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Contabo confiscated the 125 euros I had deposited ！
Contabo confiscated the 125 euros I had deposited because I had just canceled a VPS, and they deleted my account!
A few years ago, when I first started using VPS, I deposited over 100 euros into my Contabo account to avoid monthly payments, and it was set up for automatic deductions. In September of this year, due to severe overselling by Contabo, I canceled the VPS I had been using for a year. I haven't logged into Contabo much since then. Today, when I tried to log in, I received an error message stating the following:
"Please note, that if you have no active subscription you will not be able to log in. Please order new products as a new customer on contabo.com."
They did not refund the balance I had in there. I am currently emailing them, but I'm not sure if they will return my money. This company is really unscrupulous.
Comments
@contabo_m
Tou have been contabo'ed.
Please be aware, do not deposit money with this company. If you don't have an active VPS service, your account will be deleted, and your money will be gone!
That contablows.
So you haven't even given them the chance to resolve the problem. Perhaps it was a mistake that they will correct?
I think I'd at least email them and wait a reasonable time for a reply before I go ranting about how they "confiscated" your funds and are "really unscrupulous".
I think billing department operates Mon to Fri, so wait and see the outcome.
for some is 15 mins
You have been contaboed
Their rules, clearly, are not isolated incidents but have been ongoing for quite some time. My purpose in sharing this is to alert others not to deposit money into their accounts, just like I did. This is an unfair policy, and what needs to change is their unreasonable rule, not just my individual account's issue.
This sounds to me like maybe if you ordered a new service you'd get login access again, right? It should be possible in theory for an account login to be disabled without the account being deleted, and since you have no active service there's no value to logging in anyway. It's not like you can open a support ticket by logging in, they don't do support tickets, they just want you to call them (or submit an MTR and then [email protected] replies via email). And I doubt they refund credits.
The real problem would be, I would think, if you ordered a new server under the same email and didn't have that account credit when the login was restored.
It is a known thing, if you have no active service you can not log into an account, if you did sign up for a new service then it would likely still be there but you can also contact there support, its not a great way they do things but I know the account is not deleted just deactivated as such until you have another active service.
I'm really sorry, I didn't know that Contabo had such rules. It seems like they are the only hosting provider in the world with these rules. I have never encountered a similar rule from any other company. I think they should emphasize this rule because it is clearly different from and has significant issues compared to other hosting providers.
"Think Different" - Apple, but apparently also Contabo
I thought account credits weren't refundable for most providers, no? Once deposited, you have to use it up instead.
Perhaps, but then you have to have access in order to use it up, no? If they chose your account, then the money should be AUTOMATICALLY refunded, unless that is a fine for some abusive behaviour from your part.
Closing the account and not refunding the credit qualifies as theft in any serious legal system because the credit, by definition, is not their money, it is yours, you have just deposited that money there with the intention of using it.
I might understand not refunding minuscule amounts where the fees and handling are bigger than the amount, but 100+ is not qualifying as insignificant.
TL;DR they can't have a rule that breaks the law, if that is indeed the case (they closed the account without refund and there was no abuse) then they are thieves in the EU/US and all serious countries in the world.
We don't know the stage of refund nor the time and date of the account closing.
It's mentioned at https://docs.contabo.com/docs/accounts-billing/account/ but not in the terms & conditions from what I can see (maybe I missed it). A bit odd to not mention such information there.
I'm quite confident that @contabo_m / Contabo absolutely doesn't need to steal fund from customer. So, I assume that it either was an error that will be quickly corrected as soon as they are (made) aware -or- that they had solid reasons to terminate your account. My hunch is it's the latter.
I'm looking forward to Contabo's explanation/statement.
firstly wait for reply, then never deposit such amount for long term using.
Hi everyone. The funds are not lost and still available to the customer, who is in contact with our support team.
This happened to me a few months ago. I cancelled my last VPS from Contabo and their system automatically terminated my account even though I still had a credit balance. However, I emailed their support (don't create a ticket through their webform- they didn't respond to that), they refunded my money to the payment method linked on the account, which in my case was PayPal, albeit took a couple of days.
Their email responses:
(Initial response to my inquiry)
(After I confirmed I want it refunded back to PayPal)
Gonetabo
Not familiar with how Contabo works but looking at this thread, how can one order new service using account balance when one can't even login?
I have a feeling that some EU privacy laws are involved here, if you don't have any services with them then they probably deactivate your account and remove all personally identifying information about it other then the bare essentials. It's a bit convoluted but the GDPR is pretty scary!
I assume it would become apparent in the process of trying, right? Surely.
If they remove your data then they can't identify the payment and balance.
Also, GDPR does not trump KYC and fiscal rules. Otherwise I can "create" millions of accounts with hundreds of services each, say I have 100 million income but the customers closed their account and paid with crypto. I deleted their personal data, officer, shredded the disks too, GDPR stuff!
You have to be able to prove you didn't launder money, at least for a while.
@contabo_m contabo, can you stop spamming our mailboxes and check abuses? are you kind of criminals as the topic suggests?
Some IPs I've been reporting for months and no effect, they just stop for a couple of days and then repeat again and again...
Just checked mxroute and it is nearly full of spam from contabo o_O
Every spam email from IPs I already reported to contabo... abuse department..so called
Strange things I read here ...
I actually always do have some funds at contabo / @contabo_m, enough to cover the costs for one year or some more, and never experienced any problems.
Related: I get an email every month informing me about a new invoice and that it has been paid (their system seems to be month-based), and occasionally (as in "not even every month") an email about some new location, some new product, or some other "major" news. No spam, no weekly "information" crap.
@tsoft
Contabo sells servers, virtual and dedi, afaik not firewall services. I had precisely zero abuse reports in about 2 years. If you get many abuse reports/accusations, then I guess that's your problem and not to forward abuse reports/accusations to you - as you seem to demand - would not be a sensible solution.
No, it is a reverse situation
I report spammers to Contabo, on their network.
I run software that does hard work extracting abusive IPs and reporting them to providers.
Sendgrid blocks the same day / same hour. Leaseweb within 2-3 days. Hetz very soon. Other smaller providers also act quickly.
Contabo - never. They are criminals, violate German laws.
I see they have a new CEO Dr. Christian Böing
anyone know the personal email of this Doctor Spam?
You are not the first and you shall not be the last.
Why did contabo deactivate customer account in first place? Especially when the customer has funds deposited