Joshua Seek

I never do this.  I'm not the kind of person to lodge public complaints, but rarely have I ever experienced such a lack of common sense and customer service from a company.

A few years ago I purchased web hosting through globat.com.  Claimed to be a leader in performance web hosting, Globat was a good price.

I built my site, which was just HTML.  Nothing crazy, nothing that would cause problems for any reputable hosting service.

Very soon after launching, my site experienced an outage for days.  I called Globat, who explained that there was a problem with their servers.  The site came back up, then went down again within a few days.

Globat then transferred my account over to a new server, which went down as well.  To make a long story short, in the time I had Globat (about a year), my site experienced downtime at least half of the time, if not closer to 75%.

So I canceled my service, but it didn't stop there.  A few months later I noticed I was still being charged.  I called and they explained that my account was still active even though I had canceled it.  I asked again for it to be canceled.  I was provided with a confirmation had taken place.  This was 2008.

A few months later I noticed I was being charged again.  I called again, and canceled again.

Today is December 3rd, 2010.  At lunch today I received a call from a Global representative to talk about my account.  I became bothered. "I shouldn't have an account with you.  I've canceled it several times.  Do I still have an account with you?"  

Apparently I still did.  Politically, I asked the agent to cancel the services as I had asked two years ago.  He stated that he would.

An hour later I called back to the billing department to check if I had been billed in any way during the past two years.  The agent I spoke with offered to cancel my account.  "My account is active?" I asked.

"Yes, but I can cancel it for you if you wish." She replied.

Well what did I do with the guy an hour ago?  I thought he canceled it!  She stated that they were having computer problems and that his cancellation may not have gone through, because she has no record of it.  Again, I asked her to cancel my account and for her to send me a confirmation of it.  She said she had canceled it, and that she had already sent a confirmation.

I checked for the confirmation, but none ever came.  Last night, I called again, but this time I decided to play dumb and ask for information about my "active" account, to see what they said.

When the agent answered, I was nice, and I asked him to check on the status of my account for me.  I said I just wanted to see that everything was OK with my account.  He said that my account was active, but I had a past due bill of $12 and I needed to remap my domain to the account.  I asked, "But my server is still up right?  Everything with my hosting service is active and working?"  He replied, "Yes."

"Why is it active when I asked twice today for it to be canceled, three times in the past, and it was supposed to be canceled two years ago?"

The agent didn't have an answer for this.  At this point, I put myself in check.  I told the agent that I worked in a call center, I know how his job is, and I'm not mad at him.  I told him in my current position I support call center agents.  I told him that I want him to understand that anything I say is not against him.  He is in India, the company is in America, he is not at fault for anything the company does, but he does need to assist me and ensure that everything is taken care of.  I told him he needs to cancel my account, ensure that there are no services under my name and that my relationship with Globat is permanently disconnected.  Then, I need him to provide me with the name of someone in leadership in the company.  The president, CEO, or CFO.  In case my service is not disconnected, as it hadn't been the past several times I had asked for it, I could contact that person. 

The agent told me that he could not give out that information.  Taken aback, I asked, "This is a real company, and you cannot give the name of the president, CEO, or CFO?"

"No, we are not allowed to give out that information." He replied.

Remember how I said that I wasn't going to get mad?  Well, unfortunately, I broke that rule. "You cannot give me the name of anyone in leadership in Globat?! What is this? If you asked me for the name of the leadership in my company I can give it right away.  It's on our website and readily available!  Anyone can contact them.  Customers can't contact Globat's leadership?  We can only know about the web address and the people we talk to overseas?  That's ridiculous."

After pushing him for several minutes, he finally gave me the name of the president of Globat: Ben Neumann.

After we established that there is some real person behind the company, I asked him if he had canceled my account and when I would receive a confirmation.

"Well sir," He replied, "I refreshed my screen and it appears that your account was already canceled."

"When? During this call or before I called you?" I asked.

"It was canceled two years ago."

I couldn't believe it.  "Why, when I called you and asked you for the status of my account, did you say my hosting services are active and I currently have an account with you?"  At this point, I can't figure out if he's lying about my account being canceled or if he's saving face for incorrect information that he had given earlier.

"I do not know why it said you had an account but your account was canceled."

I could tell we weren't going to get anywhere else in this call.  I thanked him for his help, reiterated that I was not angry with him personally but with the company, and recapped the call: My account is canceled, I will receive a confirmation, and if I have any additional problems Ben Neumann is the person to contact?  The agent replied yes.

This morning I received my confirmation that my account had been canceled, the same confirmation I received two years ago (however this one did not include a confirmation number).  I'll check with them again on Monday to ensure my account is truly canceled.

I mentioned that I never do this.  I never write a review about a company, but working in my current job (determining the voice of the customer) I have come to realize how important it is for a company to receive this sort of feedback.  If a company does not know that it's customers are having a bad experience, they won't know there's anything wrong and they cannot tailor company initiatives to correct issues and provide a better user experience. 

If you work for Globat and you'd like to update me on what changes are being made to ensure better customer service, I'd love to hear from you.  Or, if you'd like to hear my recommendations for enhancing your customer service I'd like to chat. 

If you've had a negative experience with Globat as well, leave it in the comments.