Complaint Review: Web.com - Internet

About a month before one of our websites was due to expire, I renewed the domain name and hosting services at a special rate quoted on the phone. While on the phone, I paid the bill via debit card and got a confirmation e-mail. The next day, I received another e-mail stating our website needed to be renewed or services would be canceled on the expiration date.

This was my first call to correct the problem. They had refunded the payment and requested I pay full price. After being redirected a few times, I told them I would be canceling my account and they agreed to honor the agreed price. I paid it again and the same thing happened again.

Before paying again, I decided to move the domain name to our national account with Network Solutions. We have a lot of products, so no more negotiating the price. Once the domain was transferred and merged, I paid $19.98 for two years domain name registration, waited on the phone to make sure the transaction cleared - it did. Got the confirmation e-mail.

The next day, I received yet another e-mail saying the domain was expired and the website would be taken down if payment was not received. I called them again to find out that they are claiming the payment was not received. They asked me to provide proof through my bank. I faxed over a letter with the transaction details for the debit charge. Five days later, the website is still down.

The next person I spoke with said our account was suspended because we only made a partial payment. Their regular price was $37.99 per year for domain name renewal. This time, they acknowledged receiving the payment and the agent on the phone said she'd fix the problem and apologized profusely. It would take 24 hours to resolve.

It's now 6 tickets later and no resolution. They are claiming now that they need to expedite this to their billing department to see the order number to prove they received the money. In the meantime, I noticed two of our other domain names automatically renewed at the $37.99 rate, so they processed a refund for $56 for this, but the original problem still exists. 

The supervisor told me that he understands how frustrating this is, but he can't put the website back up until they see they've been paid. I'm between a rock and a hard place here because we have over 20 websites being hosted by this company and it would take months of work to move everything to another company. In fact, last summer I tried to move another inactive website we owned to 50webs, but Network Solutions wouldn't unlock that website for the transfer. Since this was an inactive website, we weren't all that concerned about it, but it gave us a taste of what was to come.

I asked the customer service supervisor what would happen if web.com and Network Solutions insists they never received the $19.98 Bank of America said was indeed paid. . .  he told me, I'd have to pay the bill or the suspension would continue. If this happens, we will leave the company and I'll figure out how to get everything done.

One of our web designers told us he no longer works with any new customers who use Network Solutions or Web.com. When I asked him why, he said he's got issues with their billing practices and unfair treatment of their customers. We are a text book example of this.