Very bad company. My server has been down for a day with no resolution. I submitted a ticket and haven't received a response yet. The server gets down every day. I don't recommend dealing with them.

A brutal lesson about trusting the wrong hosting provider!

I've been working with hosting providers for over 10 years. In that entire decade, nothing like this has ever happened to me. Not once.
Until Contabo !

I've been a paying Contabo customer since 2022, trusting them with my startup, a project I poured years of work into.
Here's what happened:
March 10 → First email about a failed pre-authorization (Previous payment received successfully on February 14)
March 14 → Payment due date
March 15 → Service suspended, just ONE day late
Shortly after → A vague warning: data will be deleted "very soon." No date. No deadline.
March 29 → I complete the payment Same day → Everything is gone. Account wiped. Years of work permanently deleted.
~15 days. That's all it took.
In 10 years across dozens of providers, every single one gave clear deadlines and reasonable grace periods before irreversible action. Contabo couldn't manage even that.

And here's the thing: "very soon" is not a GDPR-compliant notice. Under GDPR, service providers are required to communicate clearly and transparently, using specific retention periods or concrete criteria for deletion, not vague, ambiguous language. Contabo is a German company, bound by EU data protection law. A permanent deletion with no explicit deadline arguably violates the transparency principles at the core of GDPR.

I am currently exploring all legal options available to me, including filing a formal complaint with the relevant Data Protection Authorities and pursuing this matter through the appropriate legal channels. This is not something I'm willing to let slide.

Yes, backups are the user's responsibility. I know that.
But when a provider permanently destroys a loyal customer's data with no clear warning, that's not just poor service, it's reckless and potentially unlawful.

Red alert ❌ never buy contabo server they will deleted your data and will never take responsibility here is the reply of my email

"Unfortunately, all associated services have been deleted, and I'm unable to recover any data, as we do not retain backups."

Do not make the same mistake I did. Contabo is a scam-level organization that lures you in with cheap prices but delivers an unusable service.

The "Business Account" Trap: They have found a legal loophole to steal your money. If you register as a "business" (even a small one), they unilaterally strip you of your 14-day right to revocation. Once you pay, your money is gone, even if the service doesn't work.

Unbearable Performance: I rented a VPS for accounting, and it is impossible to work. There is a 20-second delay for simple actions like moving a window. I provided video evidence to their support, and they simply ignored it, claiming "everything is fine on our end."

No Trial Period: They deliberately do not offer a trial. You are forced to buy "a pig in a poke." They know their hardware is oversold and congested, so they lock you in with a pre-payment and then refuse to refund.

Support is Useless: They use standard copy-paste replies to deny any issues. They don't care about your business or your lost time.

MY ADVICE: Save your nerves and money. Avoid Contabo at all costs. Go to Hetzner instead — they offer much better hardware, honest policies, and actual performance. Contabo is just a "black hole" for your budget. I am currently filing a chargeback through my bank to get my money back from these fraudsters

**Contabo suspended my prepaid VPS (IP: 38.242.205.18) — paid until 16 Apr 2026 — because of unrelated expired domains I asked to delete.
No warning. Support: “It’s in our T&C.”
OVH/Namecheap/Gandi never do this.
Ticket 16239902482 | Proof attached
1/5 – switching providers.

Contabo customer for more than 7 years. Only because of relatively cheap cost, performance and customer is worse compared to other providers.

But the cost is cheap, so i am with them for more than 7 years with some compromise in VPS performance and also delayed responses and inhuman customer support.

Contabo is like the loan sharks you see on the streets or just like the shrewd credit card companies out there. They will give you things cheap but if you somehow failed to repay on exact time, they will eat your flush alive. And they will put double penalties.

IF a customer was struggling to pay, even after requesting for a 24 hrs extension (not postpaid, its prepaid system), they just simply responded by suspending the account and adding a 70% PENALTY.

Even the flush eating shylocks don't charge such a heavy fine. Lesson learned, don't let cheap cost affect your decisions, check for performance, and prompt customer support, and make sure you choose humanitarian companies, not the modern day more shylocks who are more cruel than the novel.

I was struggling to arrange pay 11 euros now, I have to arrange 18 euros. Otherwise, I will loose my data. Benefis of doing business with cheap cost provider. Poor performance, worst support and crude loan sharks like behaviour. Choose your provder wisely. The day I pay and reactive this account, i will transfer to any provider who are human, kind and reasonable.

Suspended and deleted my server and everything in it. Realized they screwed up bad and trying to cover it up since, just returned my payment no accountability to returned my stuff back from the server nor compensated for me my losses they caused!! It was their VPS M SSD + cPanel/WHM, to avoid similar or same happening to you I'd strongly recommend you avoid!