When "Free" Web Hosting Isn't Really Free
Posted by junger - 08/08/06 at 12:08:06 pmWhen I set up this blog last week, I took advantage of a deal from Globat offering 6 months of hosting for free and no setup fees.
Sounded too good to be true, but the deal link at dealspl.us didn't have anything bad to say about. The hosting was set up quickly and I was up and running in a couple of hours. Then, yesterday, I got this email from Globat.
From: tbupgrade1@globat.com Mailed-By: globat.com
Date: Aug 7, 2006 12:11 PM
Subject: Important: Automatic $29.95 charge for an upgrade of www.onlinesavingsblog.comDear Jason,
We appreciate that you continue to give Globat.com the opportunity to serve your Web site hosting needs. It is our pleasure and honor to host onlinesavingsblog.com and would like to introduce you to our PromoPak Pro(TM) upgrade that might significantly increase traffic to your Web site. In 10 days from this date, we will be providing you with an upgrade to our new and improved PromoPak Pro at the low cost of just $29.95 for the entire first year of service.
…
= = = PromoPak Pro = = =
Great news! Upon review, your current hosting account qualifies for our brand-new automatic upgrade option to our new and improved PromoPak Pro for a first-year fee of $29.95 – a $20 savings off our regular price ($39.95 for the second year of service and $49.95 for each additional year)!…
= = = Important! This Is an Automatic Upgrade = = =
As one of our most valued customers and based on our customer feedback, we are absolutely certain that you want to take advantage of this opportunity. For that reason, we will automatically upgrade your account with PromoPak Pro and charge the $29.95 first-year upgrade fee to your account on file on Monday, August 7, 2006, unless you specifically tell us not to upgrade you by clicking on the link at the end of this email.
So they were going to charge me $30 for an "upgrade" to the site, which included submission to 170 search engines (pointless), page rank checker (unnecessary), meta tag analyzation (no thanks), keyword checker (can do), and PPC measurement (done).
And they didn't even give me a day to opt-OUT (not opt-in, mind you). Thankfully, I was sitting at the computer when the e-mail came, so I quickly declined their generous "upgrade" and am moving on.
I guess free is not always free … especially if you aren't paying attention.
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I got same email today.
Is it legal to upgrade and charge customer automatically?
What if we missed reading email?
I'm very disappointed about this.
Comment by GB — October 23, 2006 #
GB – I agree. It is pretty schemey … but it's probably in the terms of agreement somewhere in there.
It's just a good thing we were checking our email.
Comment by junger — October 23, 2006 #