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DigitalOcean Weird Practices
Long story short, I have been a user with DigitalOcean since their day1 and recently killed my account as their pricing/performance was not to my standards.
With their recent announcement about new droplets and pricing available I have decided to give them a try once again. So I registered a new account and deposited some $$ via PayPal and added a credit card as a backup method.
Upon trying to create an optimized droplet with 8 VCPU's I am being shown a 40$ plan only. No other options available. The regular droplets showing are until 8 vCPUs and the rest shown as "This size is currently restricted".
Sounds fair, new account, probably they want to verify some documents. Got a reply to provide a document id and a photo of myself holding it - Sure, done it and sent.
Got the following reply:
Hello,
Thank you for connecting with us.
With PayPal in your billing profile, we ask that you maintain a deposit in your account equal to the >monthly running cost of the droplets you have and are looking to support. Before we entertain a >request for a larger droplet limit, please make sure you have made a PayPal deposit to cover the >ongoing charges for a while. Once complete, please let us know.
Best,
Trust & Safety
DigitalOcean
Now this response got me a bit pissed, why a cloud provider wants me to prepay a monthly running cost of X droplets in advance before even letting me running the droplets that I want to run in the first place, should I just burn X amounts of $$$ to get verified? Isn't DigitalOcean a cloud provider? Isn't it the whole idea that one can create and kill droplets based on their needs? Am I being unreasonable? I have never had such issue with AWS or Vultr or Linode.
Thanks
Dima
Comments
I run into negative with DO account with my usage monthly and then refill it accordingly , so as a new user maybe they want you one month fees .
So they just want you to credit a month in advance because they suspect you will run up a bill and disappear. Probably a good shout in your case.
I have already deposited an X amount of $$$ via PayPal and also attached a credit card and provided them with all the documentation they asked for. Yet they haven't given me the option to create even a single droplet that I need. Putting more money down the drain to hope that they will allow me to run it sounds ridiculously. More over I have accounts over Linode/AWS/Vultr and have never encountered this weird practice.
First mistake that you did was close your account. Why the hell would you do that? Just let your account sit idle, because there are no benefits in closing your account.
Your whole statement, I've been with DigitalOcean since day 1 means shit if you stupidly closed your account because they weren't up to your "standards". In other words, account age is worth a lot more than new accounts, is like a credit history for DigitalOcean to see that you have been a paying member.
Why would you think that DigitalOcean being a cloud provider is going to allow newly created accounts, at this stage of their company, start the expensive droplets without prepay?
I have never sent in any of my documents to DigitalOcean, and none of my droplets are restricted. Besides, I have a 140 droplet limit because I've been with them since 2013. Heck, my account was idle since January 2017, due to the reason that I started looking for other cheaper options and started playing around with Linode and Vultr.
Some people tend to value their data.
Actually not seeing the issue because it seems like you expect digitalocean to run off with your money? Also does digitalocean not provide refunds for unused service when you request it? Paging @jarland
Now a real complaint is some slimey vps company that block mail ports and require your id, your utilities bill, etc. for a $5 month service to unblock it with no notice beforehand.
That's the problem. I highly doubt they will refund any deposits for unused services. I just want to try their optimized droplets before making any decisions. And depositing a month's payment in advance of 200-300$ just to try the droplet for few hours is kinda expensive.
I highly doubt your assumption. Linode will charge a $5 dollar fee while vultr is no fee? Problem is at $40 that's like dedicated server and I'm familiar with a few providers that require a larger deposit and other validation terms so it's not unusual. Obviously this does not apply to them also in terms of refund! so there is a variety and circumstances everywhere.
I have deposited 55$ via PayPal and added a credit card as backup method and sent them all the documents they asked. I am not from 3rd world country or anything like that. I think I have done my part by proving that I am a legit customer.
That’s silly. DO is going to retain their subscriber info (name, address, usage history, etc.) for many years. Closing an account does not make it as if you never existed.
What? Are people outside your country/continent not legit customers?
You think that closing your account means your personal info is deleted at the same time?
There sure is a whole lot of "I don't really understand how this works, but I'm going to bitch anyway" going on in here.
They are not preventing you from using the service, just asking that you have the equivalent of a monthly cost and that relates to the droplet size you create. Seems fair enough, I can guess otherwise they get a lot coming along creating a big droplet or two, abuse it and run.
So either live with it or ask for a refund and explain why.
Then one should think many times before signing up for anything that requires their data.
@IAlwaysBeCoding is very probably right that an older account in good standing is trusted more than a brand new account.
https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/terms/
Section 5.5 of the DO TOS written in all caps requires you to notify DO of all changes to your payment account, address, etc. If you delete your account and then move, then DO might still have your old address. But if you don't delete the account, you're required to also send them your new address. Deleting the account sounds like a good idea to me. Plus it also gives you a bit of protection in the event of a DO data breach leading to PI leaks or account takeovers. Linode had some of those.
Always happy to answer any questions
It basically comes down to this: We want to establish a good relationship with you, as a new customer. We also have obligations to those who have already established a relationship with us. This is kind of what @IAlwaysBeCoding was talking about.
Now, think in terms of how large a single physical server can be, and how many servers should be kept on standby for new servers. Obviously as a cloud provider you want to have a ton of capacity because otherwise, what's the point? But equally as obvious, there is still a finite number of what you have at a given point in time. So imagine for a moment if we allowed someone to pay us $5 and then create 192GB RAM droplets to their heart's content.
Imagine that a ton of our customers now are struggling to expand their infrastructure, because we let that customer spin up all of those 192GB droplets, and we're now scrambling to rack new servers. Let's say that at the end of all of this, the event has cost $XXX,XXX in the addition of capacity.
Now comes February and you forgot to destroy those servers. You have a gigantic bill that you can't pay. So you just let the account die from non-payment.
At the end of this theoretical event, we've spent 6 figures resolving an issue that impacted our largest customers, spent who knows how much more in paying for people's time, and all for $5.
Finally, imagine this scenario 15 times each month. That's a plausible reality. The most unreasonable thing about it is the assumption that it would only happen 15 times. More likely, it would happen until no company on the planet could sustain it.
Now let's get out of the theoretical worst case scenario and back to the individual:
Basically, we want to know that you're a partner with us before we give you the keys to the entire datacenter. Help me to better understand why you need the 8GB optimized droplet before committing to use our service. Help me understand why I need to adjust this limit and I'd be happy to have the conversation. What about the 8GB optimized droplet helps you determine whether you're going to commit to using our service that the 4GB won't? It's just math at that point, right?
That's not to say I'm not able to make exceptions, or even that I'm unwilling to. I might be happy to do that for you, but I'd like to get to know you better. Just like I'd like to sit down and have a drink or two before I give you a key to my house. Before I turn you loose with no limits, talk to me about what you're doing and how we can help you to achieve your goals. You can PM me here on LET, there will be a delayed response but I'll definitely reply
Hate to deflate your statement but you could really have shorten it to about 10 words.
Generally people do not imagine the possibilities that can arise from not being careful in this way, and how that can hurt them later as a committed customer. It's good to give them real world examples of why we do these things for our customers
It's not @jarland fault that you suffer from short attention span. He said it more eloquently than I did, and with a polite and professionally touch.
Guess thats the power of american privacy laws. Non existant. Using european providers contacting support requesting the removal of all data they got about me according to Art. 17 – EU-DSGVO has worked every time in the past. Shitty providers get fake billing and burner emails.
I read it so I don't have a short attention span. A simple:
Friend. This is corporate policy applied to everyone. Contact me.
Ew I hate that, it's like saying "Policy doesn't need reasons, it's policy, everyone has to follow it."
I'm very anti-policy. This is why any time anyone ever suggests to me a rule or policy, my first question is "Why?"
Your policy is to have less. You'd have a hell of a time surviving in Australia. I literally watched their shitheads-in-power go in a roundabout way of one guy trying to have another define what they considered "genuine satire" vs "non-genuine satire". It took almost 10 minutes for this party to eventually state that he hadn't actually written the policy which he was vehemently defending, and that someone beneath him did- so when it came time to re-argue in some unstated future- he would have the answer.
Ten. Fucking. Minutes.
Here's a 4.5 minute excerpt:
I don't even what to visit there, anymore.
@jarland
I am sorry but I don't agree with your statement. I did follow the steps to establish a good relationship with you, yet every step that I take forward, you keep asking for more.
I have deposited some funds, I have added PayPal & Credit Card to my account, I have sent verification documents and yet I am still locked to the smallest tier of optimized droplets of 40$ even when my initial deposit was higher. I have never asked to have the keys to the entire datacenter, but I think I have provided enough to be able to run a descent server. I am not going to pursue this any further as this consumed too much of my time as it is. It is your company and your practices.
Pish, that only applies where there is no legal reason to keep the data. The right to be forgotten does not override retention of data for tax/legal purposes.
hrm. isn't 8vcpu optimized a $160 a month instance? your piddly $55 really isn't enough to justify good faith since businesses don't usually work that way. Why not ask about the refund policy. If you deposit $160 to use the 8vcpu and not used for the end of the month; you can ask for a full refund of the unused balance if it's qualified which is reasonable.
8gb optimized is $80 a month.
...why you so quick to reply. He wants a 8vcpus. that's $160. give a guy some time to edit!
That's totally fine as well, we don't have to agree on everything, it would be unreasonable to expect that we would. You're not in the wrong about anything here, it's your experience and it's been a bad one. I know the why and I've shared it, but that doesn't retroactively undo your experience either.
If you have a credit card added I don't know why we're asking for more anyway. This should be fine. I think you've provided enough too, now that I understand better what what you've done (apologies if I skipped details already provided).
So let's get this sorted and let me take this event up the chain to share your experience and why it has been a bad one. Let's also get these restrictions removed for you. Can you PM me the email on your account?