I recently registered a new domain name in response to some seriously mucked up customer service from an Australian Domain Hosting company, that appears to be sensitive to hard criticism. It was online and widely promoted for maybe only two days. Yes, I have a complaint for the complaints department. The domain was suspended yet they continue to send me marketing material for www.*****areincompetent.net. I closed my account 11 January and this is a history of my ordeal.
I aged about 5 years in recent days dealing with the breathtaking incompetence of all at said company. Well, to be fair only those that have dealt with the issues arising from my purchase of a hosting account. That seems to have been more than 10. After opening my new hosting account and setting up three email accounts, I immediately discovered that none of the email accounts could send emails to Hotmail, Live, Yahoo or Gmail. Handy restriction you might think. Email accounts that can’t send emails without triggering spam warning notices.
Their support even suggested in one email that I whitelist some recipients. Forget that I may wish to send emails further afield. So here I was, the proud owner of email accounts that couldn’t send emails without triggering serious (you’re banned) spam warning notices. I sought a solution to this very interesting misstep. I’ve never had such drama in the various hosting accounts and emails accounts I’ve created in the past. In fact, despite some confusion in my part, I can recommend Ventraip.com.au if you want to get online, them and acrawfordsaid.com.au of course.
Not long after this I also discover that said company haven’t and won’t grant direct access for the account holder to load their SSL Certificate. They sell them at exorbitant cost and as such make it very difficult for anyone to bypass this restrictive procedure. The day long installation of the SSL Certificate was excruciating, many emails, people and failures only to be told that I had indeed provided the right information at the start and remarkably it’s suddenly installed. As it should have been some 6 hours prior. I even received advice from the SSL provider that said company were renowned for being incompetent when dealing with SSL Certificates.
The passing of the issues to seemingly incredulous employees caused no end of chaos, failure and ultimately approximately 20 plus emails with heaps of chats to and fro.
Their insistence in claiming their customer service ability is nauseating. They say they do, they don’t do.
One of the most frustrating aspects of their self described customer service was when I eventually sought cancellation of the account and a refund. Due to the incorrect categorisation of my purchase using my exisiting credit less than 5 dollars, the whole purchase was considered so and their own playpen rules prohibit a refund if the purchase is categorised as from credit.
So $102 wasn’t refunded but placed into credit.
They tried and tried to rectify the issues denying my ever increasing requests to proceed with a cancellation. They ignored that while thanking me of my patience (little did they know) and bleating about their tremendous ability to serve customers. Even asking me each time if I need help with anything.
What imbecile would think I would want to return for a product or endure that level of idiocy after the nonsense endured during this hosting disaster.
I realise that the emails are standard templates (and employees aren’t able / allow to alter) but maybe some adaption to the particular circumstance would be appropriate. Maybe even directing such drama to a senior employee to resolve.
I’ve copied and pasted highlights of the incredible content below:
February 9 2311.
Hello Alan,
I hope this email finds you well.
This is to acknowledge that we received your reply. #### is not available at the moment, so I will be taking over this concern. Since you are able to send an email to Yahoo and Gmail, it would be best to whitelist Microsoft or have your recipient’s settings be checked. To whitelist an email address just means you add them to your approved sender’s list. Once your email address is added to whitelist, please try to resend the email and let me know how it goes.
Also, please provide your IP Address for us to check if this is blocked or not.
You may visit this link to check your IP Address: https://whatismyipaddress.com/
Please let us know if there is anything else we could be of assistance to you. You can reply to this email or take advantage of our friendly 24/7 phone and chat support representatives. You may also refer your questions to our Help Page. We are here to help.
Have a great day ahead!
February 10 08.51
Hello Alan,
I hope that this email finds you well.
Thank you for getting back to us regarding the enclosed matter below.
This case was brought to my attention, and I understand how important it is for you to have this rectified. Our apologies for any trouble and inconvenience this has caused. Since #### is not available at the moment, I will be taking over this email to further assist you.
We appreciate you providing us an attachment of the email header. However, I am unable to view the .pages file. If possible, kindly copy or take a screenshot of the full header or bounce back email for us to investigate this further.
Additionally, we would like to know if you are using Outlook to send out these emails that have bounced back. If so, kindly send us a screenshot of your email settings on Outlook as well.
We are looking forward to your response.
One of my replies – February 10 11.02
Thank you for you efforts ###, I have requested a refund regardless of your findings. The fact that your system has created / facilitated such an outcome is the issue.
One buys a hosting service, sets up emails and then wants to send them. Simple and normal. This occasion impossible.
Again thank you but I’m out of time, patience and understanding of how, why or when this all occurred.
I repeat, I await my refund as discussed via email with ####
February 10 16.30
Hello ####, I would like the money refunded – placed into my credit card or PayPal account – please send me the form required to action that. I DO NOT want a credit in my account – thanks 🙂
February 10 18.24
With utmost respect, I have asked three times at least for the refund. I do not want to endure more failures in sorting out the reasonably simple process of sending emails from accounts created in a hosting account.
I asked that the refund be hastened, it has not. How many more delays are there to be ? Please action this refund immediately… thanks alan
February 10 19.30
Hello Alan,
Thank you for your patience. I am referred this to our higher support and did the investigation.
Once again, we really apologise for the trouble and the inconvenience that this has caused you. I am so sorry for the previous troubleshooting procedure that did not work. I am confident that this will work this time.
As per their investigation, they discovered that your TXT records were not synced or updated from the back-end server, so they advised me to update or sync it.
This update or process will take effect after the four-hour propagation time, to resolve across the global internet. See the images below – (images removed by be here)
Please monitor this change and try connecting your emails with Microsoft or doing some test emails after the propagation time. Please let me know any progress by then.
By the way, please confirm to me in your next update (after the propagation time) as to what difficulty you are having with your emails through Microsoft.
Let us know if you have other questions. Thank you for your time.
One of my replies – February 10 19.39
No. How often do I need to confirm that I require a refund. Please elevate this situation to a supervisor of customer service. Stop whatever steps you’re taking and process the refund. This is fast becoming a newsworthy farce . Thank you
February 10 20.26
Hello Alan,
Thank you for your reply.
Please confirm what you mean about “less than 5 dollars from credit”, because the record here shows that your payment is the member credit you had from your account before.
So just to be clear, what happened is that you added an account credit of $102.68 to your $4.00 to be able to pay the hosting plan amounting to $106.92. So $4.00 was the member credit and $102.68 was the money you have from your credit card, please confirm if this is correct.
Awaiting your confirmation.
Please contact me back if there is anything else I can do to help. Thank you and have a good one.
February 10 21.29
Hello Alan,
Thank you for your patience. I am sending you this email as an update from our higher support.
As per checking, the money you added in your account as member credit was converted to an account credit. We would like to inform you that once your money from your credit card is added in your account as member credit, it can no longer be converted back to cash or refund. We apologise to inform you that in any circumstance, an account credit cannot be refunded back to your credit card or any payment method.
We understand that you added money to your account just to pay for the hosting product using your account credit, but this conversion of your money cannot be reverted back to a cash. This explains why our higher support was not able to get any refund option, because that is how the system recognises an account credit, and how it works from the back-end.
In other words, we can just cancel your hosting plan and issue the payment in a member credit form. No need to worry because this account credit will not expire in your account, for as long as it remains active.
Member Credit is an e-money that is shown on your account. You can use this for product and domain renewals. You may also use this for future purchases or transactions and this amount does not expire. Please take note that this will only be available on the checkout if the total amount is equal or lesser than the current member credit.
Please let me know if I can proceed to the member credit cancellation. Awaiting your next update.
We look forward to serving you the best that we can. If there is anything else that we can do to help you, please feel free to contact us. We are available 24/7.
One of my replies – February 10 22.13
Hello ####, so due to an internal setting and management decision I’m stuck with a credit. An outrageous way of conducting business. You can’t refund the credit card payment but you can change it into a credit method. A one way approach.
Please create and advise me of the credit and ensure all involved accept their level of ridiculous incompetence, as offered in the handling of this issue – from the very beginning. It was cancelled, the refund amount moved into credit and when I think I should, I’ll use the remainder to set up a hosting account and find some content. It shouldn’t be hard to find.
I recommend you avoid the Australian Domain Hosting company proud of their level of mental illness.
An increasingly grumpy old fart posting rants, observations and trying to write somewhat twisted short stories for adults. All rights reserved unless otherwise credited © Alan Crawford - 2024
