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NorthHosts - Fails to return hardware... or emails
Hi all,
I initially picked up a server from NorthHosts during the LET Black Friday shenanigans, and it all started out well. Jon was very helpful and very responsive, helping me after I had been stung by MaxMind etc.
After a few weeks of usage, I decided that I wanted some more HDD space to turn the server into a storage box. I reached out to Jon about getting more disks and asked if I could buy some and send them to the server. Jon agreed to this, and even went as far as arranging to go and collect the HDDs from a PC store that was local to his DC. This was perfect, and meant that I got the new storage very quickly.
A few weeks later, NorthHosts said that they had some more dedis that they wanted to flog cheaply, so I grabbed one, and once again it was provisioned very quickly.
This server first off was my monitoring node (just running Windows etc), but then I outgrew the 4TB of storage on the first server, so I talked to Jon again and agreed to mail in 2 more HDDs for this second server. I sent these out and they arrived in Wigan the day after.
After a few days of waiting for someone to be available at the DC to fit the disks, the news hit that these HDDs were not going to go in the second server, as the second server could not take them. I ask Jon to sit on the HDDs until I decide what I am doing, and he agrees to this.
At this point, I have 2 servers:
a) the server with the 2 2 TB disks - costing £12 a month (the cost will become involved shortly)
b) a server with none of my disks in, which could not take any - costing £9 a month
I was happy with the arrangement at that time, and was looking into hardware to run/colo with NorthHosts...
Then suddenly I get an invoice for Server A (which I knew would be invoiced, as the next month was rolling around). But, this invoice was £30... hold up a second, I only agreed to £12. I had been given credit by NorthHosts for the mistake with the drives, so this totally wiped that credit out. At this point, I was glad that I did not have auto-billing on, as the newly increased bill would have just been charged straight to my debit card.
I then found a few others who were affected, and they all said that their prices had suddenly been increased by NorthHosts. At this point, I decided to cancel my servers and ask for my hardware back.
Initially, Jon was very eager to help and agreed to package and send the HDDs back to me. This was 2 weeks ago now, and I have not had them. I contacted Jon via ticket last Friday.. and was told that one of his employees had made a mistake and had not sent the HDDs out.
Due to this, I asked for the HDDs to be sent out as soon as possible, as I was getting quite fed up (had already been waiting a week for them, and I know the post does not take that long here in the UK).
This was a week after asking for the drives back.
So, I go back to NorthHosts and point out that this really should not take this long...
A short while later, I get a very snarky response back... 
Since then, I have asked for updates on the progress of my drives, and I have heard nothing. I also note that NorthHosts have posted an offer on LET recently... without responding to their own customers or solving their own customers issues. Of course, due to the fact there are public holidays in the UK until Tuesday now, I will not see my HDDs until Wednesday (At the earliest), so it will be getting on for 3 weeks since I asked for them back.
At this point, I am very fed up and annoyed, and just want my HDDs back so we can put this sorry saga to bed. It was all going so well, and I was close to colocating another few hundreds of pounds of hardware.
I am now down 4x2TB HDDs, worth £225, and it does not look like I will get a response, or my hardware soon.
Comments
I should add.. there was no prior notification of the price hike. NorthHosts claims that they sent one, but it never arrived.
Seems like NorthHosts just went down hill not just you, but overall in general increasing price with out informing the customers is bad in my books. Its so bad that i wont touch or name their stuff for some time in future.
But I do think that they were hit with some massive issue out of the blue. And they are doing their best to swim out of it now.
NorthHosts i do hope you guys get back to your former glory soon.
Just had a quick look into my Client Area. I ordered a LET special in February for 10 GBP recurring (just checked my order confirmation email).
Now the client area shows:
First Payment Amount £10.00GBP Recurring Amount £14.00GBPI also got no notification about the price increase:
This is not cool @northhosts.
I've got a similar issue with the 1GB special, except I'm on the semi-annual billing cycle, so it's gone up from £5 to £7. I also received no notification of this price increase, and it would have been nice to have been informed.
Offers advertised as recurring. I would personally cancel the services if received a 40% price spike.
Bye bye Northhosts.
I didn't receive the email. I spoke to Jon and he said they were losing too much money (on my server line) to be able to carry on, which is fair enough. I don't expect a provider to run their business into the ground. Unfortunate that so many relatively recent promos have had price increases, but hopefully future ones will have a more sustainable price.
Like @hawc, I had a support query running for a few months which to this day remains incomplete, but due to the server price increase is no big issue - the delay actually did me a favour in the end.
Interesting that no-one seems to have received the email though - if anyone did, please post it in this thread.
I don't think it was even sent -feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but even if it was "ah fuck, email went to spam" sort of situation it would have appeared in the WHMCS emails tab. According to @brueggus screenshot.. there is nothing that was ever sent about it.
It seems that whenever I've asked @NorthHosts why something didn't happen/why something was fucked up... "An employee" was always responsible.
To be fair, the recent LET special too is probably unsustainable, it was 512MB 2 Cores for all of 2016, and then suddenly 1024MB 4 Cores from 2017, probably to get some revenue. It's such a low end cost that 40% is not as bad as it seems (a cup of posh coffee), but the lack of notification about changes to an automatic payment is going to rub a lot of people up the wrong way.
Though this is probably a bit off topic here, the most recent offer posting, with the price increase was only 3 days ago: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/111102/uk-vps-1gb-offer-7-00-semi-annually-or-14-00-annually
Yep, exactly. I'd probably be fine with the price increase if I had been informed. Now I'm somewhat annoyed.
Thats their problem
Changing prices for a service that someone already purchased at an agreed upon price without informing them of the change is ground in my book for immediate cancellation of services and moving on. Not to mention how much of a dick move this is.
This reminds me of Incero and Gordon's antics where he just decided one day he would change the prices on his customers (VPS, Colo, etc) and I am still amazed to this day he kept as many customers as he did, cause stuff like that in my book is grounds for a nice 'fuck you' and moving on to a new host.
If this month the host doesn't have enough money to sustain them selves and has to resort to ripping off their customers, without notice, with price increases, I hate to see what will happen next month when another one of his invisible 'employees' do something else to lose money.
Run! Run fast! Don't look back!
All the signs point to a company which can't sustain it's self and will soon be out of business. I have never been with a host that has successfully tried this that tactic and was still in business a few months later. If anything this is a sign for things to come..
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
To be honest I'd expect a price hike but not when you're paying £12 to jump to £30 which is a bit steep. From personal preference if you pay for the shipping, I'd imagine it to cost approx £5-10 with RoyalMail tracked then I see no reason for it to take so long.
Bit of a shame, really.
Not to mention illegal.
As much as I would like to agree with you, its not illegal to change the price from one month to another, as you begin a new contract each month when you renew. This is why long term contracts can be very valuable in some cases to lock in long term pricing and why some take advantage of semi-annual and annual pricing.
Now, this is a super duper dick move, no doubt! Especially since there was no notification of the price changes, but as long as the increases are occurring at renewal of contract and you are not retroactively billed more for an invoice you already paid, it isn't illegal.
my 2 cents.
Cheers!
It's not illegal. You pay X one year and you get your year at that price, it has no bearing on what they can charge you one year later. You're not obligated to pay.
True, but in this case, the payment would be taken automatically without you ever knowing it was going to be increased, and thus not having the opportunity to review and refuse, so legally quite a grey area.
This probably depends on the local jurisdiction. In Germany it would be illegal as this is a renewing contract. If party A would want to change any element of the contract, it has to inform party B in advance, which would have to agree. If B doesn't, A would still have the option to cancel the contract. I don't know if it's the same in Britain.
I'm no expert on UK law, I'd take the view that the recurring payment is a convenience function, not part of any contract.
In Finland its legal.. ..somewhat
Surely that fact that you receive an invoice in advance constitutes being informed of the change, and your decision to pay/not pay constitutes agreement/declination?
It's not like they're increasing prices and asking for more money mid-term (unless I missed something).
Its the same for sure. If you have a auto-renewing contract and your hosting provider change something he has to decline your contract (paypal?) before the renew, to inform you about the changes and to ask you if you wanna renew. You dont want to renew ? Time to search another hosting provider if you are not happy about the changes.
You have an auto-renew active, hosting provider change your contract before the renew, he doesnt stop paypal auto-renew and he wants other money ? Time to open a BIIG Paypal Dispute.
PS Not speaking about northhosts. It is a general discussion
It's the customer's responsibility to cancel auto-renewals. Let's not get into that ridiculous debate again.
Ofc it is. If i dont want to have anything to do anymore with you and i think you are a jerk its my responsibility to kindly ask you to close my account and to stop Paypal auto-renew. If i dont want to have anything to do anymore with you and i dont stop Paypal auto-renew im a real jerk.
But... If i Buy package A with Paypal auto-renew. You accept package A. I accept package A. You change our contract, you dont stop from your side auto-renew and you ask me more money after receiving my money... this is ridicolous. And ofc it's Time to open a BIIG Paypal Dispute. Customer rights nonexistent ???
Don't confuse a PayPal billing agreement with a PayPal auto-renewal.
That's another thing differing from country to country, I guess. A renewing contract in Germany usually has a cancellation period. If you do not cancel before that date (say one month before renewal), you get billed. At this point, you no longer have the option not to pay to not renew the contract.
So if I hadn't looked it up earlier today, I would have known about that price increase when I had already been at that "point of no return" - at least from what I'm used to.
166%.
I picked up on that too.
After years on LET, my 'nose' for avoiding unsustainable offers is now approaching 99.9%.
Another good skill to have is being able to jump ship when it's about to sink and this thread screams sinking ship.
I feel for your situation however I think I can sum this up in 1 picture.
for those not in the UK: that is a 2016 Ford Mondeo with a ball park value of £15,000
You know that could not possibly be real, what makes you think anyone can run 2 physical, probably old and power inefficient servers running even more spinning disks for £9 p/month and £12 p/month?
That does not even cover the power bill, let alone, software licenses, ROI, bandwidth, and salary.
Again I feel for you, you were made a fool of essentially, but people need to learn.. you can take a too good to be true deal but don't depend on it long term and do not run anything on it you cant walk away from in 30 seconds.
This reminds me of that old forum post of the guy being absolutely furious after making his PC air tight with hot glue and filling it with water because he believed a troll about liquid cooling when it was a fairly new thing.
My laptop probably costs more than £9.00 p/month to run 24x7, I don't know how you could expect a whole server to be cheaper.
This entire thread is just a sad indication on where the line is now between expectations and reality.