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Category: IONOS

IONOS Poor Customer Service

IONOS WEB BUILDER BANNER

IONOS Poor Customer Service

I received my bulk invoice in April and I queried some contracts that had PHP support craftily added. According to IONOS, they sent me an email stating they would be charging.

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I suffer from Cerebellar Atrophy and Cognitive impairment which I have documented on my website www.disabledentrepreneur.uk this causes me to not read properly and jumble my words up or completely miss them out of sentences. This said I overlooked this and in retrospect, IONOS should have followed up with a reminder but as I learned to my horror failed to do.

I have since spent 5.98 hours of my time where I could have been working but had to sort the problem out. After making multiple calls my bulk invoice did not change and they attempted to take the full amount out each time.

I had to move my money out of my accounts as I foresaw that the invoice would not have changed and I was right.

It has gotten to the stage where one agent in cancelations is actually refusing to take my calls and does not ring me back. In fact, I spoke to numerous agents and all of them said they would keep me updated and none of them did.

The last person I spoke to said I should send an email to complaints, which I will do with a pending invoice from me because the issue still has not been resolved 3 weeks since I first queried it.

Telephone Calls

Total £359 minutes = 5.98 hours =£598 in lost time and business.

Bad Reviews

What IONOS fails to understand is that they should not press my buttons, unlike anyone else that will go on TrustPilot to make a review I will go one better and search engine optimize my article and share it on LinkedIn where I can connect, with CEOs, Millionaires, Billionaires, and Royalty.

Bad reviews can damage a company’s reputation, the consumer will think twice before doing business. Most people tend to read bad reviews first before making a decision to purchase a product or service.

I imagine the dent in their credibility and loss of business, this company will incur if I was to share this post. I am a digital marketer and website designer by trade I have over 11. K connections on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/irenata-b-48025811 and will tag Achim Weiss who is the 2nd connection away from me, with only 2,629 followers meaning he would see my article.

I will translate it into German if I have to…

Let’s Do The Maths

They have refunded me £8.44 in total even though the PHP support was for 7 contracts at £7.03 each.

BANK-REDACTED-COPY

They have since sent credit notes for£6.19, not £7.03. (£7.03 x 7 = £49.21)

(£266.65 -£49.21 = £217.44)

So why is my bill still saying I owe £239.68

The contracts were:

1) 91914061 £1.20 Unknown WP Business
2) 90590784 £1.20 L*****C*********W****.co.uk
3) 85681128 £7.03 U*T**S****.co.uk
4) 85690451 £7.03 R*****E***********.com
5) 80534683 £7.03 D*******E************.uk
6) 85278136 £7.03 R******.pl
7) 86072811 £7.03 U*B*******B******.co.uk
8) 76728095 £7.03 C******P******S*********.co.uk
9) 78411787 £7.03 P**T*******W****.co.uk
10) 95971693 £00.00 Marketing Radar

But I also disputed a couple of other contracts which I guess were the £8.44 refund, not entirely sure.

So let’s do the maths my bill came to £266.65 originally they refund me £8.44 which would have dropped the bill to £258.21 yet my new updated bill says I owe £239.00 instead of £217.44

Seeing as they refunded me £8.44 my initial bill would have dropped to £258.21 and if they owed me £49.21 and refunded me £8.44 that would leave a total of £40.77 ( £40.77 – £258.21 = £217.44), not £239.68

This is causing me emotional distress.

I am so sick of this company seeing as I have been actively promoting them lately and they do this to me. What about compensation for my time spent on the phone?

I run multiple businesses and my time is valuable so we will see what they offer me as a gesture of goodwill before I invoice them for my time, I am not calling their bluff, I will be a tornado rather than a storm.

They do not want to risk me sharing this on social media.

Furthermore, I am not the only one this has happened to as you can see.

According to IONOS:

If we enable automatic updates for websites for PHP, it could potentially result in broken customer websites, leading to chaos in our support channels and an increase in complaints. Therefore, we need to prioritize the option that causes the least amount of disruption“.

However, the contradiction in the above statement is, if you are paying for managed WordPress it is their responsibility to fix issues regardless without forcing the customer to pay extra.

If you are paying for managed then manage the site, it is as simple as that…

Reference: https://disabledentrepreneur.uk/emotional-distress-compensation/

I have actively been promoting them

https://ukdomainbrokers.ukwebsitedesigners.co.uk/the-complete-guide-to-domain-names/

https://cymrumarketing.com/digital-marketing-struggles-experiences/

UK Website Designers Logo

UK Website Designers are IONOS partners but I feel I should not promote them any longer unless they give me a very good reason to do so.

Conclusion

I have written about IONOS before but I have not actively gone out of my way to share my anger on social media.

I will most certainly be sharing my thoughts with them at complaints@ionos.co.uk just thought to add this in if any of my readers have had similar problems.

My pricing as published on my website is as follows in my terms and conditions

DISRUPTION OF SERVICE PRICING

Where I was unable to work for a total of 5.98 hours which is equivalent to £598 that I lost. This meant I could not provide my services, do outbound marketing, social media campaigns or write content. I was out of pocket because I had to pay someone to do the work, therefore it impacted my business.

My Services

Cymru Marketing Business Journal Services

I therefore will pay what is outstanding and if I do not get a refund on Tuesday I will be sending an IONOS an invoice for my wasted time having to sort this mess out. I won’t be phoning them because half the time the agent’s hands are tied and you have to wait for someone to update you which is never. Unless IONOS give me a good reason to continue to promote them and run the risk of losing business from me, I will have to look for pastures greener. This behavior is a total disgrace that I have tried to sort this out for the last 3 weeks and haven’t been able to do so. Let’s see what the power of social media does if I do not get my refund!

Update 09/05/23

I phoned back yet again today and their attitude was so laid back and blasé. I was told by the first agent I would have to wait a further 14 days to get my refund. It is like getting blood out of a stone for them to pay you. I was then put through to someone in billing and I ended up with an email that read:

It is like talking to a brick wall. I have clearly done the maths and have shown in this article they owe £22.24 If I do not get this money into my bank account today by 17.00 hrs. I will be invoicing them a total of £620.24 and they will have to pay that within 7 days otherwise, I will take legal action. No customer should go through the 💩 I have gone through. Furthermore, if they happen to return the £22.24 I will also expect a gesture of goodwill from them otherwise they are in imminent danger of losing my business and will have bad publicity which I will share on every social media platform I am connected to.

How can I put my good name to this company and continue promoting them with the 💩 show of the service that they provide?

This link is being sent to the person that I spoke to today that also emailed me.

“They have cost me time and time is money”.

I am not giving them more time to sort this out and they cannot rip customers off and get away with it.

“Their credit notes mean nothing they do not propagate into credits or refunds”.

Update 10/05/23 Gesture Of Goodwill

I received an unscheduled phone call today from the escalation team. The person I spoke to seemed less than amused by how I have been treated and according to him, he has set up a meeting on how to train staff.

You need to picture the scenario I am in a meeting myself but I have to take the call. His intro should have been Is it alright to talk?

Anyway, he carried on saying he was sorry and on behalf of IONOS he is giving me a gesture of goodwill payment of £75.00 I lost 6 hours of business but who’s arguing?

Below is the screenshot of the Goodwill Gesture.

I am not taking this post down as it will serve as a reminder for anyone else that has issues with IONOS and how to deal with them.

Update 23/05/23

I am having the same problem as last month and where I received four credit notes for my latest bill my actual bill is not adjusted. So when I phoned today and I was told that the agent does not have any control of the billing system. Well, their billing system clearly is not working. I have demanded to speak with the billing department and was told that the particular agent I want to speak with has not responded. I have demanded to get a callback tomorrow morning otherwise I will be invoicing them for my time. Month after month the saga continues and I am sick to my back teeth, with the bills not being adjusted.

They are in imminent danger of losing business with me and I have a lot of contracts.

I will publish screenshots of any calls I make between now and the 30th of May 2023 and yet again I have had to move my money out of my bank account because only over my dead body are they going to collect the full amount of the invoice when they have sent me credit notes that are not worth the digital space they are using.

#ionos #ionoscustomercare #samtill #giovanni #achimweiss#badreview #badreputation #1starreviews #poorcustomerservice #phpsupport

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IONOS WordPress PHP add-on.

IONOS WordPress PHP add-on.

I start off today receiving my monthly bulk invoice from IONOS and to my shock and horror I see 7 contracts with an add-on of £7.03 plus vat each for a PHPExtended Support add-on.

You can just imagine the anger I was feeling seeing as non of their packages if you were to buy them state there will be an add-on charge and that all the packages in fact have PHP support included (according to the screenshots).

This is against trading standards and here are the Managed Packages.

Manage WordPress

Managed WordPress Hosting UK | From £1/month | IONOS

This Screenshot below is what I believe is a misinterpretation of wording.

Wording Misinterpretation.

Enlarged Screenshot Of Above.

This last screenshot states they do not charge more than what is stated in their packages which is a contradiction in terms, yet they sneakily added the add-on. Some of my sites have been going for a few years and some do not even have WordPress 7.02 never mind the latest version WordPress 8.0. I aim to show IONOS this article and I will screenshot proof of both the managed and unmanaged options, just in case they edit their site.

Unmanaged WordPress Packages

Most of my sites are managed but for the unmanaged here are the screenshots:

WordPress Hosting | Domain Included First Year | IONOS UK

Do take note that if they change their website after I publish this article you will know if any links are broken and you can compare both my screenshots to their published site.

Phoning Customer Support

As you can imagine I sent two emails and had autoresponders, but because I suffer from cognitive impairment I sometimes miss blocks and sentences out reading or writing and did not read that their emails are no longer monitored.

I should have just made this post and started a chat, but will need to phone them again before the 30th of this month as they have deferred payment until I back up my sites.

I did not read the email properly as I also had another email for IONOS on the 2nd March 2023 notifying me of changes, again I skimmed through the email without reading it word for word.

However, after a close inspection today, the telephone support agent told me to re-read the email again. Here is the screenshot. Nowhere in the email does it say about the costs involved in the ‘PHP Extended Support’. They could just as easily charge £100 per contract because nowhere does it state actual pricing.

Email Support (No Longer Available)

Coginitive Impairment Issues

In my defense, I stated I have cognitive impairment issues, and coincidently a website that is hosted by IONOS I actively talk about my health and may in some cases not read emails properly.

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DISABILITY UK

PHP Extended Support

I was told if I disabled PHP Extended Support all my websites would crash. Considering I have Managed WordPress on all of them if that was the case I could take legal action. I aim to back up all the sites before this takes place and will not be happy if God forbid my sites go AWOL.

According to the IONOS website, I should not be worried about disabling the add-on, yet the customer support agent stated otherwise.

PHP Extended Support – IONOS Help

PHP SUPPORT

Updating PHP

I thought a managed site meant that the hosting provider updates your PHP.

Display or Change PHP Versions – IONOS Help

Update your PHP version and cancel PHP Extended Support – IONOS

My Disputed Contracts

  1. 85681128 £7.03 u*t**s***e.co.uk PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  2. 85690451 £7.03 r****ae*********r.com PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  3. 80534683 £7.03 d*******e**********r.uk PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  4. 85278136 £7.03 r*****a.pl PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  5. 86072811 £7.03 u*b*******b*****g.co.uk PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  6. 76728095 £7.03 c******p******s********s.co.uk PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT
  7. 78411787 £7.03 p**t******w****.co.uk PHP EXTENDED SUPPORT

Conclusion

What gets me every time is the number of agents that say “You have so many contracts“. The impression I get is they are being ungrateful and complain that I give them so much business.

Seeing as they do not have email support any longer I will start a chat next week and will forward them this article to read. No way I am going to have to repeat myself again, although I still have a couple of direct emails to people within IONOS which I may try. They certainly do want to push my buttons.

I have wanted a whole day sorting this out rather than actually doing some work. My tolerance levels are at a high because I really want to scream.

I am going to double-check that all my sites are managed and all hell will break loose if they aren’t. Why is it that some of my websites are on WordPress PHP 5 version, that is the question, yet they want to charge me for PHP Exented support for PHP 7?

I will update this article once I back up all my sites, which is a job I could have done without.

#ionos #ionoshosting #ionoswordpress #ionoswebsitedesign #ionosdomains #ionosssl #ionossql #ionoscloud #ionosecommerce #ionoswebbuilder

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