A Bad and Ongoing Experience
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There have been several waves of "Joe job" attacks against me. The chronicle of that misadventure has been moved to my "Joe job" page at http://members.cox.net/joejob in order not to dilute the content of this report. sls - 17 August 2003
Jump to Updates.
In July 2001 I responded to a partnership announcement from register.com, the outfit I have used for domain registrations (see 1, 2, 3 and now Update #1 in updates below). On the basis of my satisfaction with register.com, I decided to use dotcomavenue.com to host a web site I have since given up. I was set up on July 19, 2001.
Everything was fine until I decided to cancel the service and close the account. I began to wonder about Register.com's judgment in partner selection, and losing my warm fuzzies for Register.com. (Which is why Register.com has a fraud department. Please see update 24 below.)
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On May 21, 2002, following the ridiculous protocol insisted upon by dotcomavenue.com, I sent to their address in Great Britain, via registered mail, a completed copy of their account cancellation form. |
However, on August 13, 2002, I opened my credit card statement to find that dotcomavenue.com had charged my credit card for another year's worth of service to the tune of US$285.36.
I contacted dotcomavenue.com using their online webhostingsupport.com site, and had the most disagreeable exchange I've ever had with any entity.
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At the left is a 382
KB jpg image of my "customer service" experience with
dotcomavenue.com, starting on August 13, 2002, ending yesterday, December
12, 2002. In a nutshell, they intransigently deny having received my
cancellation request.
Adding insult to their intransigence and miserable customer service, their response to my latest contact was to CLOSE AND LOCK my "customer service" ticket! See the top of the ticket. This is their response to the specific request to leave the ticket open until the matter is resolved. Nice.
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Dotcomavenue.com may yet be redeemable (though it seems bloody unlikely as of this writing), but based on my experience with these people to date, I do not recommend dotcomavenue.com, and urge existing customers who may read these words to take their business elsewhere. At the very least, existing customers should check the cancellation terms and decide if they'd rather deal with the hassle sooner or later, and watch their credit card statements like hawks.
In the meantime, where to I go from here? I am not lightly going to give these people US$285.36. The things that come to mind for me to do are to publicize this page in any way I can, contact Register.com, the Better Business Bureau, my credit card company and just be persistent. I will post any new developments here.
It's not the money. My credit card company should take care of that angle. (Jan 2 - actually, maybe not.)
I guess this is my way of tilting at windmills. I don't really think that anything I do will make much of a ripple. Perhaps I'm just making up for a major lapse of skepticism, because had I only done my due diligence prior to contracting for service with these people, I'd not have done business with them.
There was plenty of warning out there if only I'd looked. But no, I placed too much faith in the representation that these people were referred to me by Register.com. Whether they were referred or simply scamming (Jan 4 - they were scamming) is immaterial; I should have done my due diligence. Caveat emptor always! If I remind or encourage a few people to do their due diligence, then I guess I've atoned for my lapse.
December 14, 2002
1) I inserted links above to
text files of the emails purporting to be from or referred by Register.com. I
now wonder whether these were not simply dotcomavenue scammers fraudulently
posing as Register.com partners. I've opened a support ticket with
Register.com's marketing people, and if these bottom dwellers have fraudulently used
Register.com's still good name, I hope Register.com goes after them like a pack
of rottweilers on a pig. (Jan 3 - please see update
24 below - Register.com are apparently good guys.)
2) I am apparently not alone in having been mistreated by these people.
Ninet in the
UK and Ninet
in the UK
Dustbury
in Oklahoma
"Avoiding
the Weasle"
A couple of these sites have other links you can follow.
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3) After finding they had CLOSED AND LOCKED my previous ticket, yesterday I opened another ticket pointing them to this report and repeating my demand for a refund. Their reply: "All charges are final and cannot be refunded under any circumstances" and a link to instructions for canceling my account. They considerately closed this ticket for me, too. |
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4) I found a link to the British Information Service at the British Embassy Washington website, and sent them this request for assistance.
5) I moved this site from my general
purpose personal web page to this dedicated page. Next is to go to DMOZ.org
to list it under the category Home: Consumer Information: Computers and
Internet: Internet: Web Hosting, which is intended for "Reviews and
consumer opinions about web hosting services." With any luck DMOZ will
accept my listing and pretty soon this page will show up on Google and
elsewhere.
6) Site submitted to DMOZ.
December 15, 2002
7) experthosting.com domain is for
sale.
email showing webhostingsupport.com's
parent company is dotcomavenue.com.
8) here's another account of experthosting.com's scamming ways, similar to the Dustbury in Oklahoma tale listed in 2 above, with some good tips at the end. I hope prospective buyers of this domain (see 7 above) practice more due diligence than I did, and realize they could be buying into a polluted domain.
9) Here is what Web Host Industry Review had to say on April 19, 2001, a couple of months before I allowed myself to be reeled in by dotcomavenue.
10) I invited the attention of the Web Host Industry Review to this report.
11) My credit card is shut down and I've sent this with this to the investigators.
12) Added this hit counter for grins. (Removed for lack of support.)
13) Added Fred Langa's signup banner in the hope he'll list this page in the "load the code" section of his free (or Plus if you like) newsletter.
December 21, 2002
14) Invited Google to crawl this site.
December 22, 2002
15) I took a cue from Ninet (see update 2 above) and invited Cambridgeshire County Council Trading Standards, through their RipOffTipOff site, to see this page.
16) Got a response from Register.com that they'll be looking into this.
17) My good friend Rick posted this site to his mailing list.
December 31, 2002
18) Submitted this site to the interesting Entheogen
Street under the category Commerce>Other, on the basis that a Google
search on "dotcomavenue review" led me there.
I'm not pleased with a couple of the other sites Google turns up on that
search string on account of their aggressive and obnoxious window flinging, but
Entheogen Street was well behaved.
January 1, 2003
19) "Register.com CEO Richard Forman was pleased with the ruling, saying in a company statement that: ... "We hope that this outcome sends a clear message to those who attempt to trade off of Register.com's brand and reputation."" He's not talking about dotcomavenue but I like his words. I still have not heard from Register.com as to whether dotcomavenue is one of those who "attempt to trade off of Register.com's brand and reputation."
20) Sent this to Mr. Richard Forman, CEO of Register.com.
21) Received this reply. Thank you Mr. Forman!
22) Posted this to the alt.internet.providers.uk newsgroup.
January 2, 2003 -
Nice guys finish
last in more ways than one.
23) Whatever you do, do not delay in contacting your credit card company.
Do not try to verify that you are in the right. In fact, assume that
anyone you even think you might have a dispute with is a scumwad. I got this
from the credit card people today. They are saying I'm out the money. Well,
maybe, but I'll certainly take it up with them again. The money, though, is not
the point of this page. Caveat emptor always (and nice guys finish last).
January 3, 2002 - Register.com are apparently among the good guys.
24) I got a phone call from the fraud group at Register.com this morning. They had an issue with these punks (in their experthosting.com guise) at about the time I stepped into their net, and obtained a cease and desist order on them at that time. Register.com's fraud group will be looking into a new angle.
January 4, 2003
25) I posted an invitation to view this site to WebHostingTalk's Web Hosting Forum.
26) And now to WebHostingTalk's Reseller Forum.
27) And now to WebHostingTalk's Running a Web Hosting Biz Forum.
28) Added suitable entries to the meta keywords for this page.
29) Resubmitted the site to DMOZ. The original submission went poof somehow.
March 8, 2003
30) This site appeared in the March 3, 2003 issue of Fred Langa's LangaList
newsletter.
31) This site appears first at the top of the list when searching on "dotcomavenue" using Google, Kartoo, and Yahoo; second on AltaVista; alone at DMOZ.org in the Home:Consumer Information:Complaints category; and third at metacrawler.com.
32) Put the hit counter back, reset
to what it was on Jan 31, 2003 plus an estimate based on traffic.
(reset 20030814)
