I’ve been a victim too.

In Dec 2006, I signed up for a 36 month hosting package for around $200 with “free” domain name with “free whois privacy”.

In Dec 2007, I received an email from Gisol saying my card had expired and my domain needed renewing. I tried updating the expiry date, and adding a new card, but it still said expired. I emailed them, so they sent me a link to a page on gisol.com to pay for the renewal. All looked OK as after inputting my details it went to a page saying thanks for your payment. I realised that I didn’t get a confirmation email for the transaction, so emailed them. I didn’t receive a reply.

In mid Jan 2008 my website disappeared. I emailed them to ask why. At 0130am UK time I received a call from “Aaron”, saying that my domain had gone into redemption and my account had been shutdown. After a lot of obviously frustrated talk, I agreed to opening a new account which would cost me $42 for 3 years. HE confirmed several times that $42 in total would be all my card would be charged. He also said afterwards that I would receive a refund of $87 for the original contract.

He directed me to a page where I could sign the new contract. This is very difficult using a mouse or a touchpad. Anyway after about 4 attempts, which he said was because Visa wasn’t accepting it, he said it was ok, then put the phone down!

I got an email immediately saying thank you for my payment of $718.20!

I rang my bank immediately after the phone call. They were very sympathetic, but said they couldn’t treat it as a fraud case as I had done business with them in the past and supplied my card details to them. A dispute was filed with Visa International. What Gisol replied with to them and my bank is total and utter FRAUD! I have proof to prove that it is fraud. I thought that they were pretty watertight, the way they have everything covered, with contracts and verbal agreements etc, but I believe they are getting a bit desperate about the amount of chargebacks they are getting and haven’t really thought through what they are doing this time. It’s NOW going through the Fraud Dept of my bank and Visa International. I hope the evidence is stacking up and they get sent down very soon. It can only be a matter of time.

I did the usual like emailing, ringing, trouble tickets etc but of course no help/reply. My domain didn’t come out of redemption as they said they would, and of course it was owned by them, not me. I’ve managed to get it back now which is a relief, as I have paying clients advertising on there. I temporarily ran my .co.uk version, but it wasn’t ideal as search engines listed my .com version. It’s been down for about 6 weeks while the redemption/deleting process went through. I managed to get snapnames.com to get it back for me the instant it became available.

At the beginning of Feb 2008, I sent an email to all the usual addresses, and also to global[at]gisol[dot]com. This was entitled “You have been reported”, and informed them that they had in fact been reported to all the relevant authorities and the UK Press etc.

At around 0130am that night, I received another phonecall. The representative from Gisol was apparently the same person who had rang me a couple of weeks before, but was this time calling himself Brian. He was ringing because he was concerned that I had reported them. I corrected him by informing him that I had written in the email “yet another person” had reported them, not specifically me. I also asked why he was ringing as I knew he had ripped me off and he knew he had ripped me off. This seemed to anger him, and another person (from their “legal?” dept) joined in the conversation. Basically they were trying to get me to admit that I had agreed to the amount charged. Obviously I admitted to no such thing. The conversation went to and fro for a while until I mentioned that I would do all in my power to let as many people know not to use their company as I possibly could. The “legal” representative said that it was obviously becoming a libelous conversation and I should check with the lawyers in my country! At this point I laughed at him, and they hung up!

My bank has now refunded me the fraudulent charges. They would have left it there I think, but I am so concerned about this problem that I have asked them to take it further. After informing them of the scale of Gisol’s activities, they agreed to take the matter to the police.

I can only urge everyone affected to dispute/chargeback the charges, report them to as many agencies (LA Attorney, California Attorney, FBI IC3, Federal Trade Commission, BBB, local police, press, TV etc etc etc) as you can.

Don’t be scared. Let’s do it and get them sent down!!!