renew agreement without authorization

[frikandel]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Providence, Utah
well, actually i'm in Europe. But I have a problem with a internet hosting company in Utah.

The thing is, I signed up for a 1 year period of service. But when the contract expired they didn't stop the service and are still billing me. "The didn' t have the authorization to close the account", the billing department said.

The agreement does not state anywhere they will renew the agreement unless I submit a cancellation form. which initially gave me the impression that the agreement would just expire and that would be it.
Though in the agreement it states that it requires me to submit a cancellation form to close the account. So I did submit the form, but 3 weeks after. Only to get them from sending me unsolicited email, the bills. It does not state anywhere in the agreement it needed to be canceled prior to the expiration date. Now they are threatening me to pass the matter to some collection company whom will collect with added costs.
To me the agreement is like a fishnet and looks like it does not hold much water.

Can somebody give me advice if they legally can get me to pay for a service I did not authorize? And how does that go internationally? Are they gonna fly over some collector?

The terms and conditions can be found here:
http://www.westhost.com/policies.html

Many thanks.

 

[Zigner]

US Law Only

From your link:
SERVICE AGREEMENT

Payment Policies

Our services are sold on a pre-paid basis at the agreed upon rate at the time of ordering. If you fail to promptly pre-pay, we will terminate your service.

If you provided us with your credit card information and requested automatic billing, you authorize WestHost to automatically charge your credit card at the first of the month for charges that apply to your account. Recurring charges will be posted to your credit card until such time that you cancel your account in accordance with our cancellation requirements listed below. You will receive an e-mail confirmation once your credit card has been charged. If you elect not to use automatic credit card billing you will be charged a processing fee of $3.00 per invoice.

Although you may cancel your account at any time by giving us written notice of cancellation, there is no refund of any pre-paid amounts with the exception of accounts meeting requirements of "30 Day Money Back Guarantee" (see below). You are responsible for all fees associated with your account up until the time of making a cancellation request, see complete details below. All payments are to be made in U.S. currency. Domain Registration & SSL certificate fees are non-refundable.

You will be charged a $25 processing fee if any check given to us is not honored and paid. If you cause any credit card payment to be reversed there will be a $40 processing fee. In the event you violate any of our above policies and your service is terminated, in addition to all other fees, you will be charged a $100 investigation and research fee. There is a $50 processing fee to reinstate an account closed due to non-payment, this fee does not guarantee the data on the account prior to termination will be retrievable.

Service Cancellation

To make a cancellation request, you will need to fill out our cancellation request form. If this is not possible, you may fax a request to 435-755-3449 or mail a cancellation request to WestHost, Inc., 164 North Spring Creek Parkway, Providence, Utah 84332. You must include your Account Domain Name and Account Password for the account which you wish to cancel hosting for. We cannot accept cancellation requests over the phone for security reasons.

 

[frikandel]

Our services are sold on a pre-paid basis at the agreed upon rate at the time of ordering. If you fail to promptly pre-pay, we will terminate your service.
The line above from the agreement would mean I don't have to cancel. However:
Recurring charges will be posted to your credit card until such time that you cancel your account in accordance with our cancellation requirements listed below.
This would mean I DO need to cancel prior to the expiration date, if the the hosting service I signed up for is considered recurring charges .... right?

Shall I just pay up or face whatever they can do to collect the few bucks they claim I owe them? What WILL they be able to do anyway?