a pathetic little blog
Dood (more about Sister #3 later).
So Doteasy.com is supposed to be a free web host. I was impressed enough by the rave my friend over at Tackyspoons the dot.com with *glint* gave about it, so I opted to try it out back in early August. Who can refuse FREE?! It’s free web hosting, people! I’m no sucker!
So I signed up one domain as my “originating domain”, then referred myself back for another domain transfer to get the $35.00 waived, truly FREE. Easy enough. But I didn’t get a confirmation from the automated forms used for sign up. No account number, no tracker, no member or user ID. Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I tried emailing them with the forms. Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Then I panicked because I have an extra $70 just laying around to be spent. I contacted my current domain host and they said they hadn’t received any domain transfer inquiries, so as a precaution I had them flag my account not to be released. And wrote again to Doteasy. You guessed what the reply was: Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Fine. I must’ve gotten through to them… but again, no reply to know that I’d gotten through to them.
Two days ago I get a letter from Doteasy saying that since I didn’t finish completing my account they were releasing my record and cancelling me! WTF?! Today I get a bill from my credit card company showing a $35.00 charge for the original domain and since the referring domain was cleared without notification of set-up, they charged me for it! WTF?!
I am disputing the charge with my credit card company and having a fun time sending web-based hate mail to Doteasy through an account that doesn’t exist. Yeah, the active account they say I have paid for actually doesn’t exist, even though they say it does, it doesn’t. That would be why my error message keeps saying NO SUCH ACCOUNT! And I can’t call because only morons have phones, certainly not primo web hosting services, and only 20th Century hold-outs don’t use web-based email or forms.
BEWARE OF DOTEASY AND HEED THE WARNINGS OF ALL THE FORMER AND POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS WHO POST NEGATIVE STORIES ABOUT THEM ON FEEDBACK SITES .
Obviously if this is the worst crime ever to be perpetrated against me, I will count myself lucky. Nonetheless I am really pissy over this. Really pissy. So pissy. Beyond the beyonds.
Love,
Sucker
This page is about Me.
This page is about "frectis".
This is my email address: me@frectis.net. Write to me. So I can feel like one of those popular bloggers.
Myris
September 12th, 2005 at 7:41
Ooohhhh. I’m really glad I didn’t go with them back when we discussed it. I just didn’t have a good feeling. I’ll continue to pay for my hosting service.
Patty
September 13th, 2005 at 11:05
Oh good christ! I’m so sorry. It’s definitely a YMMV thing, I suppose!
You definitely get what you pay for. Or, er…you pay for something you didn’t get, but was supposed to be free? Or, uh…you had money taken from you and didn’t get product in return? Sigh…
david
September 16th, 2008 at 2:32
web hosting is a separate service from domain name registration. doteasy will charge for web hosting service even in circumstances where the customer was stupid and forgot to renew the domain.
david
November 26th, 2008 at 12:17
Frectis,
You said:
>>>So Doteasy.com is supposed to be a free web host.
They provide free hosting only if you buy a domain from them. So their offer is “buy domain, get hosting free”.
What if you already have a domain name registered, or you want to register the domain through GoDaddy, etc? You can do that too. Doteasy will let you open a hosting account with them (they call it a transfer hosting account) and the price to open this type of account is a one-time US $35 membership fee*
*note: they call it a membership fee to legally avoid complications as they do advertise no setup fees but it’s all the same to me.
You readers out there with me so far? GOOD.
>>>So I signed up one domain as my “originating domain”, >>>then referred myself back for another domain transfer to >>>get the $35.00 waived, truly FREE. Easy enough.
See, here is where the original poster went wrong. I guess I should explain that Doteasy has a promotional offer where they are willing to waive the ‘transfer hosting fee’ for ONE account if you can refer 2 other accounts to sign up with Doteasy within 30 days of your account signup date.
The original poster obviously did not carefully / fully read through this offer (see doteasy.com/rebate/ ) because the original poster mistakenly thought that he could open 2 transfer hosting accounts with Doteasy and have them each refer each other and get them both for free, which is NOT CORRECT.
Example 1: you open a transfer hosting account (Account A) with Doteasy. Your friend Bob opens an account (Account B) and refers account A as the referring account. Your friend Stacy opens an account too (Account C) and refers account A as the referring account. You, Bob, and Stacy all have your domains with GoDaddy and just want to use the free hosting with Doteasy. You will get your transfer hosting fee waived due to the 2 correct referrals, but Bob and Stacy will each have to get their own 2 separate referrals if they want to get their transfer hosting fee waived as well. Bob can NOT use your account as one of his two referring accounts as your account was already signed up… and Stacy can not say that she was referred to Doteasy by both you and Bob in order to give both you and Bob 1 referral…
Confused yet? It’s actually pretty simple. In plain English, all Doteasy wants you to do is for EACH account, you need to refer 2 other accounts to them and then they will waive the transfer hosting fee for the ONE account…
>>>I didn’t get a confirmation from the automated forms
>>>used for sign up. No account number, no tracker, no
>>>member or user ID.
When you go through the signup process at Doteasy you get to choose your own member id and password so I have no idea how the original poster could have forgotten that information so quickly?
At the end of the signup process is a final optional form where you can enter the account that referred you to Doteasy to participate…
>>>Then I panicked because I have an extra $70 just laying >>>around to be spent.
Why the hell would you panic? The transfer hosting fee is only charged 30 days AFTER your signup date with Doteasy. So technically speaking you could sign up for a transfer hosting account with them, use it for 29 days, and then cancel on the 29th day to get hosting free for 29 days… You had ample time to contact Doteasy to correct your mistake?
Instead it sounds like you were negligent and allowed the problem to drag on for over a MONTH and so the default action was for Doteasy to charge you for the two US$35 transfer hosting fees since you failed to correctly refer 4 other accounts to Doteasy in order to get the 2 original accounts free…
frectis
November 27th, 2008 at 1:36
Hey David, just trolling the internet looking for a place to drop a brick? This is a three year old entry. I’m over it.
Former Doteasy Employee
August 19th, 2011 at 7:30
Doteasy engages in illegal billing and business practices. They will charge your cancelled account without consent. They do not follow ICANN policies be warned. I worked there, and I was DISGUSTED at how I had to lie to customers and basically make excuses on why we cannot transfer their domain name.
If a customer changes their contact information on the domain, they cannot transfer the domain away from Doteasy until after 60 days. So basically, you are FORCED to renew with Doteasy. If you want to transfer your domain name before expiry, they will keep the ball rolling until it expires, and then tell you it has expired, so you cant transfer it and you are required to renew, which is a 60 day lock.
If you attempt to dispute charges via your bank. They WILL charge you a hosting chargeback fee.
Be warned and stay the hell away from Doteasy / In2Net / Dollarhost (they are all the same company).
wotiluv
April 14th, 2012 at 8:25
Everything that Former DOTEASY Employee said is true, in fact this has been my experience. BE WEARY of this company. They are trying to charge me a 20 USD fee for transferring my domain name with another company. They want me to pay 25 USD to renew with them. It has been a nightmere dealing with them! They want me to provide a copy of my credit card including my signature- in short- they are making it so difficult for me transfer my domain name they are trying to hijack my domain name. Whenever my credit card sees a charge from them they automatically reject it and immediately contact me to ask if the charge is ligitimte. DOTEASY claims they do this because they are an international company though I’ve never experienced as such with other international companies. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH DOTEASY SCAM SCAM SCAM