What would you do??

[brucanik]

I purchased web space from Aventure Host for over two years and was very satisfied with them. I paid $99(US dollars) per year with a subscription through paypal.

This year when it came time to renew I contacted Michael Kitchen at Aventure Host and told him there was no way I could afford it, so I would not be renewing. I forgot to notify PayPal to cancel my subscription, so on the renewal date they sent Aventure Host $99.

I contacted Michael to ask for a refund and his response was "I am afraid we can not refund any payments that have been sent to ourselves via a subscription payment as the subscription was intial set up by yourself and not by us therefore we would not have known there was a subscription in place until a payment came in via it."

I realize that it was my place to notify PayPal, but wouldn't most providers have refunded the money??

 

[Matthew]

From my understanding the seller also has the ability to cancel the subscription and refund too. Take a read over their TOS and see what their refund policy is and if it doesn't fall with in this then one option would be to take it up with Paypal and the other would be to make sure they still allow you access to the account you paid them for.

 

[markswebhosting]

I purchased web space from Aventure Host for over two years and was very satisfied with them. I paid $99(US dollars) per year with a subscription through paypal.

This year when it came time to renew I contacted Michael Kitchen at Aventure Host and told him there was no way I could afford it, so I would not be renewing. I forgot to notify PayPal to cancel my subscription, so on the renewal date they sent Aventure Host $99.

I contacted Michael to ask for a refund and his response was "I am afraid we can not refund any payments that have been sent to ourselves via a subscription payment as the subscription was intial set up by yourself and not by us therefore we would not have known there was a subscription in place until a payment came in via it."

I realize that it was my place to notify PayPal, but wouldn't most providers have refunded the money??

contact paypal and see wether they can refund it and to cancel this payment so that it doesnt hppen again.

 

[brucanik]

I did file a complaint with Paypal, but because I did not recieve tangible goods they can not force a refund, but they did write Aventure Media and tell them they thought I should be given a refund and it did no good. I have emails to back all this up.

I posted on another web host board that the only reason I could think of why they would keep my money is because they are in financial trouble and they told me were given legal advice not to have any further contact with me and they suggested that I delete the statement I made.

This is their TOS:

Money Back Guarantee
Account holders can cancel their account within 15 days to receive a refund excluding domain registration costs. No refunds can be issued after this period of time. Individual cases can be reviewed by our customer experience team.

Payments, Refunding & Replacement Services
1) No refund can be produced for any site which violates our terms and conditions.
2) Refunds are issued at the management's discretion
3) Refunds are exclusive of domain registration costs at all times
4) Dedicated servers are non-refundable with min 3 month contracts

I guess they can refuse me on #2, Refunds are issued at the management's discretion.

I may never get my money back, but I am going to do my best to make as many people as possible aware of their business practices.

 

[Blue]

I contacted Michael to ask for a refund and his response was "I am afraid we can not refund any payments that have been sent to ourselves via a subscription payment as the subscription was intial set up by yourself and not by us therefore we would not have known there was a subscription in place until a payment came in via it."

I realize that it was my place to notify PayPal, but wouldn't most providers have refunded the money??

Contact Paypal and be VERY insistent.
What you have here is a situation where the host is lying to you and basically being very dishonest.
The host can cancel any subscription as he should have when you contacted him.
And now to lie to you about not being able to make a refund is unacceptable.

 

[urka]

PayPal is a reputable company and you have to contect them immediately.

 

[brucanik]

I contacted PayPal again and once again their response was "The Buyer Complaint Policy only applies to payments for tangible,
physical goods which can be shipped, and excludes all other payments,
including but not limited to payments for intangibles, for services or
for licenses and other access to digital content. In addition, items
prohibited in the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy are ineligible for
coverage".

They did however give me three places to try and get help so I have filed complaints with two of those places and I'm going to check out the 3rd place when I get home today.

 

[rylie]

I have always been satisfied w/Paypal but did have on instant where I had purchased something from a seller on ebay who never sent the product. Because it was not a tangible item, but a link to a software download through an email my money was never refunded. All the seller had to do was say they sent it and it was basically his word against mine. So, I think your best bet would be to try and reason with Aventure themselves. Paypal seems to have strict rules that they won't bend or stretch in any situation. Sadly, this may have to be chalked up as a loss. But, if I weren't able to get my refund, I would definitely at least use the web space for another year and get my money's worth. Just be sure to stop the autopay from Paypal long before the next payment comes due.

 

[Lesli]

I would contact the Consumer Affairs department of your state as the next step in getting this situation rectified. They may have ways to help you out - since Paypal seems to have gone about as far as they can go in enforcing their TOS, and since Adventure Hosting seems to be behaving in a less-than-straightforward fashion. (I also think it unwise of them to not have better accounting procedures in place, to check on and cancel any Paypal subscriptions when a client cancels their account - perhaps they'll be a little more rigorous after this point?)

You seem to have a legitimate complaint here: you cancelled your service, they continued to charge you after you cancelled the service, you want that money refunded. You've tried working with the hosting company. You've tried working with the payment processor (who honestly does have a limited responsibility here - they're just the payment processor, they give both you and the host tools to cancel subscriptions at any time, beyond a certain point they can't start acting as the 'clean up crew' for every transaction.) Time to take it up a notch (government / consumer affairs departments) and find out what your options are.

Also follow up with those other places that Paypal mentioned.

 

[Artashes]

While you are getting the right advise from other members above, I am quite curious to know why a host would say something like this:

I posted on another web host board that the only reason I could think of why they would keep my money is because they are in financial trouble and they told me were given legal advice not to have any further contact with me and they suggested that I delete the statement I made.

In my opinion, this is a typical reaction of a hosting company that is run by immature management, nor do they get any real legal advise. It sounds like they simply are trying a little scare tactic, throw some "legal" language into the pool and see what happens... Since they know very few consumers actually sue hosting companies.

However, there is no reason why they would tell you they were given legal advice not to have furher contact with you, unless you DID threaten them with legal action. So my question to you is: did you? If you did, then they CAN cut communication with you and refer you to their legal department/contanct. If you honestly did NOT threaten them with legal action, then my money is that they are lying to you about the whole thing.

Now, suppose you did not threaten them. Their TOS, as you suggested, allows for a 14 day window to receive a refund on service that you pretty much cancelled before its renewal date. In such a case, if you did not host/involve in any illegal activity and did not break their terms of service, "(2) Refunds are issued at the management's discretion" will never hold up in court.

For further advise, I would have really liked to know whether you did threaten them with legal action or not though.

 

[brucanik]

I have never threatened them with legal action. Richard Kennedy said that in response to a post I made saying that maybe the reason they (aventure host) weren't returning my money was because they were having financial difficulties.

I am attaching a screenshot of the ticket where Richard Kennedy said that to me.

 

[Lesli]

I'd say collect all your documentation from this (printouts of tickets you've submitted, any and all forum messages you've ever posted about this incident) and contact your state consumer affairs department and ask for their assistance resolving the issue. Then don't post any more about the incident until it gets resolved one way or the other - then, hey, knock yourself out. But not posting any further (and not deleting what you have posted already) keeps things clear, doesn't confuse any issues, and lets you get on with your life while the consumer affairs department works to resolve this issue.

Just to be on the safe side, I would not speculate further on their reasons for not giving you a refund. I haven't read the post referenced in the ticket above, so I don't know if what you posted could be construed as libel (as opposed to pure speculation...and that line is blurry indeed). But still...stay with the facts. If I've understood correctly, the facts are:

1. You cancelled your account with them
2. They did not delete your Paypal subscription (which they have the ability to do) and so
3. They charged your Paypal account for additional services after your cancellation request
4. They are now refusing to refund that money in seeming contradiction to their own TOS which states that they do give refunds.

 

[brucanik]

I really appreciate the comments and suggestions I have received here.

I filed complaints with the online BBB and Internet Crime Complaint Center, but haven't heard back from either yet.

Today I went to aventurehost.com blog and they had one about "The Customer is Always Right" and said they wanted positive and negative comments about their service. I posted, but they deleted my post again.

 

[JLHC]

This is not the right thing to do. By doing so they will only damage their own reputation.
What I suggest is to wait for your state's consumer association to take action. In the meantime, try not to post anything about this.

 

[geraldoramos]

wow... why a host will damage their reputation because of 99 bucks....

weird....

 

[datman001]

I would not blog on their site just for the fact that they may try to use it against you. It is a bad situation for you in that i think you are going to be out that $99 but if you want to notify others, going to fourms and tell other about your experience is key. If they have done this to you then they may have done it to others. Its a sad situation because it will come back to them eventually.

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Anyway that is yours own experience and thought and everyone allowed to have his own.

 

[Tarak]

wow... why a host will damage their reputation because of 99 bucks....

weird....

Very True!