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Piohost have cropped my year long contract to 4 months and are charging way more.
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Hi all,
I'm not sure where the fraud label is coming from. I can confirm we're currently in the process of changing prices for certain plans (for example, £9/year for 1GB KVM and £12/year for 2GB KVM) which were most definitely unsustainable.
After price changes are complete customers will receive an email and pro-rata credit in their account for any unused time, they can then choose to pay the renewal invoice or request the balance sent to them. Unfortunately we cannot simply refund transactions as we don't have access to payment vendor accounts that were used to receive funds by the previous company.
This is an unfortunate circumstance and we're doing our best to keep all clients online if they wish to remain a customer. At this point the brand is a liability and it's best for us to take this course of action moving forward.
I agree that clients should have been emailed prior to the price changes to avoid confusion when invoices were generated automatically. However, we decided to do it this way so that once we email clients we can include all the details (such as new pricing, new due date, how much credit they have available, and their options).
I will update here once we've completed our work.
Thank you.
You're funny.
From a client point of view, didn't you know beforehand that those offers were in effect and that people had paid for them in advance? I find it hard to believe that you would purchase any assets without knowing ahead of time what the conditions were. I would call that bait and switch, which would fall in to the fraud category for me.
We knew there were unsustainable offers. I'm not sure what we've baited and switched though, as we haven't advertised anything since the purchase. We're only restructuring the products and prices.
And who is @Piohost today?
Aaron, Bopie, Ishaq, Jordan, Jamie L,... ?So you bought the plans and customers with the intent on changing prices and terminating existing services? That's even more fraudulent.
What a mess. The provider tag has already been removed, personally I'd opt for a ban for all accounts involved. Seriously, they way they have been treating their clients and this community is without any respect whatsoever.
As long as they issue refunds it's not actually. Let's wait and see what happens.
That'd require Bopie to refund all of his clients, who BudgetNode acquired. Precisely what the transfer was regarding, I can't imagine- but having to undo all of those sales to get a list of people who were already on the bandwagon on a too-cheap-to-survive host?
Who the fuck was the brainchild of this, and how much coke and tequila was done beforehand?
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The only way I could see this being of any use in the state it is- they bought the hardware from Bopie, and the users were "incidental".
Okay, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but terminating/not renewing any services with them or their parent companies or affiliates.
If you've paid for a year & they've suddenly changed it to 4 months - then they're simply committing fraud.
Report it to your bank & get your money back ASAP.
edit:
Let's see, you sold a service for 12 months & 4 months into the service you decide to invoice the client again.
Not all services are getting price changes, so no. And there is nothing fraudulent about changing prices, many corporations (such as ISPs) change prices regularly.
There's one simple problem with this. Bopie intended to sell you a year. His program was sold. The new owners are the ones invoicing you. Who are you talking to? Good question! Bopie hasn't been here since June 29th, though.
Either way, you're getting screwed in some way.
I'd hope that there's some way that Bopie can at least pro-rate returns, because if he starts getting tons of CBs on his billing, he'll probably never find a not-PayPal/CCBill processor for the internet ever again. If his business is insolvent, I have no idea what will happen with UK laws, but usually the bank withholds all funds for several months while debitors get paid, and you, the direct client, is after his colo, rentals, et al..
Please read my original reply in this thread. Thanks.
In the middle of a contract? Can't say I've ever seen that. I can't tell my clients that I'll do systems support for a year and then a few months later invoice them with a change in prices for the support I promised to honor in a contract. Once the money has exchanged hands I have to eat it if my costs increase, I can't pass that along to my customer.
Must say that you aren't doing wonders for your image with this.
Price changes are perfectly legal on contract renewals. This is not the case here so you are in breach of contract. There are some exceptions in the EU for the telecommunication sector and such but in general you're bound to the contract.
The situation is different here because we didn't sell the plans but rather bought the brand that sold them and it doesn't make sense on paper so we have to re-evaluate the pricing. Only a few plans are getting their prices changed. I also stated this:
So the customer doesn't lose anything.
Are you not PioHost? Did PioHost not sell the services? You may be posting under the wrong account.
Which is why the customers will receive pro-rata credit and can chose to renew or have the balance sent out.
I'm talking to PIOHOST LTD, which just happens to be:
Oh boy...
Whether Bopie, Sarah, John or Thomas was behind the original offer has no weight at all - it's PioHost Ltd who sold this service.
PioHost Ltd sold the plans. The brand is no longer operating under that company.
Good plan. Did that right after their previous mess up. Moved to buyvm/buyshared.
Then I would ask the moderators of this forum to remove the account you are posting under as you appear to the general population to be speaking on the behalf of an account that has been active since December 2016 and that could lead to confusion.
It seems like you'd need to verify that the previous owner had something in their T&C's about being able to change the price/duration of existing services at any time. Maybe you should quote it to satisfy the curiosity.
Saying that, it does seem pretty edgy. Unsure whether law would supercede any T&C statements to that effect.
It does get a bit confusing though wouldn't you agree?
You are PioHost, the brand that sold them.
EDIT: Ok, I saw the trick.
Correct, however it's now owned by a different company and we are re-evaluating pricing. Customers will have the option to renew or withdraw their balance. That's the best solution for both parties.
In a real company world, you can rise prices for an existing paid service, only if there is a contract with the client that says you reserve the right to increase the prices without agreement with your client.
If I sign a contract with my telephone company for a whole year and prepay for the service, they will not have the right to rise the prices even if they find out that their initial price was unsustainable. This would be the same even if I didn't prepay for the whole year but just signed for that period and pay month by month.
New owner? The company remain the same. Same contract, same agreement, same id. You bought a company, you did not create a new one with new agreements to the clients.
What you did is a breach of contract and it is a criminal offense. Yes, small one because of the price, but it is.
The good thing for you is that a sue is much (and I mean MUCH) more expensive than what is worth a 20$ per year hosting service, and no one will go you to court to lose money, time, calmness.
This does not change the fact that this kind of behavior is dishonest and disgusting. If you thought that piohost prices are crazy, then, why did you bought the company as a whole? You could just buy their ip space, their hardware if existed and offer to their clients an option to move to a new company with new prices (and new contract). The liability for refunds, then, or anything had to do with contracts would be to piohost (the old owners, as you would only buy assets and not the company itself).
You bought a company, Did you check the liabilities before you buy it? What the hell did you agree to buy?
Bottom line:
It's not worth the time or the trouble for anything to do something about their piohost vps. But, don't come here and tell that there is no fraud or you did not commit any crime there. If you steal a 0,01$ worth chewing gum from a kiosk, is definitely not worth for the owner to call the police for. But this does not change the fact it is a crime.
P.S. "Done with LET" is being said, I suppose, as "this place is full of shit". In reality, it's not LET but you...
No they don't if there is a contract and they are legal. if they do it, you can sue them and you will win to the court. (Probably it's not worth it but this does not change the fact they commit a crime).
Yes, this was in the terms which can be verified by website cache services: