Recently I developed a website for a new client (used car salesman), for an agreed fee plus £xx per month for hosting. He has since paid for the website and seemed very happy with it. However, he has now discovered a cheaper solution than mine on the web and is now complaining he paid too much for the website I designed for him. As a result, he has become extremely obnoxious, is suddenly finding fault with my design and refuses to pay anything for hosting.

 

I have taken the view that this is a sign of things to come and am now looking towards ridding myself of him altogether. However, I need advice on the best way to do this..

 

His business is heavily dependent on his website and I feel suddenly stopping his hosting would be an unwise move that could potentially land me in a legal quagmire.

 

To make matters worse, he has discovered where I live thanks to Nominet's WHOIS search.

Any advice greatly welcome.

has he paid you for the work done so far? and is it just that you want him to sort out payment for hosting?

 

why don't you go with a hosting providor of his choice? can the website not migrate?

Hi, thanks.

He has paid for all the work so far and just need to pay me hosting. I would love to migrate his site to another hosting provider of his choice, as you suggest, but I know in advance he will resist this.. I think he hopes to claw back some money by not paying me hosting..

 

Is there a way of migrating his site to another host seamlessly? E.g. so I could then say to him that he now has a new hosting provider and I am no longer contected with his website..

yeah should be a pretty quick process, why don't you find some cheap hosting which he will be happy with, and then get him to buy it with HIS card details

Is there a way of migrating his site to another host seamlessly? E.g. so I could then say to him that he now has a new hosting provider and I am no longer contected with his website..

 

Migrating the site should be simple enough, but to truly be shot of him he will need to be the account holder of the new hosting and thus will have to know.

 

I think the best course would be to say you're sorry he 'feels' unhappy with things and would he like to host somewhere 'cheaper'. If he's still grumbling about the actual site it's not really relevant as I assume he signed off / paid the final invoice on completion.

 

Essentially what if I paid him for a car with maintenance contract and then saw one cheaper with less miles would he refund me?

If he does not pay for hosting, cut it off, if he wants it moved, he pays for your time to do it.

 

You are well within your rights to stick to the original contract no matter how reliant he is on it, if you dont pay your utility bills, they cut you off, if he then owes you money take him to court and site breach of contract. simples..

I would joyfully pay for the first 12 months myself, if it meant moving him onto another host.

But I am looking towards not giving him any advance warning or choice in the matter.. Just open a hosting account in his name, migrating his website then telling him he is no longer my client.. But as I am relatively new to this, I am not sure it's that simple..

In order to move the website he needs to give permission otherwise since he owns it you would in effect be stealing it from him. Do what I said above, shut it down if he has not paid up, he will soon be on the end of the phone, if you cannot reach an agreement from there then the only option would be courts.

I wouldn't shut it down immediately, I would give him fair warning, 4 weeks to find a hosting providor of his choice, that way you have given him an opportunity to move over to another host!

Moving the site shouldn't be an issue.

 

Have the site still live on your hosting and add the site files to the new one. the DNS will need to be changed of the domain name and while this is being sorted the site will still be available.

 

Once it has been moved and you are sure that it is now on the new hosting then you can pull the files from your hosting.

 

Like Inlinedivblock says give the client some notice of the actions you are going to take so that he is still in the loop and explain that once the site is on his hosting it is being removed from yours.

you can also be a bit sneaky and charge him a fee for the trouble of setting it up on another host

Since he is wanting a new host, let him be in charge of that decision. He chooses the host, opens an account in his name, pays for it with his account info, sends you access to the hosting account and ftp info, you move it, send him an invoice (under the assumption he won't pay it but at least his obligation to you outside of moving the site is over), and be done with it. You will be the bigger person and end things positively. When it is done, warn him you will no longer have control over his hosting and to contact them directly with any issues.

Thank-you everyone for your input!!

 

Lots of useful advice and very much appreciated!!

let us know how you got on!!

let us know how you got on!!

Will do. Thanks again!!

you can also be a bit sneaky and charge him a fee for the trouble of setting it up on another host

 

Possible but it's risky if you just want shot ... could end up another bill not paid yet wasted your time writing the invoice

Having something in your contract will give you more leverage when something like this happens. I'd strongly advise going down that route in the future, and also having a clause that prevents a client from hosting elsewhere.

 

It can be extremely problematic, especially if the website got hacked, or the host didn't support the required environment to host the site on. You can also be blamed for downtime, site speed and all sorts, even though it's not directly related to you.

Wjy would you host a client in the first place? You are not a hosting compmany, but a webdesigner/developer

 

Find a good hosting for your client, register it on his name, payment with his card, future responsibility is his.

 

That is what I have been doing in the past 10 years and never had any issues of hosting/domain payments.

 

Of course all this must be explained properly to the client.

Wjy would you host a client in the first place? You are not a hosting compmany, but a webdesigner/developer

 

Find a good hosting for your client, register it on his name, payment with his card, future responsibility is his.

 

That is what I have been doing in the past 10 years and never had any issues of hosting/domain payments.

 

Of course all this must be explained properly to the client.

 

We make good money from hosting our clients websites, and it's a steady income that really helps for those quiet months. You don't tend to run into many problems if your contracts are solid. It's not for everybody, but I don't think he should stop hosting for his clients based on this one bad experience that can be learned from.

I had one of those recently. After loads of unreturned emails and calls I sent this:

 

Your website hosting account is due to expire on 24 May 2014. If you have recently renewed please disregard this message.

Account: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Username: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Domain(s):

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com

Package: Nanagram Bronze Plus

If you no longer require this account please make sure any email data is archived prior to this date and that you have a backup of your website data.

Please note: This is an automated email on behalf of Nanagram Websites and Hosting from a notification-only address that can't accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.

The customer called me within 10 minutes and paid by the end of the day.

If you're offering services such as hosting it's best to outline the terms & conditions of it within your contract. It's always thinking of the worst case scenario, such as this where the client wants to move away and transfer the site etc. you could cover yourself with a minimum terms for hosting, early termination fee, transfer fees etc. Just because you are 1 guy trying to make a living don't take any sh*t off these fly men who will scrimp and save at any opportunity, they're at it.

 

If he's signed a contract that states he will pay X amount per month for the site hosting, get him to pay it or serve him with a 24 hour notice that unless he does his site will be taken down until payment has been received. You've got to stand up for yourself and play hard ball - it doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you professional.

What if you are hosting your client, you pay for his hosting and his anual domain cost and suddenly he decides to close the company and not needing any of it anymore. I think it will be you who is in loss here.

 

Is it really worth chasing, emails, calls, texts and the whole hassle.

 

We got more than 200 clients and we never had to bother with any of this because we don't want to host anyone. If they don't want to pay then their bad.

We could host them and get good money from all but if we compare the price with tension then no we rather spend energy and concentration on something which gets us bigger returns.

 

But ey, that is us!

There are a justified reasons why our company choose to host client sites:

• We don't have to deal with all the possible environments on multiple hosts, different versions of PHP, Mysql, different PHP extensions.
• We remain in control of the clients website, so any non-payments allow us to temporarily take down the website.
• Support on different hosts can vary from good to really bad.
• Some hosts don't allow us to act on behalf of the client, and can require written approval for even the simplest of tasks. This slows everything down massively.
• Our infrastructure extends beyond a shared hosting or VPS package. We have multiple dedicated servers, a managed firewall and utilise services like Mandrill, Amazon S3 and Cloudfront. A massive ask for a client to manage themselves.
• We can't guarantee back-ups are successful on different hosts.
• Updates to software aren't something I'd ever want a client to manage.

To be honest, a lot of our clients don't want the hassle of managing their own hosting and domains. They would prefer to invest their time in running the company.

A reseller hosting account may be ideal as 1 it allows you to have control over your clients accounts but you can still give them an element of control and management over their own services via the end-user control panel. Maybe best you look around & propose a few prices/features of a few firms so that you can get clients feedback and something that you are happy with or outline why you host where you do i.e. stability etc. and means the host looks after the infrastructure and you can relax and manage the company.