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Phoenix VPS suspend my VPS (Payment Problem)

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Comments

  • NoermanNoerman Member
    edited April 2013

    @marcm said: The bottom line is that @roiz was a customer of ours for which we provided the services that he paid for. We have the server logs that show that his services were active and that he used them. He choose to file 3 separate PayPal disputes (two for $4 and one for $7) for each of the payments that he made during the past week because he received an email from our automated billing system (due to a glitch with the PayPal API and IPN) that was telling him that his invoice wasn't paid. I personally asked him to ignore it as this would be fixed soon. His services were not interrupted until he filed his 3rd dispute. PayPal denied all of his claims and deemed them as being abusive.

    @roiz please confirm

    @emg said: In my opinion, @roiz did not give Phoenix VPS sufficient time to respond to his issues. The transcript that he posted begins at 20:45 (8:45 PM) and ends at 3:08 AM the next morning. That is 6 hours, 23 minutes from when the ticket was opened until he decided to initiate a dispute with PayPal.

    @roiz should have given them a full day or two to resolve the issue before raising the dispute with PayPal. Even if Phoenix VPS support was fully staffed at that early morning hour, it is only fair to give Phoenix VPS time to resolve the issue.

    In fairness to @roiz, @marcm should not have closed the ticket until he was sure that his customer's concerns had been completely addressed. Clearly the billing issue was not fully complete, and there was the hidden issue that the customer believes he paid for additional VPSs that were not yet available to him.

    This is not only about poor communications, it is also about reasonable expectations, and simple patience. Even in China, it takes time to fix problems and resolve issues. Considering the difficulties with understanding and communications, in my opinion @ruiz bears the majority of the blame, for raising a PayPal dispute without giving Phoenix VPS sufficient time to fix his problem.

    +1

  • @marcm said: The recommendations that you make in your comment can get people in trouble because it is illegal to file a false report with any kind of law enforcement or government agency.

    He seems European because any American knows the federal government is incompetent beyond measure, almost like Greece right now. FTC cannot even enforce the do not call list

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2013

    @marcm said: Customer's services where delivered and his 3 VPS servers were up and running.

    Well, I didn't see that in your first post, but if that's true then it seems he either began or continued to dispute charges for no reason.

    Of course one should always try to resolve issue with provider, resorting to Paypal dispute before waiting to confirm that provider isn't going to do anything about a problem doesn't make sense. But before your second post it looked like neither of his VPS were ever delivered, in which case IMO the dispute would at least be legitimate.

    @Noerman said: @roiz please confirm

    Edit:

    @perennate and @hostingwizard_net please read before posting: http://sqz.io/fVdED

    I re-read the post, I still don't see where you said his three VPS were up and running, but whatever.

    Edit2:

    @marcm said: @perennate, now after reading this, do you want to keep repeating those false statements?

    Lol, you never said that the last time, not sure why you think I can read your mind. Like I said, my post was based off of "what I got from this" from the posts before. Now I'm starting to think your inability to keep your cool is what caused this entire situation and led to a communication gap.

    I mean, clearly that caused the communication gap where you failed to coherently explain what happened in your first post; and now you believe it's our fault that you couldn't explain the situation, not yours.

  • BK_BK_ Member
    edited April 2013

    @doughmanes said: Breaking news: virtual goods disputes always favors the buyer and not the company

    Err, no. Pretty sure it's the other way around. Virtual goods are not protected by Paypal's buyer protection.

  • marcmmarcm Member

    @perennate I thought that my first comment was pretty clear. I was trying to be short and to the point, and I also wanted to try and avoid explaining everything at the level of a five year old because some community members might feel offended. To avoid any confusion or misinterpretation of my words I have added this to my first comment:

    Edit: In order to avoid any confusion I would like to add that we activated one 512MB Xen VPS on 09/27/2012 and two 256MB Xen VPS on 04/22/2013. Mr. @roiz was an old customer, so the events that transpired are even more so regrettable. We also have the server logs that show that his services were delivered to him, were active and that he used them (all of them).

    @BK_ - While your statement bellow is 100% true and accurate, PayPal retains some discretion in what they choose to do with a dispute on a case by case basis. Whenever I called them regarding a dispute I had to explain and show proof why I should win the dispute and not the other party.

    @BK_ said: Err, no. Pretty sure it's the other way around. Virtual goods are not protected by Paypal's buyer protection.

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited April 2013

    @marcm Considering that @hostingwizard_net, I, and others read your post and didn't see anything that contradicted @roiz's implication that neither of his VPS had been delivered when he disputed the claims, it certainly didn't clearly suggest that (if at all).

    @marcm said: avoid explaining everything at the level of a five year old because some community members might feel offended

    Seriously I don't see why you feel the need to continue passively insulting people instead of either admitting your mistake or at least pointing out where you suggested that. I reread your first post several times and still don't see where you said or suggested that his VPS were all up and running.

  • BK_BK_ Member

    @marcm I have personally won chargebacks for virtual items that I have purchased with little to no effort (over things that required a chargeback and where I supplied valid proof from a buyer's end), and I have also lost them from a sellers perspective (where I have supplied valid proof from a seller's end) - so I do understand that the policy I quoted isn't exactly strictly adhered to. I just wanted to clarify Paypal's "official" stance regarding virtual items :)

  • marcmmarcm Member

    @perennate said: Seriously I don't see why you feel the need to continue passively insulting people...

    I'm sorry, but that's not my intention. However readers tend to feel offended when you treat them like children when you over-explain something.

  • hiphiphiphiphiphip Member
    edited April 2013

    http://www.hostloc.com/thread-194913-1-1.html
    http://www.hostloc.com/thread-152354-1-1.html

    @doughmanes said: when they feel like they are not receiving their way, they resort to such antics like this in order to twist your arm into doing what they want.

    That's what they did,use the community to SEO.The more you explained,the more they succeed.
    Many chinese vps users are good,they only use it to set a ssh tunnel,a pptp server, a wordpress blog or just left it idle.They learn how to use vps form forums and blogs,and in the forums and blogs there are some black sheep who are good at belittle others to elevate themselves,newbies are always misleading by them.
    @marcm Do you want to rebrand again? That's a loss in top provider votes.Uptime of my vps just fall from 99.9% to 99.8% ,disappointed you didn't shut it down at Earth Hour.

  • @hiphiphip said: That's what they did, use the comunity to SEO.The more you explained,the more they succeed.

    Kill two birds with one stone

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @emg said: The transcript that he posted begins at 20:45 (8:45 PM) and ends at 3:08 AM the next morning. That is 6 hours, 23 minutes from when the ticket was opened until he decided to initiate a dispute with PayPal.

    @roiz should have given them a full day or two to resolve the issue before raising the dispute with PayPal

    This. Toddlers have more patience than the OP.

  • TheLinuxBugTheLinuxBug Member
    edited April 2013

    One of the misunderstanding I see here that should be pointed out by the low end community here is regarding the level of 'support' you should expect with a low end server. Recently it seems like a lot of people come here and fail to understand the idea behind low end boxes. These servers are supposed to be servers with SHARED resources and LIMITED support (Read: Unmanaged). This also relates to the support times. If you purchase a $30.00/month vps from a manged provider with managed services, then you can most likely expect the support department to respond quite quickly (~15-30 mins). However, when purchasing a low end service, it is important to understand that it is an UNMANAGED product and that the support that is provided on a best effort basis. Some (larger) providers may be able to deliver better results than other, but having a ticket take ~8-12 hours to be dealt with is NOT unrealistic. In some cases, depending on the issue, it could take even longer. Also, many low end providers do not employ full time billing/sales staff (or are a one man show that performs all these jobs) in which case billing issues submitted on a weekend could take till start of business on Monday. This is not unusual or unrealistic, so please keep this in mind when you submit a billing/sales related issue on a weekend.

    As the population becomes more materialistic, a lot of people also have an issue with needing 'instant gratification' and we have come to expect things done instantly. If you are one of these people and demand instant responses to support tickets and issues, then you need to find a host that has an SLA that matches your expectations. Most of the time these will not be companies in the LEB/LET range. A few companies here that have high end market share as well, so are able to supply a better support response times because they have full time employees to field issues for their more high end products already. This allows them to handle the low end tickets much more quickly as well. For smaller businesses, this is not always feasible based on the low profit margins they have which allows them to be able to offer you these great deals.

    TL; DR:
    Most of this issue seems to have stemmed out of a lack of patience on the OPs side. I think had they been more patient and had not been after 'instant gratification', that this issue could have been handled in a reasonable time and resolved with both parties being happy. Going forward @roiz I suggest you exercise more patience when working with low end products, if you can do this, I think you will have a much better experience overall.

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

  • marcmmarcm Member
    edited April 2013

    @TheLinuxBug - I have personally replied to his tickets several times. His 3 VPS servers were up and running, so other than receiving an automated "invoice overdue" email from our billing system OP did not have any other service related issues. I told him to ignore the email as his service won't be interrupted and that we will manually apply payment to his account. We don't differentiate between customers based on what they spend on services.

    @hiphiphip said: Do you want to rebrand again?

    We only rebranded because the domain phoenixvps.com became available, as explained here: http://sqz.io/vnb2phx

    The old domain vpsnodebox.com redirects to the new one.

    @hiphiphip said: Many chinese vps users are good,they only use it to set a ssh tunnel,a pptp server, a wordpress blog...

    Yep, I agree. We have plenty of customers from China that never cause any problems. As you said:

    @hiphiphip said: That's what they did,use the community to SEO.The more you explained,the more they succeed.

    It's pretty much the only reason to post this. First the customer causes an incident, then starts posting.

    I don't think that there is anything left to explain.

  • TheLinuxBugTheLinuxBug Member
    edited April 2013

    @marcm This was not directed at you, more so the community overall. This was not a judgment of your support, merely a comment on what expectations people should have working with low end providers. If you are able to provide better services than the minimal needed, that is great, however, people need to have the correct expectations set or they will expect the world for nothing.

    One of the issues most discussed in my day job is how to create the correct customer expectations. If you do not put constraints on what can be expected, people will try to find any way they can to take advantage of you, and when they don't get their way because they had unreasonable expectations, it leads to threads like this.

    The OP said he waited 6 hours and this was unrealistic time to wait, so he opened a paypal dispute. If anything the lesson in this story is that the customer had the wrong expectations set for him to begin with, which should be adjusted accordingly so that he does not have these same issues in the future.

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

  • marcmmarcm Member

    @TheLinuxBug - I wasn't implying that you directed that comment at me, however I wanted to point out that we don't differentiate between customers.

    @TheLinuxBug said: The OP said he waited 6 hours and this was unrealistic time to wait...

    Beats me what he was waiting for since I clarified his issue by telling him to ignore any "unpaid invoice" emails generated by WHMCS and placed a note on his account for billing to add his payment ASAP. In conclusion his services were not adversely affected - maybe his perception?

  • @hostingwizard_net said: according to what was posted by both marcm and roiz, two VPS weren't delivered,

    @marcm said: Edit: In order to avoid any confusion I would like to add that we activated one 512MB Xen VPS on 09/27/2012 and two 256MB Xen VPS on 04/22/2013. Mr. @roiz was an old customer, so the events that transpired are even more so regrettable. We also have the server logs that show that his services were delivered to him, were active and that he used them (all of them).

    @hostingwizard_net said: a third one was suspended and several tickets didn't receive proper care before the customer opened the disputes.

    @roiz said: me - Client

    please help me refund.I can't bear your service.Now my vps is Suspension.I already ask you what happened with my invoice.You told me Don't warry.But its already Suspension as of Overdue on Payment.I can not trust you again.
    04/24/2013 03:15
    Marc M. - Staff
    Look, you don't really have a problem. I will close your ticket now and our billing department will add your PayPal payment soon to your account.

    Kind regards,
    Marc
    04/24/2013 02:50
    me - Client
    I submit the ticket yesterday.And I try 2 times.Then you reply me with no regret. your service made me disappointed.And I'me an old customer on yours.so disappointed

    04/24/2013 02:42
    xx. - Staff
    The problem is with PayPal API. We received your payment. We will add it manually to your account. Don't worry, your service is fine.

    Thank you.

    Kind regards,
    Marc
    04/24/2013 02:41
    me - Client
    please reply my ticket .What's wrong with it?
    04/23/2013 20:43
    me - Client
    I already paid my serivce .But the invoice shows unpaid.What's wrong with it?

  • Sorry to revive the post @marcm... But your billing portal does have some serious issues in WHMCS. I have had hosts who use WHMCS many times. That's never been an issue until PhoenixVPS.

    Billing issues is the ONLY complaint I've had with this host.... except for the tech support service level not being truly 24 hours or the 2-4 hour reply as I understood it should have been, but that's on weekends.

    My story is like that Chinese dude in a way, except I've never been suspended, and I have not YET raised a dispute.... Here's MY story.

    I've had a couple issues where PaypalAPI doesn't work well with automated/recurring payments. I've had recurring payments set up for months, but had to change my email addresses/paypal. When I changed it, I monitored it, and it looked to be all good.... Until....

    This weekend, I get an email about an invoice overdue on 1/25/2013. I click it and try to pay it, and the client area says "An error has occurred," so I can't pay it if I wanted to. I submit a ticket, which was responded to by Matt W, but no guarantees that it would NOT be suspended.....

    Meanwhile, I pay $7 a month. I look into the account, and I have a $7 credit balance. So basically not only can I NOT see the invoice, apparently since December, but the $7 that's automatically going to Phoenix VPS's paypal is going into la-la-land.

    Then the next day, 1/26/2013, I get a SECOND overdue notice. I raise another ticket, in hope to get some attention. I leave a voicemail message. I tweet. I Facebook post. Nadda. No guarantee that there's not going to be a suspension. I then go and try to add funds to the account. I add $10 via paypal, and BAM the invoice that was in limbo (which I STILL can't view) is now confirmed paid (on email), and now I have a $10 invoice that generated that is showing as UNPAID. Yeah that's right. That makes NO SENSE. SO I can't carry a credit balance????

    **Now, to be fair, they might not be there on the weekend... Sure, ok. **However, if you aren't there on the weekend, you need to stop counting weekend days as overdue days, OR be responsive on the weekends for such issues..... Maybe thru tech support.

    Feedback that would fix this whole thing in my opinion, would be: Don't auto-disable through the system for nonpay, and review each case - checking for ticket correspondence first..... Make it a normal policy. Additionally, for overdue invoice emails, make that a manual process, or ensure that those emails don't go out unless it's on a weekday (or unless someone is watching the ticket queue to respond)...

    Further, if Paypal is such a problem, use a different payment processor like Amazon or otherwise. If there's a problem in the billing software, which causes customers to unwittingly have errors, then go to a different billing platform.

    Lastly, I will go through the dispute process if by tomorrow I have not heard back from them, and I will back up my server and move on. I hope it doesn't come to that, because I've been very satisfied....except for these billing problems. I should have a $10 credit balance on this account - Not a $10 overdue balance!

    In the end, all I want as a customer is to happily give them my $7 a month as a routine, and as usual, and not have my server suspended or even be under the threat of suspension - automated or non-automated.

  • Update, in fairness to marcm, I did get a response today from him, to just ignore the overdue notices. The autosuspends are disabled according to his message. We'll see what else happens.....

    My putting the extra $10 on there and it showing $10 past due immediately after it took my paypal stuff and zeroing the $7 credit balance before is still grinding my gears.... That crap needs to be fixed.

    If Marc wants my technical assistance in it, I'm willing to help him in any way possible.... I have a pretty high degree of knowledge, and I can pick things up quickly. I want to help them help me.

  • There issues again with IPN. This coming week billing issues will be sorted out and we'll decide if it's worth keeping PayPal around or not. Every few days IPN decides to go on its own to a different URL or just gets disabled. PayPal shrugged and didn't squat.

    In the meantime automatic suspension and termination is disabled for everyone. Just ignore any overdue invoice notices if you receive them.

    More changes will come this week, including price leveling. Everyone will pay the same price. Some will not like this, I am sorry, however it's time to sweep the place and hire more staff. Cheap & Everything Fast isn't possible.

    @nz2ocasey I don't know who you are from your nick name, but just open a ticket and request the credit. I'll even double it for you. Sadly there isn't anything you can do. PayPal IPN quits sending notifications every few days. It's annoying as hell. Then I go in there, fix it, and it happens again. I am working on a new PayPal module with micro-payments support, however it won't be ready until a month or two from now. Yes, yes, it will be commercially available for everyone, and yes, yes, it will not be open source (sorry, I work for TIM).

  • @marcm Ticket is already open. If this includes a price increase for me, just refund my $10 to my paypal that I paid, which is not showing in ticket PHX483218XCV. I should reflect a credit balance of $10 at this moment.

    The invoice that said was overdue is NOT SHOWING IN CLIENT AREA. That's not a paypal issue. That's a PhoenixVPS issue.

    To be clear, do not kill my server until the end of the billing cycle, because the $7 credit balance for the invoice was ALSO ate by the system. This is REALLY low hanging fruit, because I've had automatic payments set up to send you $7 every month.

  • @nz2ocasey just a suggestion: chill maybe? .... or not... keep the comments flowing, I'll get some popcorn :D

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited January 2014

    @marcm said:
    nz2ocasey just a suggestion: chill maybe? .... or not... keep the comments flowing, I'll get some popcorn :D

    Goes both ways. You're good people, but he's worried about his service, you're the only one that can calm that worry. Smile and apologize for any confusion that may have occurred :) It makes people feel better.

  • marcmmarcm Member
    edited January 2014

    @jarland - [edited this - nothing to see here... :P]

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited January 2014

    Edit: I said what what in the...

  • marcmmarcm Member
    edited January 2014

    @jarland - [edited this - nothing to see here... :P]

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited January 2014

    Edit: I like big butts and I cannot lie...

    Thanked by 1dedicados
  • I just responded back to my ticket. jarland might not be a customer, but I AM a paying customer.... What part of "I should have a $10 credit balance, and overpaid by $10" don't YOU understand?

    Come on I paid for the service fair and square. The next billing cycle due date is 2/23/2013. Can you not at least be kind and do that credit balance or refund the $10 without having to cancel the server???

    Jeezuz I THOUGHT I wouldn't have to have this kind of communication problem...

  • Maybe could you call my cell phone @marcm, since we can't seem to communicate thru tickets? You can block your number if you want, and we can discuss this like gentlemen.... Or we can continue the course....

  • @nz2ocasey I've been just working on your account, check it please.

  • 0xdragon0xdragon Member
    edited January 2014

    @nz2ocasey said:
    I just responded back to my ticket. jarland might not be a customer, but I AM a paying customer.... What part of "I should have a $10 credit balance, and overpaid by $10" don't YOU understand?

    Come on I paid for the service fair and square. The next billing cycle due date is 2/23/2013. Can you not at least be kind and do that credit balance or refund the $10 without having to cancel the server???

    Jeezuz I THOUGHT I wouldn't have to have this kind of communication problem...

    .

    marcm said: @nz2ocasey I don't know who you are from your nick name, but just open a ticket and request the credit. I'll even double it for you.

This discussion has been closed.