Fasthosts holding me to contract - advice please

[sjk1000]

Hi All
Can anyone provide guidance on this please.

Unfortunately, I discovered after the 30day trial period that Fasthosts weren't able to provide what I need for Zencart to function correctly. I've now migrated to one of the certified hosts in the UK which I've had no problems with. In an email this morning - see correspondence below - Fasthosts say they're holding me to the 12month contract. As far as I'm concerned, this is for a service that is not fit for purpose. How can I get out of this now? Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Thanks, Steve

From Fasthosts:

Dear Steve,

Further to your request to be released from your contract , all hosting, email and dedicated server accounts are subject to a 12 month minimum contract term. We offer a 30 day trial period on shared accounts whereby a package can be cancelled with no further commitments if this cancellation has been requested within the 30 day period. Once an account has gone beyond the 30 day period we do not do not waive contract periods on the accounts unless the failure to close is a result of a system error or similar circumstances beyond your control.

If you believe any of the above is the case for the account you are querying please complete and return the form below to allow us to investigate further.

My original email to Fasthosts:

Hi
As discussed with Customer Care, please cancel my account taking no further payments and provide a refund for the MySQL server invoice ###### - £29.38. The reasons are as follows:

1. PHPMyAdmin times-out repeatedly when trying to interact with the mysql database returning inconsistent error messages when making even minor changes to the databe eg adding records to tables

2. I need a dedicated SSL certificate. Unlike other hosts, Fasthosts does not allow this on a shared server. I do not wish to pay additional fees for the dedicated server.

The service provided is therefore not fit for purpose and I should not be held to contract. Please contact me on the number below to discuss this if needs be.
Thanks, Steve

[CandleMan]

did you email them before the end of the 30 day period?

[sjk1000]

Hi Candleman
I spoke to the tech support re disabling the htaccess file before the end of the 30days but I put my database admin problems to one side while I worked on the site content. By the time I got back to resolving them, the 30days had expired.
Steve

[Website Rob]

If the 30 day trial period has passed then there is nothing you can do. They would be within their rights to provide an all/some/none type of Refund. If any type of Refund is provided it would be at the discretion of Fasthosts.

On the flip side, you will have an account you can possible use for file storage, testing purposes or anything else one would normally do with a Hosting account.

[sjk1000]

If zencart doesn't work correctly, they shouldn't recommend it's use over OSCommerce in their support article:

OSCommerce installation
OSCommerce is a popular PHP ecommerce system.

Our Windows servers and recent Linux servers run PHP with the register_globals setting switched off. By default, OSCommerce requires that register_globals be switched on.

To run OSCommerce on your Fasthosts account, you may need to either:

* use ZenCart, which is a more recently developed derivative of OSCommerce and does not require register_globals to be switched on
* or follow the instructions below to modify OSCommerce to run with register_globals switched off.

[schoolboy]

As the 30day trial period has expired, they are not contractually bound to refund you - and as it's just £30 it's probably not worth fighting for.

As suggested by Website Rob, you may care to use the facility to do something else.

In the past, I have had clients who had hosting accounts with this company and a condition of me becoming involved with their zencart setup is that they move away from Fasthosts. It has also meant having to "live out" the contract, but the efficiencies gained by hosting with a reliable company far outweigh the potential hassle one has with sticking with Fasthosts.

Perhaps this post (and others like it on the forum) will:-

1. Stop other ZC users from signing up with Fasthosts.
2. Encourage Fasthosts to configure their servers to be more compatible with ZC.

[sjk1000]

Hi Schoolboy
Unfortunately, it's also £15 + VAT per month for the next 10mnths for the Linux Business account.
Steve

[fairestcape]

That's expensive

I understand that the CEO of Fasthosts is a fellow called Andrew Michael.

Write to him. Tell him his service is not fit for your purpose. Copy the letter to all editors of PC magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc...

Maybe that will goad some action!

[sjk1000]

There's an option I like!
I've just received a response from the escalations team asking for more info on the problems I've had. I'll keep you updated.

[fairestcape]

It sometimes does get a result.

A couple of years ago I had a telephone line problem with a very large British Telephone operator. It seriously affected my business as broadband was down 90% of the time.

As you know, trying to get action by calling the (automated) "customer care" numbers achieved absolutely nothing - for weeks!

So, I found out the names and home addresses of the entire Board of that company and posted them FIFTY copies each, of the same letter - mailing ten a day for five consecutive days. Okay, so postage cost me over £100 - but my business was losing much more!

Within a week I had the CEO on the phone (my mobile - the landline was still not working!) and a few days later the problem was fixed.

The following day I changed service providers.