Nuclearfallout Enterprises Inc

This customer chose a subscription with 6-month prepaid periods in return for a substantial discountThe customer opened this subscription in and has been making payments since then, automatically, on an established schedule. He has made multiple adjustments to the package over this
time, choosing new payment durations and re-affirming the subscription and our terms, which include that we do not offer refunds except within hours of an automatic payment.On April 11, 2014, the customer's subscription attempted to pay us for the next 6-month termThe payment was rejected by the customer's bank, and he was sent an email telling him that another payment would be attempted and that he may wish to cancel and resubscribeHe declined to take action or to contact us.On April 12, 2014, another payment attempt was madeThis one succeededThe customer was sent an email notifying him of the success, and he again took no action.On May 27, 2014, the customer contacted us to request a refund for the payment that was made in AprilSince he did not qualify for a refund, an employee offered a prorated credit for his remaining timeHe expressed dissatisfaction and was escalated to the company president, who reviewed the case and communicated that there was no reasonable justification for an exception to the refund policyIt was well over a month into the 6-month term, the customer was very well-aware of the terms of the subscription and had intentionally prepaid in return for a guarantee of a 6-month rental, and he had been notified multiple times about the latest payment while it was still refundable

The customer's characterization of us and his interactions with us is inaccurateWe stand behind our previous response and we do not mind providing the full support request thread in our system that shows what he and NFO staff said to each other and when it was said.Fundamentally this customer was asking for a special favor and
exceptional treatment that fell outside of our published policiesWe
met him halfway, and he rejected that offer; without giving us time to respond again, he then fraudulently claimed to our payment processor (***) that the payment was not authorized by him, moving the matter into their hands instead.The customer's claim with *** asserts that this payment was
unauthorized and therefore illegalTo be clear, that is not the case; the
payment was fully authorized and completely legalClaiming otherwise is fraud on the customer's behalfPointing out that it is fraud is not a threat, but a statement of factWe take fraud seriously and this
will prevent us from doing business with this individual in the
futureIt is very likely that *** will give Mr*** his $back, since *** often chooses to do this when there's any chance that a payment was not authorizedAs we said, if they do, he will have the money that he has demandedIf not, we will follow through on our contractual commitment and re-enable the server for its paid timeWhile *** decides the matter, they do not allow us to refund the payment, so if the customer wishes us to grant a refund in response to this complaint, we can't

> On their homepage as stated "guaranteed highest performance" and "high-quality, NFO-owned hardware"Which was the selling point for me to rent the game serverThe "expensive dedicated server" that your talking about is a E3-v5, which was brought up in one of my tickets with them, which normally retail as of this month for $Cheaper then the i6700KWhich is far from a expensive dedicated server, this processor is designed more for a budget server for today's standardsOnce we moved to a server with this processor, the performance issues went away...The customer told us that he or she moved to a server using an E3-vprocessorRegardless of whether an ior Eprocessor was involved at the alternate host, a dedicated machine is a substantially different (both in specifications and in cost) service than a game server in a shared systemOur performance guarantee would only provide a credit if the other service were equivalent to what we offer at another GSP and we were to determine that our system was the cause.We wouldn't mind troubleshooting further, thoughTroubleshooting could include moving to a different type of hardware or a different locationThe customer has been unwilling to start the troubleshooting process so far.It should be noted that performance concerns were not brought to us before the cancellation and assertion that an alternate host had been foundWe understand that there isn't an incentive to fix any problems following the adoption of another host.> The refund policy is very anti-consumer. Our refund policy is not unreasonable, and it allows us to reach the price points that we offerIt was made clear up front in both the TOS and order response email, and there is no ambiguity to itWe are not a new company and this is not a new policy.It is not common in the market to find a GSP that offers a refund, prorated or not, for a service a week into a monthlong subscription.> Most completing GSP companies provide a refund if their client runs into these sort of issues as I did.That is not the case.> In rare cases *** sides the buyer for digital services like game servers, but only for smaller companiesMedium to large companies, *** would side the seller almost regardless the case for digital services. *** almost always sides with the buyer in cases that we see (more than percent of the time)This may be because we are a small company, as the customer says hereWe can't tellBecause of the established record, it was unusual that *** did not give the customer the funds back in this case, and speaks to the strength of our statements to them.> I've decided to open a case with the Revdex.com, to help me the consumer for at least a simple refund. Our decision stands. If the customer wishes to discuss the service further, this can be done in one of the open support requests in our system.> But so far it appears this company is willing to spend a large amount of time defending the refusal for a small refund.
Saying that we are unreasonable because we take matters seriously and put in the time to fully consider them is not a good argument to makeTo make an exception to policy and refund these two payments would not be fair to other customers who have been unable to receive a refundIt would also set a public precedent of having lenient refund standards, and suggest that we would rather pay someone off than investigate their problem in depth

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.From day the company has been unwilling to resolve the issueNFO claims they have made multiple attempts at resolving the issue, any of which would/did have NFO keeping my moneyThe CEO made it very clear he would fight this no matter what direction I took itI have been talked to in a sarcastic, condescending, threatening manner almost this whole experienceThey have now gone as far as threatening me with claims of "Fraud" for trying to fight the charge I viewed as wrongThe CEO's handling of this issue has left me truly shaking my head.The server I had rented has not been used in months, including the time it was 'renewed"They can see that informationThey are trying to charge me for something I wasn't using and clearly had no intent to continue usingI was days past getting back to NFO in regards to the charge because I was in the Upper Peninsula attending a funeralI thought a simple explanation to the company, along with the assurance that I would come back one day, would allow us to have a mutual "break." Instead, now we're here.I've never had to complain to Revdex.com beforeI've never had to fight a transaction with *** beforeI wouldn't take such drastic steps to settle an issue if I didn't truly feel as though I was being wronged
Regards,
*** ***

Revdex.com: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ***, and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear belowIn response to "Multiple staff members examined the server and determined that the problems were caused by very high CPU usage due to unusual customizations made to the server by the customerThey recommended adjustments that would helpThe customer stated that performance was lower than a very high end, expensive dedicated server from a competitor (which makes sense, as that is a very different services) and refused to make the basic adjustments."
On their homepage as stated "guaranteed highest performance" and "high-quality, NFO-owned hardware"Which was the selling point for me to rent the game serverThe "expensive dedicated server" that your talking about is a E3-v5, which was brought up in one of my tickets with them, which normally retail as of this month for $Cheaper then the i6700KWhich is far from a expensive dedicated server, this processor is designed more for a budget server for today's standardsOnce we moved to a server with this processor, the performance issues went awayThe small adjustments were a massive deal breaker, by lowing the view distance of all players from to or If I had a server with more then people, then it would make since to reduce the view distance, but that was not the caseIn response to "The customer repeated the demand for a refund, but per our TOS, the service did not qualify for a refundThe TOS specifies that a refund is only granted for certain automatic payments made within hours(The customer manually agreed to the TOS during the order process, and this document is relatively easy to read and understand.)"
The refund policy is very anti-consumerIncluding the "performance guarantee" clause, which only refund you in credits if the performance is not good, which means your stuck with the service with bad performanceMost completing GSP companies provide a refund if their client runs into these sort of issues as I didIn response for "In this same support request, the customer said that he or she opened a dispute with ***I looked into this and see that he or she did, in fact, open such a dispute on December -- saying that the merchandise was not as described -- and then escalated it to a claim the next dayA staffmember responded to *** with the facts of the case, and *** decided it in our favor on December It appears that the customer opened this Revdex.com complaint after that."
In rare cases *** sides the buyer for digital services like game servers, but only for smaller companiesMedium to large companies, *** would side the seller almost regardless the case for digital services*** didn't ask me for any more details other then the initial description that I had placed downI've decided to open a case with the Revdex.com, to help me the consumer for at least a simple refundBut so far it appears this company is willing to spend a large amount of time defending the refusal for a small refundSo far I'm disappointed by the actions of nfoserversRegards, *** ***

This customer has been renting an online service -- an online voice server -- from us since January, with his first payment made on January Without prompting from us, he manually chose a 3-month commitment for his payment term in exchange for a substantial discountAt the time that he ordered,
the customer agreed to our Terms Of Service (TOS), which stipulates that we do not offer refunds except within hours of an automatic paymentThe customer cancelled his subscription in March and resubscribed in April, then made second and third payments on April and July The cancellation and multiple automatic payments tell us that he was familiar with the systems and processes that had previously been described to him.On July 22, the customer contacted our customer service team to request, then demand, a refund for his automatic payment made on July Within minutes, he was reminded of how to cancel and of the refund policyAfter he continued to press and threaten the staff, he was offered the special courtesy of an internal credit that he could use for future services, which he refusedStill on July 22, he was escalated to the CEO, who reiterated the policy and asked if there were extenuating circumstances that would justify an exception to itHe replied that he was out of town when the transaction hit, in one messageThen, two days later, before receiving another response from the CEO, the customer abruptly filed an "unauthorized" claim with ***, committing fraud by telling them that the payment he made on July was not authorized by himThis is apparently when he also opened the Revdex.com complaint.After seeing the fraudulent claim, we shut down the service and permanently blocked the customer from using our servicesWe now await ***'s decision of whether to override our policy and pull back the funds; if *** decides in our favor, we will re-enable the service for its remaining paid time, and if *** decides in his favor, he will have his money.In his last response, the CEO explained the short two-day delay by stating that the special policy exception request was a concern of lower priority than many other matters that week, and that is trueThe CEO does much more than just direct customer support and many other, time-sensitive, matters such as handling DDoS attacks, sudden game updates, and emergency hardware shipments needed to be handled first.The bottom line is that the customer clearly did not qualify for a refund of his service under our a policy that the customer agreed toDespite this, we were working with the customer to try to satisfy himWe had already offered him a courtesy credit and we were further considering a refund when he ended the process by committing fraudThe matter is now out of our hands and in the hands of a third party, ***, who will decide if his fraudulent claim with them is valid, based on his statement and our statement

> On their homepage as stated "guaranteed highest performance" and "high-quality, NFO-owned hardware"Which was the selling point for me to rent the game serverThe "expensive dedicated server" that your talking about is a E3-v5, which was brought up in one of my tickets with them, which normally retail as of this month for $Cheaper then the i6700KWhich is far from a expensive dedicated server, this processor is designed more for a budget server for today's standardsOnce we moved to a server with this processor, the performance issues went away...The customer told us that he or she moved to a server using an E3-vprocessorRegardless of whether an ior Eprocessor was involved at the alternate host, a dedicated machine is a substantially different (both in specifications and in cost) service than a game server in a shared systemOur performance guarantee would only provide a credit if the other service were equivalent to what we offer at another GSP and we were to determine that our system was the cause.We wouldn't mind troubleshooting further, thoughTroubleshooting could include moving to a different type of hardware or a different locationThe customer has been unwilling to start the troubleshooting process so far.It should be noted that performance concerns were not brought to us before the cancellation and assertion that an alternate host had been foundWe understand that there isn't an incentive to fix any problems following the adoption of another host.> The refund policy is very anti-consumer. Our refund policy is not unreasonable, and it allows us to reach the price points that we offerIt was made clear up front in both the TOS and order response email, and there is no ambiguity to itWe are not a new company and this is not a new policy.It is not common in the market to find a GSP that offers a refund, prorated or not, for a service a week into a monthlong subscription.> Most completing GSP companies provide a refund if their client runs into these sort of issues as I did.That is not the case.> In rare cases *** sides the buyer for digital services like game servers, but only for smaller companiesMedium to large companies, *** would side the seller almost regardless the case for digital services. *** almost always sides with the buyer in cases that we see (more than percent of the time)This may be because we are a small company, as the customer says hereWe can't tellBecause of the established record, it was unusual that *** did not give the customer the funds back in this case, and speaks to the strength of our statements to them.> I've decided to open a case with the Revdex.com, to help me the consumer for at least a simple refund. Our decision stands. If the customer wishes to discuss the service further, this can be done in one of the open support requests in our system.> But so far it appears this company is willing to spend a large amount of time defending the refusal for a small refund. Saying that we are unreasonable because we take matters seriously and put in the time to fully consider them is not a good argument to make.To make an exception to policy and refund these two payments would not be fair to other customers who have been unable to receive a refundIt would also set a public precedent of having lenient refund standards, and suggest that we would rather pay someone off than investigate their problem in depth

Revdex.com: I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.In response to "Multiple staff members examined the server and determined that the problems were caused by very high CPU usage due to unusual customizations made to the server by the customer. They recommended adjustments that would help. The customer stated that performance was lower than a very high end, expensive dedicated server from a competitor (which makes sense, as that is a very different services) and refused to make the basic adjustments."On their homepage as stated "guaranteed highest performance" and "high-quality, NFO-owned hardware". Which was the selling point for me to rent the game server. The "expensive dedicated server" that your talking about is a E3-1230 v5, which was brought up in one of my tickets with them, which normally retail as of this month for $259.99. Cheaper then the i7 6700K. Which is far from a expensive dedicated server, this processor is designed more for a budget server for today's standards. Once we moved to a server with this processor, the performance issues went away. The small adjustments were a massive deal breaker, by lowing the view distance of all players from 15 to 6 or 8. If I had a server with more then 5 people, then it would make since to reduce the view distance, but that was not the case.In response to "The customer repeated the demand for a refund, but per our TOS, the service did not qualify for a refund. The TOS specifies that a refund is only granted for certain automatic payments made within 24 hours. (The customer manually agreed to the TOS during the order process, and this document is relatively easy to read and understand.)"The refund policy is very anti-consumer. Including the "performance guarantee" clause, which only refund you in credits if the performance is not good, which means your stuck with the service with bad performance. Most completing GSP companies provide a refund if their client runs into these sort of issues as I did.In response for "In this same support request, the customer said that he or she opened a dispute with [redacted]. I looked into this and see that he or she did, in fact, open such a dispute on December 24 -- saying that the merchandise was not as described -- and then escalated it to a claim the next day. A staffmember responded to [redacted] with the facts of the case, and [redacted] decided it in our favor on December 29. It appears that the customer opened this Revdex.com complaint after that."In rare cases [redacted] sides the buyer for digital services like game servers, but only for smaller companies. Medium to large companies, [redacted] would side the seller almost regardless the case for digital services. [redacted] didn't ask me for any more details other then the initial description that I had placed down. I've decided to open a case with the Revdex.com, to help me the consumer for at least a simple refund. But so far it appears this company is willing to spend a large amount of time defending the refusal for a small refund. So far I'm disappointed by the actions of nfoservers.Regards, [redacted]

The services that we provide have specifications that are described on the order page and we honor those specifications. This customer ordered a Minecraft server with a specific amount of memory and supported number of players, and we provided it.We allow full access for customers to modify their...

servers to meet their own needs. In the case of this game, customers can essentially change anything that they want about the game, and in doing so, they can radically changing its properties, including its CPU performance. We can't provide deep help with such modifications because there is such a wide variety of them and some are very poorly written. But, for general inquiries about our systems, we provide immediate, thorough support here when a customer contacts us. Looking at our support system, I see that the customer contacted us on these occasions:- On December 19, 2016, to ask about FTP timeouts during high-speed transfers (>400 Mbps) to the server. A staffmember responded within minutes and the concern was immediately escalated to the CEO level, with a final resolution within 15 minutes. Another staff member followed up two days later to confirm that the matter was resolved.- On December 21, 2016, to request that the automatic daily restarts be disabled (we restart game servers every day by default for performance reasons). Staffmembers responded within minutes and disabled restarts for the customer. Another staff member followed up two days later to confirm that the matter was resolved.- On December 24, to request a refund. The customer started the request with this:"I'm running a modded Minecraft server, but the performance of the server can't keep up, mostly due to Minecraft being single threaded. This current setup does not suit my needs, and I apologized, but is it possible to get a refund at this point?"Multiple staff members examined the server and determined that the problems were caused by very high CPU usage due to unusual customizations made to the server by the customer. They recommended adjustments that would help. The customer stated that performance was lower than a very high end, expensive dedicated server from a competitor (which makes sense, as that is a very different services) and refused to make the basic adjustments.The customer repeated the demand for a refund, but per our TOS, the service did not qualify for a refund. The TOS specifies that a refund is only granted for certain automatic payments made within 24 hours. (The customer manually agreed to the TOS during the order process, and this document is relatively easy to read and understand.)In this same support request, the customer said that he or she opened a dispute with [redacted]. I looked into this and see that he or she did, in fact, open such a dispute on December 24 -- saying that the merchandise was not as described -- and then escalated it to a claim the next day. A staffmember responded to [redacted] with the facts of the case, and [redacted] decided it in our favor on December 29. It appears that the customer opened this Revdex.com complaint after that.We are happy to provide the remainder of the month of service to this customer, and to work with this customer to fix their customizations -- continuing to offer the fast, high-quality support that we are known for. But, a refund will not be granted here.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I had (2) separate subscriptions: a monthly and a 6-month sub.The 6-month subscription was setup and authorized from "Coffer/donation" funds and backed with a previous credit card that was on file.The monthly subscription was setup with a NEW credit and authorized for that.The 6 month recurring payment was NOT AUTHORIZED for the credit card on file.
I notified the company as soon as I saw the charge on my bank statement (~30 days after the charge was made). The company's policies do not provide adequate time to see and respond to charges. I typically receive a monthly email about the monthly subscription, I assumed the emails I received were for the authorized subscription.The company has also stated in several emails that if I contest the charges on my credit card bill they will ban me not only as a customer but as a user of any of their other customer's services. This is extremely draconian and borders on blackmail/extortion.
At this point the company has already provided a "store credit", which I
am unable to make any use of due to that fact that I no longer require
the services.  Any other company would provide a pro-rated refund for
the unused time. I am still asking that the company provide a pro-rated refund for unused service.Regards, [redacted]

The game in question released a buggy update that recharacterized some of the player slots as spectator slots unless a workaround was applied. This was a known bug that we notified all our customers of, with a fix known to be coming with the next version. All servers of this type (Battlefield 4)...

were affected, at all hosts.
An easy workaround was available to make the slots operate properly again, and we communicated this to the customer. It did work, and we verified that it worked. Other customers also found the workaround and verified it, detailing their experiences in a public thread at http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=[redacted] (that we linked for this customer to ensure that he saw it).
This is not a question of ethics. This was a simple technical problem with the game, and one which had a defined and simple solution that we communicated. The customer did not lose value because of this, and we held up our commitment of providing all services that were ordered. A refund of unrelated, non-refundable funds is not warranted.
The buggy release was made on February 7. The game developer fixed the bug with an updated release on February 13, and the workaround is no longer required now.

The services that we provide have specifications that are described on the order page and we honor those specifications. This customer ordered a Minecraft server with a specific amount of memory and supported number of players, and we provided it.We allow full access for customers to modify...

their servers to meet their own needs. In the case of this game, customers can essentially change anything that they want about the game, and in doing so, they can radically changing its properties, including its CPU performance. We can't provide deep help with such modifications because there is such a wide variety of them and some are very poorly written. But, for general inquiries about our systems, we provide immediate, thorough support here when a customer contacts us. Looking at our support system, I see that the customer contacted us on these occasions:- On December 19, 2016, to ask about FTP timeouts during high-speed transfers (>400 Mbps) to the server. A staffmember responded within minutes and the concern was immediately escalated to the CEO level, with a final resolution within 15 minutes. Another staff member followed up two days later to confirm that the matter was resolved.- On December 21, 2016, to request that the automatic daily restarts be disabled (we restart game servers every day by default for performance reasons). Staffmembers responded within minutes and disabled restarts for the customer. Another staff member followed up two days later to confirm that the matter was resolved.- On December 24, to request a refund. The customer started the request with this:"I'm running a modded Minecraft server, but the performance of the server can't keep up, mostly due to Minecraft being single threaded. This current setup does not suit my needs, and I apologized, but is it possible to get a refund at this point?"Multiple staff members examined the server and determined that the problems were caused by very high CPU usage due to unusual customizations made to the server by the customer. They recommended adjustments that would help. The customer stated that performance was lower than a very high end, expensive dedicated server from a competitor (which makes sense, as that is a very different services) and refused to make the basic adjustments.The customer repeated the demand for a refund, but per our TOS, the service did not qualify for a refund. The TOS specifies that a refund is only granted for certain automatic payments made within 24 hours. (The customer manually agreed to the TOS during the order process, and this document is relatively easy to read and understand.)In this same support request, the customer said that he or she opened a dispute with [redacted]. I looked into this and see that he or she did, in fact, open such a dispute on December 24 -- saying that the merchandise was not as described -- and then escalated it to a claim the next day. A staffmember responded to [redacted] with the facts of the case, and [redacted] decided it in our favor on December 29. It appears that the customer opened this Revdex.com complaint after that.We are happy to provide the remainder of the month of service to this customer, and to work with this customer to fix their customizations -- continuing to offer the fast, high-quality support that we are known for. But, a refund will not be granted here.

A contract is a promise that one is required by law to keep. This customer entered into a contract with us to provide him a service for six months. We have held up our end of that bargain, providing a high-quality service backed up by a 100% SLA and performance guarantee.We understand that the customer wants to take back his promise and cancel the contract early. No extenuating circumstances have been presented along with the request, and the customer is significantly into his contracted service term. He had complete knowledge in advance of the payment and terms of the contract; the payment length was manually chosen by him and confirmed several times during the signup process (in 2012), during the renewal process that has been happening every six months, and in multiple emails sent to him at the time of the most recent renewal. He received a significant discount for agreeing to pay for this length of subscription.In terms of the assertion made by the customerthat the wrong payment source was charged, this is not accurate. The payment source is chosen by the customer during the subscription signup process and the system never uses a different one. Employees do not have any mechanism for changing the source used; only the customer can do this, either by updating the source directly (by modifying it to use a different credit card number, for instance) or by creating a new source and updating the subscription to use the new source.Thirty days is as long as most subscriptions last in our system, and a significant portion of even long-term subscriptions. Because it is not feasible for us to give customers the option of waiting a month after a payment to decide if they wish to continue a subscription, we are careful to communicate up-front how the subscriptions work, as well as to make sure that customers know directly by email when the subscription renews (as we did here).Despite our firm and well-communicated policy against refunds in this circumstance, we have, in good faith, provided the customer with a prorated service credit that he can use for future services with us. We have determined that a refund is not justified or reasonable in this case.If a chargeback is submitted through the customer's bank, he will be prevented from doing business with us in the future. This is because future transactions would have an extreme and unavoidable risk to our company.

Review: This company operates a as a game service provider (GSP). They rent servers for popular on line games. I currently rent 3 servers from them each of them being 36 players each. On 2/5/14 they installed an update to the game (Battlefield 4 is the game Revision 24 is the update). Restricted our player levels to 30 even though we are paying for 36. NDO Servers gave us code we were supposed to alter in the server to fix this. The code provided did not fix the issue. Tonight, 2/12/14 the owner of the company gave me yet another code to change which still doesnt fix the issue. They are holding a large amount of money that my team members have donated, $741.01. they refuse to return it and they refuse to give credit for the service we did not receive since 2/5/14Desired Settlement: I would like our entire "bank" refunded ($741.01 plus the refund for the player countr difference) so we can find another GSP that is more ethical in their behavior

Business

Response:

The game in question released a buggy update that recharacterized some of the player slots as spectator slots unless a workaround was applied. This was a known bug that we notified all our customers of, with a fix known to be coming with the next version. All servers of this type (Battlefield 4) were affected, at all hosts.

An easy workaround was available to make the slots operate properly again, and we communicated this to the customer. It did work, and we verified that it worked. Other customers also found the workaround and verified it, detailing their experiences in a public thread at http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=93&t=[redacted] (that we linked for this customer to ensure that he saw it).

This is not a question of ethics. This was a simple technical problem with the game, and one which had a defined and simple solution that we communicated. The customer did not lose value because of this, and we held up our commitment of providing all services that were ordered. A refund of unrelated, non-refundable funds is not warranted.

The buggy release was made on February 7. The game developer fixed the bug with an updated release on February 13, and the workaround is no longer required now.

Review: On July 18, 2014 I was charged $10.10 for a reoccurring payment I had thought was cancelled. I wasn't able to contact NFO servers until Just 21, 2014 due to the fact that I was out of town. Upon reaching out to NFO servers about the charge, they told me I could cancel my service, still be charged the $10.10, but services would still be available for the remaining time. I told them that I had thought the services had already been cancelled and I didn't want to continue using the service. I have not used their services since the last reoccurring payment I thought I had cancelled. After I was denied multiple times, I opened a claim with [redacted] to dispute the charges. Once I disputed the charges NFO contacted me saying I had "decided to commit fraud" by opening a claim with [redacted] and they would NOT refund any money and I would be permanently banned from using their services. I was also told "This was a low-priority concern because it is not time sensitive and involves a small amount of money", which any amount of money taking from someone should be of equal concern.Desired Settlement: From day one all I wanted is to not have to pay for services I do not use and I had thought were cancelled. I'm request a refund of the $10.10.

Business

Response:

This customer has been renting an online service -- an online voice server -- from us since January, with his first payment made on January 15. Without prompting from us, he manually chose a 3-month commitment for his payment term in exchange for a substantial discount. At the time that he ordered, the customer agreed to our Terms Of Service (TOS), which stipulates that we do not offer refunds except within 24 hours of an automatic payment. The customer cancelled his subscription in March and resubscribed in April, then made second and third payments on April 18 and July 18. The cancellation and multiple automatic payments tell us that he was familiar with the systems and processes that had previously been described to him.On July 22, the customer contacted our customer service team to request, then demand, a refund for his automatic payment made on July 18. Within minutes, he was reminded of how to cancel and of the refund policy. After he continued to press and threaten the staff, he was offered the special courtesy of an internal credit that he could use for future services, which he refused. Still on July 22, he was escalated to the CEO, who reiterated the policy and asked if there were extenuating circumstances that would justify an exception to it. He replied that he was out of town when the transaction hit, in one message. Then, two days later, before receiving another response from the CEO, the customer abruptly filed an "unauthorized" claim with [redacted], committing fraud by telling them that the payment he made on July 18 was not authorized by him. This is apparently when he also opened the Revdex.com complaint.After seeing the fraudulent claim, we shut down the service and permanently blocked the customer from using our services. We now await [redacted]'s decision of whether to override our policy and pull back the funds; if [redacted] decides in our favor, we will re-enable the service for its remaining paid time, and if [redacted] decides in his favor, he will have his money.In his last response, the CEO explained the short two-day delay by stating that the special policy exception request was a concern of lower priority than many other matters that week, and that is true. The CEO does much more than just direct customer support and many other, time-sensitive, matters such as handling DDoS attacks, sudden game updates, and emergency hardware shipments needed to be handled first.The bottom line is that the customer clearly did not qualify for a refund of his service under our a policy that the customer agreed to. Despite this, we were working with the customer to try to satisfy him. We had already offered him a courtesy credit and we were further considering a refund when he ended the process by committing fraud. The matter is now out of our hands and in the hands of a third party, [redacted], who will decide if his fraudulent claim with them is valid, based on his statement and our statement.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.From day 1 the company has been unwilling to resolve the issue. NFO claims they have made multiple attempts at resolving the issue, any of which would/did have NFO keeping my money. The CEO made it very clear he would fight this no matter what direction I took it. I have been talked to in a sarcastic, condescending, threatening manner almost this whole experience. They have now gone as far as threatening me with claims of "Fraud" for trying to fight the charge I viewed as wrong. The CEO's handling of this issue has left me truly shaking my head.The server I had rented has not been used in months, including the time it was 'renewed". They can see that information. They are trying to charge me for something I wasn't using and clearly had no intent to continue using. I was 3 days past getting back to NFO in regards to the charge because I was in the Upper Peninsula attending a funeral. I thought a simple explanation to the company, along with the assurance that I would come back one day, would allow us to have a mutual "break." Instead, now we're here.I've never had to complain to Revdex.com before. I've never had to fight a transaction with [redacted] before. I wouldn't take such drastic steps to settle an issue if I didn't truly feel as though I was being wronged.

Regards,

Business

Response:

The customer's characterization of us and his interactions with us is inaccurate. We stand behind our previous response and we do not mind providing the full support request thread in our system that shows what he and NFO staff said to each other and when it was said.Fundamentally this customer was asking for a special favor and

exceptional treatment that fell outside of our published policies. We

met him halfway, and he rejected that offer; without giving us time to respond again, he then fraudulently claimed to our payment processor ([redacted]) that the payment was not authorized by him, moving the matter into their hands instead.The customer's claim with [redacted] asserts that this payment was

unauthorized and therefore illegal. To be clear, that is not the case; the

payment was fully authorized and completely legal. Claiming otherwise is fraud on the customer's behalf. Pointing out that it is fraud is not a threat, but a statement of fact. We take fraud seriously and this

will prevent us from doing business with this individual in the

future. It is very likely that [redacted] will give Mr. [redacted] his $10 back, since [redacted] often chooses to do this when there's any chance that a payment was not authorized. As we said, if they do, he will have the money that he has demanded. If not, we will follow through on our contractual commitment and re-enable the server for its paid time. While [redacted] decides the matter, they do not allow us to refund the payment, so if the customer wishes us to grant a refund in response to this complaint, we can't.

Review: Company automatically billed services after I assumed the service was cancelled. I noticed after the (24hr) refund period and they are refusing to provide a refund or even a pro-rated refund. I'm less than 1 month into the current 6 month billing cycle.Desired Settlement: I would like at minimum a pro-rated refund for unused services.

Business

Response:

This customer chose a subscription with 6-month prepaid periods in return for a substantial discount. The customer opened this subscription in 2012 and has been making payments since then, automatically, on an established schedule. He has made multiple adjustments to the package over this time, choosing new payment durations and re-affirming the subscription and our terms, which include that we do not offer refunds except within 24 hours of an automatic payment.On April 11, 2014, the customer's subscription attempted to pay us for the next 6-month term. The payment was rejected by the customer's bank, and he was sent an email telling him that another payment would be attempted and that he may wish to cancel and resubscribe. He declined to take action or to contact us.On April 12, 2014, another payment attempt was made. This one succeeded. The customer was sent an email notifying him of the success, and he again took no action.On May 27, 2014, the customer contacted us to request a refund for the payment that was made in April. Since he did not qualify for a refund, an employee offered a prorated credit for his remaining time. He expressed dissatisfaction and was escalated to the company president, who reviewed the case and communicated that there was no reasonable justification for an exception to the refund policy. It was well over a month into the 6-month term, the customer was very well-aware of the terms of the subscription and had intentionally prepaid in return for a guarantee of a 6-month rental, and he had been notified multiple times about the latest payment while it was still refundable.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

I had (2) separate subscriptions: a monthly and a 6-month sub.The 6-month subscription was setup and authorized from "Coffer/donation" funds and backed with a previous credit card that was on file.The monthly subscription was setup with a NEW credit and authorized for that.The 6 month recurring payment was NOT AUTHORIZED for the credit card on file.

I notified the company as soon as I saw the charge on my bank statement (~30 days after the charge was made). The company's policies do not provide adequate time to see and respond to charges. I typically receive a monthly email about the monthly subscription, I assumed the emails I received were for the authorized subscription.The company has also stated in several emails that if I contest the charges on my credit card bill they will ban me not only as a customer but as a user of any of their other customer's services. This is extremely draconian and borders on blackmail/extortion.

At this point the company has already provided a "store credit", which I

am unable to make any use of due to that fact that I no longer require

the services. Any other company would provide a pro-rated refund for

the unused time. I am still asking that the company provide a pro-rated refund for unused service.Regards, [redacted]

Business

Response:

A contract is a promise that one is required by law to keep. This customer entered into a contract with us to provide him a service for six months. We have held up our end of that bargain, providing a high-quality service backed up by a 100% SLA and performance guarantee.We understand that the customer wants to take back his promise and cancel the contract early. No extenuating circumstances have been presented along with the request, and the customer is significantly into his contracted service term. He had complete knowledge in advance of the payment and terms of the contract; the payment length was manually chosen by him and confirmed several times during the signup process (in 2012), during the renewal process that has been happening every six months, and in multiple emails sent to him at the time of the most recent renewal. He received a significant discount for agreeing to pay for this length of subscription.In terms of the assertion made by the customerthat the wrong payment source was charged, this is not accurate. The payment source is chosen by the customer during the subscription signup process and the system never uses a different one. Employees do not have any mechanism for changing the source used; only the customer can do this, either by updating the source directly (by modifying it to use a different credit card number, for instance) or by creating a new source and updating the subscription to use the new source.Thirty days is as long as most subscriptions last in our system, and a significant portion of even long-term subscriptions. Because it is not feasible for us to give customers the option of waiting a month after a payment to decide if they wish to continue a subscription, we are careful to communicate up-front how the subscriptions work, as well as to make sure that customers know directly by email when the subscription renews (as we did here).Despite our firm and well-communicated policy against refunds in this circumstance, we have, in good faith, provided the customer with a prorated service credit that he can use for future services with us. We have determined that a refund is not justified or reasonable in this case.If a chargeback is submitted through the customer's bank, he will be prevented from doing business with us in the future. This is because future transactions would have an extreme and unavoidable risk to our company.