Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:04/22/2024

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  It's been 4 days since all my websites and emails hosted on Mochahost have been offline, I opened a ticket with technical support and since then they just tell me that they are doing a remigration from one server to another, they don't update me on the status of this process, they don't tell me give absolutely no deadline. Meanwhile, I can't send and receive emails, my customers don't have access to the websites. A complete mess.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/27/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My entire issue with Mochahost is detailed within ticket 550411, which I have attached to this complaint as a .JPEG file. I have an e-commerce site hosted with them which is now currently suspended. I first tried to solve the issue with them, as described in the ticket above/attachment, but they were less than responsive about it, considering each minute ny service is suspended because of their billing department's mistake and unwillingness to correct it is making me lose money, and I'm now at least 5 hours with my e-commerce site interrrupted because of that, forcing me to seek the aid of the BBB. I think I am being treated in an unfair way by Mocha's billing department. I think they made two grave mistakes by changing the due date of an already existing invoice (also attached, as a PDF) without warning me about it and, worse, they suspended my service without sending me past due notices, which further prevented me of being aware of the issue. All of this happened because I asked to unify my 2 current billings into a single billing and their billing department made the decision to unify them by the lesser date of the two billings, without ever warning me about this change, without sending me the new invoice by e-mail, without sending me any notices by e-mail when the invoice became past due in 10/24, which would at least had given me the chance of finally becoming aware of the issue and solve it before my service was arbitrarily suspended. I also proved that they used to send me overdue notices by e-mail and failed to do so in this case, you can verify this proof in the attachments provided. And even without any warning, abouyt anythingm whatsoever, they suspended my service mere 3 days after the billing was wrongly due. I also repeatedly asked them to restore my service at least while we sorted the issue out, to further prevent my losses, and they never bothered to even address that request. I want my VPS service restored and my invoices corrected ASAP.

  Business Response

  Date: 11/09/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/10/31) */ Hello, The service has been purchased on 01/22/2017 and it is on monthly billing cycle. The renewal date of the service is 22th of the month. The invoice in questions includes the period between 10/22/2022 and 11/22/2022. The invoice has been created on 10/13/2022 and the due date is 10/22/2022 (this means that we have rights to suspend the service on the very next day). We have suspended the service after 5 days. You can check from the attachment when the invoice in question has been paid - 10/27/2022 (few hours after the suspending). The reason for the interruption is 5 days delayed payment. It is clearly visible from the invoice that the transaction *********** has been initiated on 27th. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/11/01) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Mocha's Billing department is determined to avoid all responsibilities, at all costs. They never put themselves in the customers' seat. Their answer is technically right, but omits important details. As submitted as proof in my original complaint, after a due date is missed, Mocha always automatically sends up to three overdue notices -- which is common practice everywhere -- in the 5-day interval they mentioned before suspending the service, which they have done for the past 5 years where I was a customer there. In this particular case, they failed to send the overdue notices because of a system error on THEIR side, which could have warned me of this pending payment, thus preventing my service for being suspended. They admitted to that in the aforementioned ticket (iteration from ******* ** @ MochaHost posted 10/28/2022 10:20:43 AM, the only human working there, AFAIK), but never apologized for it and worst, they omitted this entire information from the BBB response. It was an error on my side that missed the due date, that's all right. But it was also Mocha's responsbility to send the overdue notices after that, no questions about it. They failed in doing that and thus, suspended my service without fair warning, causing me financial loss and distress. Plus, they have just lied to the BBB when they omitted this information in their response, because I had alreay mentioned the missing overdue notices in my original complaint with the BBB and they said nothing about it. Even after admitting their mistake, they refused to reinstate my service while the question could be reviewed by upper management. That's another issue, Mocha staff generally is powerless to solve conflicts even when part of the conflict was generated by themselves, as it was in this case. But management wasn't available to evaluate my issue and they simply wouldn't answer any more questions from me while they were not there. Hours after a manager never showed up, I finally had to give in and pay up to have my service back, which wasn't incorrect, but could have been increbly better handled for anyone that actually cared a little bit for a customer that was only partially wrong im the case. In the end, it was as if we were the only ones to blame for the whole problem, including their own failure in sending us the overdue notices. Customers seeking to do business with Mocha must be aware that their billing department never apologizes or compensates for their mistakes, are powerless to resolve issues that suspend your service without demanding that you "pay now, complain later" and will suspend you without fair warning unilaterally, before consulting with you first. They will bend their rules for no one, even when they're partially at fault. I understand their system failed, but I didn't receive the single courtesy of a final warning e-mail before they suspended my service. They could reinstate my service while I was trying to figure out exactly what was happening, a mere few hours would suffice, but no, screw you, pay first, we'll talk later. To all of myt requests, they simply say it's their policy, or they're powerless, or anything that secures their instance, customer be damned. If they did all that with a 5-year customer that never missed a Barista payment before, they will do it with anyone. Further attempts to resolve the issue and simply asking for merging my current billings into a single invoice (after I've paid for everything!) only resulted in more distress, frustration and absolutely terrible customer service from their billing department. The bottom line is that I've lost almost an entire day of business work and Mocha's billing department couldn't care less about it. Now, after reading my response, dear tentative Mocha customer, go back and read Mocha's response to the BBB and you will verify everything I've said in my reply is there: a complete lack of empathy for a 5 year customer that missed a Barista payment for the first time; thec complete omission of the overdue notices mistake they admitted in the original ticket, 100% infleibility to deal with any issue (even when they're partially at fault) and a laconic response that indicates how you will be treated by Mocha's billing department, should you ever dare to have a problem with them. If they don't care about how they respond to a customer and the BBB, what makes you think they will care about you? Buyer beware. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/11/09) */ Hello, The service was not suspended during the paid period and the reason for the suspending is delayed payment. The same server was activated on monthly billing cycle on 2017 year and the clients has been billed multiple times for the same product on the same date. Every client has the access to login his billing account, check the billable items, renewal dates and invoices. A missed notification is not a reason to not pay the bills in time and the service suspending is automated process. The notifications may be not delivered due to multiple reasons as mail issues and this cannot affect the billing system to remove the linked service from the suspending queue. Although the problem is obviously not with our automatic suspension system, we still decided to make an exception and provide 1/3 month for free for the addon service in order to make it easier for the customer to remember the date. Because MochaHost is always looking to helps its customers even when their requests are non-standard or outside the procedures and we have adjusted our system to not suspend the unpaid services on the due date but few days latter. But we will strongly disagree with the attribution of blame for the service being interrupted or that we did not make an effort to explain the situation and resolve the customer issue.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/08/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  MochaHost claims to provide a LifeTime Discount Guarantee for a range of their products that are outlined here: ******************************************** In short their claim is: "We are the ONLY hosting company that offers you a price guarantee for any future account renewals. We guarantee that your renewal price will be the same or less when purchasing products protected by our "LifeTime Discount Guarantee"." I bought into this about 6 years ago and paid for 3 years of a shared hosting plan. This would've been my second time renewing but they've increased the price of the package by 50%, contrary to the terms of the guarantee (which is advertised front & center of their homepage). I reached out to customer service about a week ago re: this and they explained that they are paying more for a service (********) than they used to and wouldn't be able to make a profit off of me if they continue offering the plan at the original price. This is somewhat understandable (even though it's unfortunate for customers like myself who bought into the plan and scaled our services thinking we were locked into a price), but what I don't understand is why they have the guarantee in place at all if they can't live up to it, and why they haven't pulled it down yet given that they've been apparently notifying customers of the price increase since last year.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/22/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/07/14) */ Hello, All discounts are valid for the main hosting plans and the discount percentage is the same as before. The reason for the price difference is the polity and pricing of the ********************** and this was announced not only in our blog (located in our website here: ***************************** but also in a personal notification via e-mail to all affected clients using the license in question. Based on the terms and conditions ********************************************* we have modified the price but the discount percentage is the same and saved amount using the lifetime discount is even bigger comparing the actual regular price of the hosting plan. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/07/14) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) Thank you for your response! Your blog post actually contradicts what happened. It says: "For all of our current Shared hosting plans ***************************************************, and our shared Reseller hosting plans ****************************, there will be no changes in pricing." I'm on a shared business plan and experienced a 50% increase in my 3 year plan price. Either way, I understand why the price increased and I understand that the new version of the "Lifetime Discount" is based on a percentage discount (seems a lot more sustainable, so I applaud you for making this change!). All I ask is that you change your terms on the page describing what the discount is so that the new discount is accurately represented. It currently reads: "We guarantee that your renewal price will be the same or less when purchasing products protected by our "LifeTime Discount Guarantee"." This is an inaccurate statement given that the renewal price is pegged to the price of ***************, which may fluctuate (i.e. price is NOT guaranteed to "be the same or less"). I'd be satisfied if you can somehow reflect that the price can change but that the discount (e.g. 50% off) will always remain the same. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/07/19) */ Hello, As I have informed you in your support ticket ****** the case has been reviewed by our high level management and the needed changed are now implemented. If you clear you web browser cache and refresh******************************************** you will see the actual information. I have personally assured you that you proposal in the support ticket will be seriously discussed and the needed measures will be taken. We hope that these actions will satisfy you and I will be happy to provide you with further support or information in your billing account ticket system in MochaHost. Best wishes! ******** **** MochaHost Billing Dept. Consumer Response /* (2000, 11, 2022/07/21) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) Per the latest response, MochaHost has updated the terms of their discount to accurately reflect that the "percentage discount" will remain the same (Full text: "We guarantee that your renewal price will always benefit from the same percentage discount when purchasing products protected by our "LifeTime Discount Guarantee""). Thank you @MochaHost for responding & making this change!