Is this legal or ethical

[June]

I paid 6 months to GlobalMax to have a web site hosted, It was up and running for the months of June and July. In August up to and including the present time it is marked "under construction" I have asked for a refund of my money but the host says no, he will give me "credit" for service in the future, I told him no, I dont need any more of his "service", still he refused to refund my money, Who can I report this to in order to receive a refund. Has anybody else used GlobalMax and had any problems, I would like to know what to do to get a refund of my money.

[Andrew]

Hi June,

If you paid with credit card, let them know you will do a chargeback if they dont refund the remaining 4 months.

BTW - you really shouldnt pay (IMP) 6 months in advance with any hosting company until you are comfortable with them (or unless you are certain they are a good host - ie. a friend or family member has used them for awhile and referred you to them).

If you payed by cheque for the first 6 months and only received 2 months service, you really have no recourse unless you sue them - but really, this isnt worth your time.

Hope this helps

[Chet]

Did you put up the under construction or them? Just because you didn't use the services, doesn't mean you can not pay for them.

Chet

[Andrew]

Originally posted by Chet:

Did you put up the under construction or them? Just because you didn't use the services, doesn't mean you can not pay for them.

Chet

Good question Chet.

I assumed that the host put this info up and took their site down.

lesson for the day - never assume :)

[Chicken]

I get the feeling the client simply chose not to use the services. In that case, you used the services, even if to display "Under Construction". There's no reason for your host to assume otherwise, and no reason to disable the account and refund you. Sorry.

[Deb]

I have asked for a refund of my money but the host says no, he will give me "credit" for service in the future, I have to agree with the others. If you were the one who chose to not really use the services then yes, the payment is the host's to keep. Why? Because the host still had to make all of those resources available for you to use at will, essentially making them 'non salable goods' while they were in your possesion. I also think it was rather exceptional of the host to even offer a credit if this was in fact the case.

If, however, the host is at fault and they removed your website by placing an under construction sticker on it then I would recommend reporting them to places such as http://www.BBB.com and your credit company if you used a credit card to pay for it. Just be careful to ensure you do not make false accusations when doing so.

[Ted S]

Like Deb, Chicken and others have said, you choose how to use the services you pay for. For the same reason a restaurant can not refund you for left over food, a host can't refund you because you didn't feel like using the service. In the future, when you start a site, be sure you want it to run and leave/ cancel if it isn't up after a month, you can always start it up again later.

Of course if the host put up the page give them a final warning and charge it back like there is no tomorrow (because there is no excuse for changing a paying client's legitimate site).

[Chicken]

The thread starter emailed me, but I'm guessing that they meant to post this. I can't see anything in the email that would be confidential (hopefully). This is what it said...
The site was up and running then all of a sudden it had a sign "under construction" to no knowledge of mine, if I had not went to the site to "look it over" I would never had know that anything was wrong.
In that case, service was not provided and you should be refunded IMHO, at least from the time you noticed it, but logs and archives should be able to give you a more accurate time as to when this happened. Once you find out, I'd request a refund for those weeks/months.

[linux-tech]

Requesting a refund for services provided is especially hard, as it is, and requesting refunds for service that's been paid for 6 months in advance is really hard. Here's a couple things to keep in mind.

Firstly, most companies offer discounts for larger contracts (ie: quarterly, yearly, all that jazz). If you're asking for a refund, you should have paid this amount in the beginning.

Secondly, can you prove that you're not the one who changed the sites around? They could just as easily say it was you!

Thirdly, as others have said before, if you're going to do business like this (in larger time formats), you should know the company well in advance. This way you're reasonably sure they won't do this

Can you file a chargeback? Technically, you used the services for a period of time, so legally no. Granted, services weren't provided as described, but most banks won't deal with service related chargeback anyways.

Are you entitled to a refund? Most definitely I'd say yes. If you didn't put that stuff on your web page and haven't used the host since, I'd say you are, however the only way you'll get it out of 'em it looks like is if you contact a lawyer, and that'll (probably) end up costing you more money than the refund would bring.

[Andrew]

Originally posted by twhiting9275:
Are you entitled to a refund? Most definitely I'd say yes. If you didn't put that stuff on your web page and haven't used the host since, I'd say you are, however the only way you'll get it out of 'em it looks like is if you contact a lawyer, and that'll (probably) end up costing you more money than the refund would bring.

Well said......

[Gabriel Lobu]

I won't feel it as ethical!!!!!

[Vanitha]

Oh sorry for your bad experience......

Hope you will get the justice......