Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Netcup not accepting delayed payments under any circumstances?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Netcup not accepting delayed payments under any circumstances?

rchurchrchurch Member
edited March 2020 in Outages

I have an unused Netcup shared hosting that I wanted to cancel which they declined. For the 12 months I ordered it I only played with it for a less than a month. I didn't even know that it would automatically renew because it was on offer

After seeing how things were going with Covid19 here in the UK I spent my monthly budget on priorities and when I asked them for the option to pay for it later they said no and that late payment charges would apply if I delayed payment.

Is that how these dudes operate?

After seeing how dedicateds offer much better performance I think I'm done with these guys.

They are the only company which make VPSs make sense for some purposes, regardless of their long commit periods, but I think I'm done with them.

The product is even not that reliable and performant.

«1

Comments

  • @rchurch said:

    Is that how these dudes operate?

    Yes and they will hire a debt collection agency in your country if you do not pay.

  • FalzoFalzo Member
    edited March 2020

    rchurch said: Is that how these dudes operate?

    yes. and that's not new. if you are from UK I am pretty sure you are used to the more european concept of auto renewing contracts aka subscription models like this ;-)

    while I agree that it is not neccessarily common practise when it comes to things like webhosting (in a more global context), this topic of contracts and cancellation periods have been discussed long and wide - esp. for german companies and netcup itself.

    sorry to say, but I guess there is no easy way out. they are even known to send collection agencies after you. so if you're late for cancellation this year, rather suck it up, pay and put in the cancellation for next year already.

    rchurch said: but I think I'm done with them

    makes sense, these contract models are only for the brave ;-)

  • angstromangstrom Moderator
    edited March 2020

    @rchurch said: I have an unused Netcup shared hosting that I wanted to cancel which they declined.

    Hmm, I would have expected you to know better given that you've used netcup products before (not to mention that you've seen discussions of their cancellation policy here before). Let me guess: you wanted to cancel within 31 days, right?

    For the 12 months I ordered it I only played with it for a less than a month. I didn't even know that it would automatically renew because it was on offer

    Why wouldn't it automatically renew? All of their products automatically renew.

  • @rchurch said:
    I didn't even know that it would automatically renew because it was on offer

    Did you read the contract period/details upon checkout? If so, I am sure it was mentioned that it is a recurring offer. Anyway, sux to hear mate. But there is no easy way out like @Falzo said.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @rchurch said: The product is even not that reliable and performant.

    No need to denigrate the product just because you forgot to cancel on time

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Just because you hate and cannot find your wife, it does not automatically mean you are divorced unless she is found dead somewhere.

    Thanked by 1pike
  • FalzoFalzo Member

    deank said: divorced unless she is found dead somewhere

    technically that's no divorce either I'd say...

  • deankdeank Member, Troll
    edited March 2020

    Well, the wedding vow does state, "Until death do us part."

  • Guys you overlooked one of the points I made.

    I asked for more time to make the payment, eg or even spread it out and they are refusing outright.

    That is the part that annoys me. If that is the case then I may have to put some large video files and ISOs there and take advantage of their unmetered bandwidth to make up for the cost then.

    Pretty annoying when I'm up to my years in under utilized VPSs

  • @angstrom said:

    @rchurch said: The product is even not that reliable and performant.

    No need to denigrate the product just because you forgot to cancel on time

    Oh no. The dedicated core VPSs may be performant, but their shared hosting is most definitely not. It has gone down more than a few times, only it didn't bother me because I don't use it.

  • hzrhzr Member
    edited March 2020

    rchurch said: I asked for more time to make the payment, eg or even spread it out and they are refusing outright.

    What exactly did you expect from a standard corporate contract? I'm curious. Shit, I get automatically sent to collections if I don't pay with a 7 day grace period at some providers.

  • @hzr said:

    rchurch said: I asked for more time to make the payment, eg or even spread it out and they are refusing outright.

    What exactly did you expect from a standard corporate contract? I'm curious. Shit, I get automatically sent to collections if I don't pay with a 7 day grace period at some providers.

    Aren't you aware that we are facing a global covid_19 related business downturn?

    My issue is not even one of non payment, it is about taking time to sort priorities and making the payment later.

    This is not a dedicated core VPS where they have to allocate resources, it is bleeding shared hosting for chrissake. Over the 13 months I've had it now, I don't think I've even spent 2 weeks using it for anything useful.

    Does anyone have an idea of what I can do on shared hosting to put it to good use, ie tax it well enough to make the payment worthwhile?

    Even of the 20 free domains included I think I only registered about 4, all of which are mostly idle, and it is about 9 months into the contract that I first registered any of them.

  • hzrhzr Member

    rchurch said: Aren't you aware that we are facing a global covid_19 related business downturn?

    If only I still didn't have to pay rent while my city is locked down :(

  • Pardon me good sir but what kind of stupid contract did you sign that doesn't allow you to cancel it after the contract duration is up? I feel like I'm missing something here.

  • @hzr said:

    rchurch said: Aren't you aware that we are facing a global covid_19 related business downturn?

    If only I still didn't have to pay rent while my city is locked down :(

    Are you required to pay your rent yearly in advance, with no option of moving out earlier with a refund of some ofthe remaining rent if circumstances changes for some reason?

  • FalzoFalzo Member
    edited March 2020

    how much of a delay are you wishing for? afaik they expect a payment within 14 days after the invoice got issued and then might suspend the service, which will lead to a 25€ fee. at least that's what their AGB are stating... are you already in that time or are you still before the invoice?
    I think asking them upfront was your best bet anyway, if they don't play along that's sad... however could be, that all these things are heavily automated, so who knows if there is a proper switch to stop it. best of luck to get it sorted anyway.

    PS: I guess it's about an amount of around 50 bucks, so while I understand that this might hurt and is not ideal, I'd probably rather ask someone to lend me that money for a short while instead of letting it get to 75 ;-)

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @rchurch said:
    Guys you overlooked one of the points I made.

    I asked for more time to make the payment, eg or even spread it out and they are refusing outright.

    That is the part that annoys me. If that is the case then I may have to put some large video files and ISOs there and take advantage of their unmetered bandwidth to make up for the cost then.

    Pretty annoying when I'm up to my years in under utilized VPSs

    I guess that I'm still surprised that someone who's been around here as long as you has decided to start such a thread.

    Probably most of us have overspent at times by making impulse purchases of VPSes/dedis and/or shared hosting, so you're not alone in this respect.

    netcup are known for their strict cancellation policy ("cancel at least 31 days in advance"), which you were certainly aware of. If someone doesn't like their strict cancellation policy (and there are probably many who don't), then they would do best not to buy from netcup.

    As far as delayed payments or payments spread out over time are concerned, I don't know of any provider who would allow this, at least not for the amount of money that we're talking about, which is probably around 50€ (although you haven't revealed what the amount is in your case).

    So, yes, you can pretend that netcup are the bad guys because they don't suddenly adapt themselves to your (claimed) personal financial circumstances, or you can simply swallow the pill by paying the bill and then make sure to immediately cancel all of your netcup services so that you won't have to deal with them in the future (if you really feel so strongly about it).

  • dfroedfroe Member, Host Rep

    @hzr said:
    If only I still didn't have to pay rent while my city is locked down :(

    Well, at least we just got a new law in Germany to protect those who cannot pay their rent in time until September. But sorry to say it probably does not cover the rent for your servers..

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • FalzoFalzo Member

    dfroe said: Well, at least we just got a new law in Germany to protect those who cannot pay their rent in time until September. But sorry to say it probably does not cover the rent for your servers..

    which won't be a free pass, but probably gonna be abused as such anyway.
    there'll be quite some problems in the foreseeable future deriving from it. people in a financial limited position not able to pay it now won't easily pay it up later... it's gonna be interesting to see who's going to cover half a year of rent that hasn't been paid, afterwards.
    (of course, I totally get that there is no ideal balanced solution anyway)

  • dfroedfroe Member, Host Rep

    @Falzo

    From a rational point of view the only thing you are actually buying is time.
    Which rationally seems to not make any difference whether you have to pay your rent now or pay up in half a year.
    But the additional time can make it possible for people with limited financial opportunities to find a way which they may not right now.

    Real estate and rental prices exploded into utopic dimensions during the last years and I am pretty sure there are some people speculating about even higher profits on new rental contracts. So for me this also a good attitude of our government to show we do not support those speculations.

  • AlwaysSkintAlwaysSkint Member
    edited March 2020

    angstrom said: netcup are known for their strict cancellation policy ("cancel at least 31 days in advance"), which you were certainly aware of. If someone doesn't like their strict cancellation policy (and there are probably many who don't), then they would do best not to buy from netcup.

    This. Stops my impulse buying from them.

    Thanked by 1angstrom
  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @AlwaysSkint said:

    angstrom said: netcup are known for their strict cancellation policy ("cancel at least 31 days in advance"), which you were certainly aware of. If someone doesn't like their strict cancellation policy (and there are probably many who don't), then they would do best not to buy from netcup.

    This. Stops my impulse buying from them.

    This is a completely reasonable attitude :smile:

    Thanked by 2AlwaysSkint skorous
  • This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows them. Netcup is notorious for their inflexible contracts and a relatively old-fashioned way of doing business. They take the worst of German/European-style recurring contracts, along with their associated rules and ridiculously long notification periods, and try to apply them to the online world. When compared to international providers, they (thankfully) find themselves in relatively small company.

    In their defense, though, Netcup is pretty transparent about this. This issue can't be blamed on them.

    I've always tried to figure out why German companies get away with this, and why there isn't a bigger call among German consumers to get rid of these silly policies. It's almost as if German businesses have their customers so well trained to accept obnoxious service and inflexibility, that the clients have simply given up, and now expect this behavior from all companies with which they deal. Of course there are exceptions -- not ALL companies are like this. But far too many are, especially when it comes to multi-month and recurring contracts.

    Is it possible that these policies are a response to the very strong buyer protections offered by German/EU law? Maybe the companies feel like, since they're being forced to comply with certain regulations that benefit the client, they can be much more aggressive in applying their rules to other parts of the contract that are not regulated as strictly? For example: "sure, we'll give you a 14-day no-questions-asked return privilege (because we're required to); but after that, you're locked in for 24 months no matter what, and God help you if you don't cancel without giving us 3 months notice."

  • dfroedfroe Member, Host Rep

    I'd say at the end of the day it is all about money and those means probably help increasing profit.

    If you bind yourself to a provider for 1 or 2 years and you find out after a couple of months that the service does not meet your expectations, it is still 1-2 years of revenue for the provider; otherwise you would have cancelled after a few months. Similiar thing if you miss to notify a cancellation ahead.

    Why they are doing this? Because they can.

    Of course people would prefer a similiar offer with shorter contract periods and easier terms. But quite often there are simply no alternative options. Or like in the case of netcup they must be doing something right, otherwise they wouldn't have so much customers accepting those contracts. In this case it's most likely providing a high quality reliable service at a competitive price. On the other hand long-term contracts make (financial) planning much easier reducing the risk of investments.

    It all has pros and cons. But as long as those means are totally legal, companies will make use of them.

  • I think you are correct regarding the reason why it continues -- there is simply a lack of competition. And Germany is generally risk-averse, so even new companies seem to use the "follow the leader" approach, which is more about what they can get away with rather than listening to the consumer.

  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @aj_potc said:
    I think you are correct regarding the reason why it continues -- there is simply a lack of competition. And Germany is generally risk-averse, so even new companies seem to use the "follow the leader" approach, which is more about what they can get away with rather than listening to the consumer.

    I also think that it has something to do with German business culture and German consumer culture and their respective habits and expectations.

    Don't forget that netcup are primarily aimed at the German market, and only secondarily at the non-German EU market, and only thirdly at the non-EU market. In this respect, they're very different from Hetzner.

    One summer a number of years ago in Germany, I met an Italian tourist who wanted to make a significant purchase at Saturn, which (along with MediaMarkt) is a huge electronics store chain in Germany, and the Italian guy was nearly speechless when they told him that they didn't accept credit cards! For the longest time (until 2015?), Saturn and MediaMarkt in Germany accepted only cash or debit cards, despite the fact that Saturn and/or MediaMarkt in neighboring countries did accept credit cards.

    I always felt that there was something very German in this practice: by not accepting credit cards, Saturn and MediaMarkt could save a lot on credit card charges, and German consumers were conditioned to accept this practice as "normal", even well after credit cards were widely available and used.

  • YmpkerYmpker Member
    edited March 2020

    It's always the same. Ppl jump at Netcup's awesomely priced (and performing) special offers which are a great bang for the buck then come back with problems regarding their cancellation/bills/contract later. There is a reason I don't use Netcup anymore (see my rant a quite long while back at their "hourly cloud billing") but cancellation (if done right) has never been a problem. Luckily, there are enough other providers I love that give me more flexibility in their contracts and/or kinda equally good deals so my go-to providers for VPS right now are Hetzner, Contabo and Vultr. That is not to say I love the contracting scheme we are stuck in here in Germany (also mobile phone contracts) but it is what it is. And about Netcup it has been known and discussed so many times.

    When people find out Netcup is actually one of the providers holding people to the contract they signed:

  • dfroedfroe Member, Host Rep

    angstrom said: by not accepting credit cards, Saturn and MediaMarkt could save a lot on credit card charges

    Regarding this I would appreciate if the saved money of SEPA direct debit transactions would be shared among the the store owner and the customer. This would increase the store's profit by paying less processing fees and if customers would get a little discount, people would do it.

    Practically every citizen in Germany having a credit card also has a SEPA direct debit card (girocard, formerly EC). For most people there is no difference, they don't really care. And if they don't have to pay more, most people will probably prefer paying with credit card (because credit cards aren't accepted everywhere and thus must be something 'cool'). On the other hand, if they would get back half of the credit card fees, even if it was just a few cents, I guess almost everybody would use German girocard within Germany - because they don't care about the card/system and both take it from the same pocket / bank account. :)

    But I assume if this would be established, someone could file a complaint with the EU that Germany is disadvantaging non-German EU citiziens because they do not have a German girocard. :)

    TL;DR: Germany can be a bit peculiar sometimes if you don't live there. :D

  • @angstrom said:
    I always felt that there was something very German in this practice: by not accepting credit cards, Saturn and MediaMarkt could save a lot on credit card charges, and German consumers were conditioned to accept this practice as "normal", even well after credit cards were widely available and used.

    I remember this time well! As a non-German, it was a shock to me how many shops would not accept credit cards around 2012-13. Even Ikea wanted an EC card or cash! But times have changed. You can now use credit cards at discount places like Netto, Lidl, and Aldi, which (at least for my local places) was impossible in the past. I recall it was even a challenge back then to find DB and local transit ticket machines that would take CCs.

    It will be a long time before cash is gone here, but there is a real cost to handling it. For some businesses, it may be cheaper to go to electronic-only methods. And after many years the tax authorities are starting to put the squeeze on unreported cash (tougher penalties, heavier requirements on businesses that deal with cash, cash register security, etc.).

  • @dfroe said:

    Practically every citizen in Germany having a credit card also has a SEPA direct debit card (girocard, formerly EC). For most people there is no difference, they don't really care.

    Hey, wait a minute! I want my airline miles!!! :wink:

    But in all seriousness, some credit cards do have very nice benefits that make them worth using, such as extra insurance on some purchases, cash back/miles, and theft/fraud protections that debit cards don't offer.

    TL;DR: Germany can be a bit peculiar sometimes if you don't live there. :D

    A truer statement has never been written! :smiley:
    Every country has its funny aspects!

Sign In or Register to comment.