Firstly, just in case JustHost.com read this feeling litigious, dictionary.reference.com/browse/steal defines stealing as:
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force
That clarified, I took out a hosting agreement with JustHost.com on 18th August 2009. I paid 47.52 by PayPal for two years webhosting which was renewable every two years thenceforth at the same rate. The confirmtion e-mail I received states:
You have successfully signed up for a subscription to Just Host Hosting / Domain Package using PayPal.
Your first subscription payment, for 47.52 GBP, has already been sent to Just Host Ltd..
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Subscription Details
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Date of Sign Up: 18 Aug. 2009
Subscription Name: Just Host Hosting / Domain Package
Subscription Number: S-8EY290936******** (my asterisks)
Subscription Terms:
£47.52 GBP for the first 2 years
Then £47.52 GBP for each 2 years
On 1st August 2011, I closed my PayPal account.
On 11th August, one week before the renewal was due, I received an invoice for £174.75 for the next two years and that the amount was automatically deducted from my debit card.
I checked with my bank, and sure enough, the amount had been charged to my account.
There are so many problems here that it is difficult to know where to begin.
The agreement I took out was for £47.52 per two years renewable. It is unacceptable to increase the amount without consulting the customer, especially when the increase is by a factor of almost four.
The agreement was via my PayPal account which was closed.
The amount invoiced was charged to my debit card without authority.
The charge to my debit card was one week before the date of the invoice.
I have tried to contact JustHost to find out what they are playing at but the staff on their 'live chat' refused to discuss billing or account issues, nobody answers the telephone, instead all billing and account enquiries are instructed to be submitted by e-mail and all e-mails receive automated garbage responses which show that no human has ever cast their eyes on them.
Don't let the young woman with her hand to her ear in a listening gesture fool you, JustHost.com don't want to hear your problems, especially when it comes to getting the money back which they have stolen from you.
And to be clear, JustHost.com, if you or your lawyers are reading this (which is highly unlikely, admittedly), you had no right to take £174,75 from my account and you did not have my permission. You did so secretly, in that by the time that you informed me that you were going to take it, you had already done so. And given that I was not given any option to refuse payment, it was done so by force. You stole it. JustHost.com stole my money.
I had a very similar experience recently with justhost.com. They charged me for two years, I switched hosts, and then they refunded my money by withdrawing what they owed me from my own checking account! No I'm not making this up. I complained to justhost billing and to the Better Business Bureau, but to no avail.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't used to be this way with justhost. The problem is that they and a lot of other web hosts have been bought up by the Endurance International Group, a company that is in the process of cornering the web hosting market by buying and devouring potential competitors like justhost. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group for a depressingly long list of devoured web hosts that you may want to avoid.
I think it's important to understand the significance of what's going on here: Economic freedom is the freedom to choose whom to do business with, a freedom that is destroyed when companies like EIG succeed in cornering a market. The significance of this freedom was established by John Nash: He received the Nobel prize in economics for proving that economic freedom for both buyers and sellers implies market stability. Experience has shown over and over that lack of freedom in this sense brings instability, as for example in the American mortgage markets.
The take away message: What locally seems like merely a pension for petty theft or bad service is, in the large, truly insidious, a global threat to ordinary citizen use of the Web.
Hello Found your this happened to me as well, Yesterday! But I cancelled my account in 2009! I tried to call... no number... tried to chat and the guy left the chat. very disappointing.
ReplyDelete