I have given this guy a hosting account told him that he only had to pay for the bandwidth he used above 1GB. Well its already 9-09-03 and he as already used 392GB of bandwidth. I emailed him requestion payment. He is now pretending that he is not the person that is on the account but he has always emailed me threw this account. is there anyway to ensure that i can get my 980.00 Dollars from this guy without taking legal actions. His account has also been suspended so i won't have to be out of pocket anymore then what i am already.

Any advice will be most helpful.

Thanks
John

I would strongly recommend suspending the account until the account holder recovers from amnesia. In the event that he doesn't, it would be good to cut your losses where you are.

His account has been suspended since this afternoon. But my question is would i have to take legal action in order to get my money.

Cut your losses...don't give him a backup or any assistance unless he pays. You would end up paying more than what he owes you if you take him to court.

The answer is not necessarily. You can take legal action, or simply send it to collections.

That's why it's not a good idea to give accounts. These guys can always hit and run, and you don't even know if the details you have of him are real which can hamper you if you want to take any legal action.

I would also recommend you rethink your policy about giving people "free" access to your bandwidth.

However, I hope you recover your money.

Cheers
Jeff

Yes, unless you have a credit card number on file....for which you would probably receive a charge back.

A couple of rambling thoughts to think about....

You would have to prove the identity of the person you are suing matches the identity of the person you made the "contract" with.

You would have to prove that you did make a contract with the person and what those details are.

You would have to prove that they actually used that much bandwidth.

This is why we don't give demo or accounts to individuals that we have no authority to charge.

Thanks for all your help it looks like that i am not going to get any money back therefore i have to change the way i do business. Since my company is still new it will be a year in buiness for me in Nov. I will no longer be helping anyone out.

Thanks for your replys

Do you have a signed contract with the person's particulars in regards to this ?

If not, it may just be your word against his word. Exceeding the bandwidth by 391gb is really massive. Did you warn him when he exceeded that ? And collect partial payment to cover the cost instead of letting it ballon to this level.

I warned him two days ago. When i warned him my computer dediced it was going to crash. BTW i got my computer backonline it was already at 390 then when i got to write another email it went to 392 so thats when i decided to suspended it i also have is home phone number so i might want to try to give him another call.

Agian thanks for all yourhelp

What was he serving?

When i logged into his account to see what he had doing it was forums only. But like i said i have learned my lesson and i am no longer going to go into any of this with another person agian.

You warned him when he hit 390 GIGS??? And 2 days later he had used another 2 gigs? Sounds like he had something else besides forums on that account...

You should have been after him for payment when he reached 3 gigs if your agreement was payment after 1 gig.

Check his account (and the rest of your server) very, very carefully. Warez, MP3's, or maybe ircd if he had shell access...

Let me clarify when i only warned him after he hit 390. I went on vaction and when i got back he was on 390. So thats what happen there.

And i will do that search you suggested now.
And as far as the IRCD goes i do not give out shell access on the server.

Thanks agian.

Unless it's an extremely popular forum, it's quite unlikely he uses that much bandwidth and even then, a forum at that kind of usage will probably also put a strain on your CPU.

Does he have shell access? Or what kind of forum is it? does he allow people to upload and download files?

Well after i went into a couple of folders i find out why. He was carring Warez and porn. That has been taken off the account. and as soon as i hear from him his account will be deleted.

Ouch! I guess he is just taking advantage of your kindness. Next time ensure they pay first before using so at least you got yourself covered to some extend.

Looks like to him, it is just free hosting without any restriction.

Yeah i guess i can no longer be a nice guy. One person ruins it for everyone.

It didn't happen to be a wrestling related forum did it John?

Gary

i do not think it was. I never really took the time to read the forums. I guess i should of took the time.

It seems like you've learned an unfortunate lesson.

Sometimes the most valuable lessons are the hardest to learn.

Cheers
Jeff

yeah it sucks though. '

After what i have been threw in the last year. I was sure i can trust this guy i guess i am just to trusting. But i guess i will have to change that.

Thanks john

Well.. if you absolutely have to in future, set his quota at maybe +2-5GB on top of what you are giving. You must have set it at unlimited.

This is more your fault as well. You don't expect a person who can't pay for a 1GB account to be paying for 10GB let alone 400GB. It's not just about trusting, it's also about a bit of common sense really. You should have set limits on his account that allow him to overshot 1GB, but not too much. Perhaps to 3GB, so that it will be auto-suspended when it hits that

i thought i had that done. due that i never had a problem like this before.

Originally posted by wwfn
Well after i went into a couple of folders i find out why. He was carring Warez and porn. That has been taken off the account. and as soon as i hear from him his account will be deleted.

Personally I would suggest you leave it as suspended. Should it come to the crunch, you would want all the evidence you need such as the logs and such which would be deleted if you delete his account.

Originally posted by wwfn
i thought i had that done. due that i never had a problem like this before.

Well then let me guess you are using Cpanel, and you had "Disable suspending account after reaching quota" ticked?

well your right.

Also i am just leaving his account suspended untill i have decided what i need to do.

wow that totaly sucks. Leave the account as is and you can report him. Change his password and tell him ur going to the FBI about the warez. If he is a young kid you wont get any $ its over.

theres a thought right there about it. I might end up doing that.

wow that does suck :( . I learned this long time ago... never trust anyone over the internet. If they say who they are, but doesnt mean that they are who they say. Warze you can get him on which could lead you to get your money back. Tell him that you found warze and porn and tell him you are reporting it. Well not sure if you should tell him could hender your case? Just report it to the FBI.

i am considering doing that right there. But i am going to give him a couple of more days to see if he will responde to my email's if not then i will contact the FBI.