£60 owed to webhosting company and debt collectors for a service i don't want...

Reiki_Sue

Hi

Background:

I was a customer with a webhosting company (based in Germany with a UK Branch) for the last few years.

On 15/1/12 i got an invoice for the half yearly subscription of £60 (£50 for the webhosting service and £10 for the domain name = £60) and because my credit card had expired they weren't able to deduct the money instantly as they normally did. (Very annoyingly they didn't give you any email prior to this to prewarn you of the forth coming payment which would have been great and also would have sunk my complaint (in that i think 'legally' there should be a prepayment warning email for any of these automatic renewal payments! (as i was caught out once before with another company!!)) Well this expiry of my credit card was good because it gave me the opportunity to review my need for the website and i decided not to continue with my website as i wasn't doing that line of work any more.

So i contacted them on 20/1/12 and said i wanted to give a months notice of cancellation. They said NO and that i would have to subscribe for a further 6 months and cancel BEFORE the end of that. I then checked the terms and conditions and yes it did say exactly that. I checked the legalities with Consumer Direct and Trading Standards and they agreed it was legal. So the Company and I entered a 'stand off' situation, then i emailed them again to reconsider it and again they said NO. They also said they could not amend the invoice as it had already been processed. I put it to them that being a world leading technologically based company i found this surprising - i didn't get any anwer to that.

They then rather quickly forwarded my details to a large debt collecting agency - who wrote to me on 22nd February 2012 and said the client requested full remittance by return. I didn't and still haven't responded to the debt collectors. Now it is 12/3/12.... so any minute now i'm expecting another step in the saga to occur.

Current Situation:

Then the other night having tortured myself with visions of courtcases /bailiffs at the door, i emailed the webhosting company and said ok i'll pay the £60 and in return give them lots of honest but negative reviews whereever i can and that i thought as a company that they were inflexible, grabby and greedy. I also checked other company reviews and was relieved to find practically everyone else said exactly the same thing. Anyway next day a customer service rep calls and says the Company will accept the £50 and let me off the £10. I said its the other way round that i want - i'll pay the £10 i.e. that being my idea of the one month notice of cancellation fee but he declined to accept that. So anyway that's were it was left.

Here is the email they sent me:

Dear Mrs. /Ms. XXXXX,

Thank you very much for your enquiry to which I am glad to respond.

Further to our telephone conversation, I am pleased to write off all other cost, if you agree to settle the hosting package cost of £50. As discussed, please check with the debt collection agency and contact me if you agree to take my offer to close your account.

If there is anything additional that you need, please feel free to contact me again or call our customer services on xxxxxxxxxxxx

Your opinion about our Customer Service is very important to us! Please take some time for our questionnaire - so we can respond even better to your needs in the future. The completion of the form takes only about 3 minutes.

Link to the rating system: xxxxxxxx

With kind regards from Berlin,

[ Sxxx xxxxxx
[ Customer Care

My questions are:
1) Do i pay the Webhosting Company the reduced offer of £50 and learn my lesson?
2) If the debt has been passed to the debt collectors (who now own it - don't they??) then how can i pay the web hosting company? I don't want to pay the webhosting company and then still have debt collectors after me?
3) Should i contact the debt collectors and see if they can offer me a lower payment than £50 and haggle between the two?
4) Are there any catches in that email he sent?
5) I have also just realised that on the debt collectors letter they have put 50 and 10 EUR - i assume that stands for Euros - is that cheaper than GBP????? Having just worked it out it actually works out the same roughly equivalent of £50 with debt collection agency and £50 instead of £60 with the webhosting company....

5) Any other questions i should have asked but have omitted to do so......


Anyway what do i do now?


Sorry for the long post......
Very kind Regards
Sue

KiKi

Reiki_Sue wrote: »

My questions are:
1) Do i pay the Webhosting Company the reduced offer of £50 and learn my lesson?

IMO, yes, absolutely. They've done nothing illegal. You were supposed to give notice on the contract, but instead told them you wanted to end the contract immediately and threatened them with negative reviews if they didn't do what you wanted! It's not illegal to not give you notice that another payment is being taken - you would have initially signed up to that.

2) If the debt has been passed to the debt collectors (who now own it - don't they??) then how can i pay the web hosting company? I don't want to pay the webhosting company and then still have debt collectors after me?

Ask the company whether you should pay them directly or through the debt collectors. If you pay the company directly the debt collectors won't be after you; if they do pursue it, you can offer your payment receipt as evidence and refer them back to the company itself.

3) Should i contact the debt collectors and see if they can offer me a lower payment than £50 and haggle between the two?

I wouldn't. The company are going to want their £50, so I can't see that the debt company are not going to take less than that. But then I know little about debt collection agencies so perhaps a expert poster on here can help you on this.

5) I have also just realised that on the debt collectors letter they have put 50 and 10 EUR - i assume that stands for Euros - is that cheaper than GBP?????

Try an online currency converter? Will change every day.

Anyway what do i do now?

Pay them!

KiKi

BlushingRose

Reiki_Sue wrote: »

So i contacted them on 20/1/12 and said i wanted to give a months notice of cancellation. They said NO and that i would have to subscribe for a further 6 months and cancel BEFORE the end of that. I then checked the terms and conditions and yes it did say exactly that. I checked the legalities with Consumer Direct and Trading Standards and they agreed it was legal. So the Company and I entered a 'stand off' situation,

I don't understand why there was a 'stand off situation'?

maginot

I don't understand why you have got yourself no this situation.
You let a card elapse and forgot to renew.
You tried to cancel early and were informed you could not do this.
You then received advice from trading standards and informed that what they were doing was perfectly legal.

As blushing rose stated, how did this lead to a standoff. You should have then paid the full amount and given them sufficient notice.

My advice is to pay the amount stated ASAP!

Bravehearted_2

They've done nothing illegal by not prewarning you. Trading standards told you they were in the right and you still refused to pay which makes you not very smart.

Do you not know what a contract means? Pay up!

taffy056

It's 1&1 I believe and they terms are unfair and against what most companies require , 6 months notice to give up a service is bit much, the domain registration should be paid for IMO as its cost them to register. Just do search on google for it.