Midphase hosting - avoid them

Pinky

Pinky

and The Brain...
I recently started receiving bills from a host ("Mid-Phase") I haven't been using in probably a year+. I replied kindly explaining that my account had been closed a long time ago due to their shotty service, and that I had even received a partial refund for the services not rendered (which, at the time, I thought was a nice gesture on their part... but I was still never going to recommend them again). Since then I've receive the following letter along with "password reminders" of how to sign in and either cancel my service (which they would have been done prior), or pay the balance due. In one of my earlier emails I even explained that because it was so long ago I don't have any 'evidence' of the cancellation aside from the fact the forum/site is completely turned off and I haven't logged into the account in, like, a year.

The persistence as indicated in the response below tells me that they are simply out to milk a loop hole they created, and basically feel out how big of a sucker they think I am. My last response ended with "see you in court".

Dear William,

Whether or not you used our services isn't relevant. In accordance
with our terms of service, accounts are renewed until cancelled through
the cancellation form, (the cancel form can be found here:
cancel.midphase.com ). Further, to avoid renewal charges you must cancel your account
14 days before its renewal. Non-use is not a form of cancellation.

You can review our terms of service here,
http://midphase.com/html_files/terms_of_service.php

You have an outstanding invoice that must be paid off before we're able
to close your account. We need you to update your credit card
information so we can process this outstanding balance. To update your billing
information, login to secure.mpcustomer.com using the login details I’ve
sent to you by email. Once you are logged into the billing system click
on “Billing Info” then “Edit”. Once you’ve update your credit card
details let us know through this ticket and we’ll make sure your account is
paid off.

To close your account you MUST fill out the cancellation form,
cancel.midphase.com

We would love to keep your business. If there is a specific problem
that has led you to leave midPhase please let us know and we’ll be more
than happy to fix it for you.

Please let us know if you have any questions or need help. Thank you.


--
Brian Harmatuk
Billing Representative
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Please note that my name isn't even William, and I have signed my name (Kevin) on all my previous emails. These are guys are really clueless. Buyer beware!

I figured since someone may consider this company for hosting of their band site someday I mind as well post a little warning here.
 
Pinky,

I just wanted to stop by here, and all of the other places you're posting to say the exact same thing that I said in your ticket. If you can provide a cancellation number, we'll be happy to take your account down.

Here's what we are working with:

* You are unable to provide a cancellation number, but you claim that you haven't used the service in years. Fair enough, but refer to our TOS, which states the following:
"
7.8 NON-USAGE OF AN ACCOUNT IS NOT PROOF OF CANCELLATION OF SERVICE. Clients are responsible for full payment on all accounts whether or not the account is or was ever utilized. If a client cancels without using the account outside of the guarantee period, there is no refund allowed. "

We are simply not able to monitor your usage of your website. Even if we could, many customers don't use their website, they don't update it, they rarely get visitors, but they still want it open just in case, or for their own reason. LIKE ANY OTHER SERVICE, you must cancel by notifying us. We have a *very* simply cancellation form, which if you had filled out, you would have received a cancellation number via email immediately.

You can run around the Internet slandering us if you like. If you can't provide a cancellation number, and we can't find records of your cancellation, I don't believe it happened.

Zak Boca
 
The fact that you can't cancel without paying the current invoice in full is what really shocked me. You want to impose interest on unpaid bills, that's one thing, but forcing the bill to keep growing unless the person pays a contested bill...that's scary stuff.
 
Well Zak, you've proved the man's point. Your company does appear to incompetent as well as a scam. I'll be spreading the good word.
 
Anything additonal I needed to add to this discussion was posted here and quoted below.

Also note that they have conceeded that I have NOT been using their services as they aren't even attempting to fight that claim. The thing about online TOS (terms of service) is that they can be changed at any time (by the service provider). That's why real companies always send a paper copy through snail mail. Unless you actually have proof you send letters with outlined terms, nothing you say is worth a hill of beans in court... which is where cases like this end up once someone like me sues you for damaging their credit rating with falsified collections activity. Those sort of crimes they will extradite people for. How much is 7 years of higher interest rates worth in (economic) punitive damages??

What's funny is that I would have never received services from any online company without paying first. I'm being billed for future services then? Or services rendered? In the case of future services, I made it clear I wasn't interested (so until I pay there's no contract entered). If it's for prior services, is it common practice for midphase to provide services on a bill-me-later schedule?

Here's a quote from an email from the same Zac... sounds pretty professional to me. Definitely a company I would recommend to others :rolleyes: :

Zac said:
Too funny! It's amazing how much time people have on their hands, it
really is...

I've cancelled you out of our system, and am passing
this on to collections. If that isn't where you want to go to, you
should provide a cancellation number instead of these pathetic blackmail
attempts.
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Blackmail? Sounds like slander accusing someone of blackmail when they've made NO DEMANDS. Are you stoopid or just not up for the challenging of using your brain?

If anyone is BEING blackmailed it's me. Or is it William? Or haven't you figured out who your sending to collections yet?...
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This is also a lesson to all of us service users. You might never know who you are really dealing with until later. Always keep documentation of your activities. Take a note of your telephone call and any confirmation/cancellation numbers they give you, and slap a date at the top and throw it in a box in the closet. Follow up with an email if possible and save the email in a "misc" folder or "music bus." folder. That way if a problem arises later, you can pull out the old email or paper note.

At the end of the day, this kinda sounds like a "he says she says" situation. That can happen with any company. If Pinky had kept notes of his cancellation telephone call, he would have had a clean way out of this situation.

Not blaming you, Pinky - I see enough issues with this company that in my opinion I'd stay away - but it's a lesson for all of us. You gotta watch your own back.
 
Monsoon said:
This is also a lesson to all of us service users. You might never know who you are really dealing with until later. Always keep documentation of your activities. Take a note of your telephone call and any confirmation/cancellation numbers they give you, and slap a date at the top and throw it in a box in the closet. Follow up with an email if possible and save the email in a "misc" folder or "music bus." folder. That way if a problem arises later, you can pull out the old email or paper note.

At the end of the day, this kinda sounds like a "he says she says" situation. That can happen with any company. If Pinky had kept notes of his cancellation telephone call, he would have had a clean way out of this situation.

Not blaming you, Pinky - I see enough issues with this company that in my opinion I'd stay away - but it's a lesson for all of us. You gotta watch your own back.
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Amen. Let all who look on the fate of the poor despondent Pinky learn from his misfortune. Go to Staples and spend $9.95 on a plastic filing cabinet. :D
 
Kevin/William,

It's funny to see you acting as if you don't know how the name William came up. If you don't remember, let me refresh you:

On February 10th at 3:29:44PM, you changed your real information (Kevin) to William. We have logs to document this change.

Since you have brought this matter public, we do reserve our right to our side of the story. To sum up everything thus far:

You, Kevin (William, or whichever other name you prefer), agreed to our TOS, which clearly states that the only method of cancelling is via our cancellation form. The idea that you cancelled over the phone isn't possible, because our phone reps. are not capable of doing that. We also monitor every single call, so I'm sure that we could pull up the call, if you sincerely think that you may have cancelled that way.

After not paying your bill for many months, our system continued to email you to inform you of this charge. You changed your information, to what I'm quite sure is ficitious, and you posted about how we're completely confused, and don't even have your real information.

It's evident you're doing your best to evade your debt. Again, bringing this information public is not in our best interest, but we do reserve the right to bring our side of the story.

We have nothing to gain here. I don't feel that you cancelled your account. If you did, we would have found yor cancellation by searching by your email address, your domain name, your cancellation ID (which you say you don't have), your username, or your name. I'm going to go ahead and just close out the account entirely. You won't receive any additional emails from us and you won't be sent to collections, but I would suggest that you stick to the facts of the story here. We have our proof on that.

Thanks

Zak Boca
 
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=4071478#post4071478

midPhase-Zak said:
I'm going to go ahead and just close out the account entirely. You won't receive any additional emails from us and you won't be sent to collections, but I would suggest that you stick to the facts of the story here. We have our proof on that.
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I win!!!

No, really, if you're so confident in your companies righteousness you mind as well throw me to the wolves, right?

So here's some puzzle pieces I've been saving for the right moment to reveal...

William Redhawk (personal friend from wells ny) is on the account because the ownership of the forum that used to run on your servers ages ago was transferred to him. Regardless of when that change took place, you were not on February 11th and are not currently our host. We have been with dreamhost for a while now (at least since February 11th, 2005). Perhaps you should visit them and find out how a real hosting firm is operated? www.dreamhost.com

Recently William was unable to maintain the role as owner and (unfortunately for me) the forums became my responsibility again. Hence why you have me responding to adkforum business emails now, as it's again my responsibility. Of course I'd have no reason to tell you any of this because you're no longer even on my internal list of sites I need to contact concerning this forum (hence why I have no beta on my old account with you people). You're old news to adkforum. A bump in a long road of horrible service providers.

Now, while you seem to suddenly have great account tracking/logging abilities (contrary to your previous contentions), perhaps you can share with those interested the type of activity on this account in the past 8+ months (hell, you can probably go back a lot further than that too). The short answer is there hasn't been any, and yet somehow a "bill" has been accumulating, despite no responses to (supposed) emails requesting payment. Interesting. Again, is it midphase's practice to supply services without payment? Every host I've ever used required payment up front for ALL services rendered, and immediate termination of the services when the contract ended and the services were not renewed.

The bottom line is that you're a bunch of so-and-sos and you're being taken to the cleaners publicly. I WELCOME legal action, it will only give me cause for my own action against you. Bring it on!
 
Last edited:
Playing catch-up on other site things, and I found an active url to the old midphase account (listed as a referring site in my dreamhost stats)! So I guess you HAVEN'T deleted the old account. Liar.

Even has my last name in the url name. "Heckeler" and "Redhawk" don't even start with the same letter :p.

midphase_sucks_my_ass.gif


Note the mouse over on "here" reveals the redirect to the current adkforum url. A simple trace to the adkforum's url will reveal the host is not midphase.

**Update** Now more threats for collections in my email just now...

Zac said:
William/Kevin,

That's because you changed your info. on February 10th at 3:29:44 PM.
Just so you know, the following info. was sent to collections, Kevin:

Kevin Heckeler
131 *****
Albany
122**
518-***-****

Slandering our name won't be tolerated, and I'll be updated the threads
you've posted with this information, William/Kevin.
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So we have them publicly saying one thing, and privately the exact opposite. lol Now they're literally trying to extort money out of me! :p

midPhase-Zak said:
I'm going to go ahead and just close out the account entirely. You won't receive any additional emails from us and you won't be sent to collections, but I would suggest that you stick to the facts of the story here. We have our proof on that.
Click to expand...
 
This must be the new equivalent of book clubs. Basically ignore all your cancellation requests, pretend like they never happened. What makes this one worse is that they let fees pile up for a year, & then came after you. We need legislation for this.
 
A good thing to do in a situation like this is to send them a letter (I can't remember if it's certified or registered) that they have to sign for (maybe it's return receipt requested). This way you have proof when they receive it.
 
If that company has any kind of privacy policy, they're in violation of it by posting information about your account here, I believe.
 
midPhase-Zak said:
and we can't find records of your cancellation, I don't believe it happened.

Zak Boca
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Wow.

This guy really is quite a crappy businessman. He might as well just say "I suck and my business is a scam", it would save his keyboard on wear and tear.
 
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