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Comments
OK, partial scam
@centriohost
Yes it is a scam, if you do not state on the initial purchase that is for just 1 year. And tell people (we have it in writing from YOU) that you can renew at the same price. Then you can say thats scam if you cant renew the cert.
So let me get this clear.
You have sold 3000+ certs, and because of one (1) unpleasant costumer you deny all the other (atleast) 2999+ certs to be renewed. Yeah super job... we call that a consumer scam..
And let me clear up for you, with CANCELED. You removed user accounts, removed services from there account, you discontinued aka canceled it. Im not talking about canceling the actual cert itself, just the service you provided.
And again, YOU did this, you choose to discontinue the ability to renew the certificates. You can't blame anyone else but yourself for canceling it. As we can't cancel any of your services... So dont say we did this as thats not true...
@Gien You paid for 1 year and the SSL certificate is valid for one year. You did not pay for 2 years and only got 1 year, so this all comes down to whether or not people can say something and go back on their word.
Consider the following - How many startup projects have you seen that promises a certain release date? They actually take your money too for "pre-orders" and don't deliver on the date they promised. You got exactly what you paid for, and CentrioHost did not take 1 extra penny from you.
"Yes it is a scam, if you do not state on the initial purchase that is for just 1 year."
How do you know this to be true? He probably wanted to continue to do this, but his company has taken a huge hit for it. People was calling him a scammer before they even tried it. If it was your company, would you want to deal with it? For just $2/year? All the support tickets and people that don't even know how to use SSL and open a bunch of tickets? If you look at his first thread, he was fairly helpful until people started accusing him of things.
"So let me get this clear. You have sold 3000+ certs, and because of one (1) unpleasant costumer you deny all the other (atleast) 2999+ certs to be renewed. Yeah super job... we call that a consumer scam.."
One unpleasant customer? Where are you getting this info? Furthermore, people that aren't customers are already calling him a scammer. Again, would you want to deal with this for $2/year?
If I was him, what you're doing now would be the reason why I wouldn't offer SSL certificates at that price anymore.
Really ? Awesome customer support!
You're missing a very important difference in that comparison; "a Louis Vutton wallet" implies it being "genuine"; that is, sanctioned by Louis Vuitton, a centralized entity with monopolized control over the "genuine Louis Vuitton wallet" market. That enables them to control the prices.
The SSL market, for all its faults and hierarchical setups, does not have such a monopolized 'owner'. Somebody 'undercutting' a 'known provider' is a real possibility.
I don't think it is a scam either, but a broken promise. Of course that's a trust issue. I just have to trust a provider to make a reasonable effort to keep the service running for some time. Dropping this service after a couple of months does not increase that trust.
But - yes - we only went into an agreement for a year. Just as I can decide every year to continue or not, so can CentrioHost. That's only fair. And I think CentrioHost made it more then clear that this service is not beneficial for them, and I understand that decision.
I would not have bought the certificates if I would have now this upfront. So I do feel lured into a sale under false promises. But I'm willing to believe it was setup with good intentions. And it's not like I've just lost my lives savings by a huge scam :-)
I guess I was one of them and also mentioned that in this forum.
But then - by accident - I noticed that my account was cleared. At first I thought it had to do with an error as a result of integrating 'havehost' and 'centriohost'. But I received a short answer back that it was intentional and that the certificates could not be renewed anymore.
It is not the first time I have to deal with services that will no longer be offered and it will certainly not be the last one. There are lots of reasons why that can happen. But it's the first time that I'm not even notified about this and that my account is just cleared.
Not that I regard this as a criminal offense, but - even if it is just about a few dollars - it feels disrespectful. Just like you, I also have to run my stuff ... A little mail would have warned me that I will have to look out for other certificates, cancel the PayPal recurring payment, ...
When I then ask why the renewal was no longer possible (which I think is a fair question after the multiple confirmations by you about renewals), I did get a sec "You will not get any new certificate from here". Again, it feels like a "please f*ck off".
Not that I need to know all of your business decisions, but a simple "We reviewed the sustainability of this offering and unfortunately we had to decide to fade this out." would not have made me happy, but would have been OK for me.
In short, I think it mainly has to do with way you (did not) communicate about this. Without this thread, we would still not know about this and I'm sure lots of your customers still don't know.
Yes, I can be a bitch :-)
That doesn't even account for the security and audit requirements to be even an intermediate certificate authority. It's up to them [cert 'manufacturers' ] to choose whether to amortize that cost across the board or only on their high-end subscribers, but the cost still exist.
edit: totally unrelated to CentrioHost being a dick. And I realize now I'm probably replying more to @joepie91 than I am to Chumbi.
That's actually called "oligopoly", where the market is being controlled by a few participants (since all the mainline browsers only recognize certain certificate authority by default).
Not even that. An oligopoly is typically impenetrable in the short term; that is not the case for the SSL certificate market, where you just need a bucket of money and some smooth talking to get your certs added by all major vendors.
The best guess I can come up with is that he had to pay a large deposit or up front fee to get the lower SSL pricing, thus he sold a ton of SSL at near cost to recoup his initial investment. Now that he's sold however many cert's, he has his seed money back and cheap SSL pricing thus whatever he sells from now on is virtually pure profit.
If you could start the "smooth-talking" process and gets a cert authority going (accepted by mainstream browsers) and selling the certs at LE* prices I am sure you will get tonnes of business.
There is a flat-rate option with Alpha as well.
I asked my infro deleted from their system. I don't know what will happen next.... another twist?
That costs $50!
I don't know if I should laugh because it is funny, or because it may be true
I opened a ticket asking (not noticing that there was a continuation to this thread) and hilariously the ticket and the client account was removed. Then again I guess I should of expected that. I'll have to wait and see what I do come time to replace the certs. They could of at least just told me that they wouldn't renew and why then closed the ticket.
@CentrioHost wow, after reading all 5 pages, still not sure I fully understand your logic in refusing to honer your offers.
Curious though, did anyone that replied to this topic even read the terms?
http://www.centriohost.com/tos
Not saying they are right to do so, but they are well within rights to refuse reissue, and renewal. Remember that contract you signed, yeah I can guarantee every terms of service will have something along these lines.
That, in economics, is called barriers of entry, which is exactly why the SSL business is an oligopoly with all the providers could charge 50x or 100x more than what it cost to "manufacture" the certs.
Then I am afraid you have to come up with your own model and convince all the mainstream line browsers to use them.
To me you are like a idealists, you have your own vision of how the world should be functioning without having enough reality check. The reality is, we need money for food and shelter so as much as I love about this LE* community I would never be making all the code I write for free and asking for donations. By the same token, as much as I agree with you the manufacturing cost of SSL certs are next to zero, I would still ended up be paying 100x more than the cost to get one just because I have no other alternatives available to me. So when @centriohost comes in and offer something that is way cheaper, obviously people would still buy from them even though it is "expensive" to you.
Don't get me wrong, in a way, I admire guys like you, who is at least trying to dissociate yourself to the "mundane" part of life.
I'm just going to make an observation here; that you're implying "giving a damn" being a negative characteristic. I'll leave you to draw the conclusions from that observation.
I said that I am lacking the aforementioned bucket of money. This says exactly nothing about how high the barrier of entry is. There are plenty of people with a bucket of money, I'm simply not one of them.
That was exactly my original point. Centriohost's pricing wasn't "unrealistic", because there is no inherent manufacturing cost in an SSL certificate. Which makes people buy into it, rightfully expecting the service they paid for.
Nope, people buy it because they can't get it cheaper from elsewhere. The market values these certs way higher than what @Centriohost offered.
Yes that's exactly how you build that reputation.
Because of his own behaviour..
I wasn't talking about that, i know reissueing a cert isn't free. And the people who complained about that are probably what you say they are. But no other sain person was agreeing with them.
And as stated previously on this thread, it should have been made clear that for 2/2,5$ its an unmanaged/no support item (except issues regarding the host systems). But thats a learning point for centrio.
>
This are his own words, not mine. So don't say i said that.
And if @centriohost wanted to discontinue the certificates, he should have made a public announcement of it, stating that he, for example, can't add new, renew or reissue the certificates due to current situations.. If he/his company desides they cant offer it anymore thats his choice, but making it all disappear and hope no one will find out is scamming. Or atleast not being honest and forthcoming.
Stating something in a TOS doesn't make it 100% legally binding. Atleast not here...
If i state in a tos that when service is abused you owe me 100k$ you can put it in, doesn't make it legal.
Same goes for, it you dont pay i put your personal details on the internet for all to see.
Lol, how you use the word He Should. You are the CEO or, Owner or, something else :P
We dont discontinue any certificates. If you want to discontinue your purchased certificate inform me the domain name on PM
And still if any1 interested I can provide renewal service at 40$/yr. If you find cheap elsewhere, we can do Price Match too.
Will you honor your word and pricematch this 5 years wildcard certificate for 42 DKK (6€)?
Their offer expired :P Looking for valid offer, count me in then...
Lol, i got that one too
would like to see the price match.
That's why i said you should, not you must.. in the sence of he should have done an announcement on the not being able to renew your certificates, as proper business communicated to its customers
Atleast thats sounds a little nicer.. you're almost getting it
I'm not mad at you or your company (it may sound like that) i just think you offered a real nice offer, and i hate to see how it all went down the crapper. Its just how you communicate about this is just way below of what i expect a professional company
They have another one, superior to your offer, that didn't expire... 2yrs AlphaSSL ($18 + tax), 5yrs AlphaSSL ($44 + tax), 2yrs AlphaSSL-Wildcard ($54 + tax), 5yrs AlphaSSL-Wildcard ($115 + tax).
I don't know why anyone would want to renew a service with them anyway. They want to come here and twist the story and that's cool, but drama started around them on LET for taking money, not delivering, and calling people who complained about it "cunts." Simple as that.
I'd rather buy an EV from godaddy than a cup of coffee stirred by this scammer.
amen