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Trying to do KYC on this 20i/Web hosting/Wordpress hosting is causing more problems than it is worth. Just shut it all down.
I doubt they've violated the TOS as it can be assumed they'd have been terminated immediately, irregardless of 'passing KYC'.
Thus, it is a strange response. However, as pointed out above there are likely other motivations behind it and therefore it's convenient.
I hope you've informed the police about the incredibly serious matter of sign-in locations changing.
Truly horrifying 'direct abuse'.
It's going to end up causing even more damage to their reputation when people comply but lose their access anyway. I wouldn't be too surprised if it ultimately ends with the provider being banned if enough people continue being kicked out without refund despite following the ToS and KYC requirements.
I get that they have to take steps to limit abuse, but when someone who is showing no evidence of abuse is failing to verify because of issues on xHost's side or Stripe's side, the provider should be going out of their way to help them get verified. "Provider having technical problems" isn't an offense that one can terminate a contract for.
If KYC fails, client should be refunded so they can take their business elsewhere. It shouldn't be that complicated.
Yeah, the reputation and time it takes just deal with these tickets.
Like, I said... if these abuse problems are becoming too much of a burden for the provider, I think they should stop taking in new orders and get people moved to another provider or refunded.
It affects the existing customers who have not gotten any KYC requirements till now. I am a customer and even though I had no intention of moving out, but due to uncertainty of receiving a mail where my documents may not be acceptable for stripe, what will I do then?
At least in hosting business, uncertainty impacts a lot even if you have good service to that point. No body wants to wake up tomorrow and see that their packages are all gone.
That's why I oppose burden shifting to third party due to moral hazard/ conflict of interest. We can't determine if the high failure rates are due to pre-screening process or host's operational interests.
As more and more people come here to complain about being unfairly terminated, xHosts is destroying their own reputation. I know they have to protect from abuse, but the way they are going about it is very shortsighted.
Personally I am with xhost for 2 small vps, yearly offer, (not lifetime) and i am more than satisfied.
I have one VPS with them and I am satisfied as well, as long as this KYC crap only affects their shared web hosting. But I still feel for the people who lost their lifetime plans because of KYC bullshit.
More than agree, but in the main time if you think of it, by taking this decision to stay in line with the law, the lifetime offer for the community will be actually longer than not enforcing it (so the company can exist)
To be honest there is an elephant in the room here: The European continent is being censored in 2 ways: DSA kinda s@it (which is nothing else than censorship) and by killing small provider for the profit of provider than can afford to not be profitable.
I understand the frustration, and I am the first one to NEVER give my ID, but in the main time i don't think that make the company responsible.
I just realized that it sounds like chatgpt answer, i promise it's not !!
Seems like you lasted longer than they thought
@Alex9568
You will get so mixed replies on your posting that I have no words for it, almost each and every one here sees the general subject of "KYC" as "bad, bad provider" yet that is not always the case.
@xHosts provided you with a correct answer, not to publicly discuss your case as that would involve exposing of personal details, and that is actually
thing to do.
@JohnFilch123 wrote a very good answer: Submitting successfully does not mean successfully verified - That is what you got from stripe actually.
I also start to understand some of the issues some might have with these type of fraud prevention systems ( not limited to KYC alone ), so here is my reply to that:
Some fail to understand/or simply not care that for a company ( regardless the size it ) that operates in the EU ( ok, UK is BREXITED yet they have similar enforcement's ) it is high risk to operate outside of legislative rules, and this is getting more harder as the years pass.
Just understand that fake user data that gets on an invoice ultimately gets declared at the end of the moth to the IRS. So do all the crappy stolen payment types.
That is an operational risk, as in case of Fiscal Control or other Gov Agencies, fines can be in the number of Thousand of USD ( EURO, GBP or whatever currency in that country )
So sincerely, yes, an operator/provider will pay a 2 USD expense on a 3 USD plan just not to have a meeting with a 10.000 USD fine from the IRS ( or any other authority ).
Who ever chooses to not do this, it is their game, I shall not debate that.
At some point, a provider that wishes to scale up, will be forced to implement stricter rules or put the business to risk, now, if he chooses not to obey the legal rules and gets cough you all think the 3 USD clients will bail him out? highly doubt it..... ( unles they are like 10.000 in number
)
The provider will take a logical business decision, yet most replies in threads like this tend to be emotional rather than fact based.
As an example: I am pissed on PLEX for the fact that my lifetime plan now has more PLEX content then my own stuff on my server, yet you don't see me on PLEX forum popping popcorn as they UI is now filled with shit that makes you pay subscriptions on a software I payed to use to show only my stuff.
I moved to another app, and that it is.
@forest
I hardly see the why to treat an operator hostile for having to do whatever he has to be comply today. Fact that he did not do this in the past, well..... that has passed, rules change.
If you think a host/operator/provider did not put in balance the reputation/image versus new rules, you are wrong, but..... loyalty points will not pay fines or keep the business alive.
Reputation is not solely based on the nice decisions one takes and the majority likes, it is also based on the shitty ones that make most uncomfortable but are needed.
Hate the game, don't hate the player. Don't like it, choose another game with another team.
Cheers!
The vast majority of providers do not behave this way and yet operate completely fine. I don't even seek out providers that are specifically no-KYC, and yet of the ~40 hosts I am a customer with, not a single one has ever asked to KYC me.
I understand that xHosts is in a unique position because they are a reseller, but it doesn't change the fact that their actions are excessive and it's damaging their reputation. This is why they are getting the flack they are.
No rules changed, he just found out that people were abusing lifetime plans and it was putting their status as a reseller in jeopardy. They were caught off-guard and didn't plan for it, and their reaction to it is creating backlash. After all, being made to do KYC after having already paid is quite uncommon. It may be legal, but it's still creating backlash.
If someone pays for a product, then is told to do KYC but the provider's KYC platform does not support their country, it is wrong of the provider to terminate them without refund, keeping their money. That is the issue people are having, regardless of whether or not one trusts random companies with their government ID.
The issue here is a vast conflict of interests between a user and a provider. In most cases, I think, providers are criticised for various policies they introduce. However, users rarely think from provider's prospective in terms of compliance, regulation, risk etc. Also, there are so many providers that you can simply leave and find something else somewhere else.
well well well what do we have here
@host_c but if KYC verification is the only issue, you can just refuse them as clients -you’re not keeping their money, right?
Especially because of the part you highlighted above in bold letters.
That would be fine if you were told ahead of time "KYC or go away". But this is a situation where OP, despite following the law and ToS, had absolutely no recourse whatsoever and lost his money through no misconduct of his own.
Yet, that is their problem. You, me others don't know the real issue behind such abrupt decisions other then the info we were given, and if we assume/speculate that it is because of X reason only, we will miss by a mile and generate popcorn - unless this was the whole idea. I presumed a talk over facts here, yet if this is turning into popcorn drama, I am out.
Host in question did provide a legitimate reason, abuse.
Even my own reply in this case was a general assumption, but my message was to enlighten some of you who might care on some other aspects of a hosting puzzle, not necessarily related to this case alone. - Aren't we here to share and also learn? or just drama and shit show?
I am so against lifetime subscriptions that I have no words for it, why??? because in the post 2015 economies they don't work anymore.
Ultra Low Sales are basically either Promo Sales for Marketing purposes - I am fine with that, or Ponzi Schemes - and in that case when cash inflow stops it is RIP in days. You don't get a KYC enforcement on Ponzi Schemes, or at least that will be the first.
That's a legitimate reason to start doing KYC, not to retroactively apply it to people who have already paid and then kick them off, without refund, when the KYC platform simply doesn't support their country. It's not that OP was caught lying about their information. Abuse is not a reason to screw over unrelated people for reasons beyond their control.
The drama is not "oh my gawd, a provider is doing KYC!". The drama is that someone was removed from a lifetime plan that they had already paid for because, despite sending the required documents, Stripe simply doesn't support their country. And yet despite that, rather than being refunded and offered an apology, they were kicked out and their money kept.
Source? Never ever seen anything about business having to dox customer paying $7/yr (ofc stuff gets interesting for €999+ but it is not relevant for LE*)
Probably tax evasion of some sort e.g inflating expenses or something like you ordering vps and claiming it as business expenses
You confuse Payment with TOS compliance, they are not the same. KYC belongs to TOS compliance, Payment gives you the the right to use that product after TOS compliance.
Yes, in that case a prorated cash-back is mandatory in case the modification of change of TOS
Also, if one fails KYC, you don't take he's/she/it's money. That expense I payed as a provider is my sole problem, not the customers.
Remember when I wrote that abuse has to be intercepted before the check out? That is why, at least in my view.
Any known precedents?
But that's not what xHosts is doing. They kept the money.
I don't think it even really matters why the host is actually doing this. If you can't sell your product because people think you're gonna make up new rules tomorrow to boot them and keep their cash, well you created that perception, gg.
OK, 2 cases on KYC after the sale has been made:
I customer refuses KYC - then yes they can take the money, as that can be treated as termination for compliance issues. - this is not the case of OP here as I see.
Customer does not pass KYC - totally debatable till page 19875757, yet in this case prorated refund is usually the go to. now, is it feasible for services under 3USD? not really as a large proportion of the value will be consumed by transfer fees. Account credit might do the trick, yet, if the user is non compliant, well, yes this is a tricky one.
Just to add some context from our side.
We host a fairly large number of accounts on the 20i platform and, based on our current figures, around 95–96% of customers completed the KYC verification without any issues.
In a few cases there were small problems such as mistyped phone numbers or email addresses, which were easily resolved once the customer opened a support ticket and we could assist them. Those accounts were then re-enabled without further problems.
Most of the cases being discussed relate to older one-time fee packages. Before implementing verification we sent advance notice explaining the change and why it was being introduced.
One important point is that 20i operates a shared hosting environment. If problematic activity occurs and an IP address becomes blacklisted or flagged, that can affect not just one user but potentially many other customers sharing the same infrastructure.
This is also where shared hosting differs from VPS hosting. With a VPS you typically have a dedicated IP assigned to your server, so if that IP becomes blacklisted it mainly affects that individual server and the user running it. In a shared hosting environment, however, a single issue can potentially impact hundreds or even thousands of accounts that share the same resources.
Because of this, upstream providers take risk management seriously. If too many problematic accounts exist under a reseller, it can create a situation where the provider may consider the reseller a potential risk to the platform, which could lead to the reseller services being terminated. Obviously that would affect all customers hosted under that account, including many legitimate users and small businesses who rely on their websites being online.
For monthly and annual customers who were unable to complete verification, we are working with them individually to arrange pro-rata refunds where appropriate.
For one-time fee packages, calculating refunds is much more difficult as some of these services have been active for a few years, and setting an arbitrary cutoff period inevitably creates edge cases.
Throughout this process our intention has simply been to keep the platform compliant and stable for everyone. We always encourage customers to open a support ticket if they have concerns, as in most cases issues can be resolved quickly once we can look into the account properly.