All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Botched server delivery - what compensation is fair to ask?
Hey LET,
Looking for some input from others in the industry.
I ordered a dedicated server from a provider (mid-tier, not naming them) with the following config: Xeon 2697v4, 256GB RAM, RAID 0, 4TB usable space. This was supposed to be the backend for a new region we were launching, and we even took in preorders in advance.
Unfortunately, things have gone off the rails :
-The server delivery was delayed by nearly a month
-When it finally came online, it had the wrong CPU, only 160GB RAM, and was set up in RAID despite clear instructions for no RAID
-I’ve since had to refund all preorders, lost almost all of the pre-order clients, and missed the planned launch window entirely
They’ve apologized and offered a free month of service (which is the month i paid for so i don't understand what that even means now), and are promising to sort the RAM issue now. I’ve been as patient and flexible as possible (even agreed to RAID 0 when they offered it), but the overall experience has caused real business damage.
So here's my question to the community:
In your experience, what kind of compensation is reasonable to ask for in a case like this?
Especially when the delays and misconfigurations led to actual revenue loss.
Not looking to name and shame — just want to know what’s fair to request before I escalate further.
Thanks in advance!
Comments
Did you receive the right configuration eventually?
Chargeback yesterday.
Edit: /s obviously. Probably can figure it out with provider so that everybody wins in the end.
there's no compensation in lowend.
either chargeback yesterday or consider suing said provider.
if you don't have grounds to sue them, then its kinda obvious there's no grounds for compensation either unless there was an agreement with SLA.
also taking pre orders is not their responsibility but yours to ensure timely provisioning.
disclaimer: non provider
Idk if it's a win on both side.
If I'm not reading this wrong, they lost refund preorders and clients and didn't meet their launch date.
Okay so you’re telling me you’re using some random mid tier provider for your critical business needs.
Congrats
i am promised it will be resolved tomorrow i have given them a deadline till monday afternoon
this offer was not from lowendtalk its a separate company so that doesnt come in picture here
isnt it their JOB to atleast deliver server in correct configuration ?
also they were taking 1 week to simply install an OS onto it even when the cpu ram and disk configuration was all wrong ?
(yes cpu was different from what i asked for , RAM was 100 gigs less than what i asked for)
NOTE : This is a Lease to own offer from them not a rental
Any chance of naming the provider so we can spice things up a bit?
ah i wont take names but its 100% not random mid tier provider
they kinda acquired a lot of companies too as far as i know
their contractual obligation is to you. not to your pre order clients.
Haha I get the curiosity 😅
I'd prefer not to name them right now — not because I’m defending them, but because I’m still giving them one final window to sort things out as promised.
If they drop the ball again or don’t offer fair compensation, I’ll be more than happy to share the full story with names, timestamps, and receipts. Appreciate everyone’s input so far — genuinely helps.
Okay I missed that part. Chargeback yesterday it is.
But no seriously if the provider wanna make up for it, they probably can give compensation like few months service.
Absolutely, 100% agreed — delivering the correct configuration should be the bare minimum, especially in a lease-to-own arrangement where I’m committing long-term.
And yes, it took them nearly a week to install an OS after delivering a server with a different CPU, 100GB less RAM, and the wrong RAID setup. That’s not just a misstep — that’s a full breakdown in provisioning and communication.
While I get that my end customers aren't their direct concern, the delays and issues directly impacted my business. At the end of the day, if a provider’s failure prevents me from delivering, it’s absolutely fair to expect compensation that reflects that damage
its fair to ask, but again not a contractual obligation if late penalty clause is not included in the T&Cs during order.
i highly doubt that , they have been dodging my questions repeatedly when i ask them .....
That’s fair — there’s no legal obligation for compensation unless a delay or penalty clause is defined in the T&Cs (which wasn’t the case here).
But in this situation, it’s not just about a delay. The entire server was delivered with the wrong configuration
This wasn’t a case of missed SLAs by a few hours — it was a complete misprovisioning that took nearly a month to even partially resolve, and still isn’t fully fixed. In a lease-to-own scenario, that’s especially critical because I’m not paying for a temporary workaround — I’m paying toward long-term ownership of something I never actually received as ordered.
Why do you still want to do business with them? They took your money, delayed you for a month, then patched together some shit to see if you'd take it.
I mean, different folks, but not a chance I'd still work with them. They're either bullshitters or incompetent. Either way nope the fuck out.
Refund, chargeback, whatever. Take your money and run.
Honestly, I’m only holding out because it feels like we’re right at the finish line, and walking away now just makes all the lost time hurt more. But yeah, this is the last shot — if it’s not fixed properly by Monday, I’m out.
You can't make your customers dependent on a provider. If your provider can't offer what you're looking for, you can't accept these situations even if they're free.
If you're looking for cheap and just want to make a profit, even if it doesn't make you look bad in the eyes of your customers, the problem isn't your provider, it's you.
If a provider we pay does this to us, even if they lose, our customers come first. We've had some problems with nodes rented for 1-2 days that didn't fit what we were looking for, even if we paid for a month, we lose them, and that's it.
drop the name of the provider and maybe it can speed things up
I think taking preorders is always a risky gamble. It probably would have been better to wait for everything to be provisioned and configured before putting your services for sale. It would have saved not only time, money, and hassle, but your reputation too. Some providers are fortunate that everything deploys on time and their customers are happy, others not so much.
As for your current provider, dumping them is perhaps the best move. But as others have clearly said, their contract is to you, not to your clients. The game of the business is the risk you take in selling a service to make a profit. In this case, the bet went sour, but that’s part of the business. The most the provider can offer is free service but not anything above that unless some special contract was signed.
Disclaimer: also not a provider
Lately, we've seen some businesses offering pre-sale plans (filling servers/buying parts) and then activating services... Not all of them do that, but these days you can see anything.
this is very common but requires good planning / experience for a seamless delivery. many pre-orders still get delayed etc. its really up to the end customers to decide whether they would wait or leave.
or if they should generally avoid OMO with cashflow limitations.
There is no compensation, you should get a full refund and look elsewhere. Usually red flags present themselves during first interactions, like so. Imagine what could happen once you have customer data live.
Also there's no reason to use RAID-0, or no raid at all. It really makes no sense anymore.
It is not normal in the regular only those that require extraordinary configurations to two coins!
You should always take the necessary measures if you have a business and you have clients that you can't let down. The problem is one, then your provider is another problem, the end customer has another problem that they already paid for and don't depend on their services.
---------------\\
For example, McDonald's sells hamburgers for $1 but asks customers to pay in advance. A thousand customers pay for their food and then don't receive it, but your store has already made its money, so you have to wait for the rest?
That's what providers who don't believe in their product do.
Sometimes it's not about quantity, it's about quality!
The customer who knows what he wants goes to a restaurant, pays, is served, enjoys it, and goes home!
There isn't anything wrong with that. To be clear, I'm not dissing on providers doing preorders; I'm just pointing out that it's a game of cards that can be either profitable or costly. I know not everyone has cash on hand to buy server parts upfront and I'd be ignorant to assume otherwise.
For many providers (as I said in my original comment) the gamble pays off and they have happy customers, paid-off nodes, and a good reputation (HostCram comes to mind with their 7900 nodes). For other providers, like the OP, it goes sour and they are left with paying refunding fees, losing clients, and perhaps some reputation damage if their clients didn't come back.
How a provider prices that risk into their business strategy depends on their risk tolerance. I as a customer am not worried because I know I can chargeback my money back if they don't deliver or persuade me that they will eventually deliver, so the risk for me is very low. For a provider, the risk is much higher if things backfire. Refunding clients or dealing with chargebacks from disgruntled clients adds extra cost and overhead to the point that you may wish you never did a preorder sale.
whoever wanted the machines i shfited them promptly to another machine and whoever chose the refund option i processed their refund
the pre-order customers are not the main talking point here please READ
yes it was thats why i kept a fail over machine colocated but it was to be setup liek 4d after the main machine setup
so i gave the clients option to either refund or wait 4 days to get their pre orders
some chose refund and some chose to wait 4 days
Also, just to clarify — the preorders weren’t really the main issue here. I’ve handled preorders before and fulfilled them smoothly, and even this time, I managed it responsibly by giving clients clear options: a refund or shifting to a backup machine I had colocated as a fallback.
Some opted to wait, others chose a refund, and I processed those immediately — so no clients were left hanging.
The real issue here was on the provider side: wrong hardware and a massive delay, which made the situation unnecessarily painful to manage.