Netcup launches in Virginia

maverick

Thank you for the clarification @angstrom, appreciate it!

Honestly, I'm too lazy to check, but inclined to trust you more than them.

Because of this:

@angstrom said: What I believe is still true is that if one orders a server with a monthly contract, one is effectively obliged to keep the server for at least two months, precisely because -- as you correctly note -- if one needs to cancel at least 31 days in advance, one is effectively obliged to stay for at least two months

However you want to interpret this, my only conclusion is that the company that does such sales gimmicks (or did in the past) is not to be trusted!

And I'm only saying this because often other people write "netcup service is good my man", and I'm genuinely attracted to their offerings, but... I have to constantly remind myself that I don't really want to deal with a company that only cares how to extract as much money as possible, especially if using such scammy tactics.

angstrom

@maverick said:
Thank you for the clarification @angstrom, appreciate it!

Honestly, I'm too lazy to check, but inclined to trust you more than them.

Because of this:

@angstrom said: What I believe is still true is that if one orders a server with a monthly contract, one is effectively obliged to keep the server for at least two months, precisely because -- as you correctly note -- if one needs to cancel at least 31 days in advance, one is effectively obliged to stay for at least two months

However you want to interpret this, my only conclusion is that the company that does such sales gimmicks (or did in the past) is not to be trusted!

And I'm only saying this because often other people write "netcup service is good my man", and I'm genuinely attracted to their offerings, but... I have to constantly remind myself that I don't really want to deal with a company that only cares how to extract as much money as possible, especially if using such scammy tactics.

Although my reaction isn't as strong as yours, I agree that in this respect, netcup could be more transparent!

The problem is that if one says "You need to cancel a month in advance", does this mean 31 days, 30 days, or 28 days? (Or even 29 days, for February of a leap year?)

netcup chooses 31 days, but this isn't what most people would naturally guess

My advice to netcup would be to choose 28 days, which is exactly 4 weeks, in which case they could simply say "You need to cancel 4 weeks in advance"

Or even better would be to reduce the interval to 14 days, which is exactly 2 weeks, in which case they could simply say "You need to cancel 2 weeks in advance"

maverick

@angstrom said: Although my reaction isn't as strong as yours, I agree that in this respect, netcup could be more transparent!

Yeah, it seems I'm a bit pissed off, that I will never be able to try Netcup due to what I believe are their dishonest sales practices.

My advice to netcup would be to choose 28 days, which is exactly 4 weeks, in which case they could simply say "You need to cancel 4 weeks in advance"

No, I strongly disagree. Even if measuring in weeks is better than measuring in months, let's see how I would interpret the need to cancel 4 weeks in advance:

"Dear customer, when you pay for a month of service with us, we will definitely do everything in our power to bill you for another month, whether you want it or not. Now, depending on the month, you will have 48h or 72h to decide if you don't won't to be billed again. Act and cancel fast! Wait, unless it's February of a non leap year, in which case we're billing you for March, too, no matter what. Try to dispute that to our debt collectors, good luck!"

7 days grace period would be max I would consider fair to buyer. And only because I can understand that some providers might be understaffed, or have lousy billing software and so on...

dev_vps

@angstrom said:

Let me quickly add that netcup's non-promotional (x86-)vServers now all have hourly billing, so these servers can be canceled at any time!

Usually, the NetCup hourly billed instances have setup fee of €5.

https://www.netcup.com/en/server/vps/vps-200-g11s-iv

Set-up fee 5 € (incl. 0% VAT)
Minimum contract period - 0 months
Billing period 6 months

billed for six months and will be refunded based on actual usage