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General timeframe for suspend/terminate?
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General timeframe for suspend/terminate?

DamianDamian Member
edited January 2012 in General

So our policy is suspend accounts 4 days after invoice is due, then terminate 8 days after invoice is due, for non-payment.

One of the LEB VPS's that I use for DNS was terminated on the day that the invoice became due. VPS was terminated, invoice cancelled. Not even a suspension.

Is this normal? To be honest, I thought our policy was a little strict. What's everyone else's experience?

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Comments

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Normally we give a few days to allow the user to pick up the invoice.

    We used to keep VM's for 30 days but when BuyVM came out we simply didn't want to deal with the amount of space that would gobble up.

    Same day termination seems brutal unless they actually state that in the invoice emails?

    Francisco

  • drmikedrmike Member
    edited January 2012

    Officially we suspend at 2 days, cancel at 7 but keep the last full backup for 30 days.

    Someone yesterday linked to a WHT thread about something like this just yesterday I thought.

    edit: Found it but looks like it was from last year: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=974883

  • DamianDamian Member
    edited January 2012

    Looks like their terms of a service states that they "may suspend Customers account(s)." if If Customer has not paid by the account due date.

    And "If Customers account is not paid after 5 days of the due date" then they will "terminate the
    Customers service(s) at its discretion, unless arrangements have been made by the customer"

    How annoying, oh well. Looks like i'm in the market for a cheap Chicago node again.

  • Grab one of those cheap 2GB ChicagoVPS VPS's then (unless it was them).

  • We are a bit more strict. 1 Day after the due date is suspension and 4 Days is termination. We send out multiple reminders beforehand.

    Watch how fast the invoice gets paid after 1 day of suspension :)

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    We suspend 1 day after due date (unless contacted) and terminate automatically 14 days after due day (reserve the right to terminate 7 days after).

  • haha @KuJoe, then you will agree.. a lot less people "Forget" to pay their invoices when they know its a 1 day suspension.

  • ramnetramnet Member, Host Rep
    edited January 2012

    Killing the account the day it's due is a bit extreme.

    For us, we send 3 overdue notices and suspend on the 4th day, and then terminate a week later.

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    @VMPort Correct! We set it for one day simply because in the past I had set it for 2 days and you'd be surprised how much damage somebody can do when they have no intentions of renewing and they think you forgot to suspend their VPS.

    @ramnet Not sure if that's directed to VMPort and I but we don't suspend them on the day it's due, we suspended them after they are 1 day past due (i.e. due on the 1st, suspend on the 2nd). They receive 2 e-mails prior to suspension which is normally enough for most people. We've even left VPSs online for 3 weeks after the payment was due because they opened a ticket and built up a trusting relationship with us.

  • drmikedrmike Member
    edited January 2012

    @ramnet said: Killing the account the day it's due is a bit extreme.

    Unless of course you've pissed them off in some way. (edit: That's not directed at anyone.)

  • ramnetramnet Member, Host Rep

    @KuJoe, it wasn't directed at anyone in particular (I only read the OP's post)

    Suspending on the day it's due seems fine, but full account termination on the day it's due without suspending first is a bit extreme.

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    Oh I see @ramnet, I guess I forgot all about the OP and got focused on other posts instead.

    Yup, extreme is a good word for it. Also, from a company standpoint it doesn't even make sense. Client retention is key in the hosting industry so you try to give them every chance you can to stick with you.

  • I poked at them in a support ticket, this was the response:

    Hello,

    I'm sorry for this mistake. I have recreated your invoice. We will provision you with another VPS after payment.

    Regards

    Not sure how to feel at this point. I asked them if my data was still available in a backup.

  • @KuJoe said: Client retention is key

    This one is huge, and we are doing ourselves a dis-service educating clients to make backups, they don't listen, but might. My peeve was the small accounts, when I was offering a $3/mo KVM-128, I saw churn was huge, changing that plan to $30/yr it sells much slower, but I see far less churn on all accounts now.

    I've always felt the key to getting clients to pay their bill was make if easy for them so renewing was cheaper than moving to another provider. I don't see near the loyalty in VPS as I did with web hosting or dedicated servers. Heck, I still have customers from 1995 when I started who have followed me through all the changes with web hosting or dedicated servers. With VPS, I can't say the same thing, but I do have a few still around since 2006 when I started offering VPS.

  • I'd be pissed if a provider booted me for being a day late. My internet could've died, I could be in hospital or any of a dozen other reasons. I had to pay a few providers late last year because I lost my wallet, so had to cancel all my cards. I opened a ticket to explain, and they were fine with it.

    I don't jump ship at the slightest bit of downtime, and I expect a provider to extend me the same loyalty and courtesy.

    Unless a provider needs the resources back right now, or the VPS is exhibiting behaviour to make it seem like the customer is trying to use a ton of BW for free or something similar, I see no reason to be so strict. It's not like one less VPS on a node will save the provider any money. I could understand if they took a dedicated server offline quickly.

    Thanked by 1japon
  • Suspension is one day after the invoice is overdue and termination four days later, Simply do not have the space to spare.

    We send Invoices out 14 Days prior to the due date so unless they contact us asking for it to be postponed for a few days we have no reason to keep it online.

  • Suspension: 3 days ~ Termination: 30 Days. We probably should terminate them sooner, but storage is cheap and if the client comes back it's usually worth it.

  • @BlueVM said: Termination: 30 Days

    So you don't monitor how much memory you've sold?

  • @miTgiB said: So you don't monitor how much memory you've sold?

    Struck me as a little odd, as well.

    Our policy is to suspend after 3 days of non-payment, and terminate after 7.

    @Gary - I'm with you there, I had a small dedi for personal use last year (from a provider unnamed) that was terminated less than 24 hours after I had missed payment. They charged me a $60 "reactivation" fee to "find the disks" when I knew they hadn't done a damned thing with them. Needless to say, I've never recommended that host to anyone...

  • BlueVMBlueVM Member
    edited January 2012

    Actually its not that at all... we have plenty of stock and most of our clients are using our smallest plan which leaves most of our servers with plenty of free disk space since we limit how many accounts of each type we'll put on a core. If we go over the limits we've set we simply move an account (or two) to another server.

    Just because we do it this way now doesn't mean we won't change in the future. At the moment our policy works, if it starts presenting problems we'll change it.

  • I'd love it if more companies terminated on the day the payment is due and considered
    the account cancelled.

    especially on these cheap yearly deals.

  • @JoeMerit said: terminated on the day the payment is due

    So you'd be ok with getting up one day and finding your VPS gone because you thought it was the 12th when it was really the 15th? I know I lose days all the time, and I think I share that trait with most geeks. Reality is I don't want to look for a new customer, my old customer has been fine, but a little forgetful and sometimes needs a wakeup call of suspension to realize it's time to pay.

  • @JoeMerit said: I'd love it if more companies terminated on the day the payment is due

    Sorry, that statement has no merit ;) Clients would not be able to pay on the due date.

  • @miTgiB said: Reality is I don't want to look for a new customer, my old customer has been fine, but a little forgetful and sometimes needs a wakeup call of suspension to realize it's time to pay.

    +1. A slow-paying customer is better than no customer at all.

    Thanked by 1tux
  • @miTgiB said: So you'd be ok with getting up one day and finding your VPS gone because you thought it was the 12th when it was really the 15th?

    We've had a couple of folks here get confused with the 14 day posting rule simply because of the time zones involved.

    Gotta admit that if I got deleted after less than a day of being late, I'd be walking out.

  • I suppose its just the way I would want it then. If I woke up and found my vps gone I would simply upload a recent backup of whatever I was doing on that VPS onto another VPS. I have several and usually over buy anyways ;0

  • I'm surprised I never got suspended, I often forget to pay in time.

    1/3 days is a bit harsh imho, especially if the client has been with you for months/years.

  • I feel an incentive to renew/pay invoice early would be nice. I know GeoTrust gives you extra months when you renew your certificate ahead of time - http://www.geotrust.com/ssl/renew-ssl-certificates.html

  • WHMCS doesn't support % off for early payments... However I suppose you could set it so that if you pay on the due date its + 10% and mark all of your prices down and create a small setup fee to cover the difference... but that'd be a lot of work.

    Think the best solution is to offer say 10% bonus to all credit added to a user's account.

  • It would be the provider that would suffer if they did it to me, because I definitely wouldn't be continuing with them.

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