Hello,

I host with binaryblocks.com for about 2 months now without any problem. All of the sudden, my site went down (yesterday) and I received an email today from binaryblocks to tell their customers that they have been cut off by their provider (datapipe.com). Their email suggested that they can't access any of the account nor either can their customers. They are right now unreachable.

I called datapipe and ask how I can go about getting my data from my site. Datapipe said that I the only way I can get to my data is that if I pay them $39.99 a month for hosting. That sounds like an unscrupulous practice to me.

Can someone suggest a way for me to get my site's data back. My data are legally mine. I have the right to them. I am not asking them (datapipe) to host or maintain my site. What can I do?

Thank you for any suggestion

My suggestion is to pay the $39.99 (for just a month) to just get access to your data and transfer your data somewhere else? Besides, you are responsible for your own data, meaning you should transfer your data off-site if necessary (for backup purpose and other things like this). I am sorry about the situation for you.

cheers,
:beer:

Datapipe has an obligation to your host - not to you. If your host has a problem with Datapipe, they can take it up with them. If you have a problem with your host, you can only expect your host (not Datapipe) to be responsible.

--Tina

Does Datapipe have a 30-day money back guarantee? If so, signup, get your data, and cancel. Just make sure you don't have to write a book about why you are cancelling or come up with something really good so they won't ask too many questions.

Good luck...

Sneaky eh ;)

Originally posted by markblair
Does Datapipe have a 30-day money back guarantee? If so, signup, get your data, and cancel. Just make sure you don't have to write a book about why you are cancelling or come up with something really good so they won't ask too many questions.

Good luck...

Originally posted by Hostexp
Sneaky eh ;)

:cool: Well, I would not do it unless probably under these circumstances. Not to make all the hosts here take down my info and never let me sign up because I'm not like that. I just think that even though zoozone was paying Binaryblocks.com for service doesn't mean he is obligated to start paying Datapipe because they now run the service. It would be different if they gave a notice of the change and he had a chance to accept those terms or leave before all of this. But good luck in all this. I do agree that your data is your data and you should not have to pay to access it for just backing it up and leaving.

Thank you for the replies. This whole thing really caught me by surprise. But I think datapipe is being unreasonable and the company is sticking it to the binaryblocks customers. I don't even want the data anymore, I just don't want them to sit on datapipe server for everyone to see. Can I request for them to delete the files?

Originally posted by zoozone
Thank you for the replies. This whole thing really caught me by surprise. But I think datapipe is being unreasonable and the company is sticking it to the binaryblocks customers. I don't even want the data anymore, I just don't want them to sit on datapipe server for everyone to see. Can I request for them to delete the files? I don't see that DataPipe is being unreasonable at all, in fact I think it was good of them to offer to transfer your files to one of their hosting plans when they have no obligation to do so (although I admit the pricing for a virtual hosting account is a bit high). I don't know why Binary Blocks got cut off, but I do know they offered "unlimited data transfer," and their prices were unrealistically low ($3/month). I would speculate that they got hit with a huge overage charge for the bandwidth, and didn't have the cash to pay it (again that's speculation, but it seems to me to be a likely scenario).

ZooZone, I'm sorry you had the problems because it's not your fault, but there are a few lessons you can learn from this experience: 1) *never* go with a host offering "unlimited data transfer/bandwidth"; 2) always keep backups of your files; 3) if you have files you don't want anyone else to see, don't upload them to a web server.

Agreed. Overall, I have no problem using resellers for hosting and various other services (you'd be surprised how many resellers you buy from during the year).

- *but* one of the bad things about using a service provided by a reseller is that even if you pay your bills to the reseller, the reseller might not pay their bills to the provider and your site is cut off.

There are many good points to using resellers, this isn't one of them.

Binaryblocks did not pay their bill, and that's why their service ended abruptly. It is unfortunate that people who paid binaryblocks had to go down with them, but web hosting is a business. In this day and age, everyone's got to pay their bills (phone, gas, hosting) or suffer the consequences...

I think that hosting companies that want to increase their sales by selling reseller accounts to often times kids, that don't even own their own computer SHOULD be responsible for the loss that is caused by their sales to those minors.

I think it would be easy for them to give FREE access to an account so that someone can retrieve his own files. It is only decent to do so. It is not decent to ask money for it.

No wander this business has a bad name :mad:

I think it would be easy for them to give FREE access to an account so that someone can retrieve his own files. It is only decent to do so. It is not decent to ask money for it.

I can see the merits to your point about free access, but only through a charitable filter. You see, the 'free access' to which you alluded really isn't free. First, the larger host lost money because the smaller host defaulted on its payments. Second, searching for and retrieving any one webstite from a defunct network of servers is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. It takes time and those searching should receive compensation for it. These measures would not have been necessary had the smaller host paid in the first place.

NOTE (from a flyer I got in the mail recently): an FTP transfer from your old host to Interland starts at $100. Check the pricing on that w/ DataPipe (or don't; it's free). Their support is generally proactive and the vast majority of them want to help people.

I understand that this costs money. But the "larger" host should calculate that in the price of its reseller account. Call it "clean up costs" for if the reseller goes out of business.

The "larger" hosts normally don't have any standards as to who can become a reseller, like is it a real business? do they have a license? Are they of legal age to operate a business? etc. If you don't do that, than you are asking for problems. I think they should take responsiblity if the reseller fails.

By not caring, they undermine their own business.....

I am starting a new thread about this subject since it should be discussed a bit more....

Originally posted by addaction

The "larger" hosts normally don't have any standards as to who can become a reseller, like is it a real business? do they have a license? Are they of legal age to operate a business? etc. If you don't do that, than you are asking for problems.

The problem with this suggestion is that not everyone who buys a reseller account actually is a reseller. We have many clients who buy "reseller" accounts without having any intention of reselling the space - they simply have multiple web sites of their own and they want the multi-site discount that the reseller account provides.

Even ignoring that scenario, how on Earth are we as hosts supposed to know if they are really a business? Business licensing laws vary from state-to-state. Some states require all businesses be licensed. Some states only require regulated industries to be licensed. Some states require all companies to register with the state, other states only require corporations to be registered with the state. Some locations require a regulatory filing for any business, some states only require filings for businesses operating under fictitious names.

For example, here in Massachusetts, if I want to run a hosting company and I decide to incorporate it and call it "Host Company Inc.", that has to be registered with the state. If I decide, however, that I don't want to incorporate but just run as a sole proprietor and name my company "Host Company", then that isn't registered with the state, but I do have to file a fictitious name filing with the city/town. On the other hand, if I decide to be a sole proprietor and name my company "Jason Ellis's Web Hosting", that does *not* have to be registered with the state, *nor* does it have to be registered with the town (it's not a fictitious name - my name, Jason Ellis, already exists by the fact I have it, and as such no fictitious name filing is required in this instance).

Then when you consider that all this confusing stuff applies only to the U.S., and then we as a host would have to also figure out what is required in every country world-wide - well, you can see that it is simply impossible.

There is absolutely no feasible way for a host to confirm that their customers are a legitimate business. It's not a lack of desire to confirm such things, but rather simply a complete and total impossibility.

I think they should take responsiblity if the reseller fails.

By not caring, they undermine their own business.....

It's all well and good to say that in principle, but where do we draw the line? If a hosting company is "responsible" if the reseller fails, what should we be responsible for? Should be be responsible for maintaining that reseller's accounts? If so, how do we know how long to maintain them for? We certainly don't have access to that reseller's records. We have no idea how long an end user customer has paid for if they paid the reseller directly.

Not only that, but we don't even know who these customers are! Sure, some of them we can get info from the domain registration, but the domain registration isn't going to tell us everything we need to know in order to assume a customer.

And the legalities of it are mind-boggling. We don't have a contract with the end-user customer. The end-user customer has a contract with our reseller, not with us. As such, if we were to assume that customer we'd have no rights whatsoever under our Terms of Service (the end-user customer could just violate our TOS all over the place and we'd have no recourse since the end-user customer never agreed to our TOS in the first place). They never agreed to pay us (they agreed to pay the reseller), they never agreed to have us host their sites. The reseller is almost certainly offering a completely different plan than what we are offering, with totally different features and pricing. Just keeping track of all those different things would be next to impossible.

There is no feasible way for a host to assume responsibility for their resellers customers. It just can't happen.

Jason