I transitioned from Powweb to MediaTemple over the last few days. I moved to MediaTemple mainly for a more reliable server, more professional hosting, better speeds, and to handle many domains in a better manner (plus the awesome control panel helped convinced me). I had really enjoyed my stay with Powweb, but it was just growing pains and time to move.

I had planned to write a very nice review about Powweb and talk about my move to (mt), but I just had a less than satisfactory experience with Powweb today. Powweb allows you to sign up with a credit card and have it auto-renew. There is not an option in the control panel to disable auto-renewal. Once I had all my files transferred over to (mt) servers, I wanted to cancel my Powweb account. They make you talk to support to cancel your account, which entails the annoying questions like “why are you leaving?” and just the general hassle. I understand that though. They want one last chance to convince you not to leave.

I spoke with an agent named Hannah. I was very friendly and gave them a list of things that they could do to improve there services. I then asked for her to cancel my account so it does not auto-renew. After a few moments, she said my account would be cancelled in a couple of days, and I would receive an email about the confirmation. That email never came. I just assumed that it must have not managed to get to my email account. I logged in today to my Powweb account to see if there was any notice on my Powweb account of cancellation. There was nothing.

I decided to chat with the support team just to confirm that my account was cancelled. To my shock, it had not been. I asked the new agent whether there was a record of my conversation with Hannah. He said yes, but my account was not scheduled to be cancelled. If I had not checked in that day, my account would have been auto-renewed, and I would have no proof that I had asked for a cancellation.

The thing was, that my experience with the new agent was not much better. It was a pain to get him to understand that I wanted to cancel my account. Finally, I got him to cancel my service and send a confirmation notice.

I really enjoyed my hosting time with Powweb, but this has really soured the experience. It’s unacceptable to tell a customer their account is cancelled and they will not be billed, and then leave them to discover a line on their credit card for a charge from Powweb they thought they had cancelled.

I hope to leave this as a warning for other Powweb customers wishing to cancel their accounts. Make sure it really is cancelled. You don’t want an unexpected charge to creep up on you just because Powweb support didn’t do its job.