I have all my hosting and my clients hosting with dataflame, who I have recommended many times here and elsewhere.

Anyway they recently renewed a domain on continuous renewal using card details that I gave for renewal of another domain. I phoned a few days after I noticed and they said tough, I should have unticked cont renewal on the website.

Now the website changed in the last few months and I didn’t know you could control this, and I don’t remember agreeing to continuous renewal.

So I discussed it with my bank, they agreed that it was wrong and they charged back the money.

So today saturday( a couple of weeks later), with no warning or comms, they have suspended all my services.. (8 odd hosted domains and all emails on those domains)

Whats most annoying is that even if I roll over and pay the 8.99, I can’t do it as their offices are closed and there is no way on the website to do this.

This has annoyed me somewhat as the saturday suspension seems like a deliberate ploy to really cause trouble..

So a warning, don’t use dataflame. Fair enough we may disagree about something but this is underhand behaviour, they could have warned me pay or lose out, they didn’t they just cut me off.

I’m thinking legal action, I wondered if any of you have any advice?

I would say that you missed a tick box and legally agreed to continuous renewal (even if you didnt realise it)

They told you this, and told you that would have to pay as agreed.

You went to the bank and they reversed the payment.

The supplier didn’t like that, and they refused service (more than likely, exactly as their terms and conditions say they will)

It is bloody annoying. But my guess is that you will have to suck it up.

Legal action will be a non starter.

What he said it will be in the small print no one reads.

they will know their legal rights and ye the saturday thing will be deliberate because they know they can do this and cause you most harm

My bank says that cont renewal is a legal grey area that remains untested in the courts, and if you dispute it with the payee whithin 14 days they should cancel it. They didn’t offer this.

TBH I’m most peeved that they feel happy to just cut me off, why didn’t they say look pay up or we’ll cut you off? It’s not a good way to keep a customer.

My bank says that cont renewal is a legal grey area that remains untested

Do you want to be the one who pays to try and test it ??

if you dispute it with the payee whithin 14 days they should cancel it. They didn’t offer this.

But they don’t have to legally. So fairly often, they won’t.

TBH I’m most peeved that they feel happy to just cut me off, why didn’t they say look pay up or we’ll cut you off? It’s not a good way to keep a customer.

Vote with your feet. By leaving and going somewhere else (and read the small print properly !)

Don’t vote with your wallet. by trying the legal route and losing 😥

Vote with your feet. Y leaving and going somewhere else (and read the small print properly !)

Well thsi si good advice, I can’t see myself staying with dataflame.

You risked your client’s hosting for the sake of a bill for £8.99 😯
Time for a priority check?

Geoff, TBH, it was dumb, I hadn’t considered the consequences..

I’m aware now!

Never put all eggs in one basket … now they grab your eggs and you cannot do anything about it.

They do seem to have played hard ball – walk, there are plenty of other providers. Hope you get it sorted.

TBH, I am a minnow, I spend about £200 a year maximum, I was with them as they were small and friendly, if they hadn’t been so arsey with my over the 8.99 I probs wouldn’t have charged back. Sod it. New hosting required, any reccs?

Walk, they screwed you on purpose, timed to do the most damage. There are various ways to deal with such disagreements, I wouldn’t want to be involved with a company that chooses that method.

Yeah double screw, I’ve just paid them a £36 fee to get reconnected.

Walk, they screwed you on purpose, timed to do the most damage. There are various ways to deal with such disagreements, I wouldn’t want to be involved with a company that chooses that method.

To be fair, they probably don’t want to be involved with a customer who doesn’t read the small print, agrees to renewal and then goes to the bank and breaks his contract by getting the payment returned.

(just saying like)

well my bank said they cannot do continuous renewal via small print, it has to be specifically stated.

They will discover that they have given you a weekend to rape their business reputation with the way google picks up STW threads and puts them top of the search ratings. Not very good reputation management by Dataflame.

well my bank said they cannot do continuous renewal via small print, it has to be specifically stated

I guess that it was perfectly within the legal limits, but you missed it like you said earlier.

Dataflame do seem to have cut off their nose to spite their face. Shocking service.

Hope you haven’t lost any of your customers for the sake of nine squid. 😯

I’d have quietly left them making sure everything was in place for my clients, and then launched a retrospective attack via social networking to get my nine squid back. (but I guess you know this now). Anyway, hope it gets sorted.

Well I’ve paid the ransom they charged me, so it’s all back on line, but they have lsot a customer, their attitude by email just now was astounding. It was not customer services, it was customer contempt.

The hosting company should not simply cut people off just because there is a dispute.

Simply, they should let customer hosting continue and perhaps argue with customers later until one side succumbs then charge accordingly.

You should also have back up hosting sites for various reasons.

This is a case of power over customers when customers have no choice.

They will discover that they have given you a weekend to rape their business reputation with the way google picks up STW threads and puts them top of the search ratings. Not very good reputation management by Dataflame.

Only if you already read STW a lot.

or say dataflame and rubbish a lot.

dataflame bad
bad dataflame

So dataflame are bad then

Does Google only include STW results because i go to STW?

Just to give the other side of the argument I have a friend who lost her hosting completely for almost a mongth because she didn’t have auto renewal and the renewal email got lost in here email system, either through spam or getting ignored because it looked generic. In either case autorewal is actually helpful sometimes and you actually got off likely at 36 quid. It took her a month because the hosts also deleted the site because the payment was so late 🙁

Do you have backups of the sites and data?

I bet they deleted them too.

You previously recomended them so seems reasonable to assume you were going to renew and pay up anyway? You’re just annoyed that there was a hidden option you missed?

In any case they’ve definitely shafted you. They’ve timed their action to cause the most disruption for the longest period. No way I would be staying with a company that did that. On the updside, now you know what they’re really like.

dataflame are bad

Data flamed 😈

Junkyard – to an extent yes – google knows you read STW a lot, so there’ll be a bias towards in in your google search results.

Datflame appear to be a shockingly bad hosting company.

I can understand them withdrawing a service for a non-paid bill. I can’t for the life of me see how they can justify withdrawing -all- your services. That’s disgraceful.

well it’s lesson learned, I never gave my permission for my card to be used on continuous renewal, I told dataflame that, they said tough. My bank agree’s with me, if it wasn’t specifically raised when I gave my latest card details then they cannot do continuous renewal. Dataflame made me pay a ransom to get my services back, and were very rude, contract or not, it’s a great way to lose a customer. Despite the cost I am moving on to a decent webhost.