When to Terminate account for non-payment

coloAZ said:
For shared hosting - 30 days is typical.
For dedicated servers - after 7-10 days we typically will put the server at the end of the deployment queue.

Just my two cents.
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We actually give fewer days for shared hosting than we do for dedicated servers. May be it depends on behaviour of your clients.
 
It is like this

We all have written Terms of Service and processes, but i bet we have all bent these to help certain clients
 
We have decided to make it so after 16 checks (4 days) and it suspends. But our system is based on credit so a user can reload and the site is unsuspended within 4 minutes automatically. We also alert before hand also. When suspended we do not delete account until server resources are needed, so a user account can be kept for over 3 months (backups off server also kept to stop issues with users in the future).
 
anthonyrossbach said:
When suspended we do not delete account until server resources are needed, so a user account can be kept for over 3 months (backups off server also kept to stop issues with users in the future).
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This is a good idea but then you end up with servers that are almost all the time running near capacity yet actually a good part of the resource is occupied with suspended accounts. In Our experience very few clients will resign after 30 days of suspension. So keeping their data beyond 30 days almost always means wasting resources
 
Ultimately, you have to pay for a service before you receive it. Say you go into a store and say, well I have a plan to pay for that shirt, but you want to walk out with it without paying first. That doesn't work right? With hosting, if their plan expires on Feb 5th for example, and it is Feb 6th and they haven't paid, you have every right to terminate their account. Realistically does this happen in web hosting? Generally no, and for good reason. However, legally you should be fine terminating anytime they are overdue.
 
kipplex said:
Ultimately, you have to pay for a service before you receive it. Say you go into a store and say, well I have a plan to pay for that shirt, but you want to walk out with it without paying first. That doesn't work right? With hosting, if their plan expires on Feb 5th for example, and it is Feb 6th and they haven't paid, you have every right to terminate their account. Realistically does this happen in web hosting? Generally no, and for good reason. However, legally you should be fine terminating anytime they are overdue.
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I think before we joined the industry things could have been that way but the competition has led to alot of compromises unfortunately if you become too lenient you will be taken for granted, fail to pay your data centres on time and ultimately run out of business
 
jkateega said:
I think before we joined the industry things could have been that way but the competition has led to alot of compromises unfortunately if you become too lenient you will be taken for granted, fail to pay your data centres on time and ultimately run out of business
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Indeed, it just a matter of being flexible in certain situations but at the same time remain firm that these things are not to be "abused".
 
Harv45 said:
Indeed, it just a matter of being flexible in certain situations but at the same time remain firm that these things are not to be "abused".
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Once you become too lenient you will end up running your business as though it was a "free hosting" firm and you will get the same abuse that free hosts get on a daily and you will become unreliable like most free hosts are.
 
jkateega said:
Once you become too lenient you will end up running your business as though it was a "free hosting" firm and you will get the same abuse that free hosts get on a daily and you will become unreliable like most free hosts are.
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I meant as long as you take it in moderation then both sides can benefit.
Too much is just as bad as too little flexibility "at the end of the day".
 
30 days is fair enough for termination, although to suspend an account for 1 day late invoice payment is kind of harsh. 3-4 days should be enough.
 
wizzo85 said:
although to suspend an account for 1 day late invoice payment is kind of harsh.
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Why?

They sign up with you and agree to your TOS to pay you by a given date, most hosts will generate and send invoices at least 7 days before they are due, so that is 7 days for them to pay or make contact with you to say they may be late paying, so if no payment is made by or on the due date then why should you not suspend them the following day to stop them using your resources without payment.
You are in a business to make money not to give resources away for free. It all depends on how you run your business, we suspend 2 days after due date, so allowing at least 1 overdue invoice to be sent.

We currently have 1 clients who is late every month, in fact he only pays after the late fee is added for some reason, but he does not like subscriptions and as this is the only issue i have with this client who has been with me 3 years and only started doing this about 6 months ago i have no problem with this as i know he pays
 
I will suggest to suspend a account after 7 days of non payment and terminate it after 30 to 45 days after non payment. Always keep a backup of client account before account termination. As many clients comes back after 30 days and ask to reactivate the account with all data.
 
hmb-patrick said:
Always keep a backup of client account before account termination. As many clients comes back after 30 days and ask to reactivate the account with all data.
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WHY. It is the clients responsibility to keep their own backups. we backup all accounts on a daily basis, but this is for our own use. each client has a cpremote link inn their cPanel incase they need to restore any files etc. But once an account is terminated then the back is automatically removed from the backup server 7 days after account termination.

but even if after termination a non paying clients asks for a copy of the backup they will not get a copy until they pay their outstanding bill.

you will find a majority of hosts will have in their TOS that if you breach the TOS then you will not get any backups and non payment is a breach of the TOS.
 
It is best to place a late fee to an invoice after a couple of days, this usually gets the clients attention as you will get a message from them like ' why is my latest invoice total different to my last one' and then you explain to them that a late fee was added as the invoice is late paid, some will pay it and others will argue the toss as its unfair to add a late fee
 
easyhostmedia said:
It is best to place a late fee to an invoice after a couple of days, this usually gets the clients attention as you will get a message from them like ' why is my latest invoice total different to my last one' and then you explain to them that a late fee was added as the invoice is late paid, some will pay it and others will argue the toss as its unfair to add a late fee
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I agree with this, also ensure that you send multiple invoice reminders with varying levels of importance leading up to the termination date.

I have my termination date 30 days after the invoice is due.
 
Few days wait after invoice is overdue is OK. Services cancellation after 7 days after suspension is acceptable.
Also it is good to keep customer data for another 7 days if customer will want to reactivate services.
 
Andrius said:
Also it is good to keep customer data for another 7 days if customer will want to reactivate services.
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This will only work if you backup the customers data as if you use WHMCS, CE, Blesta, Hostbill etc. as soon as you click terminate it will terminate the account and remove the site and files from the server and these will be lost forever.
our backup server will remove any backup 7 days after the service has been terminated from the hosting server, but if an account was terminated for breaking our TOS then the client will not get a copy of any backup, if its due to overdue payment then the client will not get a copy of the backup until the outstanding invoices are paid in full.

We do daily backups, but this is not for the clients benefit, it is for our own purposes in case servers go down and need reinstalled. when a client orders hosting they are giving the chance to pay a small monthly fee, which would allow them to request a copy of the backup if they every need a copy due to work they do on their site that goes wrong (we have all done this at some point). If they dont opt for this and ask for a copy of a backup then they pay a one off fee
 
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