My own web host added a monthly charge while I slept. AOProTec texted me nine minutes later, and I had my money back the same day.
Saturday morning, October 24, 2026, at 3:42 AM, while I was asleep, my web hosting company put a new product on my account: a monthly "Professional Email" mailbox. I never asked for it. I don't need it. I use my own email. They charged my PayPal $2.99 and set it to renew automatically every month.
Nobody called me. Nobody asked me. The only notice was an "order confirmation" email that would have sat in my inbox, buried under everything else, while the charges kept coming every month.
I found out because of AOProTec.
Just the day before, I had built Email Alert into AOProTec. You tell it which companies matter to you, like your bank, your pharmacy, your health plan or your web host, and the moment an email from one of them lands in your inbox, AOProTec texts your phone. It only looks at your mail. It never deletes, moves or changes anything. My hosting company was on my list. At 3:51 AM my phone got the text. When I got up I opened the email, and there it was: an order I never placed, with my money already taken.
I want to be honest about what AOProTec did and didn't do. AOProTec didn't know the order was unauthorized. Only I could know that. What it did was make sure I saw that email the same night, instead of finding the charges months later on a statement. That is the whole point of AOProTec: show you what is happening on your computer and in your accounts, and let you decide. The email turned out to be genuine, from the real company, and that made it worse, not better.
So I got on their support chat, gave them the order number, and told them to cancel it, refund it, and turn off the renewal. It took a bot, a sales pitch to keep the product "at a discount", two holds and me asking the same four questions again and again until I got a straight yes or no. In the end they confirmed it in writing: the $2.99 is refunded, auto-renewal is off, there are no other trials or add-ons on my account, and a note is on my account that nothing may be added or charged without my clear, written consent. By late morning their emails arrived, and AOProTec texted me about those too: the service was cancelled, and the $2.99 was back in my PayPal the same day. It should not take that much to undo something I never agreed to.
And here is what I want everyone to take from this, because this is how it works nowadays. A company switches something on, charges you for it, and waits to see whether you notice. If you don't complain, they keep charging. "You agreed to it" is buried somewhere in terms of service nobody reads. That is not consent.
So when you cancel, don't just cancel. Put it in writing, like a contract. This is what I told them, and you can copy it word for word:
"I did not agree to this order, and I don't want it to happen again. Please add a note to my account that no products, add-ons, upgrades or trials may be added or charged without my clear, written consent. I only want my web hosting."
Then ask for the ticket number, check your card or PayPal statement for the refund, and look at your PayPal automatic payments to see which companies are allowed to charge you without asking.
That same day I made AOProTec even better at this. Now every alert in Email Alert opens in the Email Analyzer with one click, already analysed. And when an email turns out to be a real scam, AOProTec can report it, with the evidence, to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the group of internet providers, security companies, banks and law enforcement that the FTC tells everyone to send phishing to. You press ๐ฉ Report it, or you let AOProTec report clear-cut scams automatically; that choice is yours, and it is off until you turn it on. What AOProTec will never do is answer the scammer. Their From address is usually stolen from someone innocent, and answering only tells them your address is real. We do this the legal way.
It is 2026. No more hiding. Not on our computers, and not on our bills.
Anton Opic