cheap web hosting

So while this kid was asleep dreaming of how to get more out of his Warcraft fan site, his mother’s credit card was charged not for one, but two years of hosting for him. Read more if you want to at the Dreamhost blog post and here too, but it does bring up a few good points. I will not be berating dreamhost for how they could have ensured this issue didn’t happen in the first place, or talk about the paypal api issues (they switched from http  to https who knew, i will also not talk about the issues that could arise from companies sending credit card details through paypal’s API without using HTTPs protocols.), I will also not be talking about how to not write bad mysql statements such as “replace all credit card information that ended in 2007 to 2008″ versus ” anyone who paid in december 2007 just go ahead make them pay their december 2008 bill.”

First consumers should know, if your card expires in 2007 under certain conditions the merchant is allowed to change your expiration date in their system. For example in the hosting industry your account typically does not expire, it renews. This is called recurring billing. If your account is a recurring billing account VISA has stated that the merchant can change the expiration date, in order to prevent services from being shut off. VISA would rather customers be refunded then millions of customers being shut off for non payment every month. This is a courtesy to the mutual customer. If you had a service that billed monthly and your credit card had expired, and the service was shut off you would probably be upset. Especially if it was for car insurance, you got into a fender bender and when you called your insurance company that stated “you didn’t pay your bill your not covered.”

Some web hosting companies give you a few options. They send you invoices and you have to click to renew the account or all the services get shut off. You can cancel your account before it renews. You can take your account off of auto charge, this does not cancel your account but makes you log into the billing system to pay the bill when it is due. Most hosting companies give you a grace period to pay the bill before you get suspended for nonpayment. You can also ask them about other methods of payment. Some will let you remove the credit card on file by calling their billing department. Most of the billing systems are created with recurring billing in mind so you can’t remove your credit card on file, only replace it or call the billing department.

Now, while there are all these in-house billing systems, merchant accounts and 3rd party API’s, there is no easy way to suspend accounts for non payment. these systems are designed for payments, not suspensions and cancellations. These solutions are created in house also. Its easier to call all your customers who are 15 days outstanding and leave a message; then it is for a hosting company to have already renewed your services and then suspend your account and hope you will notice your not getting your email.

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