up for them first in August 2002, they claimed that an automated billing system was coming up right away, meanwhile use our monthly billing system. Unfortunately, that was a messy, confusing jumble of different web pages that had to be navigated each month, and often gave conflicting information–for example, their system told me that my account had expired despite my having just paid; another time, there was an indication that I had been charged and that payment had been made when I hadn’t paid yet.

Not surprisingly, I started getting messages like this:

It has come to our attention that some customers have not been paying their bills. In an effort to make the task easier we have pro-rated all users accounts to the first of each month. Please remember you must pay manually on the first of each month.

Clearly I was not the only one being messed with. And then this:

As many of you know we have had quite a drama this month with client’s payments. With Worldpay out of action due to our billing script problems we asked users to pay via 2checkout for the time being. In 50% of cases this worked great however a large number of clients could not pay due to their cards being denied by 2checkout.

Then I would get frequent notices like this:

Due to a billing problem this month next months invoices have been generated today. If you are already on recurring payments you are not required to make any payments. However if you are yet to pay this month and your invoice is usally generated around the 1st of each month you will need to pay using the futurepay recurring feature.

And then I got emails which read, “This email is to notify you that you currently have outstanding balance with us,” but then below that it would read, “Outstanding Balance: none.” Naturally, I had problems paying my bills.

And now they’re telling me I missed the cancellation because the dates they display in my billing account are wrong because I had overdue invoices a year and a half ago?? When I asked them to tell me the correct information and they failed to do so, and gave me misleading information to boot?

Not only that, but I was also made to believe that I had to pay for my site through July even if I made the cancellation immediately. They told me belatedly that the fine print says I have to give 15 day’s notice before the billing date to cancel an account. The billing date turned out to be on the 7th of the month, even though their site said the 17th (“your invoices were late in early 2003! Your fault!). So I was led to believe that I would cancel immediately–and my files would be erased immediately–but I would have to pay for an additional 25 days (15 days’ notice plus 10 days’ discrepancy) that I did not receive service for.

Time for another revision; they informed me that I could specify my files to be deleted when the last paid day was reached, after I had cancelled. That went exactly against what they told me, that cancellations apply immediately, and that they would “remove the content” as soon as I gave the cancellation notice.

Not the first time recently they got things wrong; I had asked about changing a different web site–this blog site, specifically–from a base account to a higher-priced account with more bandwidth (I’ve been scraping the ceiling recently). They gave me wrong information about how that would work–they said my prior yearly payment would be pro-rated and applied as credit to a new monthly account charge–and then reversed themselves only after billing had been made. They suddenly and without explanation charged me $20, said they would hold me to the yearly account after having previously told me they absolutely would never do such a thing–then blamed it on “newly hired reps”. Another problem I’ll have to make sure gets untangled.

There have been other problems–the uncooperatively vague tech support, a several-month server switch that caused major interruptions in service, and the disabling of cgi scripts without any alternative solution offered–but as I said, I always cut them slack as I figured these are the vagaries of trying to keep a complicated service going. And I will say here and now that I have had far worse experiences–but their current attitude and unwillingness to be flexible in light of their clearly misleading communications, I’m getting out of here. In addition to canceling the account I had planned to cancel, I am taking this blog off their servers first chance I get–though I am paid up through September. And I will be going to all the people I sent their way, and will do what I can to persuade them to instead go to the new host I’ve found (Surpass) or any other host they feel is wise.

Needless to say, I do not recommend them any more.

Update: I just tried to cancel the account in question. Of course, their cancellation form doesn’t work and returns an error. It also leads you to cancel an account that has been prepaid for as much as a month in advance, and leaves no way to indicate you want access for the entire time you paid. Charming.