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HOST-C 7 Quarters Paid via PayPal — Server Deleted, Data Gone, ‘Mailbox Issue’?
Let me clarify my situation briefly.
I bought the $12.5/quarter 5TB promo plan.
Paid via PayPal subscription with auto-billing enabled.
I checked my PayPal history — 7 consecutive quarters paid. No missed payments. No cancellation from my side.
In February, I discovered the server was gone. All my data was gone with it.
Support told me they had emailed me in December, I didn’t respond, and my mailbox couldn’t receive emails — so they marked the service as non-renew and cleaned it up.
There was no apology. No restoration option. Just the explanation that my mailbox “couldn’t receive email.”
At first, I thought maybe it was really my mailbox issue.
But after checking around, I saw multiple users on HostLoc reporting similar cleanups. I don’t know whether their cases were email-related or for other reasons — but it clearly doesn’t look isolated.
From my perspective:
PayPal subscription was active.
Payments had been going through.
No failed invoice.
No cancellation request from me.
Yet the service was permanently deleted and all data lost.
If billing was working normally, why permanently delete instead of suspend?
Why no restoration attempt?
Why no acknowledgment of data loss?
I’m not here to attack anyone. I just want transparency.
If the old promo plans were no longer sustainable, just say so.
But attributing everything to a mailbox issue — while payments were processing fine for nearly two years — doesn’t really add up.
That’s all.
Comments
bruh, you should check your email box periodically, otherwise how do the providers contact you?
So did you pay or not?
Hi,
at very first, tagging the provider @host_c makes most sense, so they have a chance to get to know this thread.
At second, please check carefully if the service stopped in/during a paid time frame. Yes or no.
What happened was that auto-renew was disabled (by the provider) after the December email I allegedly didn’t respond to.
So when the billing cycle ended, it simply expired.
My point is not about unpaid bills —
it’s about auto-renew being turned off without my confirmation, leading to deletion and data loss.
That’s what I’m trying to understand.
@zhazhahui - give me a ticket number or a e-mail address via DM, so I know what is the specific on this case, otherwise I will toss this to the garbage can.
If you prefer not to provide this information, my assumption is that a support ticket was opened requesting clarification regarding your account or service, and no response or action was taken. ( we don't just close services because we feel like it )
As a general rule, starting in late 2024 we implemented stricter procedures to combat fraud and fake accounts. Whenever an invoice email bounced back with errors such as “inbox non-existent,” we opened a support ticket and requested clarification from the customer.
In most cases, this effectively gave the customer an additional time to resolve the issue and provide valid contact details. If no action was taken, we considered the case closed.
Payment of a service does not equal TOS and AUP compliance.
FROM TOS:
Contact Information
https://my.host-c.com/knowledgebase/25/Service-Suspension-Rules-Malicious-Activities-and-Other-Policies.html
Our terms and conditions keep track of version and date published, last change on this is:
Version: 5
Date: 08-August-2025
@zhazhahui - I wait for a DM on your specific case to see if this was a misunderstanding/error on our side.
@layer7 - THX
Hi,
we are currently setting up a new billing system and integrating paypal as payment option.
I dont know how host-C's billing works, but i think you get a notification from paypal that a subscribtion was terminated.
But i am not 200% sure about this.
If a provider will receive a mail daemon failure notification because of a mail box not existing, you can expect things to go downhill.
But according to you your email is fine and working?!
Well anyway, i suggest you to clarify things with host-c via direct message here so things can be sorted out.
Good luck, and of course sad if such things happens ( unwanted terminations ).
No, as as service that is set to be terminated on billing end does not get a new invoice issued/generated, hence it is terminated.
Did you ask support for email transmission logs?
If they have logs to demonstrate that they transmitted the email and the MX server of your email provider accepted the email, you have to follow up with your email provider on why you couldn't receive email.
You can get the Message-ID from the sender, and then ask your email provider to lookup that Message-ID to see what happened.
No idea what happened with this customer, but just reading this, there's a clear problem.
If somebody's e-mail setup was broken for a day, maybe they misconfigured it and it took them a while to notice, they would have missed both the e-mail from you that was bounced and you acted on AND any e-mail about a ticket in your panel.
Normal people don't log onto their provider's panels just for the fun of it, they log onto the panel when they have an issue with something. If you know the customer e-mail isn't working, you also have no way of letting them know there is a ticket that needs their attention. So saying "we opened a ticket" is pointless.
As OP has pointed out, if you'd taken any kind of action - e.g. suspending their server either immediately, or at the end of the billing period (without deleting it obviously), they'd have noticed quickly their site was down and logged on to the panel to find out why.
Removing an active payment method and then deleting on non-payment, when you know they won't have received the e-mail from you telling them that's what you're doing seems unreasonable.
when we open tickets in those cases, we usually provide that info in the ticket.
For example:
Posted on Friday 13th February at 19:29
You ignored a ticket since 22/09/2025 - ( WWW-REDACTED- Update mail adress )
You have 48 hours to comply.
I have no other method of contacting a customer, so it is not my responsibility to provide a reachable e-mail address.
I do not think that the phone number might have worked? I might try that one out to see what McDonalts will pick up the phone.
This is not new, We have been asking customers to update their data with viable values for 2 years now.
Also, the above reply is again based on 100% speculation, as I do not have specifics to work with.
This is not the first, nor the last you will see, I am sure of that.
If you would have read our mail sent out in December, you would understand my point and decission on this.
My point is that it doesn't matter what info you provide in the ticket - the user will not know the ticket is even there.
There are many reasons why e-mail might be down for a period.
You know for sure that it did work previously.
I understand the problem you are trying to solve with obviously fake details, however, as in this case here, you can easily screw over people whose e-mail is down temporarily, especially when you disable their already working payment method.
And maybe the e-mail address you have for them is still correct. Just because it failed one day, doesn't mean that it's permanently gone.
All of your actions were done based on 100% speculation too though.
I am not a customer of yours.
Also I only just noticed this part. WTF? 48 hours? Nobody is going to be checking their provider's panel every day just on the off chance they've raised a ticket and they haven't seen the e-mail.
Just suspend their service and wait for them to log on to the panel and find out why, don't just remove their payment methods and let the service get deleted.
Yeah, suspending the service seems by far the easiest way to get a customer to check the providers panel.
Sending a mail that bounces and then expecting the customer to login every 2 days seems harsh at best.
@host_c since it's [email protected], could it be that, it's currently pendingDelete?
I relay don't care, sincerely, not my problem as it is not my domain to manage, what am I, Uptime Kuma???
As a general Reply:
Should I wait till next payment passes and service renews for another moth/quarter/year? then I have the dilemma of suspending an actual payed service,while I get the same reply, none as the the auto payment works so there is still no engagement from the customer.
This would effectively drag the situation on indefinitely......
On the suspend part, that will be PP/Stripe/Other dispute, as I am actively suspending a payed product just to get he/she/it's attention, not ideal again....... and why should I take that risk. That is not a viable solution.
We are a hosting provider, not an investigative service.
Customers who choose to operate their own email infrastructure are responsible for maintaining and monitoring those systems. - if that is the case on the above.
OK, since I have no ticket number, trash it is.
have a nice weekend fellas!!
Hi,
suspending a paid service because you cant reach the customer?
So the complain will come from another direction...
Its indeed a loop-hole situation.
The email address is essentially THE (only) identification exist. If its gone it means the whole account is gone. -- Customer can not update the address without confirmation through the old address. And if its an account without (correct)(updated) personal data then the customer can not identify him another way ( assuming he didnt gave any (valid)) phone number.
But what could be done actually and thats how we handle stuff like this @host_c
Dont set the service or payment subscribtion to termination.
Simply let it be as it is. Usually the billing system would see the unpaid invoice and suspend the service. If its not paid, after some time, terminate it. If its paid, it continues.
Thats how we handle it and terminate ( at latest ) after 30 days ( could also be earlier ).
This is actually a situation of pure good will on hosters side.
Imagine you unmount your physical mail box and someone want to deliver a court order and cant do it because your physical mailbox is just not there. He will report back to the court that your address does not exist. Depending on the court order maybe the police will be ordered to search you.
There are some crucial things in the way how we made the world work.
And if you produce fatal errors like this, then dont blame others for the result.
IF the problem was really a non existing mail address, then its purely the customers fault.
Really, purely, and i am really totally pro customer usually.
You as user of your mail address must know if it exist or not. And you must react if you loose it.
Imagine you loose / change your bank account ( why ever ) and people try to charge your bank account according to the contract you made with them.
Obviously what ever comes as a result of this fatal fault ON YOUR SIDE is your fault.
I can't tell if you are deliberately ignoring the suggestion I provided in my very first reply which deals with all these hypotheticals.
Suspend the service at the end of the billing period until they log into the panel to find out why. Maybe if they haven't done that within a week, fine, let the service end and get deleted.
If you haven't billed them yet, then there is nothing for them to dispute.
But what you are doing is guaranteed to screw over your customers.
Congratulations. You have convinced me that I never want a service from you.
What you're basically saying is that if, at any point over my service validity with you, my e-mail delivery has a problem, you'll remove my payment method, inform me via a method you know doesn't work, and then blame me for not having read what you've sent me and just delete my account.
Consider this - has your service ever experienced any downtime? If so, why do you expect your clients to have greater uptime on their email than you can provide with your service?
Anyway, this is my last reply in this thread. I'm not your customer and while I had been keeping an eye out on your offers, I now never plan to be a customer, so I don't really care how you try to justify your actions. Just know that they are crappy.
This whole issue has arisen because Host-C sold a service, told their customers it would be valid until 2027, then pulled the plug on it early. They seem to be competent in terms of network administration, but their business practices are horribly shady. I too will never be their customer.
I think suspension for 30 days and then deletion seems fair.
In this case, customer also can not complain much since he was given a grace period of a month to transfer to the new package in case the older is discontinued.
Sadly, I don't find the answers from @host_c very professional and reassuring
Let me enlighten the un-payed VS forcibly closed cases. ( violation of TOS, failure to reply to account related tickets opened from our part )
Our Terms of Service clearly state:
Suspended services are permanently deleted within 5 days of the due date if payment is not received. This includes deletion of all backups, which cannot be recovered.
In this specific case, the service was not suspended under the normal overdue workflow, it is not about payment, but manually set to “Terminate at Billing End.”
So to make this clear:
We retain unpaid VPS services for 5 days before deletion, even in cases involving large storage allocations. - That is a clear grace period.
OP case is a totally different problem, yet, I have no specifics till this posting.
Without the associated ticket reference, I cannot comment further on the why on the exact reasoning behind that action. I can assume as most of you did, yet that will just lead to the shit-show above.
Oh wow, new "fear" unlocked.
The bit that makes me nervous is the 48hr window I guess. I can certainly imagine situations where I have to deal with domain issues that may take >48hrs and I'd have larger priorities in that case than checking providerX control panel.
A greater timeframe might be more forgiving but not sure that's realistic from @host_c pov.
Sorry mate. If you did not get the messages from provider and you also did not get the message from PayPal about subscription cancellation, then it is all your fault for not having a valid email account.
If I may, I recommend you an email provider like MXRoute or NameCrane, or even a simple hosting plan with email included.
EDIT: You want to be able to contact the provider and you also want the provider to answer to your messages. Well, guess what: providers want the same thing from their customers. I know it might sound like mind-blowing stuff, but it's real - they're still humans, not AI yet.
Well, I doubt 48 hours was the actual deletion time, those are applied in cases of abuse like ssh brute force or alike, hardcore stuff usually, clear violations on the rules.
I keep looking over tickets opened, and none fall in that range.
We even have tickets to update account data, yet extremely few, hence that I said this is not over.
Yet I will confirm that we are cleaning up the user database, and that I will not hide it, nor I ever did. I even underlined that in December.
I don't get one thing tho, why the fuq you would use questionable emails in the first place when that is the only login/access/communication you have with the one you bought something from? - I am not a guru in this, so some might enlighten me.
If someone chooses to use questionable or temporary services, misconfigured domains, or allows their email address to expire, get deleted or whatever alse in the mix, that is their responsibility. An email address is not a decorative field usually on a login form, it is the primary ( and sometimes only ) identification and communication channel for most online services.
Also, if you refuse to maintain it, refuse to respond to verification requests, or set up unnecessary complications, then you also have to accept the consequences when things eventually fail, and they will.
All the above + being from another continent that plays by totally different rules and policies?? You are set to fail frequently.
Also for those that don't like strict policies, I really don't see a problem if you disagree with those policies, you are always free to take your business elsewhere. I fail to see the obligation on either side. There are so many options out there.
Either-Way,
It's the customer's responsibility to have a valid e-mail. Issues with deliverability on owned domains and e-mail systems must be tackled by the customer itself and it's not the responsibility of @host_c at any given time, who has plenty more to do than dealing with e-mails.
If a general e-mail domain (like hotmail, gmail, Proton) does not work and does not have e-mails delivered, with the very few exceptions of outages on such systems and full mailboxes, the responsibility transfers to the provider.
A mailbox not recieving e-mails because it's full is the pinnacle of a lack of responsabilization on keeping an e-mail clean... usually e-mails are sent warning that a given box is 80/90% full to the user.
E-mails are, many times, the only way a provider has to communicate adequately with the user. Therefore, an e-mail must be correct and working at all times. If the customer got mailbox full for at least a full month (!), which is what can be deducted from the text he wrote, that's a clear lack of responsibility and the provider can't be made accountable for that.
Because by default WHMCS does not only send one e-mail. There are several: at least three e-mails warning for payment and renewal, one for suspension, one for cancellation, in addition to the support ticket @host_c said they've sent.
E-mails are to be kept clean. It's like having your own house's mailbox full of junk and ads. Doesn't make sense.
@alfatarsos
Agreed 100%, yet some thing that it is , ehh it is an e-mail, I payed, yet things work differently.
Also, accounts that have tickets opened on " mailbox does not exist" or "mailbox full" or whatever mail sent failed because recipient has XYZ problem are barley 20.
I just love how somethings tings explode for basically no real substance or value.
I acknowledge that we transitioned from operating with very few rules to implementing stricter procedures and some just ignored that or simply did not care. Yet so should users.
Yea I'm not trying to imply you did anything wrong and there's no question the op is responsible for maintaining the avenue of communication regardless. My mind just immediately jumped to all the things than go wrong with email and the 48hr window from past experiences!
Anyway for me this really is just "damn that sucks man" and lessons learned hopefully.
MX server returns permanent failure = customer's fault for failing to provide valid contact.
HOST-C took money for 7 quarters and provided 7 quarters of service.
They have the right to not renew the service, especially when customer unreachable by email.
They didn't take money for 8th quarter and didn't provide service for 8th quarter.
No contract violated, no money stolen.
There's 5-day grace period.
If customer gets alerts server offline, it's likely HOST-C would give an opportunity for them to change email or temporarily activate server to take data out.
If customer has no backup and doesn't notice server offline for 5 days, neither the data nor the server is important to customer.