Official iPowerWeb business practice: charge the customer after they’ve canceled
iPowerWeb sucks. Add this story to the many others out there.
I opened up my credit card statement today and found this:
17 MAR IPOWER 888-5114678 MA $95.40
Is there something wrong here? Yes. This is iPowerWeb (they don’t deserve a hyperlink), my former web hosting company, which I canceled in JANUARY of this year. In fact, they were kind enough to send me a reassuring email to confirm my cancellation:
Dear David,
As you requested, we have cancelled your “##########” account. As of today, all Web site files and e-mail addresses associated with the account have been taken offline and no further charges will be processed.
Lies! I was charged. I had to call them up, and after waiting on hold for 20 minutes, cancel my account a second time. I was also reassured that my $95.40 will be credited to my credit card in a few days.
After searching around online for only a few minutes, I found numerous people complaining of the exact same thing. It’s become apparent that these charges are not errors after all, but an official business practice of iPowerWeb. After the customer has canceled, let their account remain active and automatically bill them for another year of hosting!
I have found that this business practice isn’t isolated to iPowerWeb, as many other companies do the exact same thing. AOL seems to be one of them (I’ve had my own issues trying to cancel them in the past).
More iPowerWeb fraud: caught giving themselves good reviews on HostJury!
I live in the United States. Why aren’t there laws that protect consumers like me against such abuse? Surely these practices are illegal, but they continue because it’s difficult to prove the billing is intentional and not accidental. Billing errors do happen, but they should be called into question when they occur as frequently as they do with iPowerWeb. Either the company is incompetent or they are intentionally screwing over former customers. Either way, they should be held accountable.
On the one hand these “billing errors” are like free nontaxable loans with no interest. If the company needs money, all they have to do is charge a former customer’s credit card. Instant cash! Then, a month later, after the former customer realizes the “error”, they call the company and have them refund the money and cancel the account. So the money is ultimately returned to the customer. This amounts to the best kind of “loan” a company can make! They make the “loan” and don’t have to pay interest!
Then there are those former customers who pay their bill without looking at each item. Unknowingly they’re paying for a service that hasn’t even been rendered to them, since they’ve canceled the service. That’s pure profit to iPowerWeb and other companies who perform this exploitative practice.
Well, suffice to say, NEVER do business with iPowerWeb. And this is not even to mention their poor services and poor customer support. You can find plenty of complaints about those elsewhere…
No joke, this has pissed me off so much that I’m going to yell so much that I’m sure to be heard. I’ve filed a complain with the Better Business Bureau (complaint #97045608) and sent an email to my congresswoman suggesting that a law be enacted to prevent this business practice and to protect consumers.
The rest of this post is dedicated to a compilation of customers who have complained about this same “billing error” after they canceled their account with iPowerWeb.
———————-
RESOURCES
File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB)
File a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General (iPower is located in Arizona)
How to leave iPowerWeb (HostJury)
———————-
DOCUMENTED DEFRAUD PRACTICED CASES
Moved to iPowerWeb: Documented Defraud Practices
——————————-
By the way, http://ipowercomplaints.com seems to be a good place to go if you want to create an account and blog about your bad experience with iPower.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:21 am
I filed a complaint with BBB, asking for a FULL refund for the two year period I had paid for. I figured this would be small recompense for all the trouble they had caused me. They paid up, but probably at the expense of some other sucker.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
4/16 UPDATE - partial refund for the illegal charge…
After all of this, I find that iPowerWeb gave me a partial refund of $63.60 on April 14. The full amount that was ILLEGALLY charged to my credit card two months after I canceled was in the amount of $95.40.
When I called up to cancel my account a second time (see above), I even made it clear that I wanted a full refund, and I even spelled out each digit. The operator assured me that the full $95.40 would be refunded to my account.
Note that I’ve been keeping track of my transactions with iPower. I have also received a confirmation that my complaint has been received by the BBB and just today I received a letter from the Arizona Attorney General informing me that they were investigating my complaint.
Still haven’t heard back from Capital One regarding my dispute on the charge, but I however gave them an update in a second dispute message.
It’s unbelievable that this company is still in business. This is either gross negligence or intentional fraud, and I’m so furious that I’m dong everything in my power to put a stop to this.