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Inception Hosting Review
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Yeah but from what I understand this wasn't the goal as he chose to destroy the brand/company and didn't do much to get as many customers as possible migrate to his own brand.
Lmao still at page 1
What suprises me the most is people seem to have believed Clouvider are nice people?
They’ve always been quite unresonable. I’m sorry if that’s news to anyone.
Thank you all for your feedback. We are genuinely sorry if we have not met everyone’s expectations. These are particularly busy and challenging times for our company, and we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding.
We have received multiple messages with positive feedback, though we acknowledge this hasn’t been the case for everyone here. Please rest assured that we are working diligently to address all tickets as quickly as possible. As promised, all refunds will be issued by 15th January 2025, and we are striving to process them earlier wherever possible. This aligns with the email sent on 12th November, where we provided a detailed explanation of the situation.
To clarify, refunds will cover services from 12th November onwards. This means that services have been free of charge since the date you received the email, and any refunds not already issued will be completed by 15th January 2025.
Regarding delays in responses, we apologise for failing to send an immediate acknowledgment of your ticket. While your ticket was noted and escalated internally, we regret the lack of timely communication. The message in question was responded to yesterday. However, we feel the use of phrases such as “a bunch of scumbags” is an overreaction, especially during this challenging period. Over the years, we’ve strived to deliver great service to our customers, including providing two months of free service and ensuring refunds. The funds for these refunds are guaranteed by our parent company, for which we are immensely grateful.
We do not provide support via email. If you could provide a ticket ID, we would be happy to investigate this further.
Thank you once again for your patience and understanding during this time.
They’ve always been rude and arrogant. Better late than never I guess.
InceptionHosting… what a way to end a legacy, ey
Anyway thanks for the drama
Fully read up now
Your mistake
The biased perspective that you show here is astonishing. I'll have to ask the following question since i am new here.
Were you a host provider in past at some point of time?
I don't get it how you guys have time to reply to almost every message here in this thread but you didn't have time respond to OP in 14 days to avoid this whole chargeback situation @Clouvider
Priorities.
I'll give a benefit of doubt.
There will be thousands of tickets in the system. So as a lazy person, it's easier to look in the forum than in ticket system.
Moreover, you have your own cheerleaders who will portray OP as some irrational person which will in turn benefit the host in two ways.
I am actually liking this new trend where LET could be used as convenience of the host.
I dont really like to involve with this type of things but I just have a few things to add.
Given that every users who termination date after the scheduled closure date would be refunded (and there's no other options afaik) why not refund earlier for everyone by default so everyone could be happier?
I dont think OP is wrong here actually, he is probably one of the more calm customers (even better than me I have to admit) we have seen on LET. I have never actually dispute a transaction before (except HostDoc deadpool) but if I were in the same position I have a bit more faith with Clouvider brand that I can afford to wait a bit.
I do think Clouvider could have handled the situation a bit better on this situation especially the response time is less than ideal. I have completely no issue with the closure email as that's very well done, but similar to most dramas it could have been resolved much faster with other methods and seriously it isnt worth the time.
Yet again, you've ignored everything I've answered, and tried to change track.
OK, if you think I'm biased, how about answering this? The example I posed above, do you think it would acceptable from Netflix?
As a customer, I can't see anything unreasonable in that. Can you? If so, please tell me what is unreasonable about it. And then tell me how that differs from this situation.
No.
I have, however, started a business where I intend to sell subscriptions to customers. I don't intend to screw any customers over, however I've read countless stories of customers initiating chargebacks for trivial things like forgetting to cancel a recurring subscription or after using a service for a month and then deciding they'll do a chargeback because they don't want to continue. Even in a situation where a company has a policy of no questions asked refunds, customers are still dicks and initiate chargebacks.
If you lose a chargeback claim, or even just accept it and give a full refund, as a company you will be hit with a penalty fee and it will damage your standing with the card handler. If you get too many (in the order of 10s or 100s), it can cause you to lose the ability to take any payments at all. Chargebacks are probably the worst thing you can possibly do to a company, and it's why once a chargeback has been initiated, the company has to fight back against it.
Even defending successfully against a fraudulent chargeback causes cost to the company, both in fees and time spent gathering the required evidence (there's a LOT of it), and will still damage your standing with the card handler. It was referred to in an earlier post as "the nuclear option", and it really is from the perspective of the company in terms of the damage it can do.
I'm fortunate in that my product is an app, and I'm strongly thinking of just doing all my subscriptions via the app stores and sacrificing 10% of all revenue so that I don't have to deal with the risk of chargebacks. I might still experiment with selling subscriptions directly too, because the costs of doing that are about 2-3% instead of 10%, but as I said, a few customer raising chargebacks unnecessarily are enough to cost far more. And that's even going into it with a policy of "I don't care if the refund request is legitimate or not, I'd refund any customer who wasn't happy and asked for a refund".
To put it into perspective - a chargeback on a $5 transaction, even if successfully disputed can cause an additional $10-$50 of fees to the company. A single fraudulent chargeback can wipe out an entire year's revenue from another customer. To bring it back to this case, the service was $25 per year, and the customer was concerned he might lose a month's payment (even though he actually stood to benefit from a free month), and so the chargeback was raised over a possible $2 loss. His action will have caused the provider to lose far more than that, and moreover if he'd read the original email more carefully, he would have known that a chargeback was completely unnecessary.
Yes, not replying to the ticket promptly sucks. The OP starting a chargeback sucked a lot more.
Once Inception stated that they were shutting down, being unable to provide the service beyond 15th of January meant the customer was entitled to a full or partial refund ASAP because it was a yearl paid service. If it was monthly it would be a different matter.
The customer had to go and to shell out for a yearly paid server and it would be unfair to be out of pocket for the price of a yearly payment. If Clouvider offered storage it would be a different matter.
Other one man teams can do better, much better. I won't deal with this garbage company anyway.
@InceptionHosting has provided the response that should have been made in the first place and this would never have gone any further.
@ralf regardless of everything you’ve said - I’m not going to argue either way - all the talk about a chargeback is irrelevant. Both parties have stated a PayPal dispute was raised (not even a claim); while not ideal, it is a very different beast to a chargeback via the card issuer.
damage control time
@ralf
First of all that's not what happened here.
In your own example, I will construct the scenario.
OP was a Hulu customer and Netflix made acquisition of Hulu. Now, Netflix is terminating the Hulu package of which OP was a subscriber. The T&C of customer was that with Hulu and not Netflix. But now, OP has no knowledge about what deals that has been signed between Hulu and netflix regarding the migrated accounts. On the other hand, it is now Netflix which will affect the OP in the end. This escalates complexity of the scenario because we are talking two different T&C here.
You are trying to portray a picture which is very different from reality by your example.
Secondly, Pro - Rata basis. Of what? You may calculate later but you'll need to mention what will be the proportional distribution.
You're giving free period but you are holding the yearly amount upto Jan 15. So what will be the discount that you are giving the customer for keeping this money for another 2 months? Because if he got refund now, these $ will earn interest. For OP this discount will be negligible but as a company, it can gain lots of benefits from the pool from accounts perspective. These benefits will be as a result of exploiting the userbase. Why not mention this prior so that the customers have prior knowledge of what is going to happen?
Another aspect is, why this free period is shoving in to the customer? If one wants it, let him continue and refund in Jan 15 while if one doesn't want to continue, then simply terminate and refund.
when clouvider bought the business "inception hosting" no longer exists and those terms went up in smoke. you're lucky that clouvider is willing to give you a refund at all. search for limewire hosting here and see what happened to those poeple who bought 1-year vps.
That's not what happens in acquisition. There are merging of assets and liabilities in account books.
refund is the bottom line to make it not a scam. it’s never something one should feel lucky/grateful about
This has nothing to do with Hulu whatsoever. I didn't even know Netflix had been bought by Hulu. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Replace Netflix with any other company.
The point was to show that exactly the same scenario would play out if there was no other company involved, just the withdrawal of one product line or service and the option of a discount to start a different one, with a generous refund whatever option was chosen.
No, that is you. Apart from replacing the company name with Netflix and referring to the products as X and Y, that is information the email communicated.
At this point, I think you must be being deliberately obtuse just so you can prolong the conversation. Or you're unable to read previous comments. This has already been answered many times.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that by giving 2 months of free service, they weren't making money from this offer.
The service was going to be terminated and refunded, as the original e-mail said.
If the customer really wanted to terminate early, they could have shut down the server from the control panel. However, they actually have no rights to demand an early refund as they'd paid in advance for the year, and they were still able to use the service (now for free) had they wanted to while they waited for their refund. So this interest, that you now think is super important, was never even on the table anyway.
Anyway, I've had enough of this discussion, as there's literally nothing more useful that can be added from either side, so I'm going to keep out of it from now on.
@ralf
It seems you are unaware of acquisition/merging of company and how the account books are also merged along with what liabilities are (have to be) carry forwarded.
It's a waste of time when you put your head deep in the sand repeating "It doesn't matter" while not even addressing & refuting any of the points that why it shouldn't matter.
It's a waste of time, I agree.
The reality is that clouvider terminated the contract by shutting down the service early. That's what happened in this acquisition. Obviously the "liabilities" weren't merged, otherwise you can file a lawsuit to get that 1 year vps back.
Lawsuit isn't even needed in this case.
A chargeback (against both the parties wish) should be initiated if host doesn't respond.
OP didn't receive what he paid for and he doesn't want 2 months to refund. Even after waiting for weeks, tickets were ignored by the host.
So OP has every right to request for chargeback and go for arbitration.
I've been seeing quite a few ads for Cloudvider dedicated servers recently, and as I recognised them from LET I was thinking about giving them a try, (I've never seen targeted ads from a LET provider so I was curious).
Then I read 10 pages of this thread and now it looks like I've dodged a bullet.... 😬
Indeed. No one needs to go through such mental gymnastics to save a few bucks.
The moral of the story is answer your fucking customers.
what you said makes sense if the service has already been terminated, but the service is still running so he's still getting what he paid for, at least until the termination date.
intent to breach a contract isn't a breach yet. will paypal return his money? I doubt it.
that'll be the job of paypal to decide.
OP's option is for chargeback and he should go for it as he has a strong case in my eyes.
We’d like to address some points.
First, we are slightly confused by comments suggesting that our parent company terminated contracts between us and our customers. This is incorrect. Inception Hosting Limited is ceasing operations due to multiple factors, including the dated nature of the Inception platform. Upgrades or replacements would have been necessary in 2025, and maintaining our business model as a budget provider would have been unsustainable without significantly increasing prices. Higher pricing would not align with our business model or the expectations of our customers.
We understand there are ideal scenarios where customers could choose their exact refund and termination dates. However, as a budget VPS provider, we do not have the resources to execute such a tailored approach. Instead, we’ve provided as much notice and flexibility as possible. Services have been free of charge since the notice was sent on 12th November, and we’ve communicated that refunds will be completed by 15th January 2025.
To clarify further, our parent company is not processing refunds for our customers. All refunds will be handled directly by Inception Hosting Limited as outlined in the original notice.
We’re also puzzled as to why this discussion has shifted toward how acquisitions work or other unrelated topics. The notice we issued explained our decision and the situation to the best of our ability, and we continue responding to customers as quickly as we can. Regarding the initial post that sparked this discussion, we have already addressed the delay in our response to the Customer. As previously mentioned, we regret this delay and apologise for failing to acknowledge their message sooner. While the message was escalated internally, our lack of a prompt reply led to an unfair public claim that we don’t respond to customers. To our knowledge, this was an isolated case, as no other customers have raised similar concerns.
For this particular Customer, we are sorry for the delay. However, we believe disputing payments under the circumstances was unnecessary and harmful to our business. We’re open to constructive criticism, but being called “a bunch of scumbags” is quite unfair, especially given how hard we’re working to handle this difficult situation responsibly.
As stated before, refunds will cover services from 12th November onwards, meaning services have been free of charge since that date. Any outstanding refunds will be completed by 15th January 2025.
We kindly ask for your continued patience and understanding as we navigate this challenging time. Thank you.