Should I name and shame?
What do you do when a company lets you down on a promise? Do you just leave that service and defect to a competitor?, do you warn people not to use them? What about if the company that let you down was one that you had recommended to others?
My hosting company has been great up to now. They are very low cost but provide a lot of features not included in the more expensive companies plans. Support issues were usually turned around in about 24 hours (possibly partly a time difference thing, me being in UK and them in USA). I have recommended them whenever anyone asked for recommendations for low cost ASP.NET hosting with sql server. It was an easy decision to make, I thought they were great plus they have a generous affiliate scheme - no brainer.
In fact I have only had one problem with them.They don't pay out on their affiliate scheme. According to their control panel I have been paid - months ago. But I haven't. No problem, I thought, they have always been responsive to tech queries. On this occasion they are not being very helpful at all. It's been going on since early February.
So I don't know what to do. On the one hand I have received a service I am happy with, happy enough to recommend to others. On the other hand they have broken a promise to me, a promise that is worth more than the value of another years hosting. Should I stick with them and write off the affiliate money or should I warn the people I have recommended that there is something dodgy going on? (Probably moot as if I have recommended them to YOU then you know now!). Should I tell the wider ASP.NET community?
Could be incompentance or it could be they are struggling with cash flow, either way its not a good signal for a hoster to be sending ..