WHMCS Support decline

[easyhosting]

I've been waiting almost 4 days now just to get a license purchased from a MAJOR reseller activated...

 

 

I cannot understand this as noormally licences will be activated instantly if purchased from major resellers/distributors. Also from what i understand this is the same as CE and that even small resellers just need to add your IP/domain to their resellers panel which would activate the licence for the domain.

[HostT]

HostT, I've had a chance to look into this for you overnight. I'm still unclear on where your above comments:

 

...are coming from here on this matter though.

 

Because the company I purchased the license from responded in less than a couple hours and every time they told me they were waiting on a response from WHMCS. There must have been some type of problem with the reseller system.

 

Your ticket was responded to, and the issues you face were properly explained. Instead of continuing that dialog in that ticket, you brought this matter out to the forums. For what reason if I might ask?

 

My ticket has only been open since yesterday and at the time of my post it had not been responded to. The hosting provider has had a ticket open regarding this since 11/09/2012. I was not able to get a clear answer or activated license since last Friday so I knew I would either get support from a customer on here who has experienced the same thing or someone from WHMCS would respond on the forum. And looks like I was correct. That's why.

 

I don't see the need to discuss this here with you on the public forums. I also see no need for you to be blasting WHMCS over something having to do with the terms you have with your license and Hosting Provider.

 

Whether you've been waiting for 3 or 4 or 10 days, that ticket was replied to, it's waiting on you I believe.

 

I believe it is something that is completely reasonable to be discussed on the forum. Especially now that I understand what part of the problem was. I did not mean to "blast" WHMCS I was simply stating that there shouldn't be any reason it would take 4 days especially since the past couple i've gotten worked perfectly fine, the error I was getting was directly on the WHMCS website when clicking the "signup" button after entering the domain and being forwarded to the next page.

 

This has nothing to do with the terms between me and a hosting provider as they added the domain and the WHMCS system got me all the way to where you click signup and then would give errors. I never had this problem in the past and the "provider" I was using was very good about responding to me and I got probably 4 replies saying either waiting on reply from WHMCS or "the solution they suggested unfortunately did not work, awaiting another reply" ...

 

This:

.. is drama. Not sure why we need that here. If you've got something to say, say it. You really should be saying it in your ticket though, or to your Hosting Provider.

 

To be clear, under normal circumstances you should not be waiting for a license for 3 days, you and I agree there. If you are, there's a reason for that. That reason has been explained to you. If I'm mistaken, please feel free to clarify, contact me here on the forums, or post back to your ticket to discuss this further with WHMCS staff. We'll be happy to help you out to resolve this.

 

Drama free, guaranteed.

 

That statement was in reference to MY customers getting upset because they did not receive their license that was supposed to come with their hosting package in a timely manner. You should know if a customer signs up for a dedicated server on Friday they expect to be able to start setting everything up that weekend.

---

 

So now to explain what actually happened...

 

Apparently you are NOT allowed to purchase a WHMCS from your service provider to provide to your clients, even though those clients are hosted on that providers network and servers.

 

I searched the entire WHMCS website including the reseller page and there is absolutely no reference to this being one of the terms and conditions. I only found this out after having my ticket responded to being told that I can not purchase WHMCS licenses from them.

 

http://www.whmcs.com/resellers/

 

As far as I was aware and from what I found on the WHMCS it was perfectly legal and compliant to purchase the WHMCS license from my provider to give to my clients as an addon. The only terms I found that even slightly hint at that was specifically saying that the WHMCS license had to be on their "network", which it is.

 

I now know about this and have applied for the reseller license (which did not state this on the terms either).

 

I know i'm not the only one who has done this and it just happens to be one of those "grey" areas regarding resellers. Either way it still should have activated the license but with the turn of events it is now clear what WHMCS terms are regarding resellers and the licensing.

 

I didn't purposely post on here to talk badly about WHMCS as in the past I have always received great support and been very happy with the software. It just turns out there was some type of system issue, some terms that I was not aware of and didn't find anywhere on the WHMCS website so as far as I was knew at the time it had been 3+ days and I still didn't have an activated license.

 

In this specific situation I don't place all the blame on WHMCS as there were many contributing factors but as it was Friday my service provider could not activate the license and on Monday it still was not activated. After submitting my own ticket it turns out there were terms we were not aware of but that's still not the reason the license wasn't activated. Whether or not it was my client or my providers is transparent as it is a dedicated server hosted on their network so as far as WHMCS knew it was one of my providers customers...only after me submitting a ticket are they aware of it now, which is fine because now I know what the terms are in this matter regarding reselling and WHMCS and I will now be purchasing licenses for my customers directly from WHMCS.

[Infopro]

Thanks for the update, HostT. I'm happy to hear you're getting this all sorted out. I appreciate you taking the time to post back for others that may read this thread down the road and have the same questions needing answers. This thread is one more place they'll find them.

 

Best of luck with your new Reseller Account!

[HostT]

Well let's hope so, still waiting to get an activated license. Ended up using a full license to at least get the client a working WHMCS in the meantime.

 

I do STRONGLY suggest that WHMCS add a section with terms for resellers or at least state it on the reseller page and a lot of these mis-understandings could have been avoided.

[easyhosting]

Well let's hope so, still waiting to get an activated license. Ended up using a full license to at least get the client a working WHMCS in the meantime.

 

I do STRONGLY suggest that WHMCS add a section with terms for resellers or at least state it on the reseller page and a lot of these mis-understandings could have been avoided.

 

http://www.whmcs.com/resellers/

 

Does state

 

Reseller Requirements

 

 

• You must have an active WHMCS license yourself purchased directly from us
  
• If an owned license, you must have active support & upgrades
  
• You must have your account in good standing with all invoices paid
  
  
• You must agree to our reseller provider agreement
  
• You may sell licenses to your own hosting/dedicated customers only
   
  

Also

Q: Who can I sell these licenses to?

A: The reseller program is intended for web hosts, to allow them to offer WHMCS licenses along with their reseller, VPS and/or dedicated hosting services. The reseller program does not allow selling licenses to the general public, or as a standalone item.

[HostT]

http://www.whmcs.com/resellers/

 

Does state

 

Reseller Requirements

 

 

• You must have an active WHMCS license yourself purchased directly from us
  
• If an owned license, you must have active support & upgrades
  
• You must have your account in good standing with all invoices paid
  
  
• You must agree to our reseller provider agreement
  
• You may sell licenses to your own hosting/dedicated customers only
   
  

Also

Q: Who can I sell these licenses to?

A: The reseller program is intended for web hosts, to allow them to offer WHMCS licenses along with their reseller, VPS and/or dedicated hosting services. The reseller program does not allow selling licenses to the general public, or as a standalone item.

 

No, does not. I purchased the WHMCS license along with the dedi from the hosting provider. Tell me how that is not complying with those terms.

 

The server however was for my customer. This is where there is a grey area.

 

Maybe something like

"You may sell licenses to your own hosting/dedicated customers only. Those customers are not allowed to provide that license to their own customers, the license is only meant to be for your direct customers."

 

So technically if anything I was the one not following the "terms" as I basically was a middle man between my customer and my provider. Now i'm sure there could be something in the EULA but i'm just pointing out that the wording could be taken many different ways, that's all.

[Chrisw]

You are admitting to reselling to a resold license (whether it be for free or paid) and are failing to understand the concept of single tiered reselling. I can see the confusion but your logic is totally flawed in your argument. For example, how is it different if I allow my resellers to resell our WHMCS licenses that we have agreed with WHMCS that we wouldn't do?

 

Make any sense? You are the only one within WHMCS terms that can legally utilize the license. If there is any questions about this then you should point them with your host as they are the ones that offered it to you (not your client).

[easyhosting]

No, does not. I purchased the WHMCS license along with the dedi from the hosting provider. Tell me how that is not complying with those terms.

 

The server however was for my customer. This is where there is a grey area.

 

 

Yes it does (see attachment). no grey area as it clearly states "You may sell licenses to your own hosting/dedicated customers only" so the WHMCS reseller ( your host) can sell direct to you but you cant then resell that onto your clients as you ARE NOT a WHMCS reseller.

[WebsiteIntegrations]

and if your not a reseller:

 

"The WHMCS Software is supplied by WHMCS Limited, and is licensed, not sold, under the terms of the EULA. WHMCS Limited reserves all rights not expressly granted to you and WHMCS Limited retains the ownership of the Software.

 

License holders are not permitted to “borrow”, “lend” or “sell” licenses to any third parties except in the case of Owned License Transfers as detailed later on in the agreement. Any licenses found to be being used in this way will be revoked without recourse.

 

WHMCS Limited reserve the right to refuse service at their discretion."

 

http://www.whmcs.com/about/terms-of-service/

[HostT]

You are admitting to reselling to a resold license (whether it be for free or paid) and are failing to understand the concept of single tiered reselling. I can see the confusion but your logic is totally flawed in your argument. For example, how is it different if I allow my resellers to resell our WHMCS licenses that we have agreed with WHMCS that we wouldn't do?

 

Make any sense? You are the only one within WHMCS terms that can legally utilize the license. If there is any questions about this then you should point them with your host as they are the ones that offered it to you (not your client).

 

Thank you for your response, I think you nailed it right on the head.

 

I now understand the tiered reseller setup and have applied for a reseller license myself to move any licenses I have over to make sure I am fully compliant. I was just merely trying to explain how I originally read it, didn't mean to cause a big deal over it. I know for a fact there are a lot of other people doing this so I know i'm not the only one, but now that I know how what has to be done i'm taking all steps to make sure I have everything setup correctly.

 

Thank you everyone for your responses, let's put this one to bed.

[HostT]

http://blog.whmcs.com/?t=63622

[Drecca]

After my first real interaction with support, I have to say I'm very happy. I had a question about 2CO recurring billing, and another function concerning it, and it was answered promptly (within a few hours) with all the detail I needed to know.

 

In the ticket, I asked the questions I needed to know, so it wouldn't need to go back and forth.

 

I can't say if my experience is the norm or not, but +1 to WHMCS support from me.

[concerto49]

Used WHMCS support a few times. They're ok. Not as bad as I've heard. Looks like things are improving, which is good.

[davecummins]

thought I'd add my piece. I've been using whmcs for about 2 years now. I've had some minor questions and opened support tickets for them, and to date have been very happy with the response times, varying from a couple of hours to 1 day. When a new version was released I always understood that tickets will take longer for responses, obviously as there are more important problems to fix than mine. I am in business too and this is basic business sense.

 

to date I had been using freelancer dot com to have extra work done on my whmcs installation, mainly payment gateways but now that pci-dss compliance has to be adhered to we decided to use whmcs directly for our gateway project. The first few emails back and forth were replied to promptly where we discussed our requirements, passed information, etc bar a few 2 week delayed responses. I was then promised a completed gateway in 3-4 weeks. 1 month later I received an email to say

"Just some heads up that I am coordinating and reviewing a number of project based tickets. This will take place next week, but I should be able to track down the status and communicate with you on the status and delivery time of this". A month later I got another reply and again nothing for several weeks.

 

As we are close now to 4 months since we requested this pci-dss compliant payment gateway we have no idea what is happening with whmcs. Our merchant account is being suspended next week as we have not complied to their guidlines, that's how serious this is for us. The complete lack of understanding from whmcs is what I am totally amazed by.

 

Completely let down, very disappointed, frustrated and annoyed. Put's our business in risk - what else can I say.

Edited November 23, 2012 by davecummins

[WHMCS Chris]

thought I'd add my piece. I've been using whmcs for about 2 years now. I've had some minor questions and opened support tickets for them, and to date have been very happy with the response times, varying from a couple of hours to 1 day. When a new version was released I always understood that tickets will take longer for responses, obviously as there are more important problems to fix than mine. I am in business too and this is basic business sense.

 

to date I had been using freelancer dot com to have extra work done on my whmcs installation, mainly payment gateways but now that pci-dss compliance has to be adhered to we decided to use whmcs directly for our gateway project. The first few emails back and forth were replied to promptly where we discussed our requirements, passed information, etc bar a few 2 week delayed responses. I was then promised a completed gateway in 3-4 weeks. 1 month later I received an email to say

"Just some heads up that I am coordinating and reviewing a number of project based tickets. This will take place next week, but I should be able to track down the status and communicate with you on the status and delivery time of this". A month later I got another reply and again nothing for several weeks.

 

As we are close now to 4 months since we requested this pci-dss compliant payment gateway we have no idea what is happening with whmcs. Our merchant account is being suspended next week as we have not complied to their guidlines, that's how serious this is for us. The complete lack of understanding from whmcs is what I am totally amazed by.

 

Completely let down, very disappointed, frustrated and annoyed. Put's our business in risk - what else can I say.

 

I've emailed you personally through the forums - please update me at your convenience.

[MemoryX2]

I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in here as well..

 

I am pretty happy with the support right now. I will share my experience:

 

I opened a support ticket sometime yesterday afternoon. Not late in the day but after lunch. No reply until this morning which is completely fine. This morning I received a reply with the action I needed to do to fix my problem. After doing the steps I sent an email in for the next stage, and received a reply in probably an hour. Anyway long story short, I sent and received several responses from WHMCS today. WHMCS was reasonably prompt and had the answers I needed.

 

The one thing that I am not happy with is the Android app. It gripes me to pay $34 for something as useless as what the app is. It force closes, hasn't been updated in almost an entire year (seriously 12/14/2011 last update). If the app was updated to work with Android 4.2, and have the ability to add a new client, modify products, and everything work I would be extremely happy with WHMCS. One thing that would be awesome is if the app had an option to import your own graphic for the app icon .. basic functionality first though please..