Short version, if you don't feel like reading the whole rant: AITCOM.Net kept billing me way after I had told them to cancel my service, by my own stupidity I didn't check my credit card statements on time and now I'm chasing them to try and get my money back.
Now, the longer version follows.
In May 20, 2003, after many problems trying to access my site hosted with AITCOM.Net, I told them to cancel my site and stop billing me. I received an apology and an e-mail instructing me to call them to stop the billing. I did, and ended up encontering an answering machine into which I left my ticket number, details of the issue, and my phone number.
I called again some days later, again got the answering machine.
Many job things happened around that time and I just plain stopped checking my credit card statements, instead just going and paying the bloody thing. Yeah, dumb move. No kidding. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with the amounts, but it turns out that AITCOM's $19.95 was there - it just didn't make enough of a difference for me to notice at first glance.
Some months later, after things have settled down, I go back to checking my statements and ... surprise! AITCOM is still billing me. After e-mails and phone calls, which cost me as much as the bloody hosting itself, I still haven't been able to get through their heads that I don't want their service.
I've heard this happen with porn companies, but never with hosting sites.
More likely than not I'll have to end up cancelling the credit card and getting a new number issued. I doubt I'll be able to recover the full amount (that'll teach me to check the bloody statements on time), but hopefully I'll get at least some of it.
More as it develops. Meanwhile, if you're considering a hosting company and expect little things from them like, oh, actually respond to your requests to stop billing you, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.
Posted by Ricardo at February 2, 2004 05:42 PM | TrackBackA follow up.
I haven't been able to get AITCOM.Net to return my calls. After several e-mails back and forth, and asking them why they were happy to take my credit card over the Internet but refused to accept my cancellation that way, I was redirected to an URL to cancel the account.
Of course, this doesn't solve the issue where they billed me for months after I cancelled the account. They still haven't replied about that, so I've taken the matter up with my credit card company.
Posted by: Ricardo J. Méndez at February 4, 2004 11:41 AMMan, oh man. Here's hoping you get it -- and of course, I imagine you've learnt the hard way to dedicate 30 monthly minutes to check your credit card bill, entry by entry.
Posted by: Ricardo at February 5, 2004 01:49 PMOh, indeed. As I said, it was my own stupidity at not checking it on time and trusting their customer service.
I've gone back to my credit card company and requested they re-enable my internet access. That way it'll be simpler to check.
There's also a whole story about me moving and not getting my printed statements, but it all boils down to carelessness and trust in the end.
Posted by: Ricardo J. Méndez at February 5, 2004 02:07 PMI'm still fighting AIT.Com's excessive charges to my credit card. Given that AIT is stating that I'm a problem client that didn't follow the cancellation procedure, I decided to do a little Google searching to see if other people had had the same problem.
The first URL yielded these quotes:
"I have had repeated problems with them trying to charge my credit card for the account I canceled. I have had employees on many occasions say they will call back, but they rarely do."
"AIT is really the *VERY WORST WEB HOST* I have ever used. Between their shoddy tech support and their billing program, which charges more money than services it provides, I give them a big thumbs down."
"AIT overbills EVERYONE figuring that only half will notice (with little or no billign detail on their confusing invoices) and then only half the ones that notice actually fight hard enough to get their money back 90 days later."
"However their business practice leaves a whole lot desired once they start billing you they will never stop, you cannot stop or cancel your account, they simply ignore all request to cancel and month after month they continue to bill you."
Google gave back many more URLs, but in the end the conclusion is the same: AITCOM.Net's billing practices are reason enough to just stay away from them.
Posted by: Ricardo J. at April 20, 2004 07:24 PM"AIT is a miserable excuse for a business. It took 6 months for them to so much as acknowledge my cancellation and I went through months of fraudulent bills, charges, harrassing e-mails and even harrassing phone calls!!!, etc. Ack!"
AITSucks.net provides another person's experience with AIT.Com. They even tried to shut him down for providing a forum on which people could provide critical comentary about the company's practices.
Posted by: Ricardo J. at April 20, 2004 07:44 PMHad I done a search on google for 'aitcom' I would have come across your site and aitsucks.net and as result would have avoided them like the plague.
But i didn't and here is my story.
Posted by: rads at June 21, 2004 09:38 PM