New TOS, refunds, and other policy comments

[lookout]

Haven't had a chance to really review all the new policies that Jag just posted. I did notice however the refund policy has been greatly changed since I last looked.

Refunds : All payments are NON-REFUNDABLE! The only exception to this policy is the shared hosting 30 day money back guarantee. All annual plans, both shared, dedicated, and co-location, are NON-REFUNDABLE! All payments for dedicated, co-location, or related services are NON-REFUNDABLE!

30 Day Guarantee : All shared accounts are entitled to a iron clad 30day money back guarantee. This guarantee begins the day you submit your order form. If you wish to cancel your account and receive a full refund within 30 days of the date you signed up, please contact sales@jaguarpc.com with your request and domain name.

Cancellation : All cancellations must be sent to sales@jaguarpc.com. While there are no cancellation fees, you must cancel prior to your next billing cycle. Payments made up to your cancellation date are not refundable unless you're canceling within the 30 day guarantee period . This does not include any added support or service fees you have contracted us to provide. We reserve the right to remove any account without advanced notice for any reason at any time without prior notice.

Seems pretty harsh to not provide even a partial refund for advance or annual payments. I've seen that at some other hosts, and have generally steered away from them. The customer paying annually has no protection at all if the service turns bad after a mere 30 days of service.

Feel free to comment on other policy changes in this thread. The refund policy was the thing that jumped out at me most in a quick glance, but I'm sure there's other stuff.

Note to the mods:
Please move this thread to whatever forum you deem appropriate.

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by lookout
Haven't had a chance to really review all the new policies that Jag just posted. I did notice however the refund policy has been greatly changed since I last looked.Seems pretty harsh to not provide even a partial refund for advance or annual payments...

Ppl that pay annually get a lower rate. Is that fair to the others; the ones that pay more for the same level of service? Sure, 'cause those that pay in advance have to give up the 30-day guarantee in return for the lower rate. Seems fair to me anyway...

[lookout]

The previous policy took care of that discrepancy. If you cancelled before your year was up, you'd be charged at the regular monthly rate for the months you used. The refund would come out of the remaining amount. Sometime around month 10, there would be nothing left to refund. The policy gave one some peace of mind that if you opted out early, you'd at least be no worse off than if you had been paying the regular monthly amount. If you hung around for a year, your last ~two months would be on the house, a nice incentive to stay.

That last part is still true, but now one could be heavily penalized for paying annually and leaving early. If this was clear when one signed up that's one thing. But a sudden change like this midstream in one's contract does not pass the smell test for me, and I suspect I am far from the only one who will think so.

I realize we're not talking about vast amounts of money here ($86 tops, if leaving just after 30 days), but I predict this policy change will:

A) catch many by surprise, some who may have just renewed their accounts or toughed out the last 30 days but may not have done so otherwise.

B) add insult to injury for disenchanted customers. That will likely

C) raise the rant bar in the forums to even higher levels in the future.

[jason]

I'm pretty sure that the policy always was that the refund period was only 30 days. I don't think it ever said anything about prorated refunds for annual customers or anything like that. The new language just makes that a little more clear.

I briefly read over the new policies earlier and I didn't see much that had changed. It was mostly just changes to the language.

[lookout]

Not so, Jason. Though perhaps it has always been a Jaguar policy, or at least one for some time. I always read these things carefully before selecting a host. Hadn't realized until today that this had changed since my last review of some time ago.

Those of us from Aletia days had a refund guarantee that was supposed to work as I described. Jag stated during the transition that those Aletia contracts would be honored under their original terms or better. Probably can verify this via one of those historical Internet snapshot sites. If I could find the !*@%^#? link, I could do a little hunting myself.

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by jason
I'm pretty sure that the policy always was that the refund period was only 30 days. I don't think it ever said anything about prorated refunds for annual customers or anything like that.

Originally posted by lookout
...If I could find the !*@%^#? link...

JagPC

Guarantee: JaguarPC stands behind everything we do. We are so confident in our ability to satisfy your web hosting needs that we back it with an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee. If for any reason during the first 30 days you are not completely satisfied for any reason, you may cancel your account and we will refund any hosting package fee that we have collected....

This 30 days does not include extra services
you contract us to process such as:

• extra domain pointers
  name servers
  programming work
  web designing...

Cancellation: All cancellations must be sent to sales@jaguarpc.com. While there are no cancellation fees, you must cancel prior to your next billing cycle. Payments made up to your cancellation date are not refundable unless your cancelling within the 30 day guarantee period. This does not include any added support or service fees your contracted us to provide. We reserve the right to remove any account without advanced notice for any reason at any time without prior notice...

Aletia

Cancellation: Cancellation can be made via email to billing@aletia.com. Although no notice is required, and there is no cancellation fee, all fees paid for service up to the notice of cancellation are non-refundable. If cancellation is made within the first 30 days of service and no terms are breached all hosting fees will be refunded. This does not include fees for domain registration. We reserve the right to remove any account without prior notice for any reason.

[lookout]

To me, that seems to confirm what Jason said, although the language certainly could have been clearer. It's certainly clear now under the new policy.

Still have to check into the Aletia policy, which sounds like it was quietly replaced awhile ago. Have to go back before the merger to see the original policy.

[gerilya]

The best part is "This guarantee begins the day you submit your order form" given the fact that lately there were complaints about activation delays of up to a week.

[lookout]

OK, I'm not crazy after all. Must be one of my friends or relatives (you know the one in four rule) . The policy regarding refunds on yearly accounts had been stated in Aletia's online manual. It elaborated on the info that Vin posted earlier. Here's a snapshot from June 28, 2002. Unfortunately one can't access the answer to the question there. However, if you search these forums on refunds, there's ample evidence that Aletia did indeed have a policy as I described. Getting them to honor it had been another matter, particularly in their final days. Jaguar came in about that time and if memory serves me correctly, claimed that they would honor the original Aletia terms.

[JPC-Greg]

We did not touch the aletia polocies so what you read above is what they have always said. The only changes we really made aside from word usage were to add late fees to our policy and refine the terminology in the SLA.

We have policies that have been on the books for a while but not enforced. One good example is the refund one, we have done as lookout said and given prorated partial refunds to annual accounts. Even though is was against the policies we still gave some back for cancelling annual accounts.

We are going to have to start enforcing our policies though to keep prices the way they are and be fair to monthly clients. When you pay annual that money gets spent as revenue and to refund it later isnt fair to those who choose a monthly plan. At a minimum if we put it in writing to work it the way lookout wrote about we would have to start tacking on a cancellation fee for annual accounts. That cause more problems than its worth and we'd rather just enforce the policies we already had.

But dont take this all the wrong way, we are and always have been vedry fair. If you have an annual account and have some kind of problems that makes you want to change host why not bring that to our attention first. Send us an email, I promise you we will fix the problem and even give a credit when we can. We are quick to break the credit/sla in your favor much faster than we are the refund policy.

You would be amazed at some of the things we have given credits for in the past. Sometimes we have to enforce all the policies though as was the case in the attacks. To credit/refund the entire mass of clients affected by the thoughtless attacks on our client base, would have been the first step towards a negtiave bottom line. That leads to decreased resources, revenue, staff, hardware, and .. well you see where that leads.

We have been known to give clients a break despite our policiy on a specific subject, but they are there still to protect the business and utimately your own business and sites.

[JPC-Greg]

Originally posted by gerilya
The best part is "This guarantee begins the day you submit your order form" given the fact that lately there were complaints about activation delays of up to a week.

Thats tied into the 24 hr guarantee. Obviously if we didnt get the details out in a timely manner that time would be extended. I will put it in writing though

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by lookout
OK, I'm not crazy after all. Must be one of my friends or relatives (you know the one in four rule) . The policy regarding refunds on yearly accounts had been stated in Aletia's online manual. It elaborated on the info that Vin posted earlier. Here's a snapshot from June 28, 2002. Unfortunately one can't access the answer to the question there...

Nice try, Rover! Go fetch...

http://web.archive.org/web/200105180...iahosting.com/

[JPC-Greg]

moved to open discussions

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by Jag
moved to open discussions

You got brass ones, Chief!

[JPC-Greg]

Originally posted by gerilya
The best part is "This guarantee begins the day you submit your order form" given the fact that lately there were complaints about activation delays of up to a week.

Updated