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Beware of UpCloud Free Trial
Recently we decided to move a client from Siteground to a VPS using Runcloud. It turned out good, so we wanted to start using more VPSes for many other types of work we do.
We took a partner offer on UpCloud provided by RunCloud. It gave use free credit and a 7 day trial. It did want us to provide a credit card as most of the free trials work.
Naively thinking that they would start charging my card immediately upon the trial ends, we started rebuilding a website project completely from scratch. We had the whole team working on other multiple sites to see how the server will behave. In my excitement I decided to use this server as our new staging server and this is where we started the sites without having a backup. My bad, I know.
Today my server on UpCloud got terminated without any way to restore the data. It's the weekend, so nobody could've noticed that the trial is ending today as well. Multiple sites went down, and were down for more than 24 hours because we needed time to notice, and since its the weekend we couldn't even react quick enough.
The support said they couldn't do anything about it. We had a week of great work on a couple of projects down the drain. I know its my bad for not having a backup and building the sites straight on the server. But UpCloud never sent a single notification saying that the server will get deleted immediately once the trial ends. They even provided $50 free credit at sign up, so this got me thinking it might be used after the trial ends again automatically.
I think they are shooting themselves in the foot with the way they are handling this trial ending. They could easily keep a backup for at least 24 hours before total termination of the server. Or send a bunch of emails, notifications whatever.. that the server will get terminated after the trial is ending. The only place this is written is their TOS page.
I am stunned at how they handle their trials. This is your first offer to a potential client. This is where you want to shine, not making excuses how their TOS explains the termination of the server and play dumb. Just awful. I can imagine how they will handle similar cases down the road, so my decision is to avoid UpCloud completely from now on.
Comments
Sorry, what? You built a full project directly in production without backups?
Yes I did, actually it wasn't just one. And the intention was to use another upcloud server as staging. As I said, I was eager to try out RunCloud/VPS combo, and because of the urgency of the project we started using it right away. Of course I was going to setup a backup plan this week, but I never knew that they may terminate a server for an ending trial, instead of try to bill and add you to a subscription automatically as any other company would do.
As a suggestion it's valid one but as complaint what if their email landed in your inbox's spam or for some reason wasnt delivered? And ofc what ^
That's a possibility, but its one more layer of notifying their clients of possible termination instead of none. If you ask me, I'd say add an SMS notification as a second layer in there as well. You may never get it if you're out camping and out of network coverage, but at least they tried to notify you for possible damages, no?
Mistake by them or not, it is still your responsibility to keep an eye on your account and not to rely everything on them. It's a free trial and mostly, it is automatic deletion. Why would you host a production project in a trial period? You don't do that. You need to change it to paid one with protection to avoid getting deleted + put a remote backup. Sorry to say, but this is overall a mistake from your side.
See this right here reminds me of something I experienced at DO:
Routinely customers would be LIVID that a "free trial" didn't automatically cancel itself at the end. I'd try to explain to them, that their lack of reading and accidental $5 payment was a much preferable alternative to me instead facing yet another customer equally as angry only because they experienced a story like yours and lost their hard work.
This is why you shouldn't listen to a loud minority of customers at the expense of everyone else, and you should only delete customer data after extensive warnings (automated, their responsibility to receive them) or direct customer action with confirmation. (I mean, unless you're terminating them for obviously intentional abuse, but that's another story)
I see a pattern here
It is always the provider's fault!
And now, this thread.
Deleting my original response in light of the above.
Sigh. I guess the best way would be to give them 7 days free trial, and inform them every hour of the trial ending since their trial starts. That way, the next group of people who days "I didn't see the email" or "I didn't have the money on hand".
As for the people who complain, they sent too many emails, well, good luck. It's not like anyone reads any TOS anyway.
They don't have any responsibility as you didn't pay for their service. Responsibility only appears when you pay for the service. If yes it's free, you can't even complain if their 7 days trial server was down for 6 days. It's a trial. It is provided as is.
And trial was made for people to try the server quality, but they use it for production and crying because no backup, never know people start project from trial server, I lost my faith in humanity now, smh.
Who says a trial server is just used for trying things and not for production apps/sites? Trial server may not have backups, but a user can do whatever he wants to do on that server, the hosting provider should be quite upfront of what they're offering and how that will end. It's a very bad selling technique of UpCloud it seems that they fail to notify their users about what happens at the expiry date (though they may have listed it in TOS then its users duty to read the TOS carefully). But if not at least a dashboard notification or an email about the same should be sent to the user!
did you doing some due diligence before sign up?
Did you know that to keep services on trial account ( your account will change to full account) you need to add $10 to your account balance before trials end ? It is on the FAQ section under their free trial sign up form https://upcloud.com/signup/ and also on their FAQ page (link to FAQ also available under sign up form ) https://upcloud.com/faq/
Did you know that upcloud only use account balance for their services and your credit card only charged when you want to add fund to your account balance ? They are not charged your credit card for the services, only for account balance top up because they use hourly prepaid billing that automatically deducted your account balance. https://upcloud.com/faq/
They already write some Details on their FAQ for people that too lazy to read TOS.
It is your own fault to put important data without backup on free trial services that you doesn't know anything about their services and billing system. Always read FAQ, TOS before you sign up for anything and don't blame others because you are too lazy to read.
THIS. If you had every intention of using Upcloud for production right from the start, $10 would have solved the problem easily. That was not difficult to do and I put in the $10 bucks immediately after I was convinced that Upcloud worked well.
There is something else that stands out.
See my comment posted earlier
You caught the complainer over here, congrats Sherlock! [insert Leo's clapping meme]
By doing your thorough investigation, you may have also noticed that those posts are 4-5 years ago. What you may also have noticed is that I have a tendency to post the bad stuff about a provider, yes most people are like that.
I never said I am not at fault for starting a project without backup on a trial server. You need to re-read my post.
But the way the trial works on upcloud is bad, you must agree with that. Most companies will bill you rightaway after trial has ended. And the credit they provide is misleading. Of course I won't spend hours reading their TOS with such a straightforward service. By doing that I have put all my trust into the company new client acquisition policy and hope they know how to best server a client that has put his whole trust into them. We live in a fast-paced world, companies are investing in AI so they can improve their clients experience by making them do less choices. I am sure I am not the only one that got burned like that, but of course it is me to blame and I don't deny that. I have no ground to sue them, you can count on that. They have covered themselves by TOS. But whether this is good UX, I highly doubt that.
I don't know whether they are good or bad, but they are the only one (from cloud server providers) who charge $10 just to try their services. Second day they call you to ask if you need something (that Finnish accent). Then if just leaving account idle for a month or so, you'll receive an email - "Sorry to see you go. We noticed you have decided not to stay with UpCloud" - how did they notice that?
What the actual F.
It feels like OP did it to troll us more than anything else. I mean someone with an ounce of a brain would know what would happen.
No troll, none of the other VPS providers do that on a trial account. Or at least they notify you by email if they intend to terminate a server without an option for a recovery.
If you weren't trolling,
then this is just sad.
Thanks for your compassion. It is sad, both for Upcloud and their clients.
I don't agree at all, this is just your opinion. I hate when I signup for a trial and they start billing me after its expiration. If I want the paid service then I order it.
Honestly as much as this situation is OP-s fault... i hate trigger happy providers.
Stuff happens. Mistakes happen. If provider instantly deletes all data in case of overdue payment or abuse report (excluding extreme cases obviously) such provider is a pain to use. Suspend, give some grace period, i will even be fine with paying some reasonable extra fee for this since it is my mistake after all, but straight deleting everything... how is it good for anyone? Provider looses a client (at this point it does not really matter where to restore, so why would i not move on?), client looses time and depending on backup solution some small amount of data.
It is even more surprising with trial period, because the very reason for it to exist is to attract clients... so why get rid of a client once he used up his time instead of suspending and offering to pay?
I am not giving you compassion. You are sad.
It’s absolutely bad. They’ve long been on the “we’re better than DigitalOcean” kick and whether or not that’s true, probably led them to take far too many suggestions of what others thought DO did wrong. That was one thing DO did not do wrong lol
Who in this world puts his team effort in a project without having backup? Whether or not they notified you, you should have 1) backup of your data, 2) shouldn't have run production site on a trial server without knowing the ToS.
That's exactly what I'm trying to say, thank you! I did wrong, I admit that. But they don't need to be so strict when terminating a server without any way for recovery.
I would gladly pay a fee for the grace period of a couple of days, and be happy about it.
Both our opinions do not matter because charging after the trial ending is pretty much standard practice nowadays, everyone does it. This is why they need to be careful when they are deviating from the norm.
Not always. Some cloud providers will give you free month or something similar, so there's no way for you to pay for it. And it's still paid service after all.
They have no problem with that (deviating). I think such cases as yours should make them to reconsider their policies at least.
So, if a RAID array failed on that node, OP would still be whining about losing data.
Losing client's data is not big deal, right?
I'm searching for the correct word to describe the OP. They lay out a comedy of errors (all entirely self-inflicted) and expect LET is going to say/do/provide what exactly?
Imagine working for this type of individual. Think Michael Scott from The Office.