Day 0: Sign up for RackNerd "Forever Free." Card required for "verification."
Day 1: $1 hold appears. Fine. Terms say "may convert to subscription if limits exceeded."
Day 2: $99 annual charge hits. No email alert. Dashboard shows "Pro Lite activated" - never clicked this.
Cancellation path:
- "Manage plan" buried under Billing > Advanced > Legacy Tools
- "Downgrade" button errors out
- Chat bot loops to FAQ
- Human chat: "Your account is ineligible for downgrade due to promotional status"
Chargeback timeline:
- Filed with bank: 10 minutes
- RackNerd responded with 47-page PDF of "terms accepted"
- Won anyway: 12 days
For that money you get:
- 1x shared vCPU
- 512MB RAM
- 20GB HDD (not SSD)
- No backups
PSA: Screenshot every step. Their terms change based on which subdomain you load.
Medium post with full doc