Being invoiced for a full contract period for accidentally going over marketing contact allowance

[DanKemp]

Hi everyone,

I'm at the end of my tether with Hubspot over this, and just wanted to see if anyone had any advice or had experienced anything similar.

At the end of July, we were trying to manage our Marketing Contact allocation by removing some users then adding some more. Something went wrong and we accidentally went over our limit by 70. 

I immediately removed all of our marketing contacts to reset it to zero. We didn't send any emails to those new contacts. I contacted Hubspot support straight away and explained the mistake, and I was told it could probably be fixed, or at the very least I would just be charged for that one month where we had gone over. 

By this point we had already received the auto-generated invoice saying that we had been moved onto a new tier for Marketing Contacts, and we had been invoiced not just for that month but for every month until the end of our contract (next February)!

My account manager did finally get back to me and we had a face to face meeting, I explained what the situation was and I fully expected it would get resolved there and then and the invoice would be rescinded.

A few days later I got an email saying that it could not be rescinded. Suddenly all I was getting was the blanket corporate response of "it's in our terms" and there's nothing anyone could do about it.

I tried escalating via the Billings team but got the template response. I tried to push for it to be escalated via my account manager but he kept stalling and giving me the template response. Finally he gave my the email contact for his line manager. I emailed her and she's ignored me.

My estimation of Hubspot has nosedived because of this. One tiny error and not only am I being charged extortionately, but I am no longer being treated as a valued, human customer. 

What would you do in this situation? Anyone experienced anything similar? The invoice will come up to 30 days overdue on 26th September and I am worried our access to Hubspot will be cut off if we don't pay, so I want to get it resolved by then. 

I would have thought that any change in service should be refundable within 14 days - covered by UK law? Any ideas?

[DGarcia195]

almost the exact same problem. they are a fraudulent company I am just realizing. they are not Better Business accredited. they charged me the starter package, then automatically charged me for over 2k contacts, when I tried to use the upload contact file, which was NOT working. they are not responding to me. 

[BérangèreL]

Hi @DGarcia195,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience regarding this.

I would like to apologize for the frustration, data issues, and business impact this has caused.

Can you please give me more details into what is happening and how I can help you?

The more info, screenshots (without sensitive/confidential information), and details you can provide, the better the Community can assist.

I'd like to share some resources that might be of interest and help you:

- Understand marketing contacts billing
- Understand marketing contacts
- Set contacts as marketing
- Manage marketing contacts settings for your integrations
- Default marketing statuses for newly created contacts

Also, I would recommend connecting with HubSpot Technical Support, as Support is included in your subscription and they will be able to provide real-time assistance for this matter, including hopping on a screenshare if necessary.

And please @DGarcia195, let me know if there is anything else I can help with. I'll be delighted to do so!

Best,
Bérangère

[BérangèreL]

Hi @DGarcia195, just wanted to check on you, do you still need help, please?

Have a great day!
Bérangère

[AngelinaMCORTEZ]

Hi Dan,

I must say that as I am reading these messages and the date of 2 years ago it is frightening to see that hubspot is so indignent about working with their customers and being flexible. I too have a very similar story. We purchased an email list of 12k and we made the purchase of the hubspot contract with 17k emails because of the number of email contacts and the teired pricing structure. Reluctantly we signed up for the 17k - well about 1.5 months after getting up and running and ready to use the system, we received notice from our mailing service that we only had about 8500 emails and mailing addresses that were relevant. The rest were fraudulent. I contacted the company http://www.datasnapsolutionsinc.com/about.html. and after numerous attempts to get this taken care of they ignored us. I reached out to chase bank and asked for an investigation. We received a full refund as this company is a scam. Next we reached out to Riley our accoutn rep and she hadnt answered for about a week or maybe 2. For whatever reason we finally got a glimmer of hope that we would be able to take care of this. WELL... come to find out aaliyah says NO, we must pay more then 1k per month because we are under contract. I have never worked with a company this is willing to operate in this fashion and expect to grow as a business. 

My team and I are now at a stand still becasue our marketing dollars are now being sucked into hubspot who has ZERO cares about what we have experienced. 

Why is this the case? 

Angelina Cortez

CEO 

Pets2GO International 

[DGarcia195]

I would highly recommend entering a fraud report https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

[burak-finedine]

I’m experiencing the same issue. We’re being charged an extra $500/month because we signed the contract without knowing the number of marketing contacts. It’s really frustrating. I would advise against making an annual contract with HubSpot!

[AngelinaMCORTEZ]

Hubspot wont be in business within the next 2 years if they continue in this fashion. 

[DGarcia195]

I feel there are enough complaints for a class action suit. Completely deceptive. 

[DanKemp]

Yes that's a good point, you could avoid paying annually to avoid this issue. But then again, you'd lose the savings that come from paying annually.

[PGavalas]

I have had the same thing happen to me hence my search for such threads. I used to hold Hubspot in high regard and spread the word to other Business Leaders to use them, however, their practices on this type of matter are immoral and I will now do the opposite.

We accidentally added a number of contacts from a "workflow which went wrong", fixed the issue within hours and contacted their team for an issue, that should be a non issue i.e. Their system should not even allow you to go over the amount of contacts which you have in your package and should simply stop the ability to send any emails until you add more contacts or an authorised billing contact upgrades your package. 

I thought by being proactive, fixing the issue that same day and contacting support to explain the situation, they would apologise for their ridiculous practice and reverse the invoice. Instead, they sent us an invoice for a new contract tier for the remainder of the contract period which is nearly 2 years worth i.e. thousands of dollars! 

How they think they will get customer advocacy from such immoral practices is beyond me.  

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @DanKemp and @rodericks,

thank you for providing additional information. We apologize for the frustration and business impact this has caused. I've reached out to your account representatives to make sure that this is on their radar. While we cannot promise anything regarding changes to the the charges, you deserve a response from us and an open channel of communication with your account representatives at HubSpot. 

I did want to take this opportunity to share some resources around this topic that other Community members may find beneficial down the road: 

• This Knowledge base article explains the guardrails that are in place to help customers prevent an unwanted contact tier upgrade. You should get notified about the number of marketing contacts so you can change their marketing status before the next contacts update date.
• You can also prevent other users from setting contacts as marketing by adjusting their user permissions to avoid unwanted tier upgrades.
• Here is the legal documentation where the pricing & billing for marketing contacts is explained in more detail: Terms of Service, Product Specific Terms.

If you have any further issue regarding getting in touch with your account representatives at HubSpot, please feel free to DM me on the Community and I will continue to advocate for you internally. 

Thank you for your understanding. 

Mia, Community team 

[FAdam5]

"You should get notified about the number of marketing contacts so you can change their marketing status before the next contacts update date."

We had no such notification - just an increase of hundreds of pounds on our invoices which you are refusing to reverse - even though we've removed the mistakenly added contacts.

[PGavalas]

I totally agree. In fact if we take it one step further, only an admin should be able to up the limits and confirm the pricing change. What Hubspot are doing at the moment is at the very least immoral, but also potentially unlawful as no one has agreed to the amount of the additional fee.

[kennedyp]

Hi @FAdam5! Thank you for your contribution to this post.  I apologize for the frustration you have experienced concerning the upgrade of your marketing contact tier. As mentioned by my colleague Mia in her previous reply, HubSpot does provide documentation outlining the guidelines for Marketing Contacts. Currently, it is not possible to revert your contact tier to the previous level until the next update date, even though the change was accidental. I see that you have already been in contact with your Contract Manager, but please do not hesitate to reach out if you need further clarification on their communication. Your understanding is greatly appreciated!

Best, 
Kennedy

[rodericks]

Hey @DanKemp,

We have a similar case. However, we did it on purpose, but expected to be billed only the month we were using it. The next month we also removed all contacts to non-marketing. However, billing, account manager (she doesn't even respond, only when I ask her about expansion), customer succes, etc.. all respond the same.

So unfortunately, I can't help you. What I do think however is that we combine other customers to force Hubspot to change this ridicilous term. Because I get I have to pay if I use more, but not for my whole contract. 

[DanKemp]

Thanks for speaking up. You're exactly right.

[DanKemp]

Hi Mia - I'm not sure they are the best points of contact if they've stopped responding to me? Who else can I take this up with? How does one make a formal complaint to Hubspot?

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @DanKemp,

Mia from the Community team here - I just wanted to say that we understand your frustration. Your Customer Success Manager and the billing team are the best points of contact in this matter, but please let us know if we can provide any documentation or articles about Marketing contacts. Thank you. 

Mia, Community team