Be aware of the fine print – learn from my $900.00 mistake!

Welcome back!

Today’s topic is painful. It involves a $900.00 lesson.

Yes, you read that correctly – a $900.00 charge for one mistake.

Today’s post is about a mistake that I made on GoDaddy.

I first started using GoDaddy many years ago – I liked the price point and the 24/7 technical support.

Here’s the part of the story that is relevant to today’s lesson.

5 years ago I did a favor for a friend and set up a hosting account with GoDaddy. I created two sites for her. At the time there was a significant cost savings to purchase multiple years of hosting and so we did. Five years worth were purchased on my credit card.

Life went on.

Eventually both sites that I created were redesigned and moved away from GoDaddy – to be hosted by the designer in both cases. It’s not unusual for website designers to offer hosting as part of the development package.

As this was happening, I said to my friend, “Don’t forget to cancel the hosting package with GoDaddy.” She assured me she would.

I didn’t go in and check to make sure she did. I treated her like an adult and assumed she would do as she said. And in fact, everyone involved with these sites thought the hosting package was cancelled. But we had no proof.

When the VISA bill arrived on my doorstep on Friday (March 3rd) with the charge for $899.04 I was shocked, to say the least. I had long since stopped using that VISA for hosting charges. All my website charges go through a different VISA. My husband handed me the bill and asked me to look into it.

I went searching for who’s GoDaddy account produced such a massive bill. I’m used to bills for $20.00 or $40.00 but $899.04 was a new high for me! After a few hours of searching through my records, I discovered the answer. I sent a note to my friend and asked her to to call GoDaddy and enquire. She replied a bit later to say that since it was more than 30 days since the renewal, nothing could be done according to GoDaddy’s policy.

I checked my records – sure enough, the charge was applied to my VISA on Jan 25th and it was now March 6th. Clearly more than 30 days.

But in fact, the 30 days passed before I even received my bill – so in fact, I didn’t have a hope in hell of meeting that 30 day criteria.

Apparently the notifications from GoDaddy had gone to my friend’s spam folder where they sat unnoticed until searched for.

I decided to phone myself and see what I could arrange. An honest mistake. The hosting was thought to have been cancelled and hadn’t been used in quite some time. Surely to goodness they could look at the facts and come to some compromise.

I politely explained the mistake and asked for some help. There was no way that I could have met the 30 day time frame because I used my VISA card rather than putting the charge through Paypal.

I asked what the policy was.

I was told that a cash refund was never available.

Within the first 30 days after the renewal/purchase, an in-house credit could be applied but no credit back to the VISA.

I politely asked if the in-house credit could be applied to one of my many other GoDaddy accounts? The answer was NO.

I politely asked if I could reduce the bill by paying the 5 years of renewal at the current posted rate of $6.99/month instead of the billed amount of $10.99/month? The answer was NO.

I politely asked if I could learn my lesson my paying something less than $900.00? The answer was NO.

I politely asked if I could do anything at all to reduce the bill of $900.00? The answer was NO.

Feeling like I was at a dead end, I thanked the customer service agent at GoDaddy and hung up.

I decided to phone my credit card company to find out if anything could be done. The short answer was no. When I opened the hosting account at GoDaddy, I agreed to their Terms and Conditions. (Did I read them thoroughly? Probably not, but I usually scan these types of things.) Without proof of cancellation CIBC VISA couldn’t do anything. And since no one took a screenshot there was no proof.

Again, human error.

There was nothing that CIBC VISA could do but remind me that I had agreed to the Terms & Conditions.

I had.

Lesson learned – but did it have to be such an expensive lesson?

I’m not a rich person – $900.00 is a huge amount of money to me. Like many of you, I’m sure, a bill for $900.00 is be difficult to handle with no notice. It’s something that we save up for.

I decided to take one more crack at GoDaddy. I thought, surely there was someone at GoDaddy that would understand that a $900.00 lesson was a bit harsh by anyone’s standards. Customer Service was polite, but reinforced their policy. Several times pointing out the fact that 30 days had elapsed and there was absolutely nothing that could be done.

So…I have learned a $900.00 lesson. I’ve done a quick search of other hosting companies and can’t find one that has quite so draconian a refund policy as GoDaddy – but I didn’t look at them all.

Please learn from me. Read the fine print – be aware of what refund policies are available (or not available as in this case). Make intelligent decisions – be aware of what your rights are and what you are agreeing to.

And for God’s sake – don’t make a mistake. 

 

(ed note: Thanks to a Twitter campaign, a partial refund has been reached with GoDaddy. A refund should be arriving on my VISA statement by the end of March)