Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > Vortech Anniversary Plan - anyone remember this?
Posted by kjedwards, 04-24-2008, 05:01 PM If anyone remembers the Anniversary Plan offered by Vortech some 4 years ago can they please help - please! I signed up for this plan - it was a 1/2 price reseller plan ($17.50 month) available to new customers only to celebrate Vortech's 4 years in business. Everything was fine until about 2 hours ago when I received a very curt, unsigned email telling me the plan was only 1/2 price for 3 months (not true) and pointing out this should have been upgraded to the full $35 month plan. They then blame me for not upgrading 3 years ago, forced an upgrade on me with the $35 month fee and billed me $600 for, er, 3 years overages - they point out that the actual amount is actually $700 but they are only billing me $600 I am outraged Emailing them has brought another curt reply that the 3 month deal was on the original TOS - Actually there was no such thing. I remember this very clearly because I was torn between signing up and staying with my existing company, I therefore studied this very carefully. If anyone remembers this can they give some support, please. Am I going mad or is something else going on? Thanks Kevin
Posted by luisalonsoramos, 04-24-2008, 06:29 PM Hello Kevin, I am just living the same thing. About four hours ago I received an email telling me I had been charged $600. I contacted support and told me the same story. I also remember perfectly that the plan was 50% off forever. I contacted support and this was their answers: After I replied saying that I offered them to start paying full fare from now on, but that I was not going to accept any retroactive charges, I got this reply, now from Kim: It's true that some time I used over my resources (or at least that's what I think). Some months I was billed $21.50 or $20, instead of the usual $17.50. I was OK with that, but this $600 charge is just plain crazy. Almost 4 years ago (Sept 04), when I looked here about Vortech (then MatrixReseller), I read many good opinions. That's what inclined me to do business with them. But today I've been searching for them and I can see many bad (or worse) opinions. Do you have the original TOS? I am looking for them, but I can't find them. Regards, Luis Alonso Ramos
Posted by luisalonsoramos, 04-24-2008, 06:35 PM Hi again! I love the internet!! Look at these pages: http://web.archive.org/web/200408290...xreseller.com/ http://web.archive.org/web/200408202...ns/special.php You can see the specs for the plan, and nowhere it says that it's only valid for three months. It says it's valid for new customers only, but nothing about three months. Regards, Luis Alonso Ramos
Posted by PTWS, 04-24-2008, 07:43 PM Not nice! Thats like robery in my view. Good luck
Posted by eyung, 04-24-2008, 08:54 PM I am on the same boat. I am from Singapore and they just emailed me this morning about the usd600 thingy. The web archive is definitely useful. Thanks alot!!
Posted by luisalonsoramos, 04-24-2008, 09:03 PM That's three of us... Easy $1,800, huh? I just hope something can be done about it. I offered them that I would happily accept upgrade to the Cypher plan (what they did anyway) if a) it started from my next billing cycle, b) no retroactive charges (I won't pay the $600), and c) I was upgraded to the current limits for the plan (5 GB and 125 GB). They responded with the longest reply above. I am really angry at them! Luis Alonso Ramos
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:03 PM Can you take this archive , go to your CCs and tell them to do a charge back?
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:06 PM what kind of company would let this go on for 3 years before doing anything about it..... this does not pass the snif test. companies like this make me so MAD and its not even happening to me.
Posted by Peter-SexyWing, 04-24-2008, 09:08 PM Vortech seems not very proessional in some way we used to have their reseller plan, were told to restore a SQL backup would cost $50!!! Anyway, we left to another provider
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:10 PM here is the offer in 2004 at WHT http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ht=Cypher+Plan
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:13 PM heres a quote from the thread Is this half price forever or for particular period of time? A: Its for as long as you are on that plan.
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:21 PM This company must be in financial trouble IMHO to be pulling crud like this... even if you get it credited back I would personally find a new provider.
Posted by RossMAN, 04-24-2008, 09:31 PM me subscribes, this should get interesting.
Posted by Laci, 04-24-2008, 09:34 PM Me too ... I have seen somethings happen before but this one is pretty close to taking the cake... except for Timmah lol
Posted by Peter-SexyWing, 04-24-2008, 09:44 PM Indeed, looks like they try to grab any pennies they could from existing clients now...
Posted by ldcdc, 04-24-2008, 10:06 PM I most definitely would be too. Leaving aside the nerve they have to attempt to spin things as it suits them, an unexpected $600 charge could put a lot of people in a lot of trouble. To do this to people who have been loyal customers for 3+ years, is void of any wisdom. Indeed it does not. Someone somewhere has a really twisted mind to try something like this and think its in any way a fair thing to do.
Posted by luisalonsoramos, 04-25-2008, 12:01 AM About the CC chargeback, I'll call tomorrow. But I don't think it would apply. After all, I gave them my permission to charge my credit card. It's just that they are charging something they were not supposed to, but from the CC point of view, it's a valid charge. But maybe, the CC will see it as a misuse from the part of the provider and could do something. I'll call them tomorrow morning. Luis Alonso Ramos
Posted by Laci, 04-25-2008, 12:22 AM you allowed the charge for your normal bill not this load of caca.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 05:05 AM I am somewhat relieved this is just not me but the way Vortech have handled this is extremely bad. After submitting a support ticket to Vortech they agreed to void the $600 charge for 'overages' but they insist on forceably upgrading the plan and therefore doubling the fees to $35. I have sent in another email again disputing the 3 - month discounted period they now insist was the case. Lets see if they do actually void the charge if not it will be charge-back time as I told them very clearly yesterday they are only authotised to charge the £17.50 and nothing more. I also pointed out to Vortech that the term 'overages' (which we are responsible for) is not correct in this case. The anniversary plan spec was the same as their Cypher plan and so no over usage has occurred, actually the charge they are making is a 3+ year back charge for under-payment of hosting plan subscriptions - I am yet to get a response. In this case I feel they are not authorised in any way to take payment from anyones CC for this unless it is agreed in advance. And really there should be a new TOC to agree to before upgrading the plan and charging $35 Has anyone sent the above links to the details of the anniversary plan to Vortech? If so have they responded? I did send a link to their own forum discussion about this and it is clear that the anniversary plan was actually NOT upgradeable so how anyone was supposed to upgrade is a mystery. Again no response I have heard that quite a lot of resellers who have been with them for several years are leaving, maybe this is their way of increasing fees for those who remain. At $35 month, considering the poor performance over the last year and their arrogant way of dealing with loyal customers, it is well over priced and worth looking elsewhere By the way, I did start a thread on the Vortech forum about this. A (another) curt reply was posted by Vixen. I replied and then the thread was deleted saying they did not discuss billing issues on the forums. It isn't really billing but about them changing the TOC. I can understand though why they do not want such a discussion on their forum not good to openly display how they treat their customers. Can I ask that everyone feedback here just what response, if any, Vortech make? That way we will all know what is going on. If we all stick together we have more chance of getting a positive outcome. I had hoped that Vortech would have learned some customer relations skills over the past few years but apparently not. They must still be top for arrogance and angering their own customers Kevin
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 05:07 AM Sorry I should have passed this on... According to Vortech's Cheryl, Vortech management only respond to ticket issues, they DO NOT respond to emails. So open/add to a ticket when you pursue this matter
Posted by antic, 04-25-2008, 05:12 AM I was going to suggest trying archive.org/WayBack Machine, glad you found the material you need. Gotta love the internets. Also, keep in mind there are laws around these things. They've been charging you $X for a service, which signifies a contract. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think they can change that on a whim, or charge anything from a CC without prior agreement. Even if it was a legitimate billing mistake - which it quite evidently is not based on the material you have. My wild guess is that they have employed a new manager to "sort out" their business finances. Someone who perhaps doesn't understand the industry but is certainly not familiar with all of Vortech's offers and contracts from the past. So I'd suggest going straight to the top and speak to Brad or to the manager who is instigating this retroactive charge. Show your evidence of the contract entered into, and hopefully the misunderstanding will be realised and cleared up. If not, there are legal avenues to pursue the matter - just make sure you keep *ALL* material and correspondence, in case you ever need to put together a formal case. Some comment here from VT would not go astray. I've been a customer of theirs for years, and my eyebrow is certainly raised at the moment. VT support is usually fairly good, this just sounds like a manager making some changes, with some mistakes along the way which can probably be sorted out if you communicate directly with him/her. Last edited by antic; 04-25-2008 at 05:15 AM.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 05:31 AM I have just now posted this in a Vortech Support Ticket - Maybe some of you can submit something similar?
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 05:37 AM How to do this if they do not respond to emails? I am based in the UK . One of the people supporting this is Vixen I have no idea who she is but I understand she has been at Vortech for many years
Posted by JLHC, 04-25-2008, 06:26 AM I don't think it is appropriate for them to do this. You guys should boycott them and threaten to move out in a group if they kept their arrogant ways of doing things. This is just isn't right.
Posted by eyung, 04-25-2008, 09:11 AM OK. Perhaps because I directly replied to the lady called Cheryl. There is no reply for half a day. I will reply them through support ticket and see whether they would waive mine too...
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 09:26 AM Just received this from Kim at Vortech - Looks like this has all been a ruse to delete the anniversary plan and forceably upgrade those on it to their Cypher Plan. I guess by lying, trying to impose a $600 fee and then waiving it we are supposed to feel grateful.... This is appauling management and treatment of loyal customers. The arrogance of this company is beyond comprehension. I guess its time to go Anyone have anything to say about jodohost? Kevin
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 09:37 AM I just sent this reply to Kimberly at Vortech - I am not confident in getting other than another arrogant reply Kevin
Posted by cloudrck, 04-25-2008, 11:08 AM I'm no lawyer, but I don't think they can charge you "overage" charges because they screwed up billing 3 yrs ago. Which is what appears to be a lie. They aren't the IRS. Do a chargeback, this smells fishy. I'll see what I can find on this.
Posted by ldcdc, 04-25-2008, 12:04 PM Even if the law would be on their side, their approach is wrong on many other levels. I can't help to wonder what would have happened if evidence against their claims would not have been so easy to locate. Wild as it may be, a similar thought crossed my mind too. Someone's definitely been going though their finances with a fine combed tooth to come up with this, and it would explain some of their other recent decisions. Last edited by ldcdc; 04-25-2008 at 12:08 PM.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 12:28 PM This is the latest from Kim at Vortech -
Posted by b4ndeng, 04-25-2008, 12:35 PM Hello Guys, Seems I am pushed to join to this party. Vortech seems open new payment options , receive three yearly payment. This is very shocking me, no notification email before, no appologize , knocking the bill $600 in my forehead. Their response was described that we are blamed and have to paid in that amount because we are using their service for 3 years. I'm definitly going to leave, my reseller account is not more than 5 clients active but Vortech seems ask me to get out from their server. I'm not add new client to anniversary plan since email problem that need to change to port 2525,luckyly I have another reseller. and few days ago, I moved one client to other reseller because i'm affraid losing client because mail6 email problem again. Just got new email from VT that they not charge $600 but they put it aside and charge $7.73 !?!? what they want actually?
Posted by JLHC, 04-25-2008, 12:36 PM I don't think they are allowed to cancel the anniversary plan, since they stated that the fees are applicable forever.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 12:45 PM They have done it nonetheless. Their TOS basically say they can change service and fees at will. There is no notice required So they can tomorrow decide that everyone on Cypher will be upgraded to, say, Cypher+ and be charged whatever they want. BUT if you want to cancel you have to give between 30 and 60 days notice ie you will pay for this month and the following month at their new rate. Totally unacceptable and probably illegal Is there anyway the moderators of this forum put up a sticky about Vortech at the head of the resellers forum? They are sharks and really other people need to be warned to avoid them like the plague
Posted by cloudrck, 04-25-2008, 12:49 PM They can change costs when they want. But they need to notice customers BEFORE they are billed. But I'm pretty particular they can not decide to charge the current increase in a dollar amount from the past 4 years.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 12:58 PM No such notice seems to be indicated in their TOS
Posted by Laci, 04-25-2008, 01:04 PM You all have the power to leave , don't fight them about the forcible upgrade ... take your money and your reviews and leave. You deserve better treatment. As for the 600$ charge fight that and use the info from here to do it if they don't refund you. What a nasty , desperate thing to do to your clients who have been with you for so many years.
Posted by 01globalnet, 04-25-2008, 01:40 PM 1) Backup your sites 2) Transfer to other host 3) Leave 4) Report them to the appropriate organisation (bbb or whatever for the protection of customers) 5) Ask for refund of 600$ or do a chargeback
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 03:15 PM Great advice, currently working on 1 and 2
Posted by luisalonsoramos, 04-25-2008, 06:50 PM Earlier this morning I received an email from Kimberly saying that: I checked my credit card several times this morning and the available credit was the same. I just checked and it's increased, so apparently the money has been credited back to my account. The charge and credit still don't appear, but doing some math I think I am still missing some money. I'll need to check with my credit card. Anyone else got their money back already? Luis Alonso Ramos
Posted by FHDave, 04-25-2008, 07:17 PM Vortech uses HSphere right? In HSphere, it is impossible to delete a plan if there exists accounts subscribing to the plan. You must first change the accounts to another plans, make sure the plan has no subscribers, and only then can you delete the plan. Did they change your plans without approval or any prior notification from you? Vortech has been arrogant not just lately, but since day 1. I am not surprised to see them pulling BS like this. Last edited by FHDave; 04-25-2008 at 07:24 PM.
Posted by cartika-andrew, 04-25-2008, 08:40 PM they obviously moved all users to a new plan. Its just as easy as changing the flag in the hsphere pgsql db for any account in that plan to a new plan ID. As for what has happened here - wow - simply wow...
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-25-2008, 09:14 PM Hi everybody. Nice that we have independent sites were we can talk freely (all the time I've been banned at Vortech's forums , without any warning or explanation!). Just wanted to let you know they've done the same thing to me as well, so you can add another annoyed, irritated and disgruntled (ex-)customer to "the list"... Consider yourself warned; This is going to be a loooong post... What I've experienced is the following: I submitted a cancellation of my account on Monday the 21st, this with three months left on my current billing period (up-front payment for a full year). Given that I had so much time until the expiration I didn't care much that I hadn't received a confirmation. Then, without any prior notifications, I received a "Receipt/Purchase Confirmation" for $59.59 charge towards my CC. After initially thinking this was an error, I found out that they had upgraded my account and that this was the difference for the remaining three of my current billing period. Not a lot of money, but as a matter of principle I simply do not accept stuff like this. So I called Vortech, explained my situation. Their response was that they had to have cancellations 30 days before they'd actually close an account, that they hadn't received anything from me and as such I simply had to accept the additional expenses for my additional resource usage. Additionally if I actually wanted my account canceled I'd have to submit their cancellation form again. Now, I had already moved all accounts/sites away from Vortech so I wasn't actually using any resources at all, so no way I was going to pay extra for more resources. I explained that simply couldn't change my payments retroactively, especially not after I'd actually canceled my account. Then I was told that they'd made a mistake not upgrading me earlier and that I should be happy that they didn't charge me the $600 which I actually owed them(!). At this point I got pretty mad, but still managed to convey that I had documentation stating that the plan/contract originally had no mention of a three months limitation. At this point N.N put me on hold to talk to "the owner" (his words), after about two minutes he came back just to tell me that "Vortech has a no refunds policy". Again I stated that this was unacceptable and that I would contest the charge, at which point N.N took another break to talk to "the owner" (who by the way wouldn't talk directly with me). Again the response was simply that "Vortech has a no refunds policy" and that there was nothing he [N.N] could do about this even if he wanted to. At this point I restated that I would follow this up with my bank, said thanks for all the help and ended the call (this was just passed midnight local time). The following day I started by submitting a complaint with the Orlando BBB (not being from the US I'm not familiar with the BBB and don't actually know if this does anything, I have however filed a complaint). Next I contacted the bank to contest the charge, they were surprisingly helpful and talked me through the different options I had. Basically I have to wait until the "reserved status" is changed to "charged" (if I understood this correctly the delays are due to this being an international transaction), once the status was changed it could be contested without any further problems. Once I explained the situation (and I was being rather conservative in how I described it) the response was that they were more than willing to work my case, calling this a fraud-like-method of doing business that they wanted to close down for the future. All of this without any charges or fees, even the annual Visa fee would be carried over to the new card. (Given that I'm not comfortable with Vortech having had access to my CC details, all the time they charged my card without prior notice or just cause, this is a process I've started regardless of the final outcome of this situation.) At this point Brad/admin posted in a "goodbye thread" I started over at Vortech's forum. His choice of words and general tone actually pissed me of quite a bit (he wished me luck, pretended everything was ok and proclaimed that "things should be looking bright very very soon"). Though I kept my cool and refrained from posting a reply to what Brad wrote. Instead I posted that it simply was more than technical issues that would have to be fixed before I'd be hosted at Vortech again. Additionally, thinking that Vortech's forum wasn't the arena for this kind of arguments, I PM'd Brad and wrote that he did actually piss me off quite a bit with what/how he wrote in the thread. In the same PM I also informed him that I had contacted both the BBB and my bank, basically offering him a last chance at rectifying his/their mistake (admittedly the tone of my PM was a bit sarcastic, but no name-calling etc). The PM is still unanswered. Four hours later Danl (a Vortech rep) posted in the thread asking what the non-technical issues were. I PM'd him a copy of PM I earlier had sent to Brad, again giving Vortech another opportunity to resolve this issue without any further fuzz. After a few hours without a reply from either of them, I'd had enough and decided that the thread couldn't be left giving the impression that it currently did (that everything was ok and/or in the process of being resolved at Vortech). So I took some time to write a detailed post about some of the non-technical issues that I've been experiencing with Vortech lately. I have no problems admitting that the tone isn't the friendliest in the world, that it's sarcastic at times and that it in now way is a positive post about Vortech. I do however feel that it correctly describes the current state of things over at Vortech and that I can document the all the statements I make in the post. It's also worth mentioning that most of it have been stated by multiple other users in other threads before, with the obvious addition of my personal experiences. As I feel it's important in order to get the full understanding of this, I'll repost it here... Shortly after I posted this to Vortech's forum, the post was deleted without so much as the tiniest indication that the thread had been moderated. Furthermore I was banned from accessing their forums and simply get the following message when I try to visit the forums "You have been banned for the following reason: None" (the ban is IP based and easily bypassed via proxy-servers...). There you go, that's my story concerning the current situation over at Vortech. Again, if anything in this post is erroneous, simply send me a PM and edit the post accordingly.
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-25-2008, 09:48 PM Also, I just want to echo what others have written about this; These claims simply aren't correct. I had originally planned to move my sites elsewhere, but then came this offer which made Vortech competitive. I took special care finding confirmations that this wasn't a time-limited plan with an automatic upgrade path, as this often is the reasoning behind these kinds of offers. If it had been for only 3 months then double the price, I would not have chosen Vortech as I had more competitive offers at the time. In addition to the documentation provided throughout this thread, it's also worth taking a look at invoices, statements and billing receipts. These have pretty clear wording...
Posted by kjedwards, 04-25-2008, 10:27 PM Hi Vidvandre According to the 'now' Vortech TOS they expect a cancelation notice between 30 and 60 days, a 60 day limit is rediculas if you are on anything other than a monthly billing period. If Vortech now insist the How can they expect us to give 30-60 notice for a service that no longer exists? I am in the UK and so there is often several days delay in a CC payment outside the UK showing up on my statement. So I do not know if I have been billed and/or refunded but I am monitoring the situation closely and any charge above the agreed $17.50 monthly fee will be disputed. Can anyone advise, if the plan no longer exists, how best to cancel without having to pay Vortech for another month's subscriptions at their imposed upgraded service at now double the cost? Someone suggested earlier that Vortech may be in financial difficulty. If after Vidvandre has spoken to Brad this has still happened then maybe this is true. But you would think they would be then even more willing to try and keep loyal customers rather than drive them away. Vidvandre can you please give me the link to the BBB? I am in the UK but if I can I will also file a complaint. I still feel we need a sticky thread on this forum at least providing links to threads such as this one so as to try and provide some kind of warning to others
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-25-2008, 10:50 PM Hi kjedwards. Here's some potentially useful links; - Orlando BBB ("Serving central Florida"): File a complaint - "BBB Reliability Report" on Vortech: here and here. Although Vortech isn't a member of the Better Business Bureau, they have previously responded to some complaints filed with them. Personally I feel the most important thing is simply to have the issues registered, this in order for potential customers to get the information they deserve... As for other comments and/or speculations, I'll leave that for another day. I'm just to tired right now...
Posted by Laci, 04-26-2008, 12:22 AM I would go after their CC processor inform them of whats been happening...maybe they have broken their CC processors TOS ... Im just trying to think of ways to help this situation.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-26-2008, 09:35 AM URGENT * * I have just had a phone conversation with my CC provider and they say that Vortech DID put through a charge of $600 ALTHOUGH this has not gone through, so possibly Vortech did void it. So it looks like Vortech charged the CC at the time they sent out their original arrogant email/bill notice. Thereby giving almost no time to respond. I would strongly suggest that all those with the Anniversary Plan check with their CC company as soon as possible to check whether payment has been taken
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-26-2008, 01:31 PM Just got of the phone with our bank, they called to inform us that a second charge had been registered from Vortech Inc. The transaction was registered at 05.30 local time (Friday 23:30 EDT!), its currently "just in the system" and has yet to appear on any statements etc. At first we though it simply was a misunderstanding and that it was the same transaction, though after re-checking it they confirmed that it was a second charge towards our CC. Basically the bank just called confirm that this was indeed a fraudulent transaction (their words!), in order for them to continue with their process regarding this situation. This time Vortech haven't even bothered to send me a "Receipt/Purchase Confirmation" as they did the last time, they've simply just gone ahead and charged the Visa account without any notification or explanation whatsoever. Obviously this will be contested as well. Though again our bank was more than helpful and again reassured us there would be no problems reversing the transaction once it appeard on our statement... So I'll have to echo kjedwards' word of caution and urge anyone who's done business with Vortech Inc to pay close attention to their CC statements. Although I don't really suspect them of charging all previous customers with totally bogus stuff, I do however have proof that they don't have control in their billing department and that they've done this to me. At this time I'm just about ready to join the others here in the speculations over whats going on at Vortech, as to me this is sounding more and more questionable with every new piece of information I get... As a side note; My previous assumption that the block on Vortech's forum was IP based turned out to be wrong. Instead it's based on the login cookie set by the forum (I did initially check with an alternative browser, though this had the cookie as well). So no need to use a proxy, deleting the cookie was enough to view the forums again (my user account is still banned though)....
Posted by Laci, 04-26-2008, 06:47 PM If what they are doing is so right and they are so sure of it why dont they come here and explain themselves.
Posted by kjedwards, 04-26-2008, 06:52 PM Thanks for that Vidvandre. Following this I have spoken to my bank again and they have advised cancelling the CC Vortech have details of. Although troublesome this is the only way of truly preventing them from making other spurious charges. If anyone is not able to cancel their CC. Then some advice would be to email Vortech formally telling them that you remove all authorisation and permission for them to charge your CC for anything other than the Anniversary Plan subs $17.50 month. Send a copy of the email to your bank/CC provider it will help show that you are in dispute and have removed / limited your permission, this will be in your favour if you need to challenge any unauthorised payments taken by Vortech. My bank also said that nearly 4 years of monthly payments of $17.50 then one for $600 raises serious concerns and is an indication of a fraudulent charge
Posted by stanj, 04-29-2008, 02:25 AM The boys at Vortech have another card up their sleeve, a sudden change in billing monthly for CP licenses of $0.50/cp that have already been purchased on the flat one-time fee of $4. That one is causing a fuss on their forum now. The explanation for using this to raise more money was to be able to upgrade the system sometime in the future. If they came to us ans said "we need to raise the price for your account $50/month but in exhange we promise to return the system to a highly reliable state, no email blockage, no daily server reboots, no daily crashed application pools, etc, I think a lot of us would have jumped at option because after being on a host for a long time, it is a real hassle to change. I've had my own billing problems....after prepaying a year in advance each year, we still got $17-29 a month additional billing for resources. We host only a couple in-house sites and never came close to our limits...maybe 5% of alocations. It turns out that they charged for a stats package that we never turned on or used. But sure enough every time we got these bills, looking in the account configuration it had been turned on. Turning it off, and checking a week later it would be turned on again. Nothing else was changing in the configuration so we assumed it was a money grab that was more annoying than painful. But if multiplied by hundreds or thousands of accounts, that might be an extra $25,000 a month unathorized income. Any time a merchant is suspected of CC fraud, banks and the card issuers take it very seriously and usually side with the card holder, even if the mechant is blameless. Several people reporting the same fraudulant transactions will cause their merchant account to be suspended or cancelled. If you have been charged improperly file a dispute with your card issurer, it will be taken seriously. Before posting any more comments, back up your sites and data, and make plans to move because there is a history of complaints being resolved by deleting the account first and asking questions later. As a side note, since I see FHDave posting: I signed up for a FluidHosting VPS 2 months ago and can only give my highest praise for the way things work, how resposive support is and being a class no-fuss act. I was concerned when I first checked out their forum, it had almost no activity but later found that people who are in business doing other things, not having to worry about their hosting, just have no reason to hang out on hosting forums. We got used to checking hourly on Vortech just to get some sense of whether the system was melting down at that moment, or which major ISP was suddenly blocking Vortech email. Whole regions of Europe are not available for mail or web to Vortech accounts because they rely on only one internet connection Cogent, that has severed connections with the main provider in Scandinavia. We have business partners in Finland and Demark who can not even see our web site or get mail to our Vortech accounts. There are just too many good hosts out there for any competitor to view and treat clients as the enemy. I just do not get the attitude, it makes no business sense nowadays. I hope Vortech does get its act together, I liked the helpful client base, sort of like a club. Good luck to all.
Posted by Peter-SexyWing, 04-29-2008, 04:53 AM VT do have attitude issus on ticket time to time, once their support yelled at us and threatened to close our account, anyway..no more...
Posted by kjedwards, 04-29-2008, 07:42 AM Personally I have been backing up for the last day or two. I guess I am fortunate in that I only have about 12 sites and these are mainly those of family and friends, so downtime won't really be a big problem. From what stanj says it looks like Vortech is in financial trouble and is desperately grabbing as much of their customers money as they can Later today a message is going in to Vortech telling them that there actions are arrogant and unlawful. Cancelling of the Anniversary Plan is also against their own TOS which state - Vortech's action may also be regarded as a breach of contract for which Vortech is liable to pay compensation for time, losses etc. In my case I am going to bill them for $1200 - 20 hours at $60 per hour. Will they pay? No chance but it will make me feel better. This is also from the Vortech TOS regarding cancellation of accounts/money back guarantee - Since Vortech cancelled the Anniversary Plan forcing subscribers to now pay for their Cypher Plan, this could be interpretted as them 'offering' (actually demanding) acceptance of a new contract to which the 7 days period should apply. So refusing/cancelling within 7 days should negate any liability for you to pay them anything. In short Vortech have little ground for making additional charges or for charging extra for a hosting plan no one signed up for and then automatically taking money from customers CC Regarding charge-backs / disputing CC payments. I have only ever done this once so I am no expert but you complain to your own bank/CC provider and they will ask for something in writing. usually they are very willing to take your side (you are their customer afterall) and it is them who files the dispute. Because banks don't like fighting each other, the money is usually refunded and the company told to contact their customer to sort things out. The banks not only take the money back automatically but also charge the company. Also as others have indicated, the number of charge backs / disputes against companies is closely monitored and a company does not need that many to have their CC processing account suspended or terminated. These are two reasons why charge backs / disputes are so feared by companies. One final word, you will be aware that Vortech will only respond to Tickets and not email. I couldn't understand that but then it clicked - they control their ticketing system, so can edit messages and deny access. I would advise anyone contacting Vortech via their ticketing system to keep copies so you have a record in case you are cut off and cannot access their system later.
Posted by Yash-JH, 04-29-2008, 02:39 PM If they are relying purely on cogent for their bandwidth, that is pretty shocking. While cogent is extremely cheap, I can't see any provider depending on cogent for a significant part of their network.
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-29-2008, 03:49 PM They do claim to have three different B/W providers on the site (Cogent, Internap and Progress Telecom). This might have been the case earlier, though after the recent Cogent/Telia fight I started to doubt this. One of my larger clients were hit pretty hard by this situation. When I asked Vortech if it was possible to route around this, the answer was "Unfortunately we cannot route around this". When I followed-up asking "Could you please give a brief explanation why, with 3 bandwidth providers, you are not able to route around this?", the response (from level3) simply was "Cogent has always done what they want to do, with little regard for how it effects their customers." with a follow-up saying "As I am sure you know they came to terms earlier this week."... I must have done more than 100 trace-routes to Vortech the last few months, from various ISP's in Norway; I've never seen it resolve without mention of Cogent. Don't know what (if anything) this means though. I don't really know if it actually is possible to detail/specify the routes in order to route around issues like this. Someone with more technical knowledge about these things will have to answer that. Also, if anybody knows how to find out for sure which providers Vortech does use; I'd really like to know if they do use the providers they claim to use... Given that Vortech still participates one the WHT forums, hopefully they'll jump right in and clarify the situation...
Posted by cloudrck, 04-29-2008, 04:01 PM Currently their ASN shows two. http://fixedorbit.com/AS/32/AS32065.htm
Posted by Vidvandre, 04-29-2008, 04:41 PM Which actually makes sense given that Level3 aquired Progress Telecom in 2006. The acquisition was announced on the 26th January and completed on the 20th of March 2006... Thanks for the help daejuanj! FixedOrbit really has some nice tools for this!...
Posted by telmehow, 04-30-2008, 10:58 PM Back to the $600 charge issue. In response to voretech email telling me about the $600 charge, I have send 3 emails to Vortech billing, disputing the charge and asking them to credit my CC for the $600 amount. I referenced to this thread and the links to their own forum regarding the 'Anniversiry Plan'. Guess what, no reply what so ever. How can they simply ignore the emails? Are they hoping that by ignoring the issue will go away? Anyhow, were any of you successful in getting Vortech to reverse the charge or people resorting to chargeback as their only option? I personally want to work with Vortech and resolve this matter, but unfortunately the no-response from Vortech billing is making me consider other options. Any advice?
Posted by cloudrck, 05-01-2008, 12:46 PM In most cases, I would advise against a chargeback, as it's usually better to just deal with the company, than with your credit card company. But when a company pulls a stunt like this, and charges you an insane amount of money without talking to you first, I think the only thing to do is to return the favor and do the same with a chargeback. Besides, they don't seem to be acknowledging you as a customer anyway.
Posted by romanoff, 05-01-2008, 08:53 PM I picked this thread up from another forum. IMHO That Vortech ship has been sinking for at least a year now. Look up unethical in the dictionary and you'll see vortechs name in bold print. I got out of there earlier this year when I started losing customers due to the poor service and the fact that I was really worried that one day Id wake up and VT and all my customers sites and resources would be gone. Ive always felt that the sudden downturn in service and lack of concern about their customers or maintaining their infrastructure was quite simply either a company going broke or selling up. Our thoughts are with their customers . Can only imagine the stress this must be causing both financially and emotionally for those involved. Good luck and hope it all works out OK
Posted by stanj, 05-03-2008, 02:59 AM Just as was posted about only seeing Cogent in the Trace-route, I check it often to see if there is a change and for a year or more have not seen any other route than Cogent for the middle 9 or so hops. From our location in St Petersburg the route to the Vortech data-center is 24 hops. My new account with FluidVPS is 12 hops and is generally much faster. I still have a shopping cart on Vortech that is our most important web asset, it is a much mod'd oSCommerce. It has not been switched over solely because of incompatibilities of the current version of oSC we base out cart on with php5/MySql5 that we wanted on the FluidVPS. I've been working on that all weekend and have it working now. The urgency in switching was shown by the performance of simple queries against the Vortech MySQL servers timing out 50-70% of the time when the time was set to 60 seconds. Half of our clients who were trying to place orders ended up not being able to complete the orders due to time out fatal errors. The FluidVPS, using a copy of the full Vortech db(about 7meg)performs the same queries in 0.03 seconds on average. This has been going on periodically during some parts of everyday (other parts of the day are ok)for 18 months with no help from Vortech support. Their only response is "we will have someone look into it" and "it must be someone abusing resources but it is not easy to find" then the ticket is closed out. To them that is a resolution. With the specific time frames of the extreme slowdowns offered, and their regularity, no check of logs or operation seems to have been done for all this time. All the responses tell me no one knows or cares that their system is unusable for parts of each day. Who ever heard of a host having to shut down their all their Windows servers everyday for reboot because "Windows is so unstable that it can't run for 24 hours without rebooting" as their official explanation? It happens everyday during our office hours, we are 8 hours ahead of Florida. Same with the frequent application pool crashes that require constant monitoring of our web sites to see when the dreaded but daily "Service Unavailable" pops up. When sending in a TT, the application pool is recycled but no offer to help track down why they are crashing constantly. I even suggested a copy of a internal IIS developer team member detailed description of how to track down and isolate these problems. This was from the guy who wrote much of the MS IIS6, and the only response from Vortech support was "if it was only so easy". I guess 12-18 months is not enough time to wait for some effort to be expended on fixing the problem. Let's not get into the constant email problems or the availability of the CP. Even when it works, the CP comes up in 30-180 seconds. As far as the charge-back effectiveness is concerned; it is the only way for some merchants to get the message. Use that tool if there is no satisfactory response from the merchant, that is what is for. I am not fully against Vortech, they used to be quite qood and there is some flickering of hope that something turns around, maybe the owner getting back into the office or paying attention to what is happening. Since we prepay our accounts for a year, even if we move all our web services from Vortech I would love to keep the account because having 2 choices of OS for developing sites it would be well worth keeping the account for non-production sites, a sandbox in which to play with new web applications or designs. My main concern has been the steep decline in performance and usability....and of course the hundred thousand or more dollars lost in sales from the shopping cart not being available. Ours is a very seasonal business, with bookings occurring in the late winter and through early summer for shore excursions that take place between mid-May and late September. Having the window of opportunity constrained more by a web host than lack of eager clients is a hair pulling situation. If by some chance their get their act together and fix the technical problems, I will be the first to post my recommendation for the company.
Posted by realwebby, 06-21-2008, 11:38 PM Dude - Vortech (formerly MatrixReseller) is the WORST ever for screwing people. I used their service about 4 years ago when they were running linux servers. Their service was so BAD that when there was a problem, they pulled the entire server offline. Then suddenly they ANNOUNCED, "we aren't offering Linux any longer... and the server will be taken offline permanently in a couple of weeks." I was freaking out. Their response was "too bad, get your sites off the server." I lost about 40% of my hosting business. I can't say enough BAD about them. I would start looking for another provider.
Posted by plusbryan, 06-22-2008, 11:16 AM I don't mean to sidetrack the discussion, but it appears I had the wool pulled over my eyes as well with Vortech. I'd been with them for over 4 years when suddenly and unexpectedly, Cheryl in their billing department accidentally deleted my entire reseller account. Which of course immediately deleted all hosting records, billing records, backups, everything. They literally didn't have a record of my existence, not to mention no way to recover any of my clients' files. It was about the worst situation that I could imagine. All this, and they refused any sort of refund, refused my phone calls, returned my letters, the works. My BBB complaint with them is still unanswered. If they were in California I would not hesitate to take them to small claims, but alas - geography is on their side. DO NOT USE VORTECH!!
Posted by stanj, 06-25-2008, 10:59 AM Since my last post in early May I have noticed an improvment in the performance of the servers and more activity by the techs on their forum. I still have a plain HTML site, our main informational site hosted there and it has been working for almost two months with only the daily rebooting of the Windows servers as down time. We did have a long delay getting our email back when one of the mail servers was having problems but otherwise they have not been horrible. In the mean time I moved all the MySql based sites(cart, forum, office admin web apps) to FluidVPS, the VPS division of Fluid Hosting. They have been flawless and have caused a noticable increase in sales due to the shopping cart working so well. With an average CC ticket of $1,000 losing a 1/2 dozen or more sales a day was pretty expensive on Vortech. Maybe they will continue to get it together and become a good deal again, for static sites.
Posted by ldcdc, 06-25-2008, 02:25 PM Expensive hosting is not so expensive after all. I'm always been saying that hosting is pretty cheap, even towards the higher end of the market. Glad to hear that FluidVPS makes you happy.
Posted by TimothyH, 06-30-2008, 02:09 AM Wow! That really is sad. What particularly interested me was a few posts up when a member of there billing department deleted an entire resellers account. IMO, thats highly unprofessional and simply careless. Although, trying to charge many people $600 for 3 years overage is very interesting also... /Subscribed
Posted by realwebby, 08-03-2008, 01:36 PM Man, Vortech just doesn't care. Vortech doesn't know what they're doing and if you complain you'll be tagged as a trouble maker. Get your sites moved outta there as fast as you can. I lost almost half my hosting business screwin around with Vortech. Best thing I ever did was LEAVE VORTECH.
Posted by tru1, 08-04-2008, 03:26 AM Umm... 1. That company should really really REALLLLLLYYYY take Business Ethics 101... That was not only a very cheap move, but extremely unprofessional..honestly..after 3 years and then bill you? SPELL OUT R I D I C U L O U S 2. This is only my opinion of course, but um....pack up and get they heck outta there.. why stay with a host that takes 0 responsbility for their action and blames its customers? wow...im sorta speechless...
Posted by cloudrck, 08-04-2008, 04:11 PM Any updates?
Posted by DanLstability, 08-06-2008, 08:53 PM Wow, I didn't realize problems were this rampant, obviously I work for Vortech and even moreso I'd like to see what I can do for the people who it seems have been screwed, I want to help everyone here and see what we can't do to not look like such a bunch of money grubbing idiots. Feel free to p.m. me or reply to this, this situation looks like it's gotten out of control and would like to put a little bit of Vortech management into this situation, as far as I know everyone that was charge $600 was refunded the money to their credit cards. The situation was not supposed to have happened like this and things got very screwed up and obviously people are pissed, I do not blame them for that. I'd like to see what we can do to resolve this. I am Danl from vortech forum's, support, and sales
Posted by stanj, 08-08-2008, 05:12 AM Thanks for coming on here, you are surely a brave man;>) I wrote a few months ago that I would post the positive ss agressively as I've posted negative. To my business rather than tech oriented(not quite right, I have a EE)view, I can see that there has been a noticable improvement in overall system performance and it is not hard to get tickets answered during the last couple months. I suspect some of that is due to the openness some of the new guys, like DanL have brought with them from other places. Our remaining Vortech site has worked quite well, for the first time in 18 months, for the whole summer. Email has been spotty however and out server, mail9 was unusable since Sunday and was resolved Thursday night(our time 8 hours ahead of EST). That caused us problems but since we had backup server in FluidVPS we did not loose any sales or inqueries. There seems to be a new atmosphere in the Customer support sections, and the system works better. Given this change, if it continues we will keep our yearly account. That said, the system is still too overloaded, and comparing with other H-Sphere clusters like FluidHosting there is a noticable difference in performance. Personally I would like to see host stop trying to compete with high limits in resources and instead compete in reliability and seek out resouce respecting clients so a shared hosting environment is available, fast and predictable even if a lower account count would require a higher price. Sell low loading as a upsell, most of us who really have a commercial reason for having a site would not mind a higher price for lower loading. I am still miffed about 3 years of charges for Urchin that we never turned on and it kept getting turned on by itself just before billing time, nothing else was mysteriously getting turned on in the CP. But now of those options cost money if turned on.
Posted by DanLstability, 08-08-2008, 07:09 AM Stanj, I just replied to you in the vortech forum's about Urchin, let's get this solved for good.
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