GRID HOSTING / THE EMAIL SHOP
Fraudulent! Devious! Dishonest! Poor service! Help themselves to your money and refuse to give it back!
Assessment Period: 3 Years.
Introductory Offer: For many years we used a server managed by a good friend, and never had any problems. However, when he retired, we looked for a hosting company to take over. The Email Shop, a Grid Hosting company, seemed to offer a reasonable value-for-money package, including an introductory offer, so we signed up expecting a reasonable, value-for-money service, inline with their advertising.
Website Downtime: Whilst with this company, we experienced downtime on multiple occasions. Incompetent administration, that is taking our site down for non-payment, even though they had our money, poor communication and technical problems their end, were all factors in the various occasions. The last time, before we left, they blamed it on corruption in our web files. However, we know this was not true because on testing their server, it wouldn't even show a basic HTML page, so we know it was a technical issue their end.
Sounds like a good deal in the beginning!
Was not such a good deal in the end!
Business Income: Although the downtime was annoying, as the Crosstalk Foundation website is part of an assessment project, accumulating notes and data, no business income was lost. However, another friend of ours, who also migrated over at the same time, was more inconvenienced and did lose income from his rehearsal-studio hire business, due to people not being able to book online.
Communication: I personally always find it much more useful to be able to talk to somebody when there is an issue. When our site was down, I did manage to find a phone number for the Email Shop on the net and rang the number. The person that answered actually sounded surprised that there was customer on the end. I concluded that this phone line was not expected to used by customers and was perhaps an internal number for their own personnel. This communication did help to get our issue resolved at that time, however, on subsequently trying the number at other times when having issues, no one ever answered.
The Scam: Each year, they took two payments, via Paypal, from my credit card, three weeks apart. One payment was legitimate (for the annual fee), one was not. The first year this happened, and not being able to speak to anyone to discuss the matter (we did try), we just let it go, thinking that the following year they will take the annual payment from the accumulated credit. However, they didn't touch the accumulated credit, instead they took another two payments, one for the annual fee, and an additional one, doubling the amount of 'credit' they now had.
Ignored Communications: Due to the unreliability of this company, the few of us that had originally migrated over concluded that it would better to club together and go back to having our own server again. This we have now done. This left an outstanding amount of credit on the Crosstalk Foundation account of £141.17, which I have requested, via several raised tickets, that they refund to my PayPal account. However, apart from one response, a pledge which they failed to stick to, they have consistently ignored my communications, not replying to the ticket and then closing it after a couple of days.
A Nice Little Earner! They're probably hoping we'll just let it go. However, it means that what seemed like reasonable deal, turned out to be twice as expensive, due to their taking of unauthorised payments and their refusal to refund the credit balance. Of course, if they are doing this to multiple customers, it would amount to quite a lot of money! A nice little earner!
Can You Believe It? Another friend of ours, who had an email service with them, also had a problem with them helping themselves, taking an unauthorised payment of £120.00 and showing it as 'credit'. However, they then turned off his service for 'non-payment'. When he challenged them, saying they already had his money, they said they turned off his service because they didn't have his permission to use his 'credit'. However, it didn't stop them taking the money from his bank account without his permission!
Screenshot showing notification of £141.17 credit balance
Grid Hosting Invoice History
Wed 16-Mar-22 INV:#192891 (PPNO:9976078901399990P) £12.92
Sat 25-Feb-23 INV:#255737 (PPNO:4DA12280RC9200019) £43.06
Thu 16-Mar-23 INV:#255737 (PPNO:3VF21235TN567794W) £55.05
Sun 25-Feb-24 INV:#308868 (PPNO:1C151962M6045240H) £43.06
Sat 16-Mar-24 INV:#308868 (PPNO:59306317EB4236225) £55.05
Tue 25-Feb-25 INV:#371915 (PPNO:1RR22179UV0350621) £43.06
Sun 16-Mar-25 INV:#371915 (PPNO:3AF136614C3403020) £55.05
The screenshot to the right shows a credit balance of £141.17. This amount is made up of three unauthorised payments of £55.05, minus two amounts of £11.99 for domain renewal costs. The annual payment and the unauthorised payment, taken three weeks apart, share the same invoice numbers.
Summary Of Sins
- Took unauthorised payments from credit card under duplicate invoice numbers
- Apart from one occasion, they were not contactable by phone, as no one ever answered
- Over three years, we had multiple website-down instances, lasting from several days up to a week at one point
- Showed unauthorised payments as credit balance on portal
- Didn't take annual charge from the accumulated credit
- When we eventually decided to move the site, they had accumulated £141.17 of our money
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Ignored communications and requests to refund our 'credit' balance
- They did reply once, and said the issue would be forwarded to accounts, but it was just a fob-off!
- Every time an enquiry was made regarding our refund, they didn't reply and then closed the ticket!
- When we re-opened the ticket, again they didn't reply and again, they closed the ticket!
Who Are Grid Hosting?
Jawaad Arif
Grid Hosting Contact Details
Grid Hosting advertise their address as...
Suite 18, Parker House, Mansfield Rd., Derby DE21 4SZ
However, this is just a rented office address.
They advertise a free phone number: 0800 861 1101 (looks good, but an invalid number).
Info From Crunchbase Re. Founder and CEO of Grid Hosting
Jawaad Arif is based out of Derby, England, and is the founder and CEO of Grid Hosting. Jawaad previously worked at Euronautica Global, FZC as a Co-Founder and Director of Operations. Jawaad Arif attended Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Grid Hosting Advertisement
Grid Hosting, the leading UK web hosting service provider, offers fast, secure, and affordable hosting services with 24/7 customer support.
From Grid Hosting Ltd...
"Grid Hosting, established in 2005, is a UK-based leader in providing reliable and scalable hosting solutions. We specialize in Linux hosting, Windows hosting, SSD VPS hosting, VPS servers, UK cloud servers, server colocation, and secure business and personal email hosting, including Office 365 and hosted exchange servers. Key Features: 10 GB/s High-Performance Network Reliable Infrastructure 24/7 Supportability 99.99% Uptime 45-Day Money-Back Guarantee Certifications & Membership ISO 9001 ISO 27001 Cyber Essentials Certified Member of East Midlands Chamber"
Sounds good! Unlike their service and their behaviour!