WARNING: Sav.com - Unfriendly Business Practices - Automatic Billing of $4316

[hn1]

Hello everyone,

Let me just shortly write about my recent sav.com experience and an example of their unfriendly business practices. I have been using sav.com for about one year due to their low pricing on backorders. There were flags in regards to them but have continued to use them exclusively due to their pricing on backorders, and have spent approximately $40,000 in the last 12 months.

Sav.com essentially requires that you have an active payment method with them. There were apparently some domain names in my account that were set on auto-renew. These domains were set on auto-renew by default and on February 28 these domain names were auto-renewed by Sav.com for a total amount of $4,316.00. (the domain names were registered on March 29)

After noticing this (within 48 hours or so), I have opened a ticket requesting the cancellation of these auto-renewals and a refund for this automatic billing. Here is basically the correspondence in regards to this (names/nicknames have been redacted).



I wasn't necessarily happy with the idea of them not issuing a full refund and keeping $150, but since I had other work-related responsibilities + had work-related travel, I said fine, I'll let them keep $150. After these messages, a week has passed with no reply or refund and I have decided to follow-up with them and the next message that I have received was the most repulsive message I have ever received from any business customer service.


If in the question wouldn't be around $4000, this would be a pretty amusing message. It sounds like a joke (actually, even though as of this moment I am in the red more than $4000, it is still a pretty amusing answer). I have contacted sav.com via another line of communication to ensure that before trying other avenues in pursuit of this refund that this wasn't a mistake, but according to another line of communication, no, this wasn't a mistake, this is their business practice.

Out of $4316, they have refunded me $20.

Given the amount, I will check if there are ways to receive a full refund. If it turns of that there aren't, this means that they can essentially bill you any amount, it could be $20,000 or $50,000 or any other amount that you have available with the linked payment method - and there is basically not much that you can do about it. They basically require you to have an active payment method, they can increase renewal prices at any time, they can rewrite their policy every 5 seconds, and if I am not mistaken? in the past there were glitches where bulk turn-off of auto-renewal didn't work (and there is no way for me to check if I have turned-off auto-renew for these domain names in the past, but due to bug it hasn't been processed).

Given their unfriendly business practices, I do not trust this registrar and would suggest to everyone that if they decide to use them, to use them with caution since this is not the first incident of their unfriendly business practices. Since I have thousands of domain names with them, unfortunately, I can't stop using them tomorrow, but I will definitely reduce any use of this registrar to a minimum and hopefully once domain names that I plan to drop expire, to a zero.

This has been the worst experience that I personally had with any registrar.

 

[carob]

if paid by card you usually have a window of several months to do a chargeback - you can just tell the card company you are not paying and are contesting the charges.

Where dubious registrars demand you keep a payment method on file, you can usually make that Paypal, then delete your card as a payment method at the registrar, then go into your Paypal account and remove the recurring payment authorisation for that merchant. They won't even know, and can't then get payments without your authorisation.

 

[karmaco]

@hn1

- You should report this to ICANN
- You should report to any governmental consumer protection agency, disclose such bad practice, and legal spport; or
- You should talk to lawyer (Fiverr has many cheaper options), and file civil lawsuit
- You should post your feedback to any reviewer / rating website
- You should report this story to media (fiverr has many media release expert can help on these)


@Nick R

You should:

- refund @hn1 promptly, do right things. God is watching you
- change your policy, issue full refund if people change their mind within 30 days

You can make more money and gain more trust from doing such good things.

Or, you will be kicked out of this industry. Shame.

I agree and frankly the forced default setting of auto renewal is shady AF. You can choose everywhere else when you BUY if you want to auto renew before you click a buy button.

 

[carob]

The reviews on TrustPilot that are one star are actually reporting serious issues, and similar ones:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.sav.com?stars=1

 

[omelet]

Build up your brand may take many year but crush it may only take days-weeks. You need to make change to grow better and healthy. @Nick R

Best luck

Hello Everyone,

Our reminders are currently sent out the day before they renew. We are constantly working on our system to improve our user experience and satisfaction. We know there is a better way to do this and are actively working on an updated refund policy where users can delete their renewed domains and receive a full refund up to 5 days after renewal. You can expect these changes in the next couple months.

As for your $20 refund, once the domain is renewed from the registry, they don’t issue us a refund. Meaning your funds are no longer available for us to return to you. We understand that this can be an inconvenience so we typically offer a $20 courtesy return out of our own pocket. This $20 typically covers base renewal fees since most domain purchases are under $15.

Once again we’re sorry for the inconvenience, and if you have any other suggestions to improve user experience please let me know.

 

[augmented]

Well, Sav.com is another I will be avoiding then

 

[hn1]

...once the domain is renewed from the registry, they don’t issue us a refund. Meaning your funds are no longer available for us to return to you..

If this is accurate and there is absolutely nothing you can do to issue a refund without spending $4316 of your own money, this is something that should have been mentioned in my correspondence with sav, it would be far more useful than the replies that I have received.

However, as it has been asked by @omelet , how is it the case that many registrars can provide refunds with no problems while you can't? Different extensions have different registries, .com/.net does not have the same registry as .io (etc.), since to my understanding, you do not issue refunds on any auto-renewals, one thing that would make sense is that you have the same vendor for all extensions...

So the basic question is, why is it the case that many registrars can provide refunds on .com & .io & .whatever domains while you can't provide on any?

And assuming that this is accurate, it is pretty unsettling that there is absolutely nothing you could do to arrange a refund. This would mean that if the number was $50,000 there would be no refunds. What if there was some glitch with auto-renewals totaling $1,000,000 of unwanted auto-renewals. There would be no refunds in that situation? This, in a combination of 'required' active payment method (CC or PP - since you do not have account funds) is very unsettling.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to everyone for your opinions and I have taken some steps that may or may not result in a refund. If the refund is issued, I will give an update in this thread.

The payment method for this billing was PayPal, and several of you have mentioned the chargeback option. While this option may result in the return of these specific funds, this is not the option that I will personally take due to several reasons + (I don't think that I have ever used the chargeback option).

This whole situation has been pretty revolting, time-consuming (while traveling), and was not something that I anticipated ∼ 20 days ago when I have first contacted Sav. This is something that could have been handled far far better by Sav and something that could have been resolved in a short time-manner instead of this nonsense.

 

[omelet]

If this is accurate and there is absolutely nothing you can do to issue a refund without spending $4316 of your own money, this is something that should have been mentioned in my correspondence with sav, it would be far more useful than the replies that I have received.

However, as it has been asked by @omelet , how is it the case that many registrars can provide refunds with no problems while you can't? Different extensions have different registries, .com/.net does not have the same registry as .io (etc.), since to my understanding, you do not issue refunds on any auto-renewals, one thing that would make sense is that you have the same vendor for all extensions...

So the basic question is, why is it the case that many registrars can provide refunds on .com & .io & .whatever domains while you can't provide on any?

And assuming that this is accurate, it is pretty unsettling that there is absolutely nothing you could do to arrange a refund. This would mean that if the number was $50,000 there would be no refunds. What if there was some glitch with auto-renewals totaling $1,000,000 of unwanted auto-renewals. There would be no refunds in that situation? This, in a combination of 'required' active payment method (CC or PP - since you do not have account funds) is very unsettling.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to everyone for your opinions and I have taken some steps that may or may not result in a refund. If the refund is issued, I will give an update in this thread.

The payment method for this billing was PayPal, and several of you have mentioned the chargeback option. While this option may result in the return of these specific funds, this is not the option that I will personally take due to several reasons + (I don't think that I have ever used the chargeback option).

This whole situation has been pretty revolting, time-consuming (while traveling), and was not something that I anticipated ∼ 20 days ago when I have first contacted Sav. This is something that could have been handled far far better by Sav and something that could have been resolved in a short time-manner instead of this nonsense.

i also suggest you to contact some domain media/blogs/ journalist , those guys are active in reporting great sales, but I think they should report this type of thing too.

Your experience with SAV is worth more to let public know.

 

[1Darko]

@hn1
Contact your debit or credit card provider and tell them that you want to make a claim through the Chargeback scheme!

@Nick R
SAV should refund immediately as the customer does not want to renew the domains!

There is also the option to inform the State Consumer Protection Office in Illinois:
https://www.usa.gov/state-consumer/illinois

 

[omelet]

@hn1

Add this guy and ask him to help resolve the issue asap

 

[omelet]

@hn1 @Nick R

 

[carob]

The payment method for this billing was PayPal

If you paid the Paypal fee by credit card, you would also have the protection of the card and could pursue a chargeback either at Paypal or your credit card provider.

 

[alcy]

Well, Sav.com is another I will be avoiding then

cause someone didnt turn off auto renew.and.got.renewed? lol

yeah..u sure know who to follow

I'm moving all my names there. most bugs worked out. top prices. and frankly the ui is simple fast and clean.. which basically is nowhere else to be found today

u can all be silly and go overpay elsewhere lol

 

[Max1000]

A shocking tale. and it should be widely told.
I would be very surprised if Chargebacks through either PP or the CC did not result in return of funds. Would suggest you open a communication to both and if possible a 3-way communication with them.
From SAV's point of view, would have thought common sense would indicate if a client has invested that much through them, surely they should try to retain such clients.
I doubt that 1 Days' notice of Renewal would count as proper practice or effective notice, and therefore suggest you file formal complaint to ICANN and as suggested above with the local State Authorities. It becomes a 'public' issue that companies operate such shameful business practices.
And as a comment on Renewal Payment methods, my suggestion is in future and anyway generally use a Debit card attached to an account which you keep more or less empty until you manually transfer funds into. That way, you do have a valid payment method, just no more than $100 or whatever in it.

 

[sofarsogood]

They follow unfair trade practice. Here is one more issue: namepros.com/threads/sav-com-embezzling-fund-even-after-cto-nick-confirm-return-on-written-correspondence-company-w-o-integrity.1270298/

 

[Alex Solomon]

Sav.com is a professional scam network.

 

[alcy]

Sav.com is a professional scam network.

they can't be that pro at.scamming if they have 99perxent happy problem free clients lol

 

[Alex Solomon]

they can't be that pro at.scamming if they have 99perxent happy problem free clients lol

Would seem happy till you run into an issue with Sav.com with terrible support

 

[doofer]

Epik don't set your domains to auto renew by default like other registrars, you can set them if you want to. In stead they send you a number of reminders in the run up to expiry.

 

[alcy]

Would seem happy till you run into an issue with Sav.com with terrible support

I meant 99percent never run into issues

 

[Alex Solomon]

I meant 99percent never run into issues

I hope you’d always feel that way about Sav.com but for me I’m done with them

 

[Domain Research Labs]

Wow, what a terrible story, I hope you get to recover your funds.

 

[Nick R]

Hello @Alex Solomon What you most likely describing is a pre-authorization on their credit card. We do this to ensure new bidders have the funds available to pay for their bid should they win. The minute a bidder is outbid, we remove the pre-auth. With PayPal this reflects in your account immediately. With CC, it can take a few business days. We do try to make this process very clear by adding this notice on every bid confirmation screen:

We try to work hard to make Sav's policies very clear and transparent and will continue to see how we can make this even more clear in the future.

 

[Alex Solomon]

Hello @Alex Solomon What you most likely describing is a pre-authorization on their credit card. We do this to ensure new bidders have the funds available to pay for their bid should they win. The minute a bidder is outbid, we remove the pre-auth. With PayPal this reflects in your account immediately. With CC, it can take a few business days. We do try to make this process very clear by adding this notice on every bid confirmation screen:

Show attachment 213521

We try to work hard to make Sav's policies very clear and transparent and will continue to see how we can make this even more clear in the future.

Stop tagging me with your rubbish policy.. still waiting for refund... (scammer)

 

[sofarsogood]

Stop tagging me with your rubbish policy.. still waiting for refund... (scammer)

@Nick R and sav.com are experinced in narrative building. They write to make cutomer appear evil, and they the holy gods.

 

[LUP]

Sav is a mistake, they lack support