I've not heard anything more from CCI since the message I posted - tempted as I am to send them an anatomically explicit explanation of exactly what they can do with their fraudulent claims, I'm just going to ignore them. Completely.

These **** have just sent me the following, after a welcome silence of many months: "CCI 08:54 (18 hours ago) to me Dear XXXXXX We have been instructed to contact you in relation to the above unpaid account. To make payment by card or cash via your local PayPoint outlet, click: www.ccilegal.co.uk/makeapayment/?reference=1301DOL1389476 or call 0845 6710043 and enter reference 430384 To speak to a customer service agent, call CCI on 0845 6443738 Yours Faithfully CCI Legal Services Ltd. This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual(s) addressed in the message. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute, or copy this e-mail. For security and training purposes all calls are recorded. Company No 04358908 - Consumer Credit Licence No 627305 - Data Protection No Z5640292 - Registered Office Stanhope House Mark Rake Bromborough CH62 2DN" ...now what do I do? This is an actual debt collection agency they've sicced on to me now, is this going to mess up my credit rating etc? I had really thought all this crap was behind me, and now I'm right back to being scared and paranoid again. And somehow the amount they claim I owe has gone up from about £95 to £140ish...what the hell? I can feel the panic starting, this feels like very real legal threats now.

Yep - I just ignored the buggers, and haven't heard from them since. Streamline.net - much sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Ahh..they're at it again. This just arrived in my Inbox: "Dear XXXX XXXXX, Payment Outstanding - Account Closure Scheduled. Payment has now been outstanding on your Streamline account for 4 weeks. Repeated attempts to bill your payment card have been declined. We have made three previous attempts to alert you to this situation. All services on your account will now remain offline until payment is received and your account will be closed. This will include the permanent deletion of: All data and configuration associated with the services that we supply. All website data. All email accounts including any stored email messages. All databases (including content) and all other add-on services. You have a limited time in which to clear your outstanding balance. Unless payment is received within the next 7 days we will have no alternative than to pass your details to a debt collection agency for recovery of your arrears, in addition to the full value of your remaining contract. You will also be liable for any additional charges incurred as a result of this recovery, and you should note this may affect your credit rating. You must make this payment within 7 days. Log in to your account at https://control.streamline.net/Auth/Login to update your payment details and clear your outstanding balance. Once we have successfully collected payment, we will reactivate your services. If you need assistance, please contact us on 0844 941 1000. Yours Sincerely The Streamline.net team" And of course as I'd already discovered if you ring that number you just get the Philippines call centre who won't deal with billing issues anyway. I'm minded to just continue ignoring them, but the temptation is very strong to email back just the once saying that since my account is covered by the old T&Cs, and that I've had no services from them since June 17th I don't owe them a penny - just for my own satisfaction. But perhaps I should just continue with the silent treatment...

I didn't send the letter since the general consensus was to just full-on ignore them; I knew that my own incensed-ness would tend to make me rant at them, so figured the safest thing to do was just say nothing. I did talk to the bank; them varmints ain't gettin' a gold-darn cent from me

Well, I took your advice and have just ignored them (much as I wanted to tell them what anatomically-impossible things they could do with their demands); the 7 days deadline expired last night with not a word, but this morning in my Inbox, guess what? "Dear XXXXX, We're changing the way we charge for domain name renewals! In the next 7 days we are making a change to our billing system to charge for domain name renewals on, or shortly before, the domain expiry date. What does this mean for you? If you purchased your hosting package and domain name on different dates, you are currently charged for the renewal of both products at the same time. Following the change, renewals for products will be charged according to the original purchase dates. This means you will have two or more smaller bills to pay at different times, rather than one larger bill to pay on the same date. Example: Mr Smith purchased Hosting package 1 on 1st January 2012, and purchased domainname.com on 1st Jun 2012. Current renewal schedule - hostingpackage1 + domainname.com are both charged as one combined bill on Jan 1st 2013 New renewal schedule - hostingpackage1 is charged on 1st Jan 2013, and domainname.com is charged on 1st Jun 2013 "I paid for my domain name and hosting renewal last month, but the domain was originally purchased a month after the hosting package. Will you now be charging me again for the domain?" No. We will not split your bills until your next renewal is due. "Will I lose any time off my current domain registration?" No. Your current registration remains unaffected by this change. If you have any further questions or queries, simply please let us know e-mail us to let us know and we'll be happy to help! Yours Sincerely The Streamline.net team" Heh. Someone there clearly isn't paying attention.

I'm not sure how much difference this makes, but you remember the bit where their T&C states that accounts opened before 10th. May 2010 - such as mine - are still treated as being under the T&C as they were at the time and not the current T&C...? Thanks to a friend of mine finding them via the Wayback Machine net archive site, here are the relevant bits of their old T&C; posting them here since I'm obviously not the only one having these issues with Streamline. "Rebilling (Renewal) Policy Terms and Conditions REBILLING (RENEWAL) POLICY FOR SHARED HOSTING ACCOUNTS: When ordering an account with Streamline.Net, If the account is a 'Yearly' account Streamline.Net will rebill the customer's account (unless the account has been cancelled within the yearly period) up to 7 days prior to the 1 year period expiring. If the account is a '2 Yearly' account Streamline.Net will rebill the customer's account (unless the account has been cancelled within the 2 yearly period) 14 days prior to the 2 year period expiring. If you require an invoice for the rebilling (renewal) of your account then this can be requested via your account control panel at: (link)control.streamline.net. REBILLING (RENEWAL) POLICY FOR DEDICATED HOSTING: When ordering an account with Streamline.Net, If the account is a 'Monthly', '6 Monthly' or 'Yearly' Streamline.Net will rebill the customer's account (unless the account has been cancelled previously) up to 7 days prior to the time of renewal. If you require an invoice for the rebilling (renewal) of your account then this can be requested via your account control panel at: (link)control.streamline.net." "Account Cancellation Policy Terms and Conditions ACCOUNT CANCELLATION POLICY: If a customer wishes to cancel services with Streamline.Net this cancellation must be requested by submitting a support ticket via their account control panel at: (link)control.streamline.net. We will then confirm this cancellation by reply to the support ticket." These T&Cs seem considerably more easy-going than their more recent ones...does this make a diffierence? I'm tempted to post this to them saying that these are T&Cs of my account...

OK, I just spoke to CAB on the phone (0845 404 0506) and they gave me a case number and said they'd pass it on to Trading Standards - but the woman I spoke to also said that if it is in Streamline's T&C that I agreed to automatic renewal, then I would be liable and have to pay them... It's a bit of a wall of text, but here's the relevant bit copy/pasted from Streamline's own T&C page: "2. Duration and Automatic Renewal of Services 2.1 Unless specifically stated to the contrary in the details of the Service and/or Package You purchase, all Services for which payment is required on a monthly basis are provided for a fixed annual (i.e. 12 month) term. The Agreement will automatically renew on its anniversary date and continue for successive further 12 month periods, unless terminated in accordance with these General Terms & Conditions or the Service Specific Terms & Conditions, if different to these General Terms & Conditions. In the event that You have an existing contract with Streamline.Net which commenced prior to 10 May 2010 ("existing contract") the term and termination provisions of that existing contract shall continue to apply. 2.2 Unless specifically stated to the contrary in the details of the Service and/or Package You purchase, all Services for which payment is required annually in advance shall be provided for a fixed annual (i.e. 12 month) term. The Agreement will automatically renew on its anniversary date and continue for successive further 12 month periods, unless terminated in accordance with these General Terms & Conditions or the Service Specific Terms & Conditions, if different to these General Terms & Conditions. 2.3 Unless specifically stated to the contrary in the details of the Service and/or Package You purchase, all Services for which payment is required biennially in advance shall be provided for a fixed biennial (i.e. 24 month) term. The Agreement will automatically renew on its anniversary date and continue for successive further 24 month periods, unless terminated in accordance with these General Terms & Conditions or the Service Specific Terms & Conditions, if different to these General Terms & Conditions. 2.4 Please be aware that unless You terminate the Services in accordance with clause 3 below or the Service Specific Terms & Conditions, the Services will automatically renew on the anniversary date of the Agreement for a successive term and You will be liable to pay the Prices for a further 12 or 24 months, whichever is applicable. If you choose to terminate the Services any time after the anniversary date of the Agreement You will still be required to pay the Prices for the remaining period of the then current term of the Agreement. 3. Cancellations 3.1 You are entitled to cancel the Services by either submitting a cancellation request to the Streamline.Net support team via the Streamline.Net control panel no less than 7 days prior to the anniversary date of the Agreement or by following the termination provisions in the Service Specific Terms & Conditions relating to the Services or Package You have purchased. 3.2 Streamline.Net reserves the right to cancel and/or suspend Your Services at any time and without notice if You breach these General Terms & Conditions, the Service Specific Terms & Conditions and/or the Acceptable Use Policy." Now my account was started on June 17th 2008, i.e. it counts as one of the older pre-May 2010 contracts. I can't find anything in the emails they sent me at the time I started up the account with them about cancellation, I just have the usual "Welcome to our service"-type stuff.

Thanks for the reply, slick132. So should I literally just ignore them from this point onwards, or should I at least reply on their 'support' site to the message in post #23 - something to the effect of 'I have no intention of paying for a service I won't be receiving, and am seeking legal advice' or something similar? They don't have my current card details, and I'm damn sure I want it to stay that way. The thing that occurs to me from the initial 'we couldn't take payment' email of June 17th is this: "Dear XXXXXXX, Access to your Streamline.net account has been suspended Main account domain name: svartmetall.co.uk We have been unable to take payment for a service on your Streamline.net account as your debit/credit card was declined. Your account has been suspended, and will remain suspended until we are able to take payment." So can I take the position (and tell them straight out) that I don't owe them anything, as I haven't in fact been the recipient of any services from them since the end of the period for which I had paid in advance anyway? I'm probably seeming deeply useless about all this, it's just that I've never been in a situation like this before.

Er, that actually *is* what I clicked, it says 'report post' when I mouse over it...I'm so stressed out by this though that I probably managed to do something wrong, sorry.

But they've threatened me with debt collection proceedings, surely that's 'something bad'? You know and I know they're being totally unreasonable, but if they get the debt collection ball rolling over me surely I'm screwed then? I can't help but be stressed by it when I'm faced with bullying legal threats for the first time in my life, it's scaring the hell out of me. I'll try contacting an admin, anyway, thanks for the advice.

Any idea how on earth I do that, and how long it takes? Because here's the bullying, threat-filled email they sent me 2 days ago: "You have a limited time in which to clear your outstanding balance. Unless payment is received within the next 7 days we will have no alternative than to pass your details to a debt collection agency for recovery of your arrears, in addition to the full value of your remaining contract. You will also be liable for any additional charges incurred as a result of this recovery, and you should note this may affect your credit rating. You must make this payment within 7 days." This is a total nightmare. I've never had any legal trouble or debts or anything of the kind before and I'm absolutely melting down with stress and worry now that this company is threatening me like this.

Well, they seem to think they *do* have a leg to stand on - here's the reply I just received from them after I told them that they couldn't possibly expect me to pay for two years' worth of hosting that I've made it plain I do not want: "Thank you for your query When you took your account out with us you agreed to the automatic renewal of your account at the end of each period unless you contacted us to request the closure before the renewal date. Letting your card expiry does not prevent the renewal it just means that we are unable to take payment and the fee becomes over due. If you wish to check the terms you agreed to then you can do so here: (link)streamline.net/about-us/terms-and-conditions/ I can only confirm that as you didn't contact us to request the closure before the renewal date the outstanding payments will need to be cleared before any changes can be made to your account. Kind regards The Streamline.net team - Web hosting made easy" What the hell do I do now? I'm totally stressed out by this. It looks like I'm going to be forced to pay a lot of money for something I don't want, in the face of all reason (and reasonability). The threat of debt-collection procedures being started against me is very scary.

I haven't made any payments towards what they say I 'owe' them, as my old card expired months before the renewal date.

I'm in the exact same situation myself, they are insisting I pay for 2 years' worth of hosting that I do not want simply because my card expired before the renewal date and the first I heard about it was a message saying the payment had failed, which has led me to this impasse; I had been made redundant and web hosting for a website I'd given up on the idea of making about a year previously was the last thing on my mind and now I have this bunch of cowboys hassling me. It seems to be impossible to talk to Streamline's billing departtment directly, as well; the only number that works is the 0844 941 1000 number, which takes you through to a call centre in the Philippines full of script-reading robots. They refuse to deal with billing issues and say the only way to get these dealt with is to fill out a 'support' ticket...whenever I've done so all I've had is the same old 'you must pay for a service you don't want' stonewalling. I'm getting very stressed out by this, can anyone help?