Red Tape

On Monday, I began the process of deleting two of my business websites no longer being used. Since my logical left-brain has the need to plan ahead, I had worked out a series of steps by which to accomplish this by Tuesday afternoon — two days ago!

It was all supposed to go down like this:

  • Create new log-ins to various web accounts for which I used a business email address as a log-in.
  • Get web host to change the primary domain name of my hosting account from old business account to current website, www.kathibelldesign.com.
  • Delete both old websites

Now that I’ve done the hard part, which was changing all of those log-ins, in theory, I should be able to delete the content of the sites and then, FLINK! Turn them off! GONE FOREVER, right?

Turns out it’s not that easy! Who knew that this would become an arduous task full of…red tape! Because I was receiving so much spam email, a few months back I had added a paid spam filtering product to all of my domains (an add-on product sponsored by the web host). I never imagined it would cause a problem…red tape!

Tech support: if you wish to change your primary domain name, you’ll need to delete the spam filtering software

Me: How do I do that? I don’t find where it will let you delete the product (and thinking to myself, that must be by design – once they’ve got you, you’re in for life!)

Tech support: I can do it for you if you’d like. It will take me 3 minutes.

Me: Yes, please do that.

Tech support (after 15 minutes on hold): We have issued a refund for the remaining months, but for some reason, we aren’t able to deactivate the service. I have escalated it to our billing department so the billing team can remove it. Please allow 24 hours for them to contact you.

Meanwhile, two days later, I haven’t heard back and the spam is inundating all of my accounts that are hosted by them. Hello, web police? We’ve got a hostage situation herered tape!

If you know me, you know how much I despise making calls to tech support. I’m headed up to the computer now to do just that. Their 24-hours has long since passed and I need a resolution. This blog and all of the websites and domains I host with this company may be migrating to a new host and thus be down for a while. Who knows? That is, if the spam product doesn’t hold them hostage, too…red tape!