NewToAllThis Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I know this may not be the best section for this, but I wasn't sure where to post this b/c it's more of a Billing Recommendation. Not too long ago, I was on my IPS hosted site and came across the message: "This Account Has Been Suspended" I went into my Client Area and noted a pending invoice for my monthly renewal...I can only assume IPS shut down my site today. To add insult to injury, when I paid the invoice, instead of my account being reactivated and my site back up, it's now under "Manual Review" Here is where I have a SERIOUS problem with how IPS handled this. 1) IPS sent one email about the invoice and then when it wasn't paid on time, they suspended my account. IPS could have sent me a message on the IPS boards, called and/or sent a second email; not too difficult. I don't expect white glove treatment, but I expect quite a bit more outreach if you're going to shut down my site. 2) "This Account Has Been Suspended" - are you serious with this message that my members, sponsors and guests can see? You could have easily written something about "Technical Difficulty"....even though its minor, now I have to go into damage control. 3) When I paid the invoice, you should have INSTANTLY turned my site back on. There is absolutely NO REASON why my site should be turned off while you are manually reviewing a transaction. It's a credit card, it verifies instantly. I rarely use caps and exclamations points when I type and it gets a lot to get me heated, but this is serious. My site is still down and I paid the invoice almost 40min ago and I submitted a ticket....and this never should have happened in the first place. I'll take ownership I missed the email you sent, but you shut down my entire site for over very little. As an update, my site is back up and running ~1hr after I paid the invoice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Cable Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Pay on time and this wont happen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dll Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Without wishing to seem out of order, if it was that important that your site stayed online and didn't show a suspended message you could simply have paid on time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis P Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Without ever having experience with IPS Hosting, it does seem a bit weird that you only received 1 invoice reminded. Every hosting company I've been with have sent 1 week in advance, and then 1 day prior to payment date.Perhaps that's just the way IPS work, but I'd have thought it would be easy to send out a 1-day reminder email out? Surely they're just giving themselves more work needing to manually verify the payments compared to sending another email automatically? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewToAllThis Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 Pay on time and this wont happen Without wishing to seem out of order, if it was that important that your site stayed online and didn't show a suspended message you could simply have paid on time. Honestly, and I don't want to get into with you guys, but obviously the answer is to pay on time. My post has very little to do with "paying on time" and more to do with IPS Billing Operations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewToAllThis Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 Without ever having experience with IPS Hosting, it does seem a bit weird that you only received 1 invoice reminded. Every hosting company I've been with have sent 1 week in advance, and then 1 day prior to payment date. Perhaps that's just the way IPS work, but I'd have thought it would be easy to send out a 1-day reminder email out? Surely they're just giving themselves more work needing to manually verify the payments compared to sending another email automatically? Completely agree Lewis. IPS doesn't do this to make their client's lives more difficult, which is why I offered recommendations to improve service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Cable Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Honestly, and I don't want to get into with you guys, but obviously the answer is to pay on time. My post has very little to do with "paying on time" and more to do with IPS Billing Operations. Take it to your client area and submit a ticket. It wont get resolved here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyF Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 The 'suspended' page is a generic Cpanel / WHM one as far as I'm aware. It can be customized although I am not sure if (1) this is permitted or (2) if a standard account would accept a replacement in its webroot, would depend on WHM's configuration I'd expect. Sometimes payments do enter a manual approval queue, I am sorry to hear that has happened to you in this case although it is good news to read the last part of your post, ie your site is back again. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewToAllThis Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 Take it to your client area and submit a ticket. It wont get resolved here. I did, it's already been resolved as I mentioned in the first post. The first line of my post also mentions this is a "Recommendation"...which is why I posted it in the Recommendation section; even though mine is IPS Hosting related vs pure IPBoard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Take it to your client area and submit a ticket. It wont get resolved here.:) I don't think he's trying to get his issue resolved here. I think he's trying to bring attention to the fact the lack of a 1 day reminder. I'm surprised though...I could've sworn there was a grace period. When I switched away from IPS hosting I didn't cancel my plan I just waited for it to expire. My account was still active two days later though. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aiwa Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 IPS manual approval of transactions is for fraud purposes. It may be an irritation in your scenario, but it's for the benefit of all clients. Less fraud equates to lower overhead equates to lower prices for all. You can set up your account to auto-pay just prior to the invoice date to avoid this scenario. In terms of 'technical difficulty' vs 'Account suspended'. IPS isn't in the business of sugar coating the issue at hand. They can't read your mind to know your intentions. The 'Account suspended' screen is STANDARD for basically all hosts. If you don't pay, that's what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmacleo Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 The 'suspended' page is a generic Cpanel / WHM one as far as I'm aware. It can be customized although I am not sure if (1) this is permitted or (2) if a standard account would accept a replacement in its webroot, would depend on WHM's configuration I'd expect. Sometimes payments do enter a manual approval queue, I am sorry to hear that has happened to you in this case although it is good news to read the last part of your post, ie your site is back again. :smile: it can be customized by the host but can lead to issues and cpanel updates often reset it anyways. not something the individual account can change. and it only shows when acct has been suspended, tech difficulties page does exist for other issues. you got a reminder, didn't pay, and are upset more babysitting wasn't done. whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ae9803 Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I can understand where he was coming from. Even an email reminder a week prior to the due date, would help account retention and solve the issue :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewToAllThis Posted October 30, 2012 Author Share Posted October 30, 2012 IPS manual approval of transactions is for fraud purposes. It may be an irritation in your scenario, but it's for the benefit of all clients. Less fraud equates to lower overhead equates to lower prices for all. - my point is that there is no reason to keep the site down once payment is sent. Once you complete the Manual Review, if its determined there is fraud, you can email/call the client to find out what's going on, then shut it back down if there is a problem. You can set up your account to auto-pay just prior to the invoice date to avoid this scenario. - it's now setup for this, but like all credit cards, it will expire one day...and I hope should I miss this update, my entire site won't be shut down due to a simple issue. - Does IPS shut down sites if the Auto Pay CC expires on the day its due? In terms of 'technical difficulty' vs 'Account suspended'. IPS isn't in the business of sugar coating the issue at hand. They can't read your mind to know your intentions. The 'Account suspended' screen is STANDARD for basically all hosts. If you don't pay, that's what happens. - I can't imagine there is a single active IPS client that wants their membership to read about a suspended account. For those clients that are letting their accounts go into default, who cares, they don't. So by stating "Account Suspended" IPS is only going to aggravate people...not help. Like I've said, the ownership is on me b/c I missed the email they sent out. But like most people, it is possible to miss an email and the circumstances for this should not be a site that is shut down. I'm a HUGE fan of IPS and only have good things to say about them!! :) But this is a simple operational fix that will save others the same difficulties I went through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I can understand where he was coming from. Even an email reminder a week prior to the due date, would help account retention and solve the issue :smile: :) They do send one out. They send one out for license renewals as well. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmacleo Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 it does sound like a suspended account is placed through the same billing checks a new account is run though, that may be worth looking at. a suspended one already HAS been through the manual checks, maybe just allowing automatic here would fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhett Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 There is an email sent when the invoice is created, if you fail to pay it, then it is cancelled on the expiration date in which another email is sent. We can look into the option of sending a third email perhaps a day before it expires if it's still not paid. Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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