Firstly PayPal – their customer functionality is exemplary when it comes to paying them and abysmal if you want to stop paying them. I began this morning by setting out to cancel my no-longer-required PayPalPro account, which is linked to my standard account. It is an absolute doddle to request such an account, indeed to set up a PayPalPro account. But misery itself should you ever wish to cancel your PayPalPro account. Their copious online help and pseudo-agent support feature doesn’t envisage anyone might wish to discontinue a premium service. The telephone support option is an expensive nightmare journey that gets nowhere, either. That was an hour of my life I would like back, please. And half a day later I have not had an acknowledgment, let alone a resolution, for my cancellation request by email.

I should have realised that today was not a good day to do e-business for me.

And yet, I then turned my attention to Fasthosts (who have had their fair share of customer problems). Once again my expectation and request was fairly straightforward. In October Fasthosts billed me incorrectly, twice. When I noticed their mistake they declined a direct refund to my payment card and offered a credit to my Fasthosts account, against future bills. Reluctantly I accepted this solution because life is too short to deal with such ineptness. However, a couple of months later I checked my Fasthosts account and discovered that the credit had not been applied to any of my intervening transactions, leaving the credit on my account untouched, despite several opportunities for it to have been applied by Fasthosts. I called again today and the billing support agent confirmed that my account was in credit but their policy would not allow the amount to be applied as part-payment of any larger invoice (or smaller invoice either). My Fasthosts credit balance will only be used if Fasthosts happen to raise an invoice for an amount identical to the credit balance on my account!

I suspect this is not only bad business but also illegal – because they have charged my payment card and refused a refund when validly challenged by me. Either way more precious time will be spent sorting out their mistakes. In the meantime, they have the benefit of my cash.

PayPal and Fasthosts are this week’s joint winners of my wooden spoon for e-biz.

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