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OVH Refunding my unused time


marks
05-09-2012, 11:46
Quote Originally Posted by Andy
Like I said by all means cancel their server but at least give them back un-used whole months credit. Technically to do otherwise is theft (ignoring the T&C's at this point).
in the case of that customer, it was decided that the customer failed to comply with his obligations / used the server inappropriately. Contract broken, no refund.

There are lots of things taken into account before we are forced to take such drastic action, including the customer's history, whether he's a pro customer or a kimsufi customer, among others. It's not a decision that's taken lightly

Andy
04-09-2012, 18:00
Like I said by all means cancel their server but at least give them back un-used whole months credit. Technically to do otherwise is theft (ignoring the T&C's at this point).

Kode
04-09-2012, 18:00
A case by case thing makes it even worse though, I don't know the details of this particular case, but from my own personal, selfish point of view I have an EG SSD that I'd prefer to pay for several months when we get donations in that will support it, but I can't justify it after reading about this, and a case by case basis means it's even more unpredictable.

marks
04-09-2012, 17:54
Quote Originally Posted by Andy
And as said before, the customer was not in control of the DDoS attack against them. There is no justifiable means to take someones money for something that was not their fault. By all means terminate their service but at least give back money for their unused services for future months.
I agree with you, generally speaking there could be cases that the customer doesn't have anything to do with it. But in individual cases, and this one in particular, the engineers check the case, the duration of the issue and they decided to take action. Also the fact that it was a kimsufi means that there are less things we can allow on them.

It's not a general rule but a case by case.

Andy
03-09-2012, 13:34
Quote Originally Posted by marks
And regarding the refund: as said before, once the customer's broken the terms of use, no refund is possible.
And as said before, the customer was not in control of the DDoS attack against them. There is no justifiable means to take someones money for something that was not their fault. By all means terminate their service but at least give back money for their unused services for future months.

A refund is perfectly possible, OVH is just greedy and never thinks of the customer, only their own pocket.

This is also exactly why I don't pay in advance.

Kode
03-09-2012, 13:09
Not to mention the fact, that according to your General Terms http://www.ovh.co.uk/support/termsof...F_SERVICES.pdf you can change the terms and conditions at ANY time provided you give 30 days notice, and "The Customer shall not be entitled to any refund of the fees"

Kode
03-09-2012, 13:04
I'm not disagreeing that OVH provides a good service at a great price, however the "convenience" of paying for 12 months up front, doesn't outweigh the inconvenience of losing £880 if you were to decide the terms of use were broken after a month.

The point I'm trying to make is it makes no sense to give you any more than 1 months payment at a time.

marks
03-09-2012, 12:31
Quote Originally Posted by Kode
I'm a bit dissapointed with this point of view.
OVH offers no discount for paying for several months up front, so the only reason to do it is one of convenience.
Yes, OVH offers the lowest price with the shortest contract. You may look at this as if we don't offer discounts for longer or higher number of servers, but what we're trying to do is to offer the lowest prices from the smallest customer, thus helping small companies, enterpreneurs and sole traders.

One advantage of paying for longer is the convenience, so you don't have to come monthly to renew the server, but there is no discount on the renewal price

And regarding the refund: as said before, once the customer's broken the terms of use, no refund is possible.

Kode
03-09-2012, 10:49
I'm a bit dissapointed with this point of view.

OVH offers no discount for paying for several months up front, so the only reason to do it is one of convenience.

Having read this thread though, I might as well have the money sitting in my bank earning interest rather than OVH's bank as if I paid for 3 months and they stopped the server after 1, I would be out 2 months money (I'm not saying it would happen, but the principle is objectionable).

*edit*
Though currently it's sitting in paypals bank collecting interest, which is why I was looking to pay for a few months up front.

Myatu
25-08-2012, 11:36
Quote Originally Posted by _Lemon_
1) OVH keeping money paid ahead by the customer but not providing a service. It harms the customer and the desire for others to not renew further than one month.
While I would normally agree with this, the law would be on OVH's side in this instance. The advance payment was made in good faith for OVH to provide a service in the near future, which legally is a binding contract.

However, this contract was supposedly broken by the customer himself, which does not entitle him to a refund. If it was the other way around, ie. OVH refused to provide a service for no particular reason, then yes, the customer would be entitled to a refund.

Indeed, you are better off paying by the month, rather than making an advance payment. Reason being is that on that same basis as above, if you ever change your mind about OVH's service and want to cancel it, you would be the one breaking off the contract and in that sense, OVH would legally not be required to refund you (though most companies do).

As for DDoS protection, this is very costly. As an example, another company can provide a RioRey RS10 DDoS appliance (10Gbps) for a setup fee of £70,000 and £3,000 per month. Yes, SEVENTY-THOUSAND quid. And it's not some random number they've pulled out of thin air - the RioRey LX model (1Gbps) costs £27,000, and the 100mbps version costs £9,500. So you can imagine how much this would add to the monthly server costs, if OVH were to provide it. This is why most companies simply NULL route when they detect anomalies - the appliances are only for the critical servers.

DigitalDaz
25-08-2012, 00:30
Unless they think you are in some way contributing to it, I'm surprised they haven't even given you it in loyalty points or something.

ebony
24-08-2012, 20:47
this is why i pay 1 month at a time.


as whatever happens they can keep the money if they was to close the server down.

Neil
24-08-2012, 10:33
Quote Originally Posted by Mark1978
When I had a VM with gandi.net I had a big DDoS attack against me - they said it was something like 30GB/s! They sorted it out and got me back online, and I was only paying £30 / month for their service. So don't say it can't be done
If it was 30GB/s then that would affect their network so they would have to act upon it since you are on a VPS, as I said earlier we do network level management, if we had a 30GB/s or 30Gbps for that matter we would have to act upon it for all our customers.

Andy
24-08-2012, 10:03
Nobody should need or want DDoS protection, but sadly there are people out there who think it's fun to damage sites in this way and that's where the need arises.

OVH could make money out of it still for basic protection. If protection needs exceed a certain point then they could recommend the full firewall package. Most people will probably be protected by the basic package, and most people out there probably won't buy the full firewall anyway because it's so expensive.

Thelen
24-08-2012, 03:18
It is mostly likely it isn't about "cannot be done", it probably could be, even on OVHs network, it is more likely about "not worth the loss of profit".

While it would be nice, OVH really isn't in the market where customers need/want/should have DDoS protection.

Andy
23-08-2012, 15:12
^ This.

Mark1978
23-08-2012, 15:10
When I had a VM with gandi.net I had a big DDoS attack against me - they said it was something like 30GB/s! They sorted it out and got me back online, and I was only paying £30 / month for their service. So don't say it can't be done

Andy
22-08-2012, 19:29
Cloudflare DDoS protection actually costs a fair bit, it's not offered on the free or smaller packages, but only because they can make money from it.

Both of your points have significant merit though.

_Lemon_
22-08-2012, 19:20
There's two issues here:

1) OVH keeping money paid ahead by the customer but not providing a service. It harms the customer and the desire for others to not renew further than one month.

2) OVH's refusal to deal with DoS attacks (of which the recipient has no control over).

One thing of consideration is that you can make a low-budget anti-dos service that is a selling point: https://www.cloudflare.com/features-security

edit: I also forgot to mention that I don't think there's an awful lot that can be done immediately about (2).

Andy
22-08-2012, 18:01
Well that's just it, you can offer it as an additional service which people would pay for if it was more reasonable than buying a firewall unit dedicated to them.

Neil
22-08-2012, 17:59
Well CIsco firewalls are not cheap we cannot offer them for free on our servers, we do use our which switches and routers, we have the IP protect system that stops the customers server getting overloaded with requests and also means other customers servers on the switch are not affected by an attack not related to their servers.

But it is just not feasible, we would have to raise prices, but that would be raising them for all but only a smaller amount of customers affected by this issue.

Andy
22-08-2012, 17:03
Yes, we need to order a firewall that costs 4x the cost of the server it will be protecting. That's hardly worth it for most customers. If OVH could offer a solution that it put to use on your own switches and routers then that would be much more cost effective for the consumer and will reduce the need for extra rack space for the firewall unit too.

P.S. I'd just like to make it known that although I argue the toss about OVH's services, I am in fact very happy with what they provide me 99.9% of the time. It's those 0.01% of times that I really get annoyed about it.

Neil
22-08-2012, 16:52
Hi

We do not offer (D)DoS protection, if you need protection then you need to order a Cisco firewall on our OVH Servers, It is not feasible to offer protection on Kimsufi servers that cost £13.99 a month, the time, the effort, the continuous battle etc... Of course we do network level protection but that is the interest of all our customers so that your servers are not affected by these attacks.

Thelen
22-08-2012, 15:59
_Lemon_ has run from OVH at least once.... FYI.

Anyway, this is really a case of customers expecting far too much from their provider...

If you want 100% refund and 100% ticket answering, go to ****ing rackspace. OVH isn't in that market...

Stop ruining it for the rest of us who know what OVH is selling and delivering.

OVH doesn't care if Terrum plans to 'deliver', they care about network impact and the service as a whole. Having hosting that is being DDoS'd is *NOT* a good thing....

Andy
22-08-2012, 15:27
_Lemon_ has the right end of the stick for sure.

He wasn't going to run from OVH, which means OVH should have invested a little time and effort to help stop the DDoS so they can continue the investment HE has made in THEIR services. I work in a business where showing your loyalty towards customers is so important to keeping the client it's unreal.

The fact that the money he had paid for 3 months in advance has been wrongfully taken is what disgusts me the most, and is the main reason I have never paid any further in advance than 1 month. I fear that if I have a problem I'll also lose it.

Now answer this. Would OVH do this to a customer who was spending £1000 a month with them? My guess is no, because it's a significant amount of money. Don't single out smaller businesses/individuals because you can't be bothered to help them out. That's how you lose business. DDoS protection is not difficult. I know this because I've seen other hosts that I was with previously null route a DDoS attack within minutes of asking.

OVH can null route for their own purposes, but not customers? Bull****. 100Mbps is TINY in comparison to some DDoS's OVH get.

_Lemon_
22-08-2012, 15:11
Quote Originally Posted by Thelen
Seems fair enough to me. A month long DoS...
The closing of the contract might be be all right but keeping future funds is not. If OVH do not want to do service with the customer then that's there prerogative -- they should not get to keep to the money if they don't keep the custom.

It also sets up a bad incentive: "Oh just shut it down, we've got his money anyway!".


It also affects other customers, why would anyone pay ahead further than a month if they potentially lose out? What do they gain? OVH just lose out here by having access to less funds.

Quote Originally Posted by Andy
And why should the customer even know? Like I said, I could hit a site randomly because I find it fun, not for any specific reason, and the customer would never know why. I think OVH needs to review their process on situations like this.
Exactly. It means that you can knock any OVH server / site off for £100-200 /month from another provider.

If Terrum has invested several months up front (£300) then that's a suggestion that he was not intending to ditch the server and run but stay...

Andy
22-08-2012, 14:27
...the customer was not forthcoming about the reason for the attack...
And why should the customer even know? Like I said, I could hit a site randomly because I find it fun, not for any specific reason, and the customer would never know why. I think OVH needs to review their process on situations like this.

Thelen
22-08-2012, 11:54
Seems fair enough to me. A month long DoS...

Neil
22-08-2012, 11:15
Hi

I will not go in to details but for nearly a month there was a 100Mbps incoming attack on the dedicated server across multiple IPs. Since the attack never stopped and the customer was not forthcoming about the reason for the attack or could manage it themselves the Kimsufi server was closed for breach of contract. When there is a breach of contract no refunds can be issued.

Thelen
22-08-2012, 07:26
You might be pretty sure but you'd be wrong. The terms of use and accetpable use policy you signed when you signed up give OVH every right to do what they are doing.

Kacotet
21-08-2012, 16:43
Quote Originally Posted by Terrum
I wasn't complaining about the prices at all - and life is only unfair if you make it that way. Everyone has rights and laws to abide to and, from my years of experience with the business industry and law enforcements, I'm pretty sure I'm entitled the the refund. But away from that, I pretty much love OVH, and have complete faith in them. Only to find out just now that the issue was due to too many DDoS attacks, which is completely understandable to why they suspended my Dedicated Machine. But the fact that the cycle had not even started for the 3-month invoice I ordered means I should be entitled to the refund.
What were you using the for? What's your line of business?

Andy
21-08-2012, 13:20
I think that's unfair as well. You're not in control of DDoS attacks against you. I could launch one right now at you and it wouldn't be your fault in any shape or form. Random attacks do happen, and so do targeted (having had a few myself). I don't see why you should be penalised.

Terrum
21-08-2012, 11:56
I wasn't complaining about the prices at all - and life is only unfair if you make it that way. Everyone has rights and laws to abide to and, from my years of experience with the business industry and law enforcements, I'm pretty sure I'm entitled the the refund. But away from that, I pretty much love OVH, and have complete faith in them. Only to find out just now that the issue was due to too many DDoS attacks, which is completely understandable to why they suspended my Dedicated Machine. But the fact that the cycle had not even started for the 3-month invoice I ordered means I should be entitled to the refund.

Thelen
21-08-2012, 11:32
Life is unfair, it will be less unfair the further away from the edges you stay. If you don't want unfair in this regard go to Rackspace or something, but just be prepared to pay 'unfair' prices :P

300GBP is nothing in the scheme of things, OVH is hosting for businesses who can easily afford 300GBP if it came to it.

Terrum
21-08-2012, 11:12
Well the fact that they haven't explained or given any evidence that I was performing any illegal activity is what's beyond me. Because I'm certain I wasn't performing any illegal activity, and how they're going to prove it is beyond me also. But I'll just wait for them to respond I guess. There's no need wasting my energy here. I just find it completely unfair that they profit from £300 or so that makes no sense to why they would be entitled for it. It's credited funds that should only be used for the dedicated machine when the cycle comes, otherwise it should be refunded if it's not used.

Thelen
21-08-2012, 08:15
It is a contract, you aren't technically entitled. If their end of the contract was stopped due to your illegal activities, then it is you who have broke the contract not them.

Terrum
20-08-2012, 22:03
I mean I was more than happy with OVH and their incredible support for the little amount of money that was paid. But the fact that I should get my unused money back as it's only fair. I've looked through other posts regarding refunds and OVH said they've given refunds immediately, so why not me too? It's not like I asked for the legal issue to happen, and their terms don't say anything about not getting your money back for an unused invoice.

Terrum
20-08-2012, 21:45
No idea. As I said it was unexplained (they never told me). It just expired early and they didn't give me any sort of notification, warning or anything. I did contact them and they said it was expired due to a invalidation in the contract. I checked through the whole contract, found nothing that I was violating, and I contacted their legal e-mail (legal@ovh.co.uk) but no reply. The customer support said to wait, but I've had enough of waiting. But I'll have to make a chargeback if I don't get a refund, because I find it unfair that I don't get my money back for a service that wasn't even used, especially for a extension with money they have no rights to keep.

Kacotet
20-08-2012, 21:40
Doubt it. What is the legal issue?

Terrum
20-08-2012, 21:28
I used to pay monthly, then I decided I paid for 3 months in advance, which brings my dedicated machine's expiration date to December (which is 4 months away) and I have had my machine shut down due to an unexplained legal issue which they haven't gotten back to me about. Would OVH, by my rights and by law, have to refund my unused time during those 3 months that wasn't used? Because it's a lot of money to lose, and they should refund it shouldn't they? Let me know please, I'm worrying too much! Thank you.