Choopa Inc owes me 4500$!!! Refuses to pay.
 

Hello,
So first I would like to tell my story, I asked choopa to cancel my hosting on feb 2015,
I just checked 2 days ago and they still charged me 899$ till this day! Total of 5 months.
I want to say that I only had a 13 months contract with them on June 2013! Today we are on Aug 2015!
So I should deserve a full refund, I asked them for the refund and what they said is the contract is auto-renew every 13 months !? How is that possible if I have not signed any real/electronic document to continue another 13 months?
They refuse to give me a refund even though I have not used their hosting since the end of feb!

I really don't care.

Charge back time

You didn't notice you were being charged until now?

pay by CC?

Not sure why anyone would lock themselves into a 13 month hosting contract, but auto renewal? Bullshit.

Charge back if a credit card or complain to Paypal if that is how you paid.

If the agreement provided for renewal of the service and you didn't provide the proper notice to cancel then that's probably what you're going to have to wear.

What did the contract say specifically ?

what do you steal?

That is what I wrote to them on FEB 2015 "hello I ask you to please cancel my hosting plan as it is too expensive for me.
Please cancel it I am moving to m3server because they have a better price.
Thank you.
Mark
"

That is what they wrote to me after I asked for a refund:

Mark,

After reviewing your account, It would still be under the 13 month contract.

Quote ID: SQZF-411
Title: Mark Dedicated Solution REVISED 11 JUNE 2013
Description: Two (2) of the following dedicated server configurations:

-E3-1240 CPU
-16 GB RAM (upgradeable to 32GB)
-2x 1TB HDDs
-1x 300GB SAS HDD
-CentOS 6 64 Bit
-cPanel License

-30TB of Shared Bandwidth

-40TB of CDN Transfer (no change to CDN plan)

-13 Month Term beginning 06/15/2013

NOTES
~ $0 Setup Fee
~ Migration assistance available at $225/hour, measured in 15 minute increments
~ 10 business day window to complete migration to avoid additional fees
Setup: $0.00
Monthly: $899.00
Term: 13 months
Electronic Signature: *******




Your service wouldn't have expired until 07/24/2015. With that said your account cancelling at the end of the billing term (08/15/2015) is correct and no refund is due at this time.

Trying to chargeback have used CC.

Yes Auto-Renew is bullshit.

Migration assistance available at $225/hour

is that an error?

So you signed up under the terms that the contract auto renewed, presumably you needed to give notice prior to the initial period to cancel the auto renewal.

You didn't give notice prior to the auto renewal which was obviously July last year, so you're probably going to have to wear it and put it down to experience.

The server seems pretty expensive to me, unless it was managed. But that's not the point, you entered into an agreement and Choopa have every right to hold you to that agreement.

Am I missing something ?

I would have cancelled my CC in Feb and got a new if I were you.

Just charge back, choopa are not exactly top notch

Based on his server charges that server must be gold plated :2 cents:

Just sayin', Mojohost's dedicated servers are by far the best I've used so far. Kinda expensive, though, but cheaper than what the OP is paying.. :2 cents:

Monthly 899? I pay less than that yearly for a server better then both servers together and more bandwidth.

Your bill is ridiculous.


You could get a part-time tech at 800$ per month and a server for 100$.



Also, if you've not caught a bill of 899$ per month since February you either:
- Have too much money
- Have a really bad financial department

Yeah, what he is paying seems very steep.

Especially when you can get a

Intel Xeon E5-1620
4 core / 8 threads 3,6 GHz+/3,8 GHz+
64 GB RAM
2x 2 TB SATA3 Soft Raid
1 Gbps Bandwidth Unlimited
1x 1 Gbps Network Card

for about $110 from OVH

Wow, unless there is more to it than the specs and included services posted, that's ridiculously expensive pricing per month. Heck, I don't even see any redundant backups included that excessive quote, or even a simple RAID. That's a pretty basic server spec you can routinely find similar, or much better, for sale on places like WebHostingTalk for the 100 to 150 dollar range, depending on promotions and incentives. Even if you cannot mange it yourself, it'd be cheaper to have on-demand support than what you were paying.

Surely there must be more to it to justify those prices?

First, let me say that in spite of whatever I say on the boards, I am extremely cordial and polite in person. If anything, I am too polite. I am never rude, particularly when I want to enter into a business relationship with someone. I want them to be happy. I want to be happy. I am understanding that shit happens (on their side), I hope they understand that shit happens (on my side) and look for long term relationships built on mutual respect and trust.

I've used most hosting companies that have come and gone in this biz since 1998. When managing large SEO networks years back and having sites and networks spread across hosts, i had servers everywhere at one point.

in about 2008, Choopa really stood out to me as being a bunch of cocksuckers. I hit them up for a couple servers once - not thinking to get quotes but thinking they'd be in the ballpark and we'd set them up asap - I was in a hurry. (keep in mind, i had similar boxes and similar specs at over a dozen hosting companies, so i had more than a general idea of a fair cost). They quoted me a retarded price and the response to me questioning the price and saying what i've been paying for my other servers was basically "if you don't like it, too bad, we're the best,... other people are cheaper because they suck". It was really bizarre. i was passing the conversation around to all my friends and we were all floored.

All i could think of was "wow". I've tolerated a lot of shit in the biz. Webair spending weeks to get done what they said they'd do in a day (migrating sites) and only kinda sorta doing it with me begging and calling daily - forcing me to ultimately cancel the servers.. or hostgator having what has to be some of the planets dumbest people responding to support tickets with simple requests like "can you please allow 10 or more concurrent FTP connections" and getting responses like "hello, the problem might be with your FTP client" and spending days going back and forth doing lap after lap around Park Retard over the dumbest shit.... but Choopa, I will forever remember them for the retarded high price and for the insane arrogance and general "who fucking cares" vibe of the sales person I spoke to. No, i don't remember who it was. No it doesn't make experience or my feelings about dealing with them, any less valid. and yeah yeah yeah.. i'm sure that "bad egg" was fired years ago. Uh huh.

That said... Mojo Host and NatNet are the only two hosts that i've used for years, where I could literally say nothing bad about how they run their business or their support. Always fast. Always friendly. Always kind. Always forgiving. Always willing to work with any crazy want or need that you have and jump on it like their life depends on it.

To take things one step further, if we went with fully managed hosting, and there's a strong likelihood we will in the future, the ONLY one I would even consider right now is Natnet -- and for one very good reason.

Every other adult host, including several mentioned in this thread, I have dealt with at some point for various clients has subjected me to junior level techs as first responders that give you the run around with stupid questions until you finally get escalated to a real tech supper person. The ONLY one that never subjected me to what seemed like inadequate junior tech support before you actually get someone that knows wtf they are doing is NatNet. At NatNet, the very first person you get is more than qualified to field the request and deal with it without needing to escalate it and ultiamtely, play ticket tag with you. Add the speed factor into getting an issue resolved, NatNet is the only choice I'd even consider these days.

Like my grandfather told me decades ago -- prices can attract the customer and convince the to give you a try. But the quality of support is what will make them loyal.

Anyone that advertises cheap shared servers, can almost certainly be assumed to have shit support. If its a big part of their business... I avoid them at all costs.

It's those people needing a $4.95/mo server who spend their entire day asking tech support "what is a web browser" and so on and someone has to respond to each ticket. IN the meantime, you need more DB connections and the "level 1 support" tard doesn't even know what a database is because he's never had to answer anything more complicated than "what is html". To make it worse, you usually have to do battle with that fuckwit for 3 days to actually get to someone who can help.

Exactly. Quality support comes with a quantifiable cost associated with it. I.E., you often get what you pay for, but not always obviously. For this reason, price should only be one of the considerations when selecting a host as there are a lot more variables involved. Clearly you already know that. Sadly, many apparently do not. I know I would never entrust my livelihood in the hands of the cheapest option I could find.

I use National Net,very happy with them, if I ever move, it would be to Mojo :thumbsup

:1orglaugh

CRAZY PRICE

For the amount of money you're (were) paying, you were getting assfucked to begin with.

Our servers are dedicated, almost twice as powerful, all kinds of other goodies, double external offline backup drives, DDOS, CDN, etc, and less than you were paying.

AdultKing is write when he gave an example of what's out there.

At our last meeting, we all did agree however, if we were to go somewhere else, it would be with Mojo.

a few more customers like you and I'll start a hosting company.

haha.. well... yeah. :)

What i mean was that i contacted them, ready to do biz, excited to set up more servers for a project and was quickly caught off guard by the prices and how big of an arrogant dick the person i was speaking to was.

Use host gator

Did he at least used lube because he really raped you. I can't imagine how he could be charging you that much For those specs. Unless you had some very illegal content on his server and he was charging you a premium to host it. Other than that, he is out of his mind.

They have some good points, though my VPS is currently down and they're working on it

Sounds like Choopa affiliate scheme could pay well

God damn

to chargeback:
I cancelled service
I did not use service after
Terms of choopa was not presented to me in a way that I understood that after my first 13 months I would be automatically enrolled in another 13 months
No mention of monthly bills after cancel were provided to me by snail mail or email
They stole my money straight up and would like it back

How did you not notice $900 each month for all of these months?

I dont know about Choopa, I only know I asked for a quote and emailed them 2 times never got a response, was looking for $800 monthly dedicated solution. Anyways, I have used alot of other hosts, oxeo, yellowfiber, webair,amerinoc etc. and I only recommend Amerinoc if u are serious about your business. Top notch support, 24hrs standby tickets, about 5 tech professionals round serving day and night, everyone of them knows almost anything. They are decent price too. Give them a try really.

how do you not notice a $899 bill for months ?

alot of companies have auto renewing contracts tho :(

That's what I don't get too.

I pay $12 a month for hosting (billed at $144 yearly) and that brings in 5 figures a month.

I remember a time when i was paying $6k a month for servers alone to make just barely more than I'm bringing in now. Choopa was one of the hosts i had. They werent cheap, but they let me do they stuff that I do and never said anything about it as long as I didnt bring in complaints.

Here's a good question...
If you cancelled the server because $899/month is too much for you, how did you not notice you were still being billed $899/month for the past 5 months? When I get in a position where something is too much and I cancel it, I would damn sure notice if I got billed for it again the very next time it happened.

... And use Paypal next time.

Yes you did, I never signed up for a auto-renewal contract.

Was on vecation in HK and did not check that too carefully I guess.

If you made a payment for your first month and ticked a terms and conditions box when you did you then you probably did.

Did you read what you were signing up for ?

Easy - if the only thing I used a credit card for was that server, and I cancelled the server, I could see myself not even opening envelopes with monthly statements from Visa for 5 months.

Why would you take on 13 months deal? Why not 6 or 12 ? Don't you know 13 is bad luck :D ?

Did you had some sort of benefits or discounts ?

Seems unreal to sign-up a fixed term contract that is going to auto-renew anyway, especially when it involves hosting ....

Damn right!

I guess you know choppa terms and conditions?
Please share it here.

Stick to dreamhost... :2 cents:

Dreamhost 9.99$/month back in 2003 when I had passion for this buissness lol
That is how I started.

I don't know them, but you should have before you signed up.

What I am trying to say to you is that if you signed of on a quote for a 13 month rolling contract and didn't understand what you were agreeing to then that's your fault, not Choopa's.

It doesn't mater if Choopa servers are expensive or if they suck, that's not the point. The question is what did you agree to ?

:2 cents:

does the OP have the original contract?

I still have a small account with them for some static legacy pages that I keep online after my retirement. Good luck with getting things resolved :)

3. DURATION OF AGREEMENT AND CANCELLATION POLICY

3.1 The Initial Term shall begin upon confirmation of Your order or commencement of the Services to You and receipt of lawful funds. The term's length is chosen by You and shall be indicated when You order Our Services. This Agreement may not be terminated by You during the Initial Term (and any renewals thereof) except in the event of a breach by Choopa. After the Initial Term, this Agreement shall automatically renew for successive terms, equal in length to the Initial Term, unless terminated or canceled by either party as provided herein.

3.2 You must provide fourteen (14) days notice of non-renewal to Us should You not wish to renew this Agreement after the Initial Term. Choopa may terminate this Agreement at any time, without notice, in the event of nonpayment or violation of terms of service by You, if in Choopa's sole judgment You have in any way breached this Agreement ("Termination for Cause"). If you cancel any Service prior to the expiration of any Term, You understand and agree that Choopa will not issue You any refund whatsoever, including but not limited to any remaining pre-paid Fees, set up Fees, and/or special programming Fees).

3.3 Choopa may also terminate this Agreement in its sole discretion at any time for any reason or no reason. ("Termination without Cause"). In such case, Choopa will provide You with thirty (30) days written notice before the discontinuation of Services.

3.4 If Choopa cancels this Agreement pursuant to any of the terms outlined in this Agreement, with the exception of Termination without Cause pursuant to paragraph 3.3, Choopa shall not refund to You any fees paid or prepaid in advance of such cancellation and You shall be obligated to pay all fees and charges accrued prior to the effectiveness of such cancellation. In the event that Choopa terminates the Agreement for cause, all prepaid hosting fees will be forfeited and are not refundable. The termination of this Agreement does not relieve You of Your obligation to pay any Fees accrued or payable to Choopa.Com prior to the effective date of termination of this Agreement.

3.5 Cancellations must be done in writing via the support ticket system at https://my.choopa.com. We require You to cancel in writing so that We can confirm Your identity and to confirm with You that You are prepared for all of Your content to be removed from Our servers. Once We receive Your cancellation and have confirmed all necessary information with You via e-mail, We will inform You via email to the email address on file that Your account has been canceled. If You do not receive the confirmation email within twenty-four (24) hours after submitting Your cancellation request, please contact Us immediately via [email protected].

3.6 In addition to Choopa's right to terminate this Agreement provided elsewhere in this Agreement, Choopa may terminate this Agreement effective immediately if, based on Choopa's sole judgment, it determines that You or any of Your end-users: (a) have breached the Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") as described in Section 12 of this Agreement, and incorporated herein, (b) have infringed or violated any intellectual property right or privacy or publicity right of a third party, (c) have not complied with any applicable law, statute or regulation, or (d) have uploaded, published or disseminated any images, text, graphics, code or video which Choopa considers illegal or high risk, in its discretion. Nothing contained in this Agreement is intended to, or shall, impose any duty or obligation upon Choopa to monitor or review Your Content or the content of Your end-users at any time. You remain solely responsible for Your Content, and any liability generated therefrom.

3.7 The termination of this Agreement will terminate Your access to the Services and Your license to the Host Materials (as defined in Section 5.2 of this Agreement). Choopa shall not be liable to You or to any third party for termination of the Services permitted under this agreement. Upon termination of this Agreement, Choopa reserves the right to maintain copies of Your data files and records for archival purposes, but does not undertake any obligation to do so. Choopa reserves the right to impose an early termination charge for all Services terminated prior to the last day of the billing cycle.

3.8 If either party cancels or terminates this Agreement for any reason, You shall be solely responsible for making all necessary arrangements for securing a replacement host and moving all electronic data, graphics, images, video or text to the new service provider. Upon termination of this Agreement, provisions that by their nature would be expected to survive termination shall survive and remain in full force and effect in accordance with their terms.