For the SKYLINE project, I had created several accounts with IaaS cloud service providers. They would all bill based on the amount of resources consumed, so having the account dormant after completion of the project should have been no big deal.
A year later, I got three emails from OpSource on the same day:
- Credit Card Expiry Reminder
- Payment is due, we have unsuccessfully attempted to charge
- Invoice
I was charged USD 0.45 for „3 units outgoing bandwidth“. Mind you, I had no virtual machines, no services, nothing active with OpSource apart from the account I had almost forgotten about.
To resolve the issue, I immediately sent an email to customer support. Almost two days later a representative replied: „I am looking into your billing charge. Can you forward me your bill please?“ Thinking that it was slightly strange that the person who should resolve an issue had to ask the customer to provide information the company already had, I sent him the invoice. The same day I got another email: „Payment for invoice in the amount of USD 0.45 is now overdue.“
A week went by, and I was sent a reminder email that the account was overdue. I sent an email to OpSource to remind them that they had a customer representative looking into the issue. After the weekend I got a notice that my account was being suspended for non-payment. I complained to OpSource and it took them just from Monday through Friday to get back to me.
A person from „Cloud Billing“ asked: „We are glad you are working with [name of representative deleted] to resolve the outstanding amount. But do you want to cancel the account? If not then can you please advise us as to when you will be updating the credit card? It looks like it expired back in December.“
Me on Monday: „I am not comfortable with updating the credit card as long as this issue stands unresolved. I have not heard anything from [customer representative] since the initial contact, and updating the credit card will probably lead to debiting of the disputed amount. We did not use any services from you in the period mentioned in the invoice. Could you please check how the item „Outgoing bandwidth“ created billable units without activity on our side?“
Customer representative later that day: „I am sorry about the long wait. I am still waiting to hear back from our engineering team on how this could of happened. I will reach out again for a response. In the meantime I will talk to my billing team to figure this issue out with the charge.“
One month later: Credit Card Expiry Reminder.
Another day later: Credit Card Expiry Reminder.
Another week later: „Thank you for using OpSource Cloud. Your account has been cancelled as requested and the logins for your Primary Administrator and Sub-Administrators will be disabled shortly. All virtual servers and customer images will also be deleted from the system at that time. Please note that any unpaid previously issued invoices are still due and our system may issue a final additional invoice based on your usage up to the time your account is removed from the system. We hope you enjoyed using OpSource Cloud we hope you will consider OpSource products for your future needs.“
Go figure.
