After disk reformat incident (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11728), we tried many times contact dialtone internet to get some reasonable compensation: partial refund of the tens of thousand dollars we paid (some charges could be fraudulent, see http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12092 ).

We received the following email, from an address claimed to be of that of a dialtone VP, the email read:



1. The most we can offer you is 3 free months or 3
months credit on you account. As per SLA the most we
should offer is 1 month worth of credit.

...

3. You know it is not a good idea to take this to the lawyers.
First of all the contract is very clear on what is the liability
of Dialtone on such cases (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11728). This contract was written by lawyers
who are shareholders of the company as well.

....

Vice President of Business Operations
Dialtone Internet http://www.dialtoneinternet.com
Phone: 1 (954) 581-0097 Ext. 116
Fax: 1 (954) 581-7629
email:jquintero@dialtoneinternet.com




We rejected offer, moved our server, emailed them to close our account, but they continued to charge us for 3 more months.

Our case is simple, dialtoneinternet damaged our business by formatting the hard drive of a running server and permanently destroying 5-6 months of data.

Anyone has experience on how to resolve such matters?

I think you should seek a lawyer.

You obviously had a bad experience with Dialtone...You keep posting the same bashes about them over and over....

How about you get a lawyer and deal with it...I don't think anyone on this list has a law degree...at least I wouldn't think so...:) ;) :D

Time to give it a rest ;)

I personally wouldn't recommend lawyers unless you lost a lot of money out of the deal. Generally a hosting contract pretty much releases them of any liability.

I personally had a very, very bad experience. I know better than to not back up my data, but I figured the chance of a problem were pretty slim... so I learned that lesson the hard way.

I actually put up a website detailing the experience, but I don't think it's appropriate in this forum, so I won't post a link or name the company... it was one of those situations where, in the heat of the moment, you go do a whois on HostingCompanySucks.com, find it available, and rant for a couple hours ;) But they know who they are...

But anyway, reviewing the contract I had apparently agreed to (another lesson -- always read it before it becomes a problem), I was responsible for backups of my sites, and they couldn't be held liable, etc. The fact that I was continually charged months after the fact just added to my frustration (why does this seem to be such a common problem in the hosting industry?)... but in the end, had I made backups I would have been back online within a day at most. I won't be re-learning that lesson :)

There is a very easy solution to the "credit card being continually charged months after" problem. Simply call your bank, report the charges as fraudulent and request a new credit card number. Most banks will stand behind you in such situations. Especially if you signed up over the internet or phone and you didn't physically signed anything.

You should have taken the 3 months.

If i'm not mistaken DialTone does infact require you to sign and fax back the contract....

So depending on the wording in the contract their probabbly right, about what their liable for, but most contracts also have an out clause or cancellation clause.... So by not reading the contract and taking the out clause 2-3 months ago you've probabbly lost your $. I doubt a charge back will do much good in this case, and if it was taken to court, the most you'd probabbly get would be that one month cancellation fee.... Anybody thats serious in this business has a lawyer write their contracts and SLA and TOS's.. so most likley they've covered their selves in that situation.....

It doesn't matter if they actually formatted your disk or not, because most likley they could place that into the "were not responsible for loss of data" clause , thats mostly there for hardware failure, but unless its specific then there's nothing that says it doesn't apply here either......

Originally posted by DanielP
It doesn't matter if they actually formatted your disk or not, because most likley they could place that into the "were not responsible for loss of data" clause , thats mostly there for hardware failure, but unless its specific then there's nothing that says it doesn't apply here either......
Not true. There's a big difference between hardware failure and negligence, and the law recognizes this difference provided you can prove it. That said...

Web Master 2, if you want to sue, hire a lawyer. You're not going to find good legal advice here.

Deb said it best, talk to a lawyer not the general public. They will tell you if you have a case.

Seeking legal advice on a tech forum is utterly retarded. The only reason I can see for someone doing such a thing is if they just wanted to continue the ranting and raving and not resolve this issue in the correct manner.

I think you should ignore others who criticize you for seeking advice on this forum. It seems respectable to me to seek out the help of others who may have been in a similar situation.

I recently started a web-based business and found myself in a similar (though much less financially devestating) circumstance. Hiring an attorney is very expensive though, and anytime there seems to be a legal issue, contrary to popular opinion and the opinion of the overwhelming majority of this board, spending money on an attorney is not always the first way to go. Like Andrew Carnagie said, "keep costs down and profits will take care of themselves." If you start to add legal fees to your current crisis, you may just find yourself further in the hole.

Many law firms offer free legal advice and you can even do an internet search and find websites where lawyers will be glad to entertain any legal questions free of charge. In my circumstance, I found one such place and sent the gentleman a copy of the contract I had entered into with my hosting company and also a detailed description of the problem I was having with them. Within two days the lawyer had called me and we went over all of the options I had. His advice was free and it gave me clear insight on the best option to pursue. I then chose to use his services because he felt I had a clearcut case. To respond to the oft argument that attorneys will always tell you you have a case because they want you to hire them (a valid one in some cases), I say that one should investigate the background of any attorney before hiring, no matter how good his advice may seem. Keep in mind that most attorneys seek a good reputation and want to win cases and therefore usually will not accept a case if victory looks doubtful.

It is important to remember, as many have already explained, no one on here is an expert in the legal field, at least not many. Yet the same people that have given you this advice have also copped to the idea that dialtone has a contract and therefore they will win any legal case. This is not always correct. A company may have a contract that says "under no circumstances can our company be held financially or otherwise responsible for any incidences caused by our services" but that does not mean they can take your money and give you nothing. I am not famliliar with the details of your current problem, but just because a company says they are not responsible for lost data or whatnot, does not mean they aren't. Certain states require companies to be liable to their consumers regardless of what a "purchase contract" might state. My advice would be to seek more advice, but this time from a lawyer. But do not shell out money until you are resolved that solvency is a possibility.

i don't know what's wrong with "Web Master 2" ... whenever I see any post on WHT about Dialtone, its by this same person and on this same topic.

i have a server at Dialtone, i ordered a 733Mhz with 10.2GB HDD two months back. when i faxed the contract to my salesperson, she called me (I live in Pakistan) to confirm the order and reciept of the contract.

the server was setup on time, and instead of the promised specs they gave me an 800Mhz with 20GB hard-disk. and i want to be objective - i was promised PHP4, but they had installed PHP3. I put in a problem ticket, and the problem was solved within 12 hours.

i'm satisfied with their connectivity and support. yes, every time you submit a problem ticket, they solve your problem and also try to sell you an add-on - that's their job, i guess :)

WebMaster2, if you're on talking terms with somebody at the company, try to get the 3 months free to replace the amount you've paid ... <friendly advice>

good luck.

The purpose of the original post was to see if anyone got any experience on similar situations, such as the cost involved and the procedure to take. Now, there is no one here with similar experience, I guess DI is the only company on earth that is bad enough to commit such things. Litigation is always an option, there is strong member support from our users, and we may even setup a legal fund and initiate a class action against DI. If there is no leagl procedence, we can request for a jury trial.

The problem with DI is their management is so lack of honesty and integrity. Right after the incident, their data center manager claimed the it was due to disk hardware problems, we then asked: if the disk was having hardware problem, why didn't you replace the drive? how could you reformat it and reinstall the OS? He could not give any sensible answer. We immediately download the boot log on the server, there were no hardware errors. Then the same story of disk failure is repeated by their VP of operations. Such behaviour follow the same patterns when we had serious questions about their traffic report. (I must acknowledge their customer service guy admitted he had no excuses to offer)

Even if you believe litigation is not the route to take, and we should bite the bullet for signing up their rotten service, then there is real information important to you guys. If you are a dialtone customer, just imagine the same happen to you, we are in US, we have the legal system of US at our disposal, yet DI is greedy enough to rip us off like this. Are you feeling good about this kind of thing happening to us, a former fellow customer? Will you be happy if the same happen to you?

I will keep you guys posted on the situation, it may progress slowly as we are busy with other development. Something good should come out of this: at least we all can learn something from this unprecendented situation and be more prudent in our future business dealings.

Just because you have a signed contract does not mean that one party can not be held liable. It depends on what exactly took place and if they broke the contract.

Plus State Laws can trump a contract. Meaning if there is a state law or case laws in your state about similiar contracts that were over-ridden then you can use them to over ride the contract that you have signed. The only way to tell something like that is to seek a Attorney.

Thank you very much for the info. The fact of the case is quite straightforward. What DI is claiming is equivalent to say that their customers have agreed that DI can wipe their drives at will. No one would agree to such things. If someone destroyed my site and I know who did it, I will hold the perpertrator liable .


Do you guys know if I have to sue them in Florida? It will be much easier to do this in my home state.

I beleive you have to do it in FL . That is their place of business and its stipulated in the contract that legal issues will be handled according to FL laws.

Originally posted by ememex
i'm satisfied with their connectivity and support. yes, every time you submit a problem ticket, they solve your problem and also try to sell you an add-on - that's their job, i guess :)

WebMaster2, if you're on talking terms with somebody at the company, try to get the 3 months free to replace the amount you've paid ... <friendly advice>

good luck.

ememex,

I posted two times about dialtone internet, last time when they wiped our data, this time, they continue to rip us off.

If you have paid DI tens of thousands USD, if they overcharged you by hundreds, are you going to accept $600 worth of bad service after they destroyed your work in which you invested so much?

Every host has a ticket system. No big deal. What's important is the quality of the company's people. At least, they must know not to format drives with data.

I wish you never have to enter a ticket like this:


The server was running fine after Sunday's reboot. Today, I found dialtoneinternet has reformated the hard drive, which contains gigabytes of vital information. Please restore the data asap. We never requested you to rebuild the machine,

I count 5 out of 12 posts have specifically mentioned DI negatively...see below:

Not to mention the other 4 or 5 that talk about your problem with them without mentioning there name...

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=19888

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=19727

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=19657

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=12092

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=11728

No, you do not have to sue them in Florida. You would file the lawsuit in your own state. That stipulation about having to file in Florida is just another way for a company to try and be slick which helps prevent lawsuits. I mean how many people that live in other states can afford to file a lawsuit that way?

Again this would go back to case law. If there are any case laws with similiar contracts and the state over-rides that contract about it having to be in the state of the company that they contract is with, you can use this as an argument against having to file in Florida.

Originally posted by Chicken
You should have taken the 3 months.

If you are not happy with the service why even use them for free?

... 3 months *credit* (they offered) - money back...

Originally posted by Chicken
... 3 months *credit* (they offered) - money back...

ok. then i agree with you. if they would credit your card back you should have taken it.

You need to file in florida.

I actually think Matrix might be right. From my experience initiating legal action against companies with the "jurisdiction/venue" clause, you can sue in your local district court.

However, the defendant will move that it be tried elsewhere and then utlimately you will be filing in florida to proceed. We managed to settle out of court somewhere before this change of venue.

IANAL, of course.

...and did anyone notice the date of this thread? :eek: