I've been meaning to update my personal web site for a long time. When I heard the glowing recommendations from Leo Laporte about the SquareSpace hosting service, I signed up for a trial account. The migration of my existing web site looked to be a bit more complex than I had thought. So I had to upgrade my account to have another user log in so I could get some help from Zach.
After several attempts by both of us, it became apparent that their service is just too limiting for the type on content I want to create. SquareSpace is pretty - but it's a locked down environment, and they are missing features like FTP access to do bulk upload of content to their service.
So, after paying for SquareSpace for 6 months, and never deploying my site to it, I finally canceled my account. BUT, here's where SquareSpace shows their true colors. Because it has been more than 90 days since they took my payment, they refused to refund ANY of my 1 year subscription. Even though their service never worked for me, and despite my willingness to pay for "time served", they were totally inflexible in giving me a refund for the remaining time on my contract.
This puts SquareSpace in the "Evil" column for me - just like cable TV and cell phone providers. They position themselves "against" their customers, rather than trying to serve them and provide real value.
So, SquareSpace wants keep my money, even though their product was never able to satisfy my needs. After several back-and-forth emails with their product support, they just told me "I'm screwed".
So - chaulk up another company as entering the "Evil" column. I would never recommend that anyone use this service. There are many more companies that can solve the same problem (and for a much better value - compare to DreamHost where you can get multiple domains, and mulitple user accounts all for about $10/month).
Here's the thread with product support:
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I tried to use SquareSpace, but found it was too limited for my intentions for my web site.
Along the way I bought extended packages, but I was never able to deploy my site. I am asking that you refund the remaining balance of my subscription.
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Christa Collins (Administrator) Wednesday, 12/23/09 at 10:32 AM
Hi there,
Unfortunately we're not able to refund yearly subscriptions past 90 days, I'm sorry about this. If you're having issues with your site we're happy to help, just let us know what you're trying to set up.
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Mike Koss Wednesday, 12/23/09 at 12:07 PM
Unfortunately, it took me longer to evaluate SquareSpace beyond 90 days. I found that the photo gallery tool was too limited for my purposes, and did not allow me to customize it in the way that I wanted.
At this point, I don't think I can use SS for my site.
Since I was only evaluating SS, and never depolyed my full service, I'd like to ask that the balance of my subscription payment be refunded (you can retain the pro-rata payment for the amount of time I "used" the site).
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Christa Collins (Administrator) Wednesday, 12/23/09 at 12:11 PM
I'm sorry for the confusion -- we can't refund payments older than 90 days. When you sign up for service we recommend using the monthly plan if you're not sure how long you'll keep your site. The yearly package offers a 10% discount in the package price for the year-long commitment.
GoDaddy despite the awful name is $7 a month and lets you do anything short of configure IIS yourself. Although I think the linux offering you can do anything to the virtual machine.
Hi mike i got your reply and am sorry to hear you had a problem with the service. But i've never heard a complaint about them until your's. In fact the reviews have been very positive, and with kevin rose using SquareSpace that sold it for me.
The endorsements by Leo Laporte and others is what got me interested in SquareSpace and why I was so confident that they would be a good solution for me. But then I started getting hit with charges that seemed exorbitant (like having to pay $200/year just so you can have multiple authors of your blog).
Then after spending many hours trying to fit my "round peg" website into their "squaure space" - I had to give up. Their service is really little more than a blogging site - I need more flexibility than that.
The final straw for me was that even though I wasn't able to get value out of their service, and never deployed it, they still wanted to keep my money. What kind of company does that? I call it an "evil" one - so they've totally lost my trust.
Hi Mike,
I work at Squarespace -- sorry to hear about the negative experience. I was attempting to respond to you on twitter, but let me clarify our billing policy:
1) Squarespace has a 14-day trial which we don't request your credit card for. You can get a few extensions to this trial just by writing support so you don't have to pay anything unless you're certain Squarespace will work for you. Again, no credit card is collected up front -- so you can't "forget" to cancel and get charged accidentally.
2) Most Squarespace users elect our "monthly" payment plan. You pay month-to-month with no commitment at all. Support will recommend you use this plan unless you're certain you'll be there for a year. This is the default plan selected when you sign up.
3) If you do choose a yearly plan (for which we offer with a 10% discount) -- you can cancel this yearly plan within 90 days for a pro-rated refund. This alleviates the situation where people accidentally sign up for a yearly plan. 90 days is the _maximum_ period allowed by banks and credit card companies for returning a charge to your card electronically.
It seems you were on your trial period, stayed 90 days into a yearly plan (so you used the service for 1/4rd of a year or more) and are now requesting out of the yearly plan, which you were given a discount for selecting. If the service didn't work after months -- why pay for it at all (#1), or use monthly billing (#2), or simply request a refund within the first quarter of a year of service (#3)?
Further, you go on to recommend Dreamhost -- which you'll notice has the exact same policy as we do for yearly commitments, yet does not offer the same flexibility (to my understanding) on monthly plans as we do -- so you've recommended a service with not only similar, but more restrictive billing options.
I hope this clarifies our billing policies for anyone interested. When we created these policies, we certainly weren't trying to be "evil"; rather, we tried to combine sensible practice and industry standards. We're sorry that you feel otherwise :(
In hind sight - I was stupid to sign up for your annual plan. Perhaps you are legally able to keep my money, even though your service:
1) Does not work for me.
2) Was too complicated for me to figure out it would not work for me during your trial period.
That doesn't change my opinion that it is unethical to keep the (unused portion) of a subscriber's payment, knowing that they never were able to use the service, and it did not meet their needs.
Do you think that just because you DISCLOSE that you will steal from me makes it any better when you do?
Do you think that bad behavior is justified just because other vendors in the market have the same policies?