Stromonic will not honor your billing period if you cancel your service

Brueggus

I got a VPS from Stromonic in Dec 2021 and paid for a year upfront. Provisioning was fast (about 4 hours) and flawless. Even IPv6 was enabled by default.

It performed decently: Xeon CPU, storage was fast, nothing to complain about. Their network had some short hiccups from time to time but that's common between India/Asia and Europe, I guess.

In March there was a longer outage in March '22, but their support team was able to resolve it within 2 hours after opening a ticket.

As frequent visitors of this forum know, I have way too many VPS so I decided to cancel a bunch of servers in Asia and migrate everything to a bigger, more powerful one. I've opened a cancellation request in Stromonic's WHMCS portal and they confirmed they would cancel the server on Dec 9:

On Sep 23 I discovered that my VPS with them was offline. I decided to postpone looking into that since I was on vacation at that time.

On Sep 30 I logged in to their customer portal and found my VPS terminated. I opened a ticket and they just responded that they've terminated it due to my cancellation request. When I pointed their attention to the cancellation date they confirmed via email, they created a new service for me. My server and all data on it was already deleted.

We went back and forth a bit but they refused to give me any reason why they've cancelled my server early and also didn't seem to see any issue in their practice. So I've decided not to use the new server they've set up and asked for a refund instead which they've refused.

So that's my experience with Stromonic with an unhappy end. You may decide on your own whether you'd like to deal with a company not honoring the periods you've paid for.

The full ticket log can be found below:

fluttershy

That looks rough, at least they offered to extend your service (that they deleted). Hopefully they end up making things right, there's not many LE providers in India.

james50a

Should just refund after deleting data like that...

stromonic

Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you! We do agree that one of our staff mistakenly terminated your service as you had an active cancellation request with us. In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case. We dig into email logs and found the email did not deliver to you due to API connection issues. This a rare case event for us as well. Again, we apologize for this incident and would like to come to a conclusion.

We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Customer trust is foremost for us, and we go above and beyond to fulfill customer expectations.
We hope you will give us another chance and pardon the inconvenience.

ialexpw

@stromonic said:
Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you! We do agree that one of our staff mistakenly terminated your service as you had an active cancellation request with us. In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case. We dig into email logs and found the email did not deliver to you due to API connection issues. This a rare case event for us as well. Again, we apologize for this incident and would like to come to a conclusion.

We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Customer trust is foremost for us, and we go above and beyond to fulfill customer expectations.
We hope you will give us another chance and pardon the inconvenience.

Out of interest, why was the service manually terminated instead of allowing it to be terminated automatically at the end of the billing period?

Brueggus

@stromonic said: We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Thanks, but as stated in the ticket I'm not interested in doing business with you anymore. All I'm asking for is a refund for the remaining time of the service.

imok

In my opinion, after an error like this, accepting what the client asks for is the least that can be done.

Even if the customer has his own backups.

yoursunny

Refund to card isn't possible past 90 days.
Credit card network won't let you.
Store credit or push-ups.

Mumbly

No one like f***ups, but extending server renewal date up to 1 year is actually generous offer.

yoursunny

@Mumbly said:
No one like f***ups

Every one likes p***ups.

fluttershy

@stromonic said:
Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you! We do agree that one of our staff mistakenly terminated your service as you had an active cancellation request with us. In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case. We dig into email logs and found the email did not deliver to you due to API connection issues. This a rare case event for us as well. Again, we apologize for this incident and would like to come to a conclusion.

We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Customer trust is foremost for us, and we go above and beyond to fulfill customer expectations.
We hope you will give us another chance and pardon the inconvenience.

Hi, also curious why you didn't just let WHMCS auto terminate the service. If the customer wanted it terminated sooner, they would have set it to terminate sooner. I know if a hosting company did this to be, the trust would be broken and I wouldn't want to continue the business relationship.

dahartigan

I don't believe the needful has been done until OP gets a refund for the remainder of his service.

Provider-inflicted data loss - 50 demerits.

Ympker

@dahartigan said:
I don't believe the needful has been done until OP gets a refund for the remainder of his service.

Provider-inflicted data loss - 50 demerits.

I agree. The remaining sum should be refunded if the client, in all their right, after this experience chooses that they do not want to continue this business relationship.

angstrom

@fluttershy said:

@stromonic said:
Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you! We do agree that one of our staff mistakenly terminated your service as you had an active cancellation request with us. In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case. We dig into email logs and found the email did not deliver to you due to API connection issues. This a rare case event for us as well. Again, we apologize for this incident and would like to come to a conclusion.

We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Customer trust is foremost for us, and we go above and beyond to fulfill customer expectations.
We hope you will give us another chance and pardon the inconvenience.

Hi, also curious why you didn't just let WHMCS auto terminate the service. If the customer wanted it terminated sooner, they would have set it to terminate sooner. I know if a hosting company did this to be, the trust would be broken and I wouldn't want to continue the business relationship.

I'm also curious about this

Isn't it one of the benefits of using WHMCS that one doesn't need to manually terminate services?

Not to mention that the (correct) cancellation date had already been confirmed automatically

A pretty serious error, in my view

Janevski

@Mumbly said:
No one like f***ups, but extending server renewal date up to 1 year is actually generous offer.

Plus they can delete his VPS again at any point during that year, just to mess with him.

Jab

@Janevski said: Plus they can delete his VPS again at any point during that year, just to mess with him.

Infinite VPS exploit/glitch!
Buy one, terminate prematurely, get a year extra, terminate prematurely, get a year extra, loop().

Neoon

@Jab said:

@Janevski said: Plus they can delete his VPS again at any point during that year, just to mess with him.

Infinite VPS exploit/glitch!
Buy one, terminate prematurely, get a year extra, terminate prematurely, get a year extra, loop().

I don't think its automated, more like human error.
But I also don't understand, how this can happen.

Because the billing system takes care of such and surely it showed the selected termination date.

MichaelCee

@angstrom said:

@fluttershy said:

@stromonic said:
Hello,
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you! We do agree that one of our staff mistakenly terminated your service as you had an active cancellation request with us. In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case. We dig into email logs and found the email did not deliver to you due to API connection issues. This a rare case event for us as well. Again, we apologize for this incident and would like to come to a conclusion.

We would like to extend your server renewal date up to 1 year. Just confirm via ticket.

Customer trust is foremost for us, and we go above and beyond to fulfill customer expectations.
We hope you will give us another chance and pardon the inconvenience.

Hi, also curious why you didn't just let WHMCS auto terminate the service. If the customer wanted it terminated sooner, they would have set it to terminate sooner. I know if a hosting company did this to be, the trust would be broken and I wouldn't want to continue the business relationship.

I'm also curious about this

Isn't it one of the benefits of using WHMCS that one doesn't need to manually terminate services?

Not to mention that the (correct) cancellation date had already been confirmed automatically

A pretty serious error, in my view

If you're overselling your nodes (or want to sell the cancelled space) you might be inclined to free up space in dodgy ways.

Not alleging that here as I have no idea. Just a thot.

Brueggus

@Neoon said:
I don't think its automated, more like human error.

They didn't really seem to be surprised that the service had been terminated ("We would like to inform you that the VPS has been canceled as we have received a cancellation request from your end."), so I don't think it's been human error.

And doing these "early terminations" seems to be common practice for them:

In such cases, our staffs usually contact account holders before such early termination, but this seems not happened in your case.

I don't buy the story that they had issues with their email API though.
They've offered to extend my service for a year for free but I'm not interested in working with them anymore.

Khalequzzaman

One of my VPS with them got terminated early! I've submitted a ticket, waiting for their reply.

Let see what they reply me!

Havy

As everyone elses said, this provider should definity takes the L and refund what's was left when it was "cancelled prematurity of human error".

@Khalequzzaman said:
One of my VPS with them got terminated early! I've submitted a ticket, waiting for their reply.

Let see what they reply me!

If you are not happy either of this going on and their solution to "extend the billing for our errors" and they refuse a reasonable refund. You might be able to dispute with Paypal/Your card accordingly. Both of these options normally let you do up to 6 months ahead of the purchase.

stromonic

@Khalequzzaman said:
One of my VPS with them got terminated early! I've submitted a ticket, waiting for their reply.

Let see what they reply me!

We would like to inform you that your server was automatically terminated by our billing system for placing an immediate cancellation request. Kindly verify your server cancellation email and let us know.

Nekki

The way I see it, the only way to make this right is for @stromonic to get @Brueggus a top-class escort. Let's make that happen.

Janevski

@Nekki said:
The way I see it, the only way to make this right is for @stromonic to get @Brueggus a top-class escort. Let's make that happen.

Yes, if they are really sorry, they are going to pay for good escort service that provides satisfaction, guaranteed.

Khalequzzaman

I didn't got any email yet! For the cancellation confirmination or, the ticket. Could you please check your mail relay? Is there any problem? As I did inform you previously, I don't get all the emails from your company.

stromonic

@Khalequzzaman said:
I didn't got any email yet! For the cancellation confirmination or, the ticket. Could you please check your mail relay? Is there any problem? As I did inform you previously, I don't get all the emails from your company.

We would like to inform you that, it was an immediate cancellation request and our system sent you a cancellation confirmation email on 14/10/2022, immediately when you placed the cancellation request.
Kindly check your email history.

Nekki

@stromonic said:

@Khalequzzaman said:
I didn't got any email yet! For the cancellation confirmination or, the ticket. Could you please check your mail relay? Is there any problem? As I did inform you previously, I don't get all the emails from your company.

We would like to inform you that, it was an immediate cancellation request and our system sent you a cancellation confirmation email on 14/10/2022, immediately when you placed the cancellation request.
Kindly check your email history.

Yes, but what about @Brueggus satisfaction? You know what you have to do, and it needs to be the proper PSE, not just a quick bit of manual stimulation or similar.

Brueggus

@Nekki said: Yes, but what about @Brueggus satisfaction?

BlaZe

@Nekki said:
The way I see it, the only way to make this right is for @stromonic to get @Brueggus a top-class escort. Let's make that happen.

If @Brueggus is in India, maybe @stromonic can give him a tour of "SG" in Kolkata and hook him up there for the night and be done with this

stromonic

@BlaZe said:

@Nekki said:
The way I see it, the only way to make this right is for @stromonic to get @Brueggus a top-class escort. Let's make that happen.

If @Brueggus is in India, maybe @stromonic can give him a tour of "SG" in Kolkata and hook him up there for the night and be done with this

BTW, this is something that is already available for our reseller partners.

ralf

Sounds like a lot of money to be spending on reseller promotions when you can't even sort out partial refunds for people after cancelling their service too early.