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Contabo billed me full month after 2 hours—anyone get prorated refund?

VPS Hosting Locked by haroldgsm 25 replies 4.4K views
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haroldgsm

Member OP

Grumpy Old Sysadmin

#1

I spun up a Contabo VPS on July 1st for a quick test migration, found their network routing unsuitable, and destroyed the instance within two hours. Yet here I am, invoice for the full month. No refund option in the panel.

Back when I started in this business, proration was standard decency. Kids these days accept whatever terms of service scroll past their faces. I have opened a ticket, but mark my words, they will cite some clause about "billing cycles begin at provisioning." Twenty years in this business, and the erosion of customer fairness still surprises me. Has anyone successfully pried a prorated refund from Contabo? I selected annual prepay originally—perhaps that flags something in their system.

IPv4, IRC, and irssi — fight me
RAJ

Member

3 #2

Contabo guys, they use HostBill right?? Check if theres a "partial refund" toggle in your invoice details, sometimes its hidden in the subpage. Any leads on what panel they actually provision with?? My margins cant handle full-month burns on test boxes

your margin is my opportunity
pieter_rtm

Member

#3
  • Contabo: no proration stated, 14-day "credit" only
  • OVHcloud: prorated, but manual ticket required
  • Hetzner: hourly billing, no issue
  • Vultr: full month lock-in, as said

As said, the industry standard is not standard. Check your terms—Contabo's ToS has something about pro-rata upon request, I think it's in the PDF version, not the HTML. Their billing system does not automate it. Dry, but true: you must ask the human. https://contabo.com

Containers before it was cool
craigdzir

Member

8-bit forever

#4

U remember when day you paid for your BBS time by the minute and you KNEW what you owed :-) these cloud boxes r like renting a 2400 baud line for a month when you only needed to dl one warez pack

WA

Member

#5

Contabo's PDF says "pro-rata upon request" but their system doesn't automate it?

Buenos

Member

#6

Which panel does Contabo actually provision with, HostBill or something else?

SO

Member

#7

I had the same thing with Vultr once, full month for two hours

Hel

Member

Bare Metal Purist

2 #8
pieter_rtm said:
Hetzner: hourly billing, no issue

This is why I stopped renting control panels from anyone. Buy a real box in Helsinki or Falkenstein, know your costs, done. These VPS games with their "billing cycles" and hidden toggles are just ways to extract rent from people who won't do the math.

RAJ

Member

#9
Buenos said:
Which panel does Contabo actually provision with

Still no answer on this? I see HostBill, WHMCS, Blesta, ClientExec all doing VPS modules. If Contabo is custom then we cant self-service anything.

your margin is my opportunity
pieter_rtm

Member

#10
WagonHarry said:
Contabo's PDF says "pro-rata upon request" but their system doesn't automate it?

Correct. I have read both versions. The HTML ToS omits the phrase. The PDF dated March 2023 includes it. Their HostBill instance--and yes RAJ it is HostBill--does not expose a partial refund button. You must ticket, via https://my.contabo.com. I have done this twice, both times took 4-6 days and the math was: (days unused / 30) * monthly rate, minus some rounding down. Not generous but it exists.

Containers before it was cool

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