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Has anyone had (or having) a bad experience with AlphaRacks?
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Has anyone had (or having) a bad experience with AlphaRacks?

I ask this because I'm going through one now, where I cancelled a server about a year ago and have now been billed for another year, apparently under recurring billing, but without any notice from them about this - the first I heard of it was when I got an email from the payment processor. I opened a ticket and got told it was in the FAQ, but my point is why would someone look in the FAQ when they aren't using any of the company's services? I'm now at a point where support is saying they won't refund it because I opened the ticket from an email address that isn't associated with an account, though this is because I asked for my account to be deleted when I cancelled. It seems to me that they are just being awkward after being caught with their pants down, and are trying their hardest to not refund the money.

So I'm just wondering if anyone else has had anything else like this with them? I'm thinking of just filing a chargeback but I'd rather just resolve this amicably.

Cheers.

Comments

  • PayPal?

  • @sanvit said:
    PayPal?

    I wish I had - I paid with a credit card :(

  • call your credit card company and let them reverse the payment, where is the problem? if you cancelled that service back then and also didn't receive an invoice or anything like that, they have no justification to just charge your CC ...

  • @iamthepizza said:

    @sanvit said:
    PayPal?

    I wish I had - I paid with a credit card :(

    CHARGEBACK

  • MasonRMasonR Community Contributor

    @iamthepizza said:

    @sanvit said:
    PayPal?

    I wish I had - I paid with a credit card :(

    If you had paid with PayPal, I would've said it was your fault for not canceling the subscription. But since it's a CC, then their system fucked up and billed you for a server you didn't have anymore. That's their fuck up and is up to them to fix. This email mismatch thing just sounds like an excuse to get out of doing a refund on their end. By all means if you can't sort this out with them, then file a chargeback with your CC company.

    Tagging @alpharacks, though they haven't been around here for awhile likely due to all the negative reviews/experiences.

  • @Falzo said:
    call your credit card company and let them reverse the payment, where is the problem? if you cancelled that service back then and also didn't receive an invoice or anything like that, they have no justification to just charge your CC ...

    I was just pretty interested to see if they've pulled this with other people too - trustpilot doesn't seem great for them either so I was wondering

    Also, isn't this kind of thing against the EU consumer rights thing where they said that there should be no preticked auto-renewal or things like that? Or am I reading too much into that?

  • @MasonR said:

    @iamthepizza said:

    @sanvit said:
    PayPal?

    I wish I had - I paid with a credit card :(

    If you had paid with PayPal, I would've said it was your fault for not canceling the subscription. But since it's a CC, then their system fucked up and billed you for a server you didn't have anymore. That's their fuck up and is up to them to fix. This email mismatch thing just sounds like an excuse to get out of doing a refund on their end. By all means if you can't sort this out with them, then file a chargeback with your CC company.

    Tagging @alpharacks, though they haven't been around here for awhile likely due to all the negative reviews/experiences.

    Thanks for that - I thought that too but wasn't 100% sure :)

    Ngl I quite like this community. Is the Discord still alive?

  • IonSwitch_StanIonSwitch_Stan Member, Host Rep

    Did you provide them with a transaction ID? Their FAQ states they refund for autobilled subscriptions. I'm SURE they would rather refund you than take a $20 chargeback fee from 2co.

  • @IonSwitch_Stan said:
    Did you provide them with a transaction ID? Their FAQ states they refund for autobilled subscriptions. I'm SURE they would rather refund you than take a $20 chargeback fee from 2co.

    Yeah, I gave them it at the beginning when I opened the ticket. It's kind of funny - their replies have been getting fewer and further between on the ticket - kind of like they are trying to stall for the 7 days to not give a refund at all...

  • IonSwitch_StanIonSwitch_Stan Member, Host Rep

    "Are you going to refund me today, or shall I handle this with my credit card company. I would like to avoid you getting a charge back fee."

  • @IonSwitch_Stan said:
    "Are you going to refund me today, or shall I handle this with my credit card company. I would like to avoid you getting a charge back fee."

    Thanks very much! I'll put this to them now.

  • 2Checkout subscriptions work the same way as PayPal as in it bills you until cancelled. You can manage/cancel this on https://2co.com which they clearly state in every email sent after a payment.

  • @Ishaq said:
    2Checkout subscriptions work the same way as PayPal as in it bills you until cancelled. You can manage/cancel this on https://2co.com which they clearly state in every email sent after a payment.

    This was something that they said was in their FAQ but wasn't in any of their confirmation emails or invoices so I wasn't aware of this until I was emailed saying that like 70 quid had been taken from my account.

  • yes, too many f**king emails...

  • TheLinuxBugTheLinuxBug Member
    edited November 2017

    @iamthepizza For the future you should instead not sign-up for auto renew when you purchase services and instead handle paying your invoices directly your self (and if a host tries to force it either consider another host or at minimum immediately cancel the subscription in your paypal/2co account). This would preclude you from having to worry about a situation like this, especially on a yearly contract. I have never understood the need to subscribe to payments for the exact reason of which your currently experiencing. If the service is important enough for you, when you get the invoice e-mails reminding you to pay, you will go pay and have no issue, if not let it die because you probably weren't using it anyways.

    The only thing subscribing to a payment does is risk over drawing your account, if for some reason you didn't have enough available, or end up in the exact same situation as you are in now where you have 70 quid less to pay your bills because it was auto drafted and didn't need to be.

    So basically you traded for convenience and in this case that convenience cost you 70 quid. Was it worth it?

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

  • @iamthepizza said: but wasn't in any of their confirmation emails or invoices

    2Checkout emails you, not the provider. It's a third party payment processor that customers open a payment subscription with.

    The email states something like this:

    "Please do not reply to this email. Your response will not be received. Please contact your Seller directly or go to 2CO.com to manage your order."

    In cases like this an amicable resolution would be for them to refund you minus any transaction costs that they incurred.

  • There are scary reviews about them also here on let reded some scary stories.

  • @TheLinuxBug said:
    @iamthepizza For the future you should instead not sign-up for auto renew when you purchase services and instead handle paying your invoices directly your self (and if a host tries to force it either consider another host or at minimum immediately cancel the subscription in your paypal/2co account). This would preclude you from having to worry about a situation like this, especially on a yearly contract. I have never understood the need to subscribe to payments for the exact reason of which your currently experiencing. If the service is important enough for you, when you get the invoice e-mails reminding you to pay, you will go pay and have no issue, if not let it die because you probably weren't using it anyways.

    The only thing subscribing to a payment does is risk over drawing your account, if for some reason you didn't have enough available, or end up in the exact same situation as you are in now where you have 70 quid less to pay your bills because it was auto drafted and didn't need to be.

    So basically you traded for convenience and in this case that convenience cost you 70 quid. Was it worth it?

    my 2 cents.

    Cheers!

    Thanks for the input! I agree with you on this one - I think I've learned through this trial by fire and will never make this mistake again! :P

  • Hi,

    Please email me at [email protected], we are definitely not in business to be screwing people out of their money, if you forgot to cancel the automated billing subscription send me an email with the details and I'll refund you in full right away, as simple as that.

    Julian

    Thanked by 2raindog308 MasonR
  • @Ishaq said:

    @iamthepizza said: but wasn't in any of their confirmation emails or invoices

    2Checkout emails you, not the provider. It's a third party payment processor that customers open a payment subscription with.

    The email states something like this:

    "Please do not reply to this email. Your response will not be received. Please contact your Seller directly or go to 2CO.com to manage your order."

    In cases like this an amicable resolution would be for them to refund you minus any transaction costs that they incurred.

    2Checkout is not affiliated to the company yes, but the company should have made this clear somewhere - the way it came across from my perspective was that it was just another payment processor that would be cancelled when the service was, and that it wasn't recurring like paypal was.

  • @alpharacks said:
    Hi,

    Please email me at [email protected], we are definitely not in business to be screwing people out of their money, if you forgot to cancel the automated billing subscription send me an email with the details and I'll refund you in full right away, as simple as that.

    Julian

    Hi Julian,

    Thank you for the swift reply - I'll send an email your way now. Just in future, I think it may be worth just making it a little clearer to your customers that the billing is automatic, like how PayPal is, or just it being mentioned when you cancel your service, which would avoid this whole miscommunication thing in the first place.

    Cheers

  • They were "OK" in my experience. I don't blame a provider for a billing platform when I don't read the terms, or realize what I'm signing up for- but they spammed the fuck out of me even after I unsub'd, so I started throwing a defer in response.

    Thanked by 1dedicados
  • Just so everyone's aware - I got an email from Julian confirming the refund so hopefully we're all good here.

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