Fat Cow? Over Before I've Begun

[purple]

So my year of hosting with nixism was up and being fed up with being blamed for their shortcomings I had picked out a new host based on relative offerings and prices (and maybe a bit because its cute marketing). So I sat down the week before my term was up to order me up a new plan and renew my domains. My bank apparently updated my new address, having moved in June, so I had to manually input the billing address compared to the mailing.

Which automatically added back on about $20 in junk I didn't need which I had unticked previously. So when the pre-auth went through for more than I thought it should have I backed up in Firefox and realized the issue. Called up support and after a bit of info they tell me the account was automatically declined and I won't actually be charged!?! :uhh:

No apology for the issue or the fact that even had I wanted to try again I was out the preauth for up to 72hrs. Seriously. I thanked the CS agent and hung up and picked up a month of deluxe hosting through godaddy when I renewed the domains to give me some time.

Then their followup call came in yesterday. Still no real apology and only asked what they could do to make it right. I was shocked. A sincere apology for causing me financial stress and an offer of a couple bucks off would have been nice. But nope, just are you happy with the outcome. I told them thanks, but not really and obviously you don't care to make me concessions to try again. The CS rep thanked me and told me to have a great night.

Seriously, I know I'm just one person with a couple tiny sites, but doesn't losing a customer before they even finished signing up matter anymore? Especially when said customer can go and flap their fingers on the internet and broadcast their disapproval to the world?

 

[csn-uk]

I think the issue or more importantly one of the issues with larger providers is that most of them tend to work or live off the fact they can sign up an appropriate number of new customers to overcome those moving between providers. That is with the correct marketing; I’m yet to find a support department after trailing a number of other providers that have paid me as much attention as say my home internet provider, although there are a few exceptions.

I’m surprised that they did not directly apologise however, though as said I’m of the impression that due to their marketing and client flow someone posting on a forum where very few of the newer to the industry tend to firstly look will not dent their market greatly. However those looking for a second time around or researching the market will think again.

Always seems the case, if you buy the latest pc without first researching you’ll always wish you bought the other one on offer, exactly the same in any industry.

 

[purple]

Unfortunately I always wish I bought something else, even after oodles of research. I like to second guess myself.

When it comes to hosting I still know so little it compounds the issues, lol.

And they apologized, as much as just saying the words "I'm sorry" counts. I never even got an answer as to why the account was canceled within 5 mins of being created so that if I wanted to try again I could have it go through properly...

 

[rumsfo]

Maybe that just worth to try again and this time work together on the same issue with their web hosting provider's billing dept?

 

[ldcdc]

Maybe it's all for the better. Fatcow is slow. Slower even than... Godaddy. At least based on my experience.

 

[theedgehosting]

It sounds like they're bottom line driven and not customer driven, which isn't how it should be, but sadly, most of the bigger ones tend to be like that.

 

[MalcomR]

Smaller hosts that dont force you to pay yearly and offer realistic resources are your best bet. I loath the practices of many large hosting companies, from piling on needless addons to promising unlimited and other sleazy marketing tactics (FatCow's "on sale now" $66/year "promotion" seems to be going forever).

 

[neil.studyhost]

Which automatically added back on about $20 in junk I didn't need which I had unticked previously. So when the pre-auth went through for more than I thought it should have I backed up in Firefox and realized the issue. Called up support and after a bit of info they tell me the account was automatically declined and I won't actually be charged!?!

Are you accusing fatcow of not apologising for you failing to check what was in your shopping basket and not unticking order boxes?

When hosts are bad, yes I agree with bad reports that worn others, but sometimes it is the customer makes a mistake, yes the company needs to try and answer any issues and work to solve them.

 

[Blue]

I think the complaint is that when he made a change in the ordering procedure it added on all of the extras again and he had to go through the process of getting them removed. Then he found out the entire order was void without explanation.

 

[neil.studyhost]

I took it to mean, that he order hosting a year ago, went to renew and went through the sign up stage again manually again to add the new address, which naturally would have everything ticked again?

Yes I don't agree with such systems, I've ordered domains before from 123-reg and its a pain when you are buying one domain you have to delete 5 domains that shouldn't be there.

 

[SenseiSteve]

This brings up one of my pet peeves and that's boxes for options that are checked by default. It's always best to confirm everything that you've agreed to purchase before clicking that OK button.

 

[purple]

I took it to mean, that he order hosting a year ago, went to renew and went through the sign up stage again manually again to add the new address, which naturally would have everything ticked again?

Yes I don't agree with such systems, I've ordered domains before from 123-reg and its a pain when you are buying one domain you have to delete 5 domains that shouldn't be there.

I'm a "she" at least last I checked.....

And I was not renewing (nixism couldn't keep me if they paid me to stay) so I was looking for a new host after my first year's experience. I tried to put the order through, was told the address showing on my bank account (despite matching the online records I was checking against) was not correct, so I had to enter my billing address as something different than my mailing which is when it decided to recheck boxes, despite looking like it simply opened up a closed subsection.

When I called to have them simply remove the added features I would never use nor need (which is my fault for not double checking as much as theirs for making it reload the page without reloading, its a secure form after all) I was told I had no account, nor hosting because the order was auto-canceled. Thanks, try again, anything else?

Since hypothetically I ordered just fine, albeit more than I wanted, there should be no reason it was canceled. So trying again would only hold another $60+ of my cash for up to 72 hours.

A couple months ago it was actually $58 for the year plan at Fatcow, I was upset it had gone up. When I exited the livechat I was given a $46 a year offer though through their silly save-a-sale software.

If its slower than godaddy I might just have to run in the other direction. Godaddy is ok for overpaying for a small website with only a small following, but once you seem to generate some traffic it goes to heck. On the user end at least, I rarely played with the Lodge's backside for the site.

But either way. its irrelevant as I won't be ordering from them. I've grown bitter in my old age and I can make my own cute vector animals...I don't need to pay for the privilege of my host, lol.

 

[neil.studyhost]

LOL - sounds complicated.


Its one thing I am attempting to develop with my own system and site and make everything as straightforward, clear and plain as possible, its a balancing act between too much information and service and too little.

 

[Zendevi]

Sorry to hear about the bad experience; I have no personal experience with FatCow but have read good things about some of their practices. It's unfortunate to hear that the billing department isn't so impressive.

 

[innostorm]

Smaller hosts try a lot harder to keep you because they need you unlike, bluehost, godaddy, etc. One customer means nothing to them when they carry the majority of the market share with them. The small guys for the most part will treat you right

 

[Zendevi]

Smaller hosts try a lot harder to keep you because they need you unlike, bluehost, godaddy, etc. One customer means nothing to them when they carry the majority of the market share with them. The small guys for the most part will treat you right

The fact remains though that treating even the "lowest" of your customers badly, whether you're a big host or a tiny host, often results in well-indexed threads like this one serving as a deterrent to future prospective buyers who Google for reviews of the company.

 

[csn-uk]

often results in well-indexed threads like this one serving as a deterrent to future prospective buyers who Google for reviews of the company.

Often however due to many of these “Fraudulent” to a lesser meaning of the word review sites swamp the results pages of most search engines as they are supported and often created by the larger hosts as well as their other methods of self promotion and advertisement.

Though those more technically minded or who have been bitten by this scenartio often look harder and in that case they tend to find a host that will fit their needs without the headache involved with larger hosts.

 

[redrunner]

That just goes to show you how important customer service is!! It wouldn't have taken much effort on their part to keep your business and they blew it! And I agree with others FatCow is pretty slow.