Never, never never never use Afrihost for a VPS solution

[w1z4rd]

I think you should have done this privately first, if you weren't getting much joy / resolution, then I would I go public...

If they had contacted me before deducting from my account I would agree with you more. But they just debited me. No warnings...nothing. So no matter what, people need to be warned about this.

Client had the same issue with their Amazon EC2 server.....$6000 later and no notification of over usage. A few TB can easily be used quickly.

Ouch :/

In this thread its very easy to see who works in hosting and who doesnt.

 

[AfriMan]

So I just got hit by the Afrihost OOB shark for bandwidth charges that I never knew existed.

So I have a client using a VPS, one we had ordered from Afrihost. I bought their silver product and was happy with it (for almost a year). I always assumed that Afrihost were like other VPS providers.... that when you bandwidth ran out, the machine was disconnected.

It appears they have no problem with vps`s running up huge bills. I see the VPS in question went around 400GB over bandwidth, so they have passed on the bandwidth costs to me. Woke up this morning to find my account had been debited without my permission for over R3000

We are busy cancelling every service we have with them.

We make provision for bandwidth overage charges on all our hosting solutions, except for shared hosting whee bandwidth is unlimited. We give you the per GB rates upfront and this is a clear component of the product as advertised. We have never claimed that we do not bill for web traffic over your product limit or that your services are cut off when you reach a certain limit. We feel fairly certain that most business would rather pay for additional traffic to their site rather than have their web presence - as well as online services - suspended until the following month.

We do send out bandwidth notifications and our cPanel products can also produce monthly traffic reports so we do believe we empower our clients with the information to use their products to their best benefit.

If you believe the traffic was billed to you in error, this is something we can look at. Otherwise this is exactly in lines with terms and the product you signed up for and there is no impropriety with regard to being billed when you agreed to the terms of this product which include data transfer overage charges on signup.

I'll reply to your PM as well

 

[w1z4rd]

We make provision for bandwidth overage charges on all our hosting solutions, except for shared hosting whee bandwidth is unlimited. We give you the per GB rates upfront and this is a clear component of the product as advertised. We have never claimed that we do not bill for web traffic over your product limit or that your services are cut off when you reach a certain limit. We feel fairly certain that most business would rather pay for additional traffic to their site rather than have their web presence - as well as online services - suspended until the following month.

We do send out bandwidth notifications and our cPanel products can also produce monthly traffic reports so we do believe we empower our clients with the information to use their products to their best benefit.

If you believe the traffic was billed to you in error, this is something we can look at. Otherwise this is exactly in lines with terms and the product you signed up for and there is no impropriety with regard to being billed when you agreed to the terms of this product which include data transfer overage charges on signup.

I'll reply to your PM as well

I got no bandwidth notifications for October. Why would that be? The last one I got was Sep 17th.

Unfortunately your VPSs are too much of a liability with OOB charges so we will be cancelling. If your support ever gets to any of the tickets that have been open the whole morning.

 

[Bar0n]

We feel fairly certain that most business would rather pay for additional traffic to their site rather than have their web presence - as well as online services - suspended until the following month.

This. Especially if your VPS is used to host a client's website.

 

[Rocket-Boy]

Client had the same issue with their Amazon EC2 server.....$6000 later and no notification of over usage. A few TB can easily be used quickly.

With the amount of bandwidth those things have it would run up very quickly too.

 

[Arthur]

Help for ghoti.
Sample letter to Afrihost:

The Chief Executive Officer
Afrihost
etc

Date


QUERY: Afrihost Invoice [number] dated [date]

Many thanks for your [October 2013] Invoice (number], totalling Rxxxxxx.xx. As always, I have settled our account timeously through the debit agreement we have with you.

As you know, I have been a generally satisfied user of Afrihost's VPS services since [start date], and have enthusiastically promoted you to my customers and on public forums.

Our typical monthly invoice comes to R[typical], and I regard this as good value for money.

However, the latest invoice includes an OOB billing charge of R3000 for VPS server [name]. You aver that the OOB usage on this server was 400GB over the agreed standard threshold, charged at R7 per gigabyte. This is a cause for considerable dismay, and I request that you urgently provide me with the following supporting information to substantiate this extraordinary charge:

1) The contractual basis for Afrihost levying a charge of R7/GB on OOB usage for this service. Please kindly refer me to the appropriate clause(s) where this charge is provide for in our Agreement.

2) The daily bandwidth consumption logs of the server in question, for the month of October 2013.

3) It is my understanding that you would alert me when this VPS bandwidth consumption exceeds the agreed rate or standard threshold. Is this provided for in our Agreement? Did you in fact send such notices?

4) I have no record of Afrihost sending or of me receiving any such notices of OOB usage, and would be most grateful if you could send me a copy of the notifications you sent me for the period [date] to [date] in which you alerted me to the OOB usage and charges.

You will appreciate that the additional and unexpected charges have had a serious impact on our budget. I earnestly request that you investigate the matter with the utmost urgency and revert to me within three business days of this letter.

Kind regards

The Magical Fish Man

 

[RNJudas]

Maybe its just me but did Afriman just give you the cold hard contract cockslap?

You know the reality of the industry we are in is that almost anyone can offer the same service. I look at Web-Africa trying to swarm the market at R1 a VPS to gain a foothold. Who knows though what the service is like, also considering their last fail...

As for Afrihost. You own the switches/firewalls in your DC, I am sure you can do a bandwidth report on a per use basis. That said you can also do a report on demand or have a feature set for when clients exceed their allocated limit and then notify them of this. I have personally never used your services but as someone who also works in the industry, these are practically a no-brainer.

Also making an assumption on what businesses would prefer to do when they hit their limit is much like a prostitute expecting satisfaction after I have spent my load... I mean be realistic. Where did I say I could get it up again

Just saying... This seems a little off to me... From a PR side... your response seemed corporate and closed off.

 

[AfriMan]

I got no bandwidth notifications for October. Why would that be? The last one I got was Sep 17th.

Unfortunately your VPSs are too much of a liability with OOB charges so we will be cancelling. If your support ever gets to any of the tickets that have been open the whole morning.

You'll need to provide more details so I can see which period you are being billed for and when then additional data was used. Our systems are all automated, so it would be very unusual for notifications not to be sent out on time.

When you've replied to my PM with more pertinent information I can investigate - I don't have anything to go on here

 

[w1z4rd]

 

[w1z4rd]

We make provision for bandwidth overage charges on all our hosting solutions, except for shared hosting whee bandwidth is unlimited. We give you the per GB rates upfront and this is a clear component of the product as advertised. We have never claimed that we do not bill for web traffic over your product limit or that your services are cut off when you reach a certain limit. We feel fairly certain that most business would rather pay for additional traffic to their site rather than have their web presence - as well as online services - suspended until the following month.

If thats true then where is the option to stop an OOB. The cellphone providers are being harassed to allow their users to set a hard cap. If you really care about the clients where is the option to set a hard cap with your service?

We do send out bandwidth notifications and our cPanel products can also produce monthly traffic reports so we do believe we empower our clients with the information to use their products to their best benefit.

As I show in the image below. You have not been sending my notifications for October which is the month you nailed me on

I'll reply to your PM as well

Thanks, I got it, basically it was "its your responsibility to monitor usage etc" Basically the same response you expect from Vodacom when you go OOB.

 

[AfriMan]

Maybe its just me but did Afriman just give you the cold hard contract cockslap?

You know the reality of the industry we are in is that almost anyone can offer the same service. I look at Web-Africa trying to swarm the market at R1 a VPS to gain a foothold. Who knows though what the service is like, also considering their last fail...

As for Afrihost. You own the switches/firewalls in your DC, I am sure you can do a bandwidth report on a per use basis. That said you can also do a report on demand or have a feature set for when clients exceed their allocated limit and then notify them of this. I have personally never used your services but as someone who also works in the industry, these are practically a no-brainer.

Also making an assumption on what businesses would prefer to do when they hit their limit is much like a prostitute expecting satisfaction after I have spent my load... I mean be realistic. Where did I say I could get it up again

Just saying... This seems a little off to me... From a PR side... your response seemed corporate and closed off.

Based on the title of this thread and the allegations made - I think it's important to bring home the point that we're doing what we say we're doing and that this is what we advertised our product as and is agreed to in our terms and conditions.

We do send out automatic notifications on a regular basis (and our clients can also monitor their usage at ANY time in ClientZone or from within their hosting platform like WHM or cPanel).

The suggestion of impropriety and "fraud" as someone suggests is what's off here, and I think it's really not cool to throw around these words lightly.

I'm totally willing to look into this and find out if we have done everything by the book and as we should have done it. However I think this is a really unfortunate way to lodge a query

 

[Heisenborg]

Why is this in the public domain, not cool ghoti

 

[w1z4rd]

I'm totally willing to look into this and find out if we have done everything by the book and as we should have done it. However I think this is a really unfortunate way to lodge a query

Perhaps if someone had responded to the multiple support tickets opened up this morning that no one has responded to yet then you could have nipped this a while ago. Tickets opened at 8:22 am have still not been responded to.


Either way how this is resolved, people need to be warned that your OOB practices are similar to that of Vodacom and because users can not set hard caps, or there is inconsistency in the notifications. They can lose a business. They need to be warned about that.

 

[Arthur]

Maybe its just me but did Afriman just give you the cold hard contract cockslap?

You know the reality of the industry we are in is that almost anyone can offer the same service. I look at Web-Africa trying to swarm the market at R1 a VPS to gain a foothold. Who knows though what the service is like, also considering their last fail...

As for Afrihost. You own the switches/firewalls in your DC, I am sure you can do a bandwidth report on a per use basis. That said you can also do a report on demand or have a feature set for when clients exceed their allocated limit and then notify them of this. I have personally never used your services but as someone who also works in the industry, these are practically a no-brainer.

Also making an assumption on what businesses would prefer to do when they hit their limit is much like a prostitute expecting satisfaction after I have spent my load... I mean be realistic. Where did I say I could get it up again

Just saying... This seems a little off to me... From a PR side... your response seemed corporate and closed off.

Amazing that some people really don't seem to understand that contracts are pretty serious treaties, and mean what they say. If one party does not perform as agreed, then the other party has a legitimate complaint and can either sue for specific performance or, if the term was essential (as in an inducement to contract), set the contract aside. It's why we have them, and the mustard cuts both ways. Corporates are persons, too.

 

[w1z4rd]

Why is this in the public domain, not cool ghoti

Please see my reply below yours.

Either way how this is resolved, people need to be warned that your OOB practices are similar to that of Vodacom and because users can not set hard caps, or there is inconsistency in the notifications. They can lose a business. They need to be warned about that.

You dont think people should be warned about this?

Then why should people be warned about Vodacoms OOB?

 

[Arthur]

The suggestion of impropriety and "fraud" as someone suggests is what's off here, and I think it's really not cool to throw around these words lightly.

If without foundation, they are actionable at law.

Ghoti seems to suffer from a mouth that antecedes his mind. When he's right, everyone else is wrong.

 

[AfriMan]

If thats true then where is the option to stop an OOB. The cellphone providers are being harassed to allow their users to set a hard cap. If you really care about the clients where is the option to set a hard cap with your service?



As I show in the image below. You have not been sending my notifications for October which is the month you nailed me on



Thanks, I got it, basically it was "its your responsibility to monitor usage etc" Basically the same response you expect from Vodacom when you go OOB.

You still have not provided any details to investigate - so it's really not giving me any information to assist you here. If we didn't do what we said we would do - then there is basis for a complaint and we'll make sure we sort this out from our side. But I can hardly do this based solely on the screenshot you've provided.

I'll wait for details by PM so that I can try to help you

 

[Heisenborg]

Its not physically possible to have hard caps on postpaid usage. There is one telco i know about that can do this and its Cell C. CDR's are generated and usage is calculated etc and it happens after the fact. So there will always be a delay in usage determination.

With that said OOB is so ridiculous that it shouldnt happen from the supplier's side. Afriman said u can check your usage yourself, is this not sufficient to prevent this issue?

 

[AfriMan]

Please see my reply below yours.



You dont think people should be warned about this?

Then why should people be warned about Vodacoms OOB?

I think you're also drawing a very inappropriate parallel here. The "OOB" refers to one rate being billed within a data bundle, and then being billed at a totally different rate once you're out of bundle.

We advertise our data overage transfer rate on the signup page - so we're very upfront about this. We also don't charge you for web traffic below a certain amount. So there is only one rate being charged. If we've charged you a different rate, then that is basis for a dispute. But you still need to provide information to be investigated. Right now, I have no basis to support any of the claims you are making - so I can't help you at all

 

[w1z4rd]

I think you're also drawing a very inappropriate parallel here. The "OOB" refers to one rate being billed within a data bundle, and then being billed at a totally different rate once you're out of bundle.

We advertise our data overage transfer rate on the signup page - so we're very upfront about this. We also don't charge you for web traffic below a certain amount. So there is only one rate being charged. If we've charged you a different rate, then that is basis for a dispute. But you still need to provide information to be investigated. Right now, I have no basis to support any of the claims you are making - so I can't help you at all

Yeah, I was busy copying and pasting the tickets that havent been responded to.