Heart Internet Rant / Review

[3wdl]

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Let me start off this by saying that I had been with Heart Internet for over a year – I was a prompt payer and overall whilst the speed to load even a normal HTML file was not great, a reseller account had done what was needed.

A few months ago however, I decided that I needed to cut costs a little (especially with Christmas approaching) and that I would cancel my Heart Internet account. My intention at the time was to return to their service in the future as I hadn’t really had any issues with them.

This is where my problems started. First off, I couldn’t see anywhere on the site to actually cancel. Reading though and doing a google took me to the terms and conditions which stated that I needed to contact customer service to cancel.

I did this – got a response asking for my reasons of cancellation – I explained that I could not really afford it at the moment, and in response to this they offered me a month free. I declined, and they said to get in touch when I was ready to cancel. In the mean time, I setup a cheap VPN elsewhere for about a fiver a month – once I had this all sorted I emailed them to cancel the account, about a month after I originally got in contact with them.

The account was closed, and I started the process of changing the Name Servers to the new VPS account. Shortly after this, I tried to login to change another domain, and was presented with a page asking for payment for another month (luckily my card details had changed, so they couldn’t process this automatically).

The date of the account was from the 6th onwards – the normal billing cycle date and the day that I closed the account down. Assuming this was an error, I sent across an email explaining that I had closed the account down and could they please remove this payment so I could login and change my domain details.

Over 20 days later and this is still not resolved – after ignoring the email first of all, I phoned them up and was told someone was looking into it and would remove the payment. Nothing happened, a few days later, another phone call, someone looking it to it and would call be straight back – no phone call. Eventually, I received an email from them saying that the terms and conditions state I need to close the account 72 hours before the billing cycle, so even though my account was closed on the same day, I still had to pay for another month (something I had already explained I could not afford). I asked the matter to be escalated to the directors and he said to email them with my dispute. I wrote a lengthy email explaining the situation, that I had been happy and wanted to return to being a customer in the future, and that I’d even been offered a month free and asked for a direct response from one of them. I received no reply and when I emailed customer service again I was told that they had read my mail and I had to pay the outstanding month.

Ping-Pongs of emails later and I asked again for the directors to address the actual points made in the mail. I did a search for Heart Internet on google and found a page with many critical reviews of Heart Internet – mostly about the customer service, I was beginning to realise this was their bad point that I hadn’t experienced up until now.

So, I still have no response – I can’t change any of my domain details as the account is locked out, and the stand off continues – I’m unwilling to pay for an account that no longer exists and they are unwilling to let me access my domain details to change them.

I’ve really got no idea what the next step is, or how I can change these – I have contacted Nominet to try and get them transferred, but that could be a longer process.

If anyone on out there was thinking of giving them a try, I urge you strongly to re-consider. Their reseller account may seem like a good price, but it’s far from the best service you will receive.



Any suggestions of what to do are appreciated..

[John Jupp]

So they're effectively holding the domains to ransom. That is illegal unless you specifically agreed this in their t's & c's.

[km8]

Just deleted about 20 heartinternet spam emails.

I would never give them my email address again, never mind my credir card details.

No help to the OP, I know. Just flagging up that they're not a company I would want to deal with.

[Lee_Owen]

How many domains do you have with them? you can pay nominet to change the tag for you. Tell heart you'll do that rather than pay them any money. I've just moved to them and considering moving the other 450 sooner rather than later because 123-reg and pipex are crap. I have no intention, however, of getting hosting.

[Azam.net]

Sorry to hear about your experiences James. What they are doing to you is preposterous. If things get worse, might be worth contacting your local Trading Standards.

Just deleted about 20 heartinternet spam emails.

I would never give them my email address again, never mind my credir card details.

No help to the OP, I know. Just flagging up that they're not a company I would want to deal with.

They keep bombarding us with emails too. Worst thing is they said that because we are using them for webhosting, we can't unsubscribe. Will never ever use Heart Internet again.

[essdeekay]

Sorry to hear your problems James - hope they get sorted soon - I know what a pain in the arse stuff like that can be - I'm a financial adviser and have to deal with stoopid life companies all the time!

I have my hosting with Heart (no complaints so far) and my domains with 123 - I always work on the basis of not keeping all my eggs in one basket.

Hopefully someone else can learn from your bitter experience.

Si

[GTModels]

Ive used heartinternet for about a year now, with a reseller account. The service seems to be fine, they did have occasional problems in the past but everything has been fine recently.

My only problem is they seem to have a few different people in the support dept that have different levels of experience, sometimes you get a perfect answer to the problem, other times it takes about 4/5 attempts at explaining the issue.

Andy.

[essdeekay]

Hello Andy,

On the couple of times I have had to contact them they have always solved my issue - and pretty damn quickly - one email was responded to in less than 2 minutes!

Si

[GTModels]

Yea,, speed isnt normally the issue.

[thomashine]

I had exactly the same problem when I cancelled my reseller account with Heart Internet.

Fortunately I cancelled well before the 72 hour deadline (in compliance with their TOS) and had already changed the DNS settings on the domain names they held for me, pointing the DNS settings to my new hosting. I couldn't log into my account and change any settings for at least about two weeks, like you I was just presented with the screen telling me to pay up for another month!

When I emailed Heart Internet through their "Contact Us" form, they repeatedly told me to create a support ticket in my account - impossible as you can't get past the page asking you for payment! Fortunately after about 14 days or so the page disappeared, and I can now do everything you can normally do in your account - and I wasn't forced to pay for the month they were illegitimately asking me for.

Now I wouldn't touch Heart Internet with a barge pole - their customer support is quick, but I've had numerous problems, and the pages they host are quite slow loading compared to other hosts. I now have my hosting with DreamHost in the US, and am quite happy - (feel free to PM me if you want a discount voucher )

Tom

[GTModels]

We got fed up with US hosts, HostGator, HostRocket, and a couple of others which is why we switched to a UK host. I have noticed some of my sites can be slow to load. Is there anyway to benchmark loadtimes?

Also anybody recommend a fast, quality UK host with a decent Reseller package.

Andy

[3wdl]

So rather than resolve the matter, Heart Internet yesterday decided to send me an email asking me to take down my blog posting and the message here or they will take the matter further with their solicitor.

They said that they have taken legal advice and that my wording is "blackmail" and "slanderous", but as far as I can tell, I have told no lies and see no reason to remove my posts.

If anyone knows about this kind of thing then advice would be appreciated

[PaulCR]

I'm a Heart Internet reseller and noticed this thread. So did you complete the cancellation 72 hours before?

Hearts terms are very clear to me, this is from their site "Customers must notify us at least 72 hours before a service is renewed if they wish to cancel that service. The cancellation process must be fully completed by you before your account is cancelled."

I personally think that's fine, my Vodafone contract requires 60 days notice and my electricity one 30 days. Carphonewarehouse made me write to them quoting a reference number.

I was a Webfusion Reseller and I know from leaving them that they need 30 days. With WebFusion I cancelled 10 days after I'd been billed for the monthly account so I had to pay again 20 days later and then it was cancelled. Not great but that's what I agreed to when I signed up. All in all 72 hours seems quite reasonable to me.

The service I have had from Heart has been very good, webfusion had been getting worse and worse for months.

Paul