** Account Cancellation and Recurring Billing Warning **

[Teej]

For new and existing users, be aware of some billing issues.

When posting a support request via the online form, if you choose Customer Service/Billing and Cancellation as the subject the form immediately dumps you at the gate.com front page without allowing you to request cancellation of your account.
Your credit-card is charged automatically without an invoice being sent to you (it is generated internally at Affinity)
At least for ordering 3-month or longer periods, your credit-card is charged on a recurring basis despite the fact you did not agree to that when you signed up and no warning or notice is sent to you before it is charged again.

If you read the forums you'll be aware that support and performance of the gate.com VPS service is terrible. If you're trialing it make sure you don't get burnt twice!

[Teej]

I've just found that despite telling gate.com TWICE to cancel my account, they've taken a SECOND unauthorised payment from my card.

I've reported them to the Fort Lauderdale office of the Better Business Bureau.

View the Affinity Internet Better Business Bureau registration (http://www.bbbsoutheastflorida.org/nis/newsearch2.asp?ID=1&strBCode=06330000&ComID=0633000011001862&ComName=Affinity+Internet%2C+Inc%2E)

Make a complaint to the BBB (https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx).

[larryl2]

Teej, did you get your conformation number when closing your account? All the billing information is clearly stated in the user agreement and if you have a conformation number for the closing of your account then you can contact Gate directly and ask for a refund.

[Teej]

It took over a month for my complaint to be processed by the Better Business Bureau but once it did the response and settlement was swift:
Complaint Classification: Credit/Billing/Coll.

Complaint Description - Posted 6-21-2007

On the 10/27/06 I signed up for the Affinity Internet 'gate.com' branded Virtual Private Server pack, U100. I gave card details
(last 4 digits are **** expiry 08/08) & paid $89.85 quarterly in advance. The 'memb #' they issued is: 535175: The service proved to be terrible and I decided to move to another host in the middle of Dec. My gate.com acct would be due renewal at the end of Jan. 07. I notified gate.com at the end of Dec. via web-site cancellation form that I didn't wish to renew the acct when it became due on 1/27th. I removed all my data & stopped using the service by the end of the quarter. I thought no more about it until I noticed a charge for $89.95 dated 1/28/07. I tried to find a phone # for gate.com billing , & for their customer service manager, but was unable to locate one. I again used their web-site cancellation form, complained about the unauthorized charge, & repeated my cancellation. I've discovered that Affinity again charged the card $89.95 on 4/28/07. I've given up trying to make contact with them & ask that you attempt to have these 2 unauthorized charges totaling $179.90 refunded. You should also know the gate.com website cancellation form doesn't work. When the form is posted the server redirects to the front page of the site without accepting the details. This has been reported in public 'cust support' but nothing done. In order to make the form work I had to manually hack the code in the web-page to have the form submit correctly.

Complaint Summary

I've discovered that Affinity again charged the card $89.95 on 4/28/07.

Resolution Sought

a. Cancellation of account back-dated to end of first quarter (27th January 2007) b. Refund of unauthorised charges $179.90 c. Confirmation that no further charges will be taken.


Additional Information

Date Problem First Occurred:
4-28-2007
Product or Service: web hosting
Model Name or Number:
Date Purchased: 10-27-2006
Order Number:
Amount Paid: $179.90


Company's Response

Initial Response - Posted 6-28-2007

We have investigated this account and the only listing we have in our billing system history for a cancellation request was in February, when the customer emailed us to cancel his account. At the time, he was asked to verify his ownership of the account, but no reply was ever received. Unfortunately, we cannot verify any attempt to cancel via the web site previous to this email in February. However this does not mean that the attempt was never made. Fortunately, the customer has provided the last four digits of his credit card in this BBB complaint and it matches our records, so we are able to consider him verifed as the account holder. As an act of good faith, we have decided to fully refund the last two charges to the customer's credit card and cancel the customer's account as requested. The refund should be posted to the customer's credit card within the next 5 to 7 business days. The customer's confirmation number for the cancellation is 4381715.

Initial Response Summary

Account is cancelled as per request and refund given. Should post in 5 to 7 business days.

[larryl2]

Wow, so because you didn't verify your account when you made your request to cancel and then didn't follow up, its Gate.coms' fault they didn't close your account......... Its people like you that give companies bad names for no reason other than YOU didn't do things right the first time. Be glad they gave you your money back on an old request because they didn't have to and the BBB would have forced them to since it clearly states in their UA that you must obtain a conformation number when closing an account. Since you never got one and didn't follow up on it, except to complain to the BBB, they had every right to keep charging you.

[Teej]

1) I *never* received a confirmation email.

2) They had my telephone number, and could have called to check if they didn't get a reply to email - anyone technically proficient knows how unreliable email is.

3) The cancellation form was, and maybe still is, broken and despite my contacting gate.com support and raising an incident, and publishing information about it in the forums, they never responded.

4) *People like me* paid 3 months up-front on the basis of promises of quality and support which were pure fantasy on gate.com's part

5) In the first month I and many others had so many problems with the VEs being wrongly configured, server downtime, interruptions to service and DNS glitches, that any competently managed company would have been paying very close attention to its customers

6) If you read the forums you'll see just how many dissatisfied customers there have been and how many also couldn't get their accounts cancelled. Read the general hosting forums elsewhere and you'll see how many people had poor experiences with gate.com

I moved to another provider and I've had fewer issues in 6 months than I had on gate.com in the 1st month.