This is my first rant and Canaca deserves to be #1!
I am a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due. So, if I like or have had a great experience with a company or service I will blab about it. Same goes for if I feel it was a horrible experience! I’ll blab!
I signed up with Canaca back in 2006 when I was in my last year of school and putting up my first website. It was recommended and cheap, totally ideal for someone starting out online. I was please with them and didn’t have any issues where I needed to get in touch with them. Soon, I started getting clients and I highly recommended Canaca, since I thought I could vouch for them. I had one client who asked me to purchase a package through Canaca, on their behalf. A year later, the domain expired and they never bothered to renew.
Fast forwarding to Jan 2008. I get a random email from them saying my web hosting was renewed, for(you guessed it!) this site whose domain expired 1 year ago! I call them up, a bit outraged they are charging for something that has an expired domain name! To actually talk to someone, I had to choose sales (they have a ‘call-back’ customer service). The sales person was able to access accounting, sales as well as technical details (I have a feeling its one person for all those different categories). I told her my issue, she told me if I wanted it canceled, I had to inform them before the date of renewal. Just a month ago I renewed my personal site for 2 years with these hacks. Now I had to wait for 2 years to get away from them.
What struck me as really weird was, when my domain was expiring I got at least 10 different emails in a span of one month, telling me to renew it. For the web hosting, I got no such warning, just BAM! an invoice, with the amount they take from your credit card and a link. Their excuse fro not sending reminder emails are, ‘we don’t want to bother the customer so we do it for them’.
The person I spoke with made me fill out a form through their site, thats the ONLY way they would address the issue. So I did, I got pretty much the same response…
====== Please reply above this line ======
AUTOMATIC RENEWAL
Dear Clarice,
I do apologize if this has caused any inconvenience, but I hope you understand that automation of renewal is the only way to keep customers’ sites online on renewal date, and avoid bothering them to confirm renews.
Invoice xxxxxx is for the automatic renewal of “mysite.com”, via the on-file Visa card (starting in xxxxx).
Since our billing system is automatic “Cancellations must be done on or before the renewal date, by e-mail and sent to accounting@canaca.com or billing@canaca.com” (our contract http://canaca.com/contract.html).
If you have requested that, please provide us with the related ticket number and we will investigate the issue.
Best Regards,
Canaca-Com Inc.
Billing Department.
I responded to their email above- no response. I sent the emails through their online forms, no response. I asked to speak with a manager or something- no response. I’ve been sending them the same email for about 2 months or so, no response. So they rip people off and can’t face the music, so to speak.
Soon after this I googled these people and theres a ton, i mean a TON of people out there who have had a lot of issues with these guys. I’m surprised the are still allowed to rip people off so badly with their automatic renewals and cutting service off for no reason (read their contract, its ridiculous, you’d never want to go with them!)
I was a loyal customer, who enthusiastically recommended them, but now, I’m ready to spread the word of what type of business they really are. Someone needs to get this hacks out of business!