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BlueVM – Unacknowledged and wrong payments charged for already cancelled services. Beware of BlueVM!
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BlueVM – Unacknowledged and wrong payments charged for already cancelled services. Beware of BlueVM!

I had 2 yearly VPS (Blue 0.5) with BlueVM. As everyone knows, their services are terrible. The VPS were unstable and the nodes were rebooted multiple times with frequent downtime and packet loss. I had enough and decided to cancel the services. Cancellation requests were submitted 2 months in advance and the services were terminated. But I was extremely surprised to find out that there were unacknowledged payments to BlueVM for the cancelled services. It seems there were Paypal subscriptions for both the services, subscriptions which I was completely unaware of. I never authorized these payments and as far as I know, nor did I ever subscribed to BlueVM for Paypal subscriptions.

As soon as I was aware of this problem, I opened a support ticket at BlueVM regarding this issue and they informed me that they have added me to the refund queue which is processed on Fridays. I waited till Friday but there was no sign of my refund. I asked them to refund my money as they promised, but it was obvious from their replies that they didn’t want to refund my money. At last, I opened a Paypal dispute but these people don’t reply to even Paypal disputes. And there is no name associated with their Paypal account, just the organization and email. How convenient!

I have VPS from many providers but none of them have any subscriptions. I find it extremely odd and suspicious that there were Paypal subscriptions only for BlueVM services, subscriptions which I was never aware of. And even if there was subscriptions, they should have been cancelled automatically when the cancellation requests were submitted and when the services were terminated. Paypal and BlueVM’s billing department should have taken care of this. BlueVM has charged me for the same services twice, the services which were already terminated. Is it possible to charge for an already terminated service and is it legal/ethical?

I’ll be grateful if the community members can help me get my money back which BlueVM got hold of without my knowledge and wants to get away with. I request everyone to stay away from BlueVM and when you cancel their services, make sure that there are no hidden Paypal subscriptions; which you might have subscribed without your knowledge. This is by far the worst mistake I have ever committed in the hosting industry. I urge everyone not to repeat the same mistakes and tread with extreme caution when dealing with BlueVM. If you are a victim of their latest offer at LEB and are not satisfied with their services, please open Paypal disputes against BlueVM and let Paypal know the quality of services BlueVM provides.

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Comments

  • MCHPhilMCHPhil Member
    edited November 2014

    They didn't charge you. You are the only one who could have created a subscription. You paid them after the fact due to a misunderstanding of how paypal works. It is your responsibility to make sure there are no subscriptions set up as BlueVM has no control over your paypal account. Sorry for your trouble. Take it as a learning experience.

    Business accounts also, generally, are in the name of the business and not an individual.

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    You clearly did subscribe via PayPal and needed to cancel the subscription, not BlueVM's fault.

    Thanked by 1Peroni
  • As I said, the services were already cancelled and they should have refunded the money. It's the right thing to do and is expected of decent and professional providers. And as far as I know, I never subscribed to BlueVM for paypal subscriptions.

    Thanked by 1namhuy
  • namhuynamhuy Member
    edited November 2014

    Nyr said: You clearly did subscribe via PayPal and needed to cancel the subscription, not BlueVM's fault.

    say you cancel your "membership" yet they keep charging you, so is it your job to call your credit card company to "cancel" the payment subscription !? common sense please

    Thanked by 1cloudjumper
  • @cloudjumper said:
    As I said, the services were already cancelled and they should have refunded the money. It's the right thing to do and is expected of decent and professional providers. And as far as I know, I never subscribed to BlueVM for paypal subscriptions.

    Only you can create a subscription, you had to agree to it at one stage and would of received emails from PayPal notifying you that you've created the subscription.

    Both the merchant and customer have the ability to cancel the sub, but ideally the customer agreed to it and therefore is the one responsible for it.

  • I didn’t subscribe to BlueVM for Paypal subscriptions. I just paid for these VPS like I pay for other providers. I never created these subscriptions and that’s why I wasn’t aware of them. And even if there were subscriptions, BlueVM should have cancelled the subscriptions when the cancellation requests were submitted and when the services were terminated.

  • Bluevm can't cancel the subscription only you can.

    The subscription is created by you and not bluevm.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • BlueVM did have the subscriptions added automatically in their PayPal sign up. You had to watch real carefully to see it happen. My advice is to check your subscriptions on PayPal every so often to find out if any have between created.

    As a side note I have yet to receive a email from PayPal when a sub is created.

  • luissousaluissousa Member
    edited November 2014

    @cloudjumper said:
    I didn’t subscribe to BlueVM for Paypal subscriptions. I just paid for these VPS like I pay for other providers. I never created these subscriptions and that’s why I wasn’t aware of them. And even if there were subscriptions, BlueVM should have cancelled the subscriptions when the cancellation requests were submitted and when the services were terminated.

    Stop acting like the victim. You are not.
    If you had those subscriptions, you created them. No one else could do it for you.

    And those subscriptions can not be canceled by anyone except you.

    You just misunderstood and (as you are an expert, you didn't read the information) thought you were doing a normal payment when you were subscribing to a periodic one.

    Just a tip, go to google and search how paypal works.

    Thanked by 1MannDude
  • Otherwise known as the ianal types are dispensing advice to read every bit of the agreements small print in every link before you accept a hosts offers.

    Then follow my advice and check the PayPal site to make sure none of them have figured out a way to still add it.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
    edited November 2014

    said: Paypal subscriptions for both the services, subscriptions which I was completely unaware of. I never authorized these payments and as far as I know, nor did I ever subscribed to BlueVM for Paypal subscriptions.

    oh this old chestnut ... I feel for you but this is not bluevm's fault, it is pretty hard not to notice you have set up a subscription unless your a tick, tick, next, next, submit, wtf did I just do who cares now lets ignore the emails paypal just sent me saying I have just set up a new subscription to xxxxxxx company, type of person.

  • popcorns are ready!

  • NyrNyr Community Contributor, Veteran

    namhuy said: say you cancel your "membership" yet they keep charging you, so is it your job to call your credit card company to "cancel" the payment subscription !? common sense please

    It's how PayPal works for subscriptions, not BlueVM's fault.

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • howardsl2howardsl2 Member
    edited November 2014

    Couldn't the merchant cancel a PayPal subscription from their side? I remember there was an earlier thread somewhere debating on whether it is the VPS provider's responsibility to cancel the client's subscription upon termination of all his/her services. In my opinion if either side can cancel, then it is NOT entirely the client's fault.

    Thanked by 1cloudjumper
  • @namhuy said:
    say you cancel your "membership" yet they keep charging you, so is it your job to call your credit card company to "cancel" the payment subscription !? common sense please

    The closest comparison you can make to OP's case would be purchasing SiriusXM Satellite Radio for your car. When I got mine, the dealer kept insisting to me to add that into the purchase, and I kept saying no. Sirius is known to auto-subscribe and the payment is automatically charged against your credit card. In order to stop the subscription, you must cancel it yourself.

    I believe the same case can be applied here, as it was the OP who initiated the subscription without reading what he was agreeing to. Once he cancelled the service with BlueVM, it was his responsibility to cancel the subscription on PayPal, as BlueVM has no access to his account.

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
    edited November 2014

    hwdsl2 said: Couldn't the merchant cancel a PayPal subscription from their side?

    its not impossible but its a nightmare to keep track of for hosts with 100's or 1000's of pages of subscriptions and a terrible search function.

    Also keep in mind that cancellation requests once you are a certain size are not uncommon, you get an email saying a cancellation request came in, which may or may not have been a customer that used paypal, and they may or may not have a subscription, so its not like just clicking a button there is a real issue of scale and practicality for a host here and at the end of the day its your paypal account/money so you really should be the one looking after it.

    And that is not even to mention the fact that it is an agreement between you and paypal, not between you and the host, if anything if the op insists he did not authorize this he should talk to paypal and ask why they are sending money he never asked them to send.

  • I haven't used PayPal's API extensively, but I believe scale wouldn't be an issue if you can cancel via that.

    In any event, a buyer should cancel their own subscriptions.

  • Mun said:

    Bluevm can't cancel the subscription only you can.

    The subscription is created by you and not bluevm.

    If that’s the case, BlueVM should have refunded the money when requested. There was no need for BlueVM to lie and misguide me into waiting for a refund when they had no intention of refunding my money.

    luissousa said:

    Stop acting like the victim. You are not. If you had those subscriptions, you created them. No one else could do it for you.

    And those subscriptions can not be canceled by anyone except you.

    You just misunderstood and (as you are an expert, you didn't read the information) thought you were doing a normal payment when you were subscribing to a periodic one.

    Just a tip, go to google and search how paypal works.

    I am not acting like a victim, I am here to inform and make aware any potential BlueVM victims not to repeat my mistakes. Yes, I made a mistake of trusting BlueVM, I should have known better not to deal with ColoCrossing hosts ever. Everyone knows BlueVM’s reputation and the quality of their services. Only a fool will subscribe to BlueVM willingly for Paypal subscriptions.

    And why not just refund the money when requested and resolve the matter? BlueVM never deserved and was never supposed to receive the money. Why BlueVM feels the need to hold my money hostage and get away with it? The only possible reason I can think of is, BlueVM is losing its customer base at a rapid pace and is soon to be dead pooled and has to scrape, lie and extract money from customers by any means to survive till shutdown. How typical!

  • AnthonySmith said:

    oh this old chestnut ... I feel for you but this is not bluevm's fault, it is pretty hard not to notice you have set up a subscription unless your a tick, tick, next, next, submit, wtf did I just do who cares now lets ignore the emails paypal just sent me saying I have just set up a new subscription to xxxxxxx company, type of person.

    I am going to dig more into this matter and will see if I received any emails from Paypal regarding the subscriptions. The offer was posted and promotted here at LET by BlueVM and as far as I know, I didn’t pay for these VPS any differently than I normally do for other providers. And why not just refund the money which BlueVM was never supposed to receive? Any decent and honest provider would have done this.

  • It sounds like you didn't realise the subscription payment was presented to you by default upon first payment, rather than a "buy now" type payment.

  • >

    I agree. However I think it should be possible for the merchant to stop billing the client, even if the PayPal subscription is kept active?

    Let's say that I sell on eBay and they create a subscription to charge me seller fees every month. I stopped selling a few months later and they no longer charge me anymore, even if the subscription is still active.

    In other words, an active subscription does not mean the client will "automatically" send money periodically, but instead means that the merchant can charge him whenever there is a new bill. If the client continues to be charged after canceling all services, then this is an error in the merchant's billing system, not the client's fault.

    Just my 2 cents. Correct me if I'm wrong.

  • @cloudjumper You should be aware that BlueVM ownership had changed. Should it be with the previous owner, I am sure he will return it to you.

  • trewqtrewq Administrator, Patron Provider

    @hwdsl2 Sounds like you had an Authorization to Charge with EBay. WHMCS sets up an automatic payment, PayPal initiates the payments on a given day the host doesn't "ask" for the payment.

  • @ricardo said:
    It sounds like you didn't realise the subscription payment was presented to you by default upon first payment, rather than a "buy now" type payment.

    Yes, that's true and I never suspected it. I have VPS from many providers and none of them have any subscriptions. I just assumed it to be like any other VPS payment. I should have known better and should have been more careful. Like I said, this is the worst mistake I have ever committed in the hosting industry.

    vRozenSch00n said: @cloudjumper You should be aware that BlueVM ownership had changed. Should it be with the previous owner, I am sure he will return it to you.

    I waited for over 2 weeks for BlueVM to refund my money and resolve this matter. But I don't think they have any intention of doing that. If they did, they would have refunded the money long back. Now that they have got hold of my money, they want to keep it and get away with it.

    Thanked by 1vRozenSch00n
  • howardsl2howardsl2 Member
    edited November 2014

    @trewq said: Sounds like you had an Authorization to Charge with EBay.

    That must be it. My apologies for the confusion.

    By the way, in WHMCS this seems to be a missing feature, with commercial addons available:
    https://requests.whmcs.com/responses/cancelled-orders-cancel-paypal-subscription
    http://forums.whmcs.com/showthread.php?93299-PayPal-Manager

    (Disclaimer: FYI only, never used this.)

  • A good company would refund you for the 'oversight' of making an extra payment, some might even stick a small administration fee on it, which is still fair IMO.

    You made a seemingly honest mistake.

    Thanked by 1cloudjumper
  • @ricardo said:
    A good company

    That's the issue here .. BlueVM is .. shite.

    Thanked by 1switsys
  • sleddogsleddog Member
    edited November 2014

    ricardo said: It sounds like you didn't realise the subscription payment was presented to you by default upon first payment, rather than a "buy now" type payment.

    Exactly this, and I've been caught by it as well.

    During checkout, some providers offer two Paypal buttons: "Paypal Subscribe" and "Paypal". The former creates a subscription, the latter does not.

    Other providers offer a single "Paypal" button. My assumption was, if the button does not contain the word "subscribe", then it's a one-time payment with no subscription. That assumption is wrong. It may create a subscription, or it may not.

    As others have said, check your Paypal account after buying to be clear on your committment. It's a simple task to cancel the unwanted subscription then and there.

  • What's done is done. Now the most critical thing to do is to contact BlueVM and ask for a refund. And remember to check your subscription setting in your PP account.

  • Paypal has a very nice page where you can see all of your payment subscriptions and you can easily unsubscribe, still BlueVM should process your refund as soon as possible as it's the nice thing to do.

This discussion has been closed.