Soap Operas and the Hosting Business

StephanieCordray

New Member
Sometimes you come across people and customers who make you laugh, especially if you have been in this biz for a few years. This last week we have had "one of those".

We suspended a nonpaying customer's site after being three months overdue (we are little lenient in this regard if they pay for a year at a time, not quite so lenient with monthly payers although they usually get a little time, too). Right after it was suspended, we get a call from the customer's husband about her site. So I take him through the payment process and re-enable the site. It's a small site with little to no traffic so a few hours uptime wouldn't kill us, you know. After 8 hours of still no payment, I suspended the site again.

The next day, the site owner calls about her site, which had been turned over to the account department for the 3 months of nonpayment where she was told that she would need to pay the 3 months arrears before her site would be accessible again. She later emailed that her husband would be looking elsewhere for hosting services for her... which to us is no problem because we are a business and nonpaying customers don't pay our bills.

Okay, so what, right?

Today, we get an order for a new site, paid for the year. The new site's owner is the previous customer's husband who was in charge of her site when it was up on our servers. I recognized the name because of having dealt with them for the last week. However, the domain name is not the same one that was deleted, nor is her name anywhere on the account
 

ian

Administrator
Staff member
Three months overdue for yearly customers is probably a bit too lenient.
 

StephanieCordray

New Member
ian said:
Three months overdue for yearly customers is probably a bit too lenient.

Yes, it really is but we goofed up and wasn't monitoring as closely as we should have been. Usually after a few weeks of no communication they get a notice of suspension email. For some reason this one slipped through the cracks for awhile.
 

ian

Administrator
Staff member
In my opinion it could be more hassle than it is worth to try and get the 3 months....
 

StephanieCordray

New Member
No, we're not. It would be more hassle than its worth to try and get it. Normally they get 3 weeks. They get a new invoice for renewal a month before it's due, a reminder when it's a week overdue, then a third one a week after that... a week after that if there is no response their site is suspended... A week after it's suspended, if there's not response, it's deleted.

I know some that would immediately delete their sites but our niche market is small businesses which are usually working the same hours we put in so we try to give some slack.
 

zkiller

Super Moderator
Staff member
i wouldn't delete the accounts right away either. i never understood why some hosts do that. :shrug:
 

StephanieCordray

New Member
I just thought this particular instance was funny because the husband got her site deleted and turned around and ordered a different site. Like it's a competition or something.
 

[tab]

Opera/Firefox on Debian
Staff member
"There there dear, you just stay home and let me bring home the bacon... make sure you have my dinner on the table when I get home"...
 

StephanieCordray

New Member
[tab] said:
"There there dear, you just stay home and let me bring home the bacon... make sure you have my dinner on the table when I get home"...

I do stay home.... 'cept when I gotta go out to get the bacon and bring it back, hehe.
 
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