Most of last year, mohea.com was hosted by hostit365.com. I always had fairly good success with them. Their customer service department was very responsive, but I eventually switched to another company because of some additional capabilities that they offered that hostit365 did not.
So, on January 2, I put in a request to cancel my account. They sent a note back asking if there was anything else they could do to change my mind, which I forgot to reply to. On January 5, we were billed the normal monthly charge. I didn't think too much about it -- I understand that recurring transactions like that have some lead time, and assumed that I must have just gotten in a bit too late. On January 7, I sent a note back saying that no, there wasn't anything they could do; I just wanted the service canceled.
On February 5, we were billed again. I sent a note back saying, "I canceled this service on January 2. This is the second time I've been billed since the cancellation. Please cancel this charge." The reply came swiftly: "Did you receive a confirmation of your cancellation? I am looking into
this, and you will of course be refunded. Apologies." I replied, copying the email exchange of early January, and didn't hear anything back.
I never remembered to go make sure the refund showed up on my credit card.
Today is March 5. Can you see where this is going yet? I got another email saying that we'd been billed again. I wrote back saying that this was ridiculous and they had until the end of today to fix it or I was just going to call my credit card company and let them fix it. The reply:
"We had never received a confirmation or reply from you, which is why this issue was unfortunately left to hang. I apologize for the inconvenience, and I am looking into it."
Oh, I see. It's my fault. I wrote back again, explaining that my view, ah, differed. The quick reply: "... if you could please just email me the first six and last six digits of your credit card, full name on your card, domain, login and password I will make sure your account is cancelled right now and you are refunded in full for those months."
My credit card number has only fifteen digits. I'm not about to email twelve of those in the clear. This is absurd.
Think it'll ever end?
Grrr....
I feel your pain. I'm somewhat of a customer disservice junkie. (i was actually doing research from an upcoming book, and I stumbled upon your blog.) i just published a book titled "Service this: Winning the war against Customer Disservice." It's all about giving frustrated, abused consumers the tips and info they need to fight bad customer service once and for all. web hosting companies are the hardest lot to deal with in my experience. the good news is that your credit card company is responsible for protecting you from fraudulent charges, and that's exactly what's happening to you. consider talking to your credit card company and telling them that you've cancelled the service but are still being billed for it...let them do the dirty work for you! best of luck...
adam
author
www.lastchapterfirst.com