ABSOLUTE DISGRACE!!! Lost my Domain...again!

[ledeanio]

Well, where do I start?

I received an email from EUKHost in October for an invoice of 0.00. I then thought this was a test, thus filed it and carried on as normal. I then log on today wondering where my emails are and receive a page which is advertising a search engine.

After talking to the incredibly unhelpful staff who says that 'No mistake has been made', they then say that I'm stuffed unless I pay the £6 domain registration fee. No normally I dont mind paying this, but every year they have messed up and every year (well the last two) I've suffered and asked for the package and the domain registration to be merged. But no.....thats too complicated for EUKHost.

So they will not help me at all apart from generate an invoice for £6. I cant move as EUKHost have me over a barrel.

This is the last straw eukhost!! I will be moving my website away from this shoddy excuse of a host to someone that has a clue about what customer service is about.

Enjoy your six pounds as it has cost you more dearly than that, trust me!

I didnt even get an apology about this, which is disgraceful. So treat this email as a heads up if you are thinking of joining up.

Shame on you EUKHost - you used to be good when I first signed up (x years ago now....seems like a lifetime).

Yours Disgruntfully,
Dean Richardson
(Owner of DeanRichardson.com - when its up)

[flesso]

You have to ensure that you renew your domain each year, and if this is a problem then you need to pay for a longer registration period. As eUK don't store your credit card information, it isn't up to them to automatically renew your domain.

[ledeanio]

Originally Posted by flesso

You have to ensure that you renew your domain each year, and if this is a problem then you need to pay for a longer registration period. As eUK don't store your credit card information, it isn't up to them to automatically renew your domain.

I appreciate this, but it would be nice if they sent proper invoices, rather than one for 0.00. Nearly every other host does this, why cant EUKHost?

Ive now paid this, wonder how long I will have to wait until I get my emails (if they havent been lost) and my Domain back online.

Ho Hum, will be counting down the days before I switch (when i can switch).

[Karen P]

We apologise for the inconvenience caused. We have renewed your domain name deanrichardson.com. Your emails and site will be working fine within the next 4-6 hours.

[ledeanio]

Well its back up now thanks. In terms of response, you guys are quite quick, but mistakes like sending out dodgy invoices and bad customer service over the phone continue to plague what is otherwise a perfectly sound host.

Unfortunately when the renewal is up next year, I will have to switch to another host as my confidence in EUKHost has been shaken to a point of no return and I cannot risk my site going down when I launch my new business later next year.

But thanks for getting the site back up quickly though. (And for the 1st Apology I have received from EUKHost).

Cheers,
Dean

[DPS Computing]

Well I can see that your website has come back online again and am sad to hear of your unpleasent experience.

However, from my experience, eUKhost do send out several reminders when a domain is going to expire. On a domain I renewed a little time ago the billing system issued me no fewer than 3 reminders that the domain was set to expire.

Hope that helps .

[ledeanio]

Originally Posted by DPS Computing

Well I can see that your website has come back online again and am sad to hear of your unpleasent experience.

However, from my experience, eUKhost do send out several reminders when a domain is going to expire. On a domain I renewed a little time ago the billing system issued me no fewer than 3 reminders that the domain was set to expire.

Hope that helps .

Yeah, thats what I thought happened. I usually get 2 or 3 reminders. All I got was an invoice for 0.00 and then an invoice paid email. I assumed that they were upgrading their billing system again. That'll teach me.

Though I have now put all renewals on my calendar so that Im not reliant on 'automated' billing systems. It was very embarrasing when I got a call from a potential business partner asking if I paid my hosting bill. It didnt look very good on my part.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by ledeanio

Yeah, thats what I thought happened. I usually get 2 or 3 reminders. All I got was an invoice for 0.00 and then an invoice paid email. I assumed that they were upgrading their billing system again. That'll teach me.

Though I have now put all renewals on my calendar so that Im not reliant on 'automated' billing systems. It was very embarrasing when I got a call from a potential business partner asking if I paid my hosting bill. It didnt look very good on my part.

I can understand where you are coming from. Although I cannot comment on your specific situation I would have expected that the reminder e-mails would have been attempted to send out by the system. Is your contact e-mail in the billing area up to date and is that the e-mail that you have been checking for the reminders? .

[Brian]

Many customers (like myself) domains and hosting were started at different times and need to be renewed separately. I have also looked at the Domain and Hosting as two separate products myself also which need to be billed as separate products.

[Karen P]

Hello Dean,

Just to be doubly sure, I have asked our in-house programmer to go through the invoice codes and see if there is something we can do about this. Otherwise, it can only be classified as a WHMCS bug. We still regret the inconvenience caused on account of this incident. I can assure you about not having to deal with such a situation ever again. While your confidence may be shaken which is understandable, I would still request you to repose your trust and belief.

[Freddy Foster]

Hi Dean,

Firstly, I do apologise for the inconvenience caused due to Billing bug. Yes, I agree with Karen. We have rectified few bugs in last couple of days and still working on it. I'm sure you will have a great time with eUKhost once we gained your faith on Billing Department as well.

[DPS Computing]

Originally Posted by Brian

Many customers (like myself) domains and hosting were started at different times and need to be renewed separately. I have also looked at the Domain and Hosting as two separate products myself also which need to be billed as separate products.

Yer I agree. Otherwise if you ever wanted to not renew either the domain or the hosting you would find it impossible as it would all be included in the same bill.

[eUKhost.com]

Hi Dean,

Your cPanel copper hosting plan gets renewed in the month of July every year and domain renewal date is on 5th November. Our billing staff had set your domain renewal date on same day as that of your hosting renewal date when you asked them to do so last year, but we changed our billing system in the month of May this year and we had synchronized domain renewal dates to their actual renewal dates obtained from ICANN registry.

This domain renewal date synchronization script modified your domain's renewal date and it was set to 5th November 2008. Domain renewal invoice of £6 was sent to you on 19th October 2008, but that invoice was not paid on time and your domain expired on 5th November 2008.

I have made necessary changes in our billing system and added 4 months grace period to your cpanel copper hosting plan. Your cpanel copper hosting plan is now set to renew on 5th November 2009 alongwith the domain name.

I hope you won't consider moving away from eUKhost as this was a rare case which could not be avoided.

[DPS Computing]

Hope that is satisfactory for your Dean . Its unfortunate the problem has happened but it does mean you effectively have 4 months free hosting which can't be too bad.

Hope you decide to stay on as a customer and active forum member .

[ledeanio]

Hello,

I very much appreciate this. I understand now what the problem was and can see that it was a one off. Thanks for syncronising the two together as this does make it much more manageable.

Im happy to stay with EUKHost as the response I have received to this post shows that you guys do care and this is just a one off. I was originally surprised this had happened, as EUKHost are normally on the ball.

This is quite a critical time for me as I am in the middle of re-designing my site from a personal site to a business website which will be used to launch a series of online EPOS systems which I will be needing hosting for in the near future, which is why I was very concerned at this as I normally use the same host for everything.

Thanks again for your responses,
Dean

[Freddy Foster]

Hi Dean,

That sounds great

[jc8654]

It's always irritating when two useful tools collide and create issues. WHMCS and the syncing tool are great things for normal use but this time it seems as if they worked against each other! At least it's sorted now though.