Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


OVH - Is reenabling auto-renew without consent legal?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

OVH - Is reenabling auto-renew without consent legal?

paul20paul20 Member
edited September 2021 in Help

So we have many dedicated servers at OVH and very often, we need to upgrade them, so we cancel them and get a new one. However, each time we cancel a server, the server stays up forever and never gets deleted. We have to open a ticket to get it deleted. We have to fight with them each time as they reply with "Our system will delete them automatically". We got tired of having to fight with them, so we decided to just cancel them and ignore them. All was fine for about 6 months until a few days ago. The auto-renew feature on these canceled servers automagically turned on, so their system billed us 6 months for each server. We got an email saying we have 3 days to pay, otherwise they'll terminate our account and send a debt agency on us. What kind of business practice is this? More importantly, why would auto-renew turn on by itself? We have called them and they're refusing to cancel the invoices. What to do? According to them, we owe them over $4000. Why would we pay for something that we canceled?

Comments

  • Did you buy the servers with commitments?

  • @comXyz said:
    Did you buy the servers with commitments?

    No, they aren't.

  • webcraftwebcraft Member
    edited September 2021

    Yesy because you agreed to their ToS. Since you know about this issue, just cancel right after ordering. OVH is no prepaid provider.

  • @paul20 said:

    @comXyz said:
    Did you buy the servers with commitments?

    No, they aren't.

    Then I have no ideas. I haven't had similar issues with OVH. I saw few posts about the cancelled servers still online, but I haven't seen OVH keep charging for the cancelled services.

    If the servers come with commitments, the commitments can be transferred to the new servers.

    Before the commitments auto-renew, you have to cancel them if you want to. OVH have email reminder for it.

  • @webcraft said:
    Yesy because you agreed to their ToS. Since you know about this issue, just cancel right after ordering. OVH is no prepaid provider.

    That's what we're doing. We click "Cancel", enter the reason, then nothing happens.

  • @paul20 said:

    @webcraft said:
    Yesy because you agreed to their ToS. Since you know about this issue, just cancel right after ordering. OVH is no prepaid provider.

    That's what we're doing. We click "Cancel", enter the reason, then nothing happens.

    Maybe check browser console to see if any errors?
    Try to cancel using Private/Incognito mode without any browser extensions?

  • @comXyz said:

    @paul20 said:

    @webcraft said:
    Yesy because you agreed to their ToS. Since you know about this issue, just cancel right after ordering. OVH is no prepaid provider.

    That's what we're doing. We click "Cancel", enter the reason, then nothing happens.

    Maybe check browser console to see if any errors?
    Try to cancel using Private/Incognito mode without any browser extensions?

    It's on their side. They even acknowledged it was a known bug. They just never fix it.

  • @paul20 said: It's on their side. They even acknowledged it was a known bug. They just never fix it.

    I don't think so. No sites responsible for the browser extensions you use.

  • It's on their side. They even acknowledged it was a known bug. They just never fix it.

    If true, this is legally their problem if they don't process it properly. Proving that you clicked it however is a challenge - But legal system usually boils down to 'dont fuck your customer' but meh im not your lawyer

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    You sure? I was able to cancel an OVH account by just clicking cancel.

    That was like 2 weeks ago.

  • @deank said:
    You sure? I was able to cancel an OVH account by just clicking cancel.

    That was like 2 weeks ago.

    It's an account bug.

  • This is the real issue , I have few servers with OVH , one was cancelled in 2019 it still shows up in my account , multiple time ask support to remove it from my account and it still in my account , cant re install etc but server is Online.

  • @karanchoo said:
    This is the real issue , I have few servers with OVH , one was cancelled in 2019 it still shows up in my account , multiple time ask support to remove it from my account and it still in my account , cant re install etc but server is Online.

    Exactly, and their system could randomly decide to charge you 2 years.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Not sure. I've had numerous accounts with OVH for about 10 years now.

    The only accounting issue I've had was when they triple-charged an invoice which was corrected with a phone call.

    Thanked by 1webcraft
  • webcraftwebcraft Member
    edited September 2021

    It sounds weired, indeed. You should double check your browser and cancel by phone or email if it doesn't work online. They have to accept your written cancellation if their online system doesn't work. OVH never made it complicated when I had such an issue, I just had to explain in full extent. Contact their french speaking hotline, they're sometimes for helpful than the international number.

  • @deank said:
    Not sure. I've had numerous accounts with OVH for about 10 years now.

    The only accounting issue I've had was when they triple-charged an invoice which was corrected with a phone call.

    OVH Europe or America? America is known to have way better support. I'm in Ireland and their phone lines don't work most of the time.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    OVA Canada. I use them because they are Canadian, meaning they charge taxes. It makes accounting easier for some clients who insist on using everything "Canadian".

    Not sure whether you are aware, but OVH initially didn't even have auto-renew. Users would have to manually renew or your accounts would be wiped out.

    LET used to have numerous threads about how awkward that was.

  • In most EU countries, you can object to an invoice and deny paying. After that, the company can no longer add fees and interest or use debt collection before they have taken the dispute to court.

    @ninzo59 is this how you do business?

    If so, it is time to move to a more stable provider.

  • @deank said:
    OVA Canada. I use them because they are Canadian, meaning they charge taxes. It makes accounting easier for some clients who insist on using everything "Canadian".

    Not sure whether you are aware, but OVH initially didn't even have auto-renew. Users would have to manually renew or your accounts would be wiped out.

    LET used to have numerous threads about how awkward that was.

    Yes, OVH Canada support replies to tickets within a few hours, while Ireland takes weeks to reply, sometimes they just close your ticket without replying. Calling OVH Canada is useless. They just say they can't interact with EU accounts. I wish we could move our account to Canada, but it's not possible.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    To be fair, if you need tech support at OVH, you are doing something wrong.

    Now, if it's billing related, the general consensus is call cuz tickets are just too slow to be actually useful for anything remotely urgent.

    Thankfully, I've never needed to use their ticket system. I've used a few for the kick of it to verify others' claim that it's slow.
    And it IS slow AF.

  • ArkasArkas Moderator

    It should be relatively easy to dispute as they weren't charging you monthly with notices, but just began with 6 months right away.

  • I can confirm, but not with OVH. DigitalOcean happened to me also. I disabled and yes I disabled auto renew and they still charged me...

    It also had happened with Spotify. Auto-Renew is a abuse. And should be disabled by default in every provider.

    I don't understand why auto renew is enabled by default, is a bad thing. If you want auto renew you just enable it.

    Please doesn't come with the argument "Because people want to renew without losing time".

    Well 80% of people never are happy with they hosting provider. Some of them yes, but most of them likes trying other providers.

    Is disrespectful of OVH doing that, make screenshots of tickets, emails, payments and dates and if they go after you legally you have proofs.

    Is so Ugly, disgusting to see providers abusing of auto renew with their clients. I'm not talking about all providers. But some specific.

    In last case go to your bank and cancel charging to OVH, or in Extreme case. Just cancel your card and Change to another One...

    I wish a good luck.

  • Another user reported something similar where not only did he switch to monthly payment the year prior, they tried to charge him for the whole year when he went to cancel.

Sign In or Register to comment.