I'm going to share with you a sure-fire way to destroy a very successful web hosting business. At the end of this post, you will know all you need to know about alienating your customers and making 250 people hate you.

Step 1: Get a server at VDI. Now, most people would think that this in itself would accomplish the goal of ruining your business, but read on.

Step 2: When you find out how VDI really works, and discover they are the source of many of your problems, decide to get a server somewhere else. Again, if you think this is a post to flame VDI you are wrong. Read on.

Step 3: Get your spankin' new dual 1ghz server with a crap-load of ram setup and ready to go...on a new network, of course.

Step 4: Start looking for someone to move everything from your old server running Webpannel, to your new server, running Cpanel.

Step 5: This is the money move. If you do this part correctly, you will have reached your goal of inevitible bankruptcy. Ok, here goes: Hire Tim at MultipleImage to make the server transition for you. That's it! Now just sit back and watch your customers drop like flies. Don't worry about any faithful customers holding out. After 3 days of complete downtime, even the most loyal customer will turn on you like a pit bull.

What's the secret behind this beautiful plan? Well, some of the details are known ONLY to Tim and his crew, but we're going to let you in on the secrets we DO know:

Ignore your customer's plea's for answers
Say things like, "I'll ask the guy doing the job", but don't really
Lie...alot
Make occasional excuses, like "No one here seems to be able to hold an internet connection"
Ignore, ignore, ignore

That's all there is to it! Sure, it'll cost you several hundred dollars, but what's that compared to the warm, fuzzy feeling you get from screwing HUNDREDS of people?
Contact MultipleImage today for their Business-Killer Special, and they may throw in a set of Ginsu Knives (http://www.asseenontv.com/) for free. These would come in hand for scraping the remaining pieces of your heart out of your chest, or would perhaps look nice sticking in your back.

You should have asked someone at burst to help you with the transition or someone who has actually done a webpanel->cpanel move. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did but what you stated is correct :(

:( :bomb: :eek3:

Aloha

DOOHHH man my heart bleeds for ya ;(

sounds like he was worse than Homer spilling his coffee on the nuke panel at work ;(

:homer: never!

:eek2: :eek3: :puke: :eek: :bawling: :mad: :confused: :(

I do want to clarify something. This isn't MY server. It belongs to a company I handle support for.
I just got a message from a really nice guy that WAS a customer. He isn't anymore. He lost all his business and had to shut his doors. What a nightmare.

Geeeez man, that sucks. I have been through it before but thank god I only had a few customers at the time on that server.

By the way have you ever thought about writing short stories, your good! Keep the chin up and try to make the best of it and things will work out like I said I have been thru it too.

no not short stories,
you should specialize in writing marketting articles which get mass emailed to a lot of people. :)

It is hard to build a business, but it is very easy to destroy a business.

sbrad,

Damn that situation sucks, from what it looks like

IT looks like Tim from multipleimage does not have enough technical experience to do the transition smoothly.

We have transfeered MANY servers from network to another network, by following the steps of

#1 first transfer the files
#2 set all the ips/usernames/passwords up
#3 Test if all the domains are working
#4 THEN move the domains over / switch IPS

Its a very smooth process, I'm sorry you had to go through this ****. You should hire an part time competent admin.

Unfortunately, I am the admin-type here. But I don't have that much experience with Cpanel, and have never transferred these Cpanel settings from one server to another. I don't know which scripts keep track of what. That's why they were hired...because they said they had done it before.

I just took a look at the old server. That's the only backup we have of 9+gb of user files. It appears that someone just went in there and deleted them all.

Very interesting indeed. There goes MultipleImage off my lists of companies to do business with.

Wow, interesting situation you've got there. All the best to you and the company you work for. Speaking of the company you work for, would it be HostVelocity by any chance? No need to confirm my hypothesis, I was just curious...

Greetings all,

This is Boris Mordkovich, the CTO of HostVelocity.com. Stephen is in fact talking about our company. A public press release with our future plans and such will be posted on our website shortly.

If you have anything that you'd like to say, feel free to post it here for me to respond.

Best Regards,
Boris Mordkovich

Yikes! I just got cold chills reading that post. I feel for you and hope you bounce back.

-Lamar

Yes this project was not completed. They forgot to mention several things however. First when we accepted this project I told them we could not guarantee it as we have never moved a webpanel to cpanel and they are going from vdi to a different data center not one of ours, we do not know the reliability of them and strange problems may arise. They agreed to that term. It sounded like they could not find someone who was willing to try to convert them over. I did not have to do this but I wanted to add that if we could not complete the project we would not charge them. Even though we agreed that I would not guarantee this project I did not want to charge them if it did not work out. Also the night I had two tech's willing to work on it they did not know what IP's for sure they had or even how many. There were other complications as well and I am not going to list everything.

It's not the point whether you completed the project or now. The point is:

1) You lied and stalled us for 3 days. You haven't done ANYTHING... absolutely anything... on neither the old nor the new server.

2) If you knew you weren't going to be able to do it, you should've let us know on the 1st day or so.

3) You gave us over 4 false guarantees on the time when the project was completed.

4) We sent you the IPs within hours after you requested them.

The bottom line is that you are not the kind of company I or anyone else I know would trust. During the emergencies, we could never reach you and when we could, you just gave us fake excuses and guarantees.

Boris

We received the IP's the next day not within hours. We never lied or stalled. We gave you estimations.

What do you call this:

- Will the transfer be completed by 2am?
- Yes

That's not an estimation - it's a confirmation.

Besides, what's the point of giving estimations if you have done absoluetly nothing on the server?

Boris

I know for a fact there has been work done on your server.

Sorry to break this to you, but we've been monitoring both servers for 3 days and you haven't done anything of what you were hired to do.

There is no excuse in making a 3-hour job into a 3-day project - doesn't matter what you say or how you're going to blame it on us, this is unexcusable in this type of business.

Boris

Maybe you should check them again and find out for sure.

I am considering this issue closed now. There is no reason to continue it. You can continue to think what you want to.

Since I am, by nature, a last word freak, I want to interject something before Chicken comes along and zips this puppy up.

When we hired MultipleImage to do this, he assured us it would be taken care of...so we left it at that. We assumed it was being done. Later on, when we had heard NOTHING, I contacted Tim several times. I always got, "I'll check for you". Finally Tim asked for the other ip's, saying he couldn't transfer the user's files without them. Even though I thought that was a bit odd, I speculated as to what the ip's were...because I didn't really know and I couldn't get ahold of Boris. Finally in the wee hours, he said those were the wrong ip's, and we would have to wait until the next day when Boris could give them to us. I said okee-dokee, and went to sleep. When I got up the next morning, I found out that those WERE the correct ip's, and he was finally able to get them to work. When I asked him why they wouldn't work the night before, he said it must have been a routing problem or something.

Several times we were told the data HAD been transferred, but it was never done. This has been such a painful experience for everyone involved, that I'd just rather forget about it. But you shouldn't tell fibs, Tim. I would suggest some good aroma therapy and a couple of Coors Light's.

Coors Light? Man, cross the border, I think a couple of Molson XXX's might do the trick!

Please tell me there was some sort of contract for all this hubbub.

Hostvelocity.com - Were you able to resume business or is this a total loss?

:eek:

Sad to hear :bawling:

Unfortunately, the vast majority (70%+) of our clients are currently leaving because of VDI and multipleimage's issues.

Right now, we are making a custom arrangement with Intelli-Host.com to continue taking care of the clients that chose to stay, while we will be re-thinking our business plan for the next couple of months.

Boris

Aloha

well more thoughts on this ???
I must say things are bad
I have turned down many jobs that could have paid well cause I knew I had not and could not do what the person wanted and it would have effected there biz.
Multipleimage you should have said look I do not think we can handle this you better go elsewhere.
I hate it when people get to be used as test rats or worse
I have a client that went through that with a presentation that they were having done it was clear the company was learning on there expense.
when someone asks a company to do something you should answer them honest and not say sure we can do that and then think oh my gosh how are we going to do this ???

I must say it is tough enough now a days that very few people seem to care at all about people and it is all about making money know entegrity left anymore it seems ;(
very sad very very sad.

very few people understand true business anymore and that is why so many fail. They all want the quick buck and do what ever it takes to get it.
but Karma man karma will come back and bite you in the akole big time this I have learned what comes around goes around.

This is indeed a very sad affair. As with most conflicts, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I'm not taking sides, but this does point out the importance of doing one's homework, setting proper expectations, and -- above all -- communication.

Boris, et. al:

I just want to offer my sincere condolences at the loss of your business. I can only imagine the mixture of rage and incredulity you must be feeling right now. If I lost QWK.Net like that, I'd be out for blood.

If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.

From reading this post, i hope this is not a reflection of "VDI itself" since this company having an issue is not a direct VDI client.

Users are not Forced to use Webpanel at VDI, if they wanted to they can use Cpanel or webpanel, We can`t lock anyone into any product.


VDI

From reading this post, i hope this is not a reflection of "VDI itself" since this company having an issue is not a direct VDI client.
Hi William
You're right. I spoke with you about this issue via AIM last night, an I promised to make that clarification. I apologize for not having done so.

This post is not a slam against VDI. We all have our fair share of problems, and I'm sure VDI is no exception. I don't have enough experience with VDI to make such statements, and I shouldn't have made the remarks that I did about them.

This pretty much sums it up: http://hostvelocity.com/pr.htm

Boris, why would you ever give your hard fought customers up to another host? I know nothing about Intelli-host, but I would suggest you form a new company, move customers to it. Customers are resilient. Many will be pissed, but will not move away from a host in trouble. Look at *****. Twice they have had 2 - 5 days downtimes!

I hate to see hard work flushed. In the current saturated market, you will have a harder time getting customers.

Also, I know nothing about multipleimage (meaning size, how much money they make, who owns them) and what I state below is just my view. If you *hire* someone you classify (or has been stated by the person/company you are hiring) to be skilled/expert/etc... in the field and they screw up, then you should easily be awarded compensation. If you buy a Ford and the tires blow because of crappy craftsmanship, you were awarded compensation. Review all your e-mails and anything you have proof off. Take it too a lawyer and file suit. I hate lawyers and frivolous lawsuits, but this to me warrants legit suit. At least you may be able to recoup enough money to start fresh.

Originally posted by Coran
This pretty much sums it up: http://hostvelocity.com/pr.htm

Now I'm confused. An announcement about selling the company to another that's jumping around, followed by a confession, then followed by a plea to customers to stay on with a new company formed by the owner(s) of the company that sold out?

I think I need a libretto.

An announcement about selling the company to another that's jumping around
What you call "jumping around", I call a move that's been planned for several months now. :)
Seriously, we have been in the process of setting up a new office for some time now. This is an upgrade.
followed by a confession
It's good for the soul.
then followed by a plea to customers to stay on with a new company formed by the owner(s) of the company that sold out?
Beep beep. Back up. It's not formed by the previous owners. I have no clue where you got that idea.:eek:

Originally posted by sbrad
Beep beep. Back up. It's not formed by the previous owners. I have no clue where you got that idea.:eek:

The clue comes from the aforementioned page:

Well, we are going to start over. And we sincerely hope you will, also. If you wish to have your account setup, please email us . . .

Warmest Regards,
The Staff of Host Velocity


Please keep in mind I have no criticism for whatever is happening here. (My condolences were sent earlier.) I'm just a bit puzzled.

You left out shameless begging.:)
But in any case, you shouldn't take that to mean that the previous owners are behind this. The company IS starting over. Currently we've been able to retain about 50% of the previous customers (projected), which is better than the 30% Boris originally mentioned.

Originally posted by sbrad
You left out shameless begging.:)


ROFL!

I hope everyone concerned lands on their feet. Best of luck.

Originally posted by alchiba


I think I need a libretto.

ROTFLMAO :)

The following is only tangentially related to the topic :)

Man this reminds me of software development projects that go wrong. A typical scenario starts with an unreasonable customer expectation (not saying that was the case here, doesn't seem so). They tell FirmA - gotta have it in 6 weeks (even though they've been putzing with the requirements for months)

FirmA looks at the work and realizes that even with major overstaffing, the schedule is not attainable. They say, how about staging features? Customer says NO, because:

FirmB is hungry. They look at the work and know full well they can't do it in 6 weeks, but they commit anyway. Even though they have never brought a project in on time, much less early, they bank on the miracle.

Soon, everyone is pissed. The customer doesn't meet his schedule. In fact, given the situation, the viability of the whole project is looking suspect. And why? Who is at fault? Well, certainly FirmB for committing to something they had no reasonable expectation of being able to do. But IMHO, the customer is just as much to blame for not knowing that the work cannot be done in 6 weeks. Everyone loses. The end. Libretto coming. ;)

I'm a HostVelocity customer since May. Yes they had problems, but Boris, Ev, & Stephan were usually around and provided quick support. I've managed a hundred or so file & web servers for a software company for almost 12 years now so I know how difficult that job is. Heck, that's why I outsource, I'm too tired from staying up all night supporting my company's servers to worry about mine as well. I do have a couple personal servers at home and at the office, but preferred to have my main webserver 'outside'.

Due to Boris' honesty, I've chosen to stick with them even after being down for almost 2 weeks.

The new server's working great.

Good luck to y'all!

To move a server you should do the following:

1. Setup all the users and domains on the new box.
2. Transfer all the files.
3. Update your ip addresses with NSI for your name servers.
4. Keep old machine up for at least 3 days verifying everyone propergated to the new server.
5. Send mass mail explaining the change to your customers and how the new control panel works.

And thats pretty much it, this eliminates any down time what so ever.

To move a server you should do the following:

1. Setup all the users and domains on the new box.
2. Transfer all the files.
3. Update your ip addresses with NSI for your name servers.
4. Keep old machine up for at least 3 days verifying everyone propergated to the new server.
5. Send mass mail explaining the change to your customers and how the new control panel works.

And thats pretty much it, this eliminates any down time what so ever.
Er, thanks for the tips, but that's not what I was talking about. :)

I know but just a tip so somthing doesn't happen like that when you are switching servers.