Freezone Internet- The Consumers Complaint List

My web site http://www.fengshui-emporium.com
has been hosted as an E-commerce site with this company since December last using Miva Merchant. Since that time my site has frequently been down due to problems with Freezone Servers, mainly evening and weekends when there is no one to report problems to. Recently this situation has become very serious when middle June last my site went down for a week and when they finally restored the site, it was a backup that was at least one month old (this is a company that advertises 24/07 site monitoring and daily backups).

I was still experiencing problems with this site because the permission had not been set correctly, and when I asked them to look a this further problem, the site went down completely on Friday 6th July. Since that date they have skirted around the problem and keep giving me conflicting information.

The only way that I had been able to publish my site to the internet was by having the domain name re-directed to my free web space provided by my ISP,Blueyonder. This means that the shopping cart element of my web site is not available to customers. In an Email from Rhaza Kahan on 18th July he made various promises and so the site was re-directed back to Freezone on the understanding that the E-commerce Miva Merchant would be available within 48 hours. Needless to say this did not happen and I had no alternative than to send yet another Email asking for compensation (this is only one of many which to date have all been ignored).

I then proceeded to make arrangements to host my site with another company which I understand could take anything up to 3 weeks for the final transfer. I am only asking for the full refund of my hosting fee and not at this stage any consequential losses such as two months advertising and loss of income.
Since Freezone have dismally failed to give me the service I paid for is this so unreasonable? There are other companies affected by this problem - according to Freezone only a small proportion of around 2%.

Editorial Comments

Freezone has the kind of professional looking website that would draw the confidence of the potential customer. But this story implies all may not be well behind the scenes.

It isn't unreasonable to expect a refund where a company has failed to deliver the promised service.

To date Ms Brookes request for a refund has been ignored.
Read Ms Brookes' email here

Which?Online, who certify Freezone as a Webtrader, has also written to the company.

The Consumers Complaint list has also written to Freezone to notifying them of this publication and requesting action that is only reasonable, fair and just: a refund to the customer.

update on 24 August 2001.
Still no sight of the partial refund of £140.64 "in full and final settlement." promised by Freezone earlier this month:

Read full details of Freezone's email to Mrs Brookes and her comments here.
"I was unable to get Freezone to repay the full hosting fee and in order to resolve the matter without any further costs I had agreed to accept their offer of the hosting fee for 6 months. They replied on 20th August to my email to them on 16th August informing that they would arrange to send me a cheque to the value of £140.64. To date this refund has not been received. I am still not confident that I will ever receive this money and may eventually have to consider taking legal action. I will keep you informed of any further developments."

last update on 2 September 2001
"I am writing to inform you that I have finally received a cheque for £140.64 from Freezone which represents a refund for 6 months hosting fee. This now concludes the matter and I wish to thank you for your support during this very trying period.

Many thanks, Regards Sheila Brookes"

I am currently involved in a dispute with this company.
If anybody can supply me with further information regarding the activities of this shower please contact me.
kenwebb@btinternet.com.. Details of Complaint
Ken Webb.....7 Jan 2002

This company are still displaying the Which Webtrader Logo.
Do they have permission to do so?...
6 January 2002

I have been in contact with Which and they have confirmed that Freezone were displaying the Which Webtrader Logo although they had been ordered to remove it.
Kenneth Webb...31 January 2002
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It is now 26/02/02 and I have still received no response from freezone regarding my complaint.I have today passed the matter to Croydon County Court.
Kenneth Webb....26 February 2002
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I eventually had to resort to legal action against Freezone and have just received a FULL REFUND PLUS COSTS.
Regards,
Ken Webb.13 March 2002 read story