My experience dealing with xenBoost Hosting Service

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Chromaniac

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I am hoping this is not against the terms of use of this particular forum. I am just going to post about my experience dealing with a regular member of this community who is currently offering hosting services through the brand name 'xenBoost'.

I have waited a long time to get my issue resolved and it looks like there is not going to be any resolution. So decided to post my experience here.

Disclaimer: I am only talking about my own experience dealing with xenBoost here.

Few months ago I was looking for a new webhost for my forum. I started a thread here on this community. I got a few suggestions along with a few offers through personal messages. I started discussion with Mike whose company is now named xenBoost.

His offering was pretty good and suited my need so I decided to give him a go. I paid for a month and moved my forum over. The service had a few performance related issues initially but I ignored them because I had moved to a VPS from a pretty powerful dedicated so it was expected.

Few days later, I decided to ask him for a second package for the rest of my sites. He offered me a shared package at no extra cost (I had prepaid for the entire year by this time). Pretty cool. These were low traffic site that only existed for archives and had little traffic. Still, getting free hosting was pretty good. I was fine with minor downtime here and there for maintanence.

Big mistake.

One day, I noticed a major downtime on the secondary hosting account. I sent a request for details. Eventually was told that the data was being migrated to a more powerful server and all should be fine in a few hours. After a few hours, I realized that only a few of my sites were operational. Sent a query again. Was told that all data was moved and everything was working fine. It was confusing. I checked using OpenDNS and some of the sites were just not responding.

Turns out, the data backup done by xenBoost was incomplete. So the sites were never transferred to the new server. Mike apologized for the lost sites. Not very cool.

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Let me explain the situation again. xenBoost decided to move all the sites from one server to another. Did not bother to inform me so that I can take backups myself. Did a ****ty job of migrating data from the old server to the new one. Erased the old server without pinging me to verify the migration job. In fact, I had to ping him again and again to get status updates. Eventually was told that the data was gone forever and he was sorry about that. Should mention here that few of the sites that disappeared were like 10 years old.

Ouch.

I had a 10 day old backup so all was not lost. I created a new account on Dreamhost. Migrated all my data to it. Once the migration was completely over, I sent a query for a refund. I should mention here that our original conversation regarding hosting never had any assurances about any refunds. Thankfully, he agreed to refund but not immediately.

Apparently he had some financial issues going on so he asked me to wait for a few weeks. More than 2 months passed by. He then talked about how the refund option had disappeared from his PayPal account (apparently it disappears after 2 months). I can only wonder if the 2 month delay was deliberate or the stories about financial hardship were true. He told me that he would get in touch with PayPal support for a manual refund.

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This was also around 1.5 months ago. He suggested that I wait for another month because refunds could take that much time.

I waited for a month. Pinged him for an update after the refund never arrived in my credit card account. He asked me to wait for a few days more. Today, I decided that enough was enough. I sent him snapshots of my credit card statement. Asked him to send me details about the PayPal refund confirmation so that I can contact PayPal myself and get an update from them.

What he told me today was well... Insulting. He said that he has shut down his old PayPal account for he had to make a new one for his new company. There is no way he can get any update regarding that refund which has still not arrived in my account. He wants me to wait for more time because 'it takes time to appear in my account'.

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I guess the money is never coming. If it ever does, I would definitely update this thread and apologize to Mike/xenBoost. I just had to rant out somewhere and I thought this place might be suitable.

PS: He might have a lot of happy clients on this forum. I am not going to dispute that. I am just seeking my own refund which has mysteriously been in cyberspace for the last month and a half.

PS: I have posted screenshots of personal messages here. I have checked. They do not contain any personal information.

Mods: Feel free to get rid of this thread if it violates any rules or laws. Cheers.

Lessons Learnt? Stick with branded hosting companies. Frankly enough, going with xenBoost was a stupid mistake because Dreamhost is turning out to be much more reliable and cheaper than what I was paying him for. Also should mention here that HostGator this week refunded me an accidental charge within 48 hours.
 
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You are forgetting a few things, but fair enough..

A) When you purchased your account with us, you did so though with PayPal without having a PayPal account. So how to proceed to refund you, PayPal gave me the run around on. I kept you in the loop during the entire process.

B) The sites you claimed you lost, you never had me transfer from your old host, they were added by yourself and I had no idea about them, them not being in R1Soft would mean they were only added within the last 24 hours.

C) Sites you mentioned lost were on a server that hardware failure on and gave you a FREE account for what was suppose to be 4 - 5 small word press sites, which you totally took advantage of my generosity by adding more and more sites to this free account.

D) You went as far as when there was delays with refunding you requesting I just send it to your friends PayPal account rather then waiting for PayPal to refund it. Of course saying along the lines "you can trust me".

E) As I told you PayPal deducted it from my account and it can take up to 30 days. Again if you really did not receive your refund, why haven't you even started a dispute with either PayPal or your bank?

F) It's pretty known in the community I just re-branded my company earlier this month due to confusion between several xfhost/hosting named companies and I explained to you what PayPal had told me the only way to change my company name on my PayPal was to close the old account and create a new one.

As I have already said several times, if you have not received your refund, you really need to consult your bank, which you seem like you refuse to want to do for whatever unknown reason.
 
Mike, how did you go about refunding him? couldn't you just send a manual payment to his friends account and keep a record of it?
Or does Paypal have some weird policy about refunding people who don't have a paypal account?
 
Mike, how did you go about refunding him? couldn't you just send a manual payment to his friends account and keep a record of it?
Or does Paypal have some weird policy about refunding people who don't have a paypal account?

Right, it took them longer to process it due to him not having an account along with it being a holiday in America as he requested to cancel and be refunded right before Thanksgiving. When I asked PayPal about refunding his friends account. They strongly recommended against it as there would be no way to prove my payment to his friend was for his payment to me, so if he had charged me back as well, I would be out double the money if lost the dispute.
 
1. I asked if you could refund through an alternative route, you did not take that option. I asked for details on the PayPal refund process, you did not send it to me as well. I have no proof with me that the refund was ever processed except for your word.

2. I was not moving from a cPanel based host. It took me several hours to move the sites manually by moving the databases and HTML content. If I knew that you would do this work for me, I would have loved to use your services.

3. If you thought I was misusing the free account, you should have told me. You allocated me GBs of space and bandwidth and I was within those limits. I guess apologies are in order if you think I tried to abuse your generosity.

Update:I am very sorry that I misused the free account that you offered me. I would gladly pay for this free hosting account for the duration I used at your current rates right now if that helps. I had no idea you felt this way.


4. I do not understand what you are trying to say here. From my understanding you wanted to refund the money through the original route to keep your accounts records in order. I would have accepted a refund through a wire transfer if that works/worked for you.

5. I do not have any proof of the refund process. You did not forward any mails from them to me. I am not a customer of PayPal. I used my credit card.

6. I am not saying that you rebranded your company to cheat me out of a rather smallish amount. I just said that it has been around 4 months and I still have not received my refund.

My credit card company does not offer me a chargeback facility. Certainly not on a payment that was made four months ago.

PS: Again. I am not trying to say that you are a cheat or anything. I am just tired of getting excuses for the delays in refund.
 
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I had a similar experience. Mike doesnt do refunds. His one month trial is just words.

Its unfortunate that people on here blindly recommend him because they are his 'online friends' or have simply see him as a well known poster who has a hosting business. So many people on here have tried his services, and most who have are no longer using him. Surely that says something.

Due diligence is needed when going for a host.
 
I had a similar experience. Mike doesnt do refunds. His one month trial is just words.

Its unfortunate that people on here blindly recommend him because they are his 'online friends' or have simply see him as a well known poster who has a hosting business. So many people on here have tried his services, and most who have are no longer using him. Surely that says something.

Due diligence is needed when going for a host.


And many still are too, for years. Sad you still need to feel to troll me after what three years now?

@OperaManiac PM me your friends PayPal if you will accept a 50% refund out of my own pocket to just finally settle this and not continue with running in circles as to why you say you haven't received payment when paypal has told me it was completed. That a fair resolution to you?
 
Before we go there, can you at least forward me your communication mails with PayPal about their confirmation of the refund process so that I can take it up with them to see if that gets me some useful information about the missing refund? I would want to avoid a settlement that makes both of us unhappy. Thanks.

My email address: sushubh@gmail.com.
 
Before we go there, can you at least forward me your communication mails with PayPal about their confirmation of the refund process so that I can take it up with them to see if that gets me some useful information about the missing refund? I would want to avoid a settlement that makes both of us unhappy. Thanks.

My email address: sushubh@gmail.com.


As I told you already, I finally got them to issue your refund when I called them. They reversed the amount from my account and told me it would show up on your statement within 30 days. Checking my phone the number I called was 1-888-221-1161. I no longer have the conformation number information inside my account as like I told you, It had to be closed to create my new account.
 
Why 50% ?

#1 He's wrong: 0%
#2 You're wrong: 100%

How am I wrong 100%? Amount was deducted from my account, Paypal told me it was refunded.

I have never heard of a credit card that would not allow you to dispute a transaction 3 months later. Also PayPal transactions can be disputed for up to 6 months.
 
Well you are not in India. We do not have the same level of consumer protection that Americans enjoy. I cannot even file a ticket with PayPal without creating an account right now. The only information I have is the Receipt No: 4243-9589-3838-2619. I have sent them a message on Twitter though they refused to give out details on the refund status on this payment last time around.
 
PS: I have posted screenshots of personal messages here. I have checked. They do not contain any personal information.

Mods: Feel free to get rid of this thread if it violates any rules or laws. Cheers.
The screenshots of the conversations are against the rules (rule 11): https://xenforo.com/community/help/terms

As for the thread, I would suggest the two of you resolve it in private.
 
From where I see this is the situation right now.

PayPal confirmed to him that the refund was processed on phone. So there is no documented evidence that the refund was processed at all. I am not sure what my options are here considering I am not even a customer of PayPal and even if I create an account now, that payment would have no connection to this account. I am not sure how I am expected to raise a dispute with them. Cheers.
 
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