Before I tell you the story, know that I’m going to take responsibility for this one. Fool me once, shame on you.
I got fooled twice by Dotster, the company that was hosting DrumWild.com and LeakyRoofStudios.com.
In mid-December of 2010, I set up my account with them and paid for one full year. I had gone through every setting I could find and turned off the “auto-renew” feature. I’m a grown adult, and I pay my bills on time. If I don’t, it’s on me. Again, I take responsibility for myself.
As December approached, I knew the bill was coming up. I was prepared to pay it in early December. But I didn’t get the chance, because Dotster hit me with an auto-renew ONE FULL MONTH before the account was due. They had hit me at a bad time; just 3 days before payday, so it had that special sting to it.
I called their customer service to get an explanation. I got one.
They said that they auto-renew domains early in case there is a billing issue. That way, it can be resolved before time runs out and the account gets blocked. When that happens, no website associated with my account will be visible or active.
Okay. Makes sense. I asked them how it can be turned off, and they said that it cannot. With that information, I had planned on moving my service elsewhere, but not doing so until around October. Why not? I had already paid for a full year early, against my will.
Mid-December, the due date passes, and I hear nothing. So far, things are going as expected.
Until today.
I’m at a lunch meeting, talking about the studio, services, etc., and I mention the website. But when we try to pull it up on my phone, Safari cannot find the server. Talk about embarrassing!
With egg on my face, I call Dotster and ask them if there is an outage (giving them the benefit of the doubt), or something. They inform me that, “Your account has been blocked due to non-payment.”
Really?
They look at my account and see that it was paid a month in advance. At this point, I decide to tell this representative of my recent adventures with Dotster, and highlight the irony of the situation. They tell me it can take up to FOUR hours to rectify the problem, which is clearly not good enough.
After that, I moved my domains and hosting to a different company. I’ll name them if they turn out to be good.
Yes, Dotster, you made me look bad. Really bad. But I take the blame. After all, I was the one who gave you the second chance to do me wrong.
This shall never, ever happen again.
