A Consumer Review: Three Years With An Internet Proxy Service
Since 2004 I had been a customer of Proxify.com, until this weekend. I've reccomended their service to others a number of times as some of my readers know, but it won't be happening again.
This past Friday my subscription was up for renewal, through PayPal at a locked-in rate of $20 a year, not bad considering their current rate is between $70-80 a year. In any case, Friday morning I had two e-mails, one from PayPal Support and another from this Proxify, notifying me that the automatic subscription payment “failed”. Upon logging into PayPal it was obvious that there was no attempt to actually collect the funds as was agreed upon, so I contacted both to see what the deal was and hopefully get the problem resolved. Proxify support kept directing me to links to renew my subscription, at the current $70+ a year rate of course, and had me locked out of my account with them to where I couldn't change the payment method of subscription to get it renewed at the agreed upon price of $20 a year, which I'm sure would have been simple enough.
Having heard all the horror stories, I presumed the problem was probably on PayPal's end, maybe a glitch or something, but to their credit it wasn't and once I got them on the phone I must say they were actually quite helpful.
PayPal looked through their records and told me that their was definitely no attempt to collect the funds for the subscription renewal(which I obviously already knew). The people I spoke with at PayPal went on to tell me that, as the billing was automatic, PayPal would have automatically conducted the transaction, withdrawing the funds from my registered checking account. PayPal said from their records that there was no reason on their end that it wouldn't have been done automatically, nor should it have “failed” as alleged, and also noted that I had just made a transaction with someone else a few days back with the very same bank & card info on record, which there wasn't any problem with.
The PayPal rep went on to state that the people at Proxify themselves must have somehow blocked it on their end, that PayPal didn't and wouldn't have blocked or stopped it from going through and that there was - and I quote - “no other explanation” for it, which they repeatedly stressed to me.
Considering PayPal has absolutely zero interest in lying to me about the matter, where-as Proxify has the economic interest of grabbing an additional $50 a year more than the originally agreed upon subscription price, I'm going to have to side with PayPal on this one. Wouldn't you?
Where things get more interesting, after receiving notice that the transaction which was never initiated “failed”, according to the subscription information at PayPal they would have tried again to collect the funds this monday(the 16th). But this afternoon prior to my calling PayPal, the people at Proxify took the liberty of cancelling the subscription through PayPal outright, without my permission or consent, and once again notified me that I would have to renew my account at the full $70-80 a year rate, where there was a fairly good chance I could have straightened it out with PayPal by monday to ensure the transaction would actually be made. Both people I spoke with at PayPal also pointed this out, and it was further stressed that Proxify cancelled the subscription that day(the 14th) without ever having made any attempt to collect the due funds. The support at Proxify also made a point of telling me that the “locked-in” rate that I should have been billed was only for accounts paid with automatic billing which were “in good standing”.
In summary, Proxify/Upsideout on their end somehow blocked the scheduled annual renewal payment from going through so they could claim that my account was no longer “in good standing” with them. Then every following step of the way they pro-actively blocked any payment of my subscription renewal from being made without me having to pay the extra $50+ a year rate, having fraudulently succeeded in breaking off the old subscription agreement. Cute way to treat your customers.
So just who are these moneygrubbers? Proxify is owned by some company called Upsideout, apparently run by some couple named “Schlecter” out of New Rochelle NY. Go figure.
I wonder how many other older subscribers they've done this too? Like I said I've reccomended their service to many in the past(and is really the only reason I'm sharing this experience with you. On another not-so-ironic note: apparently Proxify also accepts payment from CCBill, the porno paymasters whom as my long time readers know I've also blogged on in the past); I now wish I hadn't been so generous with the reccomendations. These are not people you would want to do business with.
This past Friday my subscription was up for renewal, through PayPal at a locked-in rate of $20 a year, not bad considering their current rate is between $70-80 a year. In any case, Friday morning I had two e-mails, one from PayPal Support and another from this Proxify, notifying me that the automatic subscription payment “failed”. Upon logging into PayPal it was obvious that there was no attempt to actually collect the funds as was agreed upon, so I contacted both to see what the deal was and hopefully get the problem resolved. Proxify support kept directing me to links to renew my subscription, at the current $70+ a year rate of course, and had me locked out of my account with them to where I couldn't change the payment method of subscription to get it renewed at the agreed upon price of $20 a year, which I'm sure would have been simple enough.
Having heard all the horror stories, I presumed the problem was probably on PayPal's end, maybe a glitch or something, but to their credit it wasn't and once I got them on the phone I must say they were actually quite helpful.
PayPal looked through their records and told me that their was definitely no attempt to collect the funds for the subscription renewal(which I obviously already knew). The people I spoke with at PayPal went on to tell me that, as the billing was automatic, PayPal would have automatically conducted the transaction, withdrawing the funds from my registered checking account. PayPal said from their records that there was no reason on their end that it wouldn't have been done automatically, nor should it have “failed” as alleged, and also noted that I had just made a transaction with someone else a few days back with the very same bank & card info on record, which there wasn't any problem with.
The PayPal rep went on to state that the people at Proxify themselves must have somehow blocked it on their end, that PayPal didn't and wouldn't have blocked or stopped it from going through and that there was - and I quote - “no other explanation” for it, which they repeatedly stressed to me.
Considering PayPal has absolutely zero interest in lying to me about the matter, where-as Proxify has the economic interest of grabbing an additional $50 a year more than the originally agreed upon subscription price, I'm going to have to side with PayPal on this one. Wouldn't you?
Where things get more interesting, after receiving notice that the transaction which was never initiated “failed”, according to the subscription information at PayPal they would have tried again to collect the funds this monday(the 16th). But this afternoon prior to my calling PayPal, the people at Proxify took the liberty of cancelling the subscription through PayPal outright, without my permission or consent, and once again notified me that I would have to renew my account at the full $70-80 a year rate, where there was a fairly good chance I could have straightened it out with PayPal by monday to ensure the transaction would actually be made. Both people I spoke with at PayPal also pointed this out, and it was further stressed that Proxify cancelled the subscription that day(the 14th) without ever having made any attempt to collect the due funds. The support at Proxify also made a point of telling me that the “locked-in” rate that I should have been billed was only for accounts paid with automatic billing which were “in good standing”.
In summary, Proxify/Upsideout on their end somehow blocked the scheduled annual renewal payment from going through so they could claim that my account was no longer “in good standing” with them. Then every following step of the way they pro-actively blocked any payment of my subscription renewal from being made without me having to pay the extra $50+ a year rate, having fraudulently succeeded in breaking off the old subscription agreement. Cute way to treat your customers.
So just who are these moneygrubbers? Proxify is owned by some company called Upsideout, apparently run by some couple named “Schlecter” out of New Rochelle NY. Go figure.
I wonder how many other older subscribers they've done this too? Like I said I've reccomended their service to many in the past(and is really the only reason I'm sharing this experience with you. On another not-so-ironic note: apparently Proxify also accepts payment from CCBill, the porno paymasters whom as my long time readers know I've also blogged on in the past); I now wish I hadn't been so generous with the reccomendations. These are not people you would want to do business with.
Labels: consumer review, proxies
posted by Brother John at
2:59 AM |
<< Home