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Server provision time and start of invoicing? Questions to providers.
TheGreatOakley
Member
Hello LET
I just want to find out if I am asshole or not.
I made and order and got new Dedi (does not matter who is the provider). Setup was about 3 working days and I got billed right away. So, basically 3 days I could not use Dedi, but they charged me for that.
It it normal for providers to start billing the service, which is not up and running? There was no setup fees.
I did not create billing ticket yet. Just wanted to understand what is the "norm" between providers.
Help me understand
- Question27 votes
- You should be billed even if server is not delivered yet11.11%
- You should be billed only after the server is up and running51.85%
- Fuck you37.04%
Comments
Its normal , they will change the renewal date after delivery !
If not contact them to change it for you !
I would expect to pay right away before they even start to provision the server. However, I would also expect the renewal date to be changed to reflect when the server was actually delivered.
Yes you would generally pay for the first month up front, and then when the server is ready the provider would adjust the renewal date to adjust for the setup delay.
Sometimes however a provider may forget, in which case just contact the provider after your server is ready and request an adjustment to the renewal date.
I've always been billed from the time that I ordered, not at the time it was provisioned. In all fairness though, it usually took less than 24 hours, so it never occurred to me. Isn't 3 days a little long? Is it a custom build?
Customer orders server.
Server gets delivered next day (example)
I add back +1 day to next due date.
Same if its +3 days later. Which rarely happens. I have delivery policy for this.
https://hostslick.com/clients/knowledgebase/39/Delivery-Policy.html
I've not kept track too closely, but anecdotally and with the imperfection of long-term memory, the norm is the service is usually provisioned within a few minutes or hours at most to make this moot.
However, in a few cases where I've had services take a day or more, payment has been made and the renewal/interval is based on the order/payment date, not the date of the service becoming available. This is technically unfair and mildly annoying, especially if service delivery is measured in multiple days as has been the the case from time to time, but I don't complain about it. The actual loss is pretty small so I just chalk it up as a small installation fee. But as I said, this is not very common.
I'd be more interested to understand why there is a delay. Maybe the process just isn't fully automated? Maybe there is some customer background checks that happen and take time to complete?
To me, three days of anything that is rented month to month to month is not worth creating a thread, let alone a complaint with the seller.
If you are truly upset over it, I would treat the 3 days as an "education", where you learned to avoid that seller in the future.
As others have pointed out, the seller may credit you by adjusting the date. If they don't, I would not make a stink about it. This is the LowEnd, after all. What did you expect?