Reducing an unexpected bill

mr_tickle_2

I today received an invoice for my web hosting. Nothing unusual in that, except that at some point in the last month my hosting was exploited, and in addition to the usual hosting fee I have charges for additional bandwidth of £648.53 :eek:
Basically I can't afford to pay this (at least not all in one go). Does anyone have any advice on how to approach the hosting company in order to come to an agreement on paying or the bill (or even negotiating a reduction).
Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I figure you guys in this section are good at this sort of thing.
Thanks
P.S. Have been lurking here for ages, should really get round to posting up an SOA.

lynzpower

hi there
when you say "exploited" what do you mean?

Do you really have to pay the whole lot?

Numpty_2

mr_tickle wrote:

I today received an invoice for my web hosting. Nothing unusual in that, except that at some point in the last month my hosting was exploited, and in addition to the usual hosting fee I have charges for additional bandwidth of £648.53 :eek:
Basically I can't afford to pay this (at least not all in one go). Does anyone have any advice on how to approach the hosting company in order to come to an agreement on paying or the bill (or even negotiating a reduction).
Not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I figure you guys in this section are good at this sort of thing.
Thanks
P.S. Have been lurking here for ages, should really get round to posting up an SOA.

In what way was it exploited? Was this something they could have noticed an informed you of earlier (unsual useage for a period)? Or was it a security breach at either theirs or your end? Is there anyway based on the t&cs of your hosting contract you can dispute the fee based on any of the above?

mr_tickle_2

The exploit was that there was a piece of software (which is part of the website) which had a design flaw in it. Hackers could manipulate the software in order to allow them to run their own programs on the server.
They have an expense tracker facility, which will email you with any excess usage for the day, but I didn't sign up for this as I never anticipated anything like this _pale_
I will have a look at the T&Cs later, but I'm pretty sure that they will cover this sort of thing in their favour.

Numpty_2

So was it your software or their software that causes the exploit? (or a third parties, who may then be liable)

You'll probably find it is worded in their favour - however often a letter explaining the situation, what you believe they should have done in the situation (there is unexpected and there is £648.63!) and make an offer of payment based on where you think you should be liable and where they should (IYSWIM - so you can start with accepting you havent taken out their tracker facility, however this is significantly out of the ordinary which you believe you should have been informed about). When you write the letter, instead of saying you were wrong I am right, word things like - do you think this is reasonable/acceptable? where you know it isnt, therefore they have no choice but to agree and therefore meet you someway in the repayment.

I'm not very good at debt but I'm a scary complaint letter writer!