Yearly Recuring Billing Notice - Which Site?

[waynej]

I got my yearly recurring billing notice on January 22, due date of January 27. More notice would be appreciated.

 

Anyway, nothing in that email or the web pages to pay tell me which site it is. How can I find that out?

[Lianna]

PM me with the specifics (the name the billing is being done in-first and last, the payment processor-company). I'll look it up for you.

[waynej]

The answer is that when you are billed, the only way to know which site is involved is by creating a help desk ticket (unless of course it's obvious from your own records). Lianna helped me a great deal, including on my related forum posting about changing credit card info in advance of a yearly (in my case) bill. Thank you.

 

Where I was coming from is that ownership of this domain was transfered. There is no way for customers to do this on their own. That is OK, but it should be made obvious. The only contact info for this domain I could find was in its cpanel. But you also have to worry about the contact which the billing has for the domain, and TCH seems to have yet a third contact for some purpose.

[Lianna]

Wayne,

 

As I suggested to you in one of our emails, look forward to things changing.

 

As it stands right now many of you have purchase hosting through our PREVIOUS credit card processors. There is NO syncronization between the processors' systems and the TCH billing/accounts systems. There is also no syncronization between the cPanel Contact Info (which is only an email address field) and the Billing/Accounts system.

 

In the circumstance where ownership of a site/hosting/domain must change, please think of it like this...

 

No differently than if you were going to change ownership of a car or other valuable asset, you must notify the parties involved. Simply writing down the new owner's name on a piece of paper and putting it in the glove box will certainly not tell the bank who is responsible for making the payments now.

 

Basically, there are legal ramifications for each party's liabilities. I'm not a lawyer, but think about it from each point:

 

From the current owner: It's your credit card, your name, address and YOU are the only one we have acknowlegement of the TOS from. You should protect yourself in those respects. If the new 'owner' decides to break Tos and and site is suspended or more drastic measures are necessary, YOU are then still responsible.

 

From the future owner: I don't even like to think of the possibilities. If you are pouring your heart into developing a site and hours of effort in maintaining it, then suddenly, the previous 'owner' steps up and says, "you have no proof that's yours, everything is in my name, I'm paying for it, it's mine." Basically, you lose. Everything.

 

From the TCH point of view: we must have some recourse with the proper responsible party and some way of contacting them and billing them and holding them responsible to the TOS and AUP that they must agree to in order to be hosted here. ...among many other things.

 

So, boil it down. The easiest way to transfer ownership of the site/hosting/contents is to submit a help desk ticket explaining the situation and formally stating that you are transferring ownership to this new person and give lots of contact details. Then we stop recurring billing against you, schedule termination of the account. Then, the new owner should submit a ticket to coordinate the purchase and physical transfer of the site.

 

Sounds like a lot, but let's pretend it's the car analogy... you sell the car, create a bill of sale, sign over the title, take the money. New owner must pay sales tax, license and title the car with the state. That's assuming it's a simple one-time cash transaction. So please understand the complexity involved in this situation.

 

Whew...long winded, sorry. But I really want everyone to know that this is a serious situation that should be addressed properly and appropriately.