I told a panic-stricken client whose site was just shut down that I'd discuss the situation with my fellow webmasters to hear your opinions and inquire whether any of you have had good/bad experiences with this particular host. I've seen similar incidents happen here. Personally, I find the situation revolting. I'm assuming what was told is accurate (client is reputable) and will be sent additional emails. The other stuff was verified on ProWebSpace's web site.

Client stated client was induced to sign up with ProWebSpace.com's conspicuously advertised hosting package of $50/month for *unlimited bandwidth*. Only 3 days later the site is shut down because of excessive bandwidth usage, without prior warning. The reasoning given by ProWebSpace was that the site generated 2 GB usage on day one and somewhat over 1 usage on day two, and at that rate it would generate usage that was far too high, they would lose money, so the client should understand. Client protested citing the "unlimited" offer. The client was then offered another package of $200/mo. which the client "accepted" contingent on certain provisions, mostly to determine what was going on. ProWebSpace then got back to the client stating that $200/mo. would buy only 8GB per month, $20/GB thereafter and be transfered to a new server within 24-48 hours upon receipt of first payment.

My client wrote back stating that this was changing terms yet again, ridiculous, and if the client can't get the site up again so that the client can transfer the account to a new host, money back, forget about this unexpected downtine, then the client will be glad to put up a "glowing review" about why the site went down. Client then receives a notice that their terms of service do not entitle her to sue nor even a refund because all is at their discretion and their TOS states:

4.1 We shall use our reasonable endeavours to make available to you at all times the Server and the Services but we shall not, in any event, be liable for interruptions of Service or down-time of the Server.

4.2 We shall have the right to suspend the Services at any time and for any reason, generally without notice, but if such suspension lasts or is to last for more than 7 days you will be notified of the reason.

6.4 Refunds will be given at the discretion of the Company Management

6.5 We reserve the right to suspend the Services and/or terminate this Agreement at any time.

6.7 On termination of this Agreement or suspension of the Services we shall be entitled immediately to block your Web Site and to remove all data located on it.

Additionally, they require her to sign a non-disparagment and non-disclosure agreement!!!

What is my take on this whole incident? My opinion is that this is an example of fraud and bad faith since the host never intended to give the client the benefit of the bargain of "the conspicuous offer of unlimited bandwidth." The offer was stated solely to deliberately mislead the client but without the intention of ever providing what was offered. Terms of service cannot be used to hide behind what is a fraudulent offer designed to hook the client.

i assume when you say "2 MB usage on day one" you mean Gigs?

the company are screwing your client around. it doesn matter what their TOS says, if what your client says is true prowebspace would not win the courtcase.

is your clients site an adult site?

...


for future reference, "unlimited bandwidth" means bullsh*t.

Thanks... just corrected the MB to GB. Yep, I have no doubt that my client would win in court but am curious to hear what others here had to say and whether they had any experiences with ProWebSpace. My client's site is G rated. This had nothing to do with material, simply that the host realized that they would lose money so my client should understand why the site was yanked without prior warning. I received a copy of the purported e-mail and couldn't believe it.

Yep, I know that the unlimited bandwidth statement is usually deceptive as I've been here a while but my client hasn't! It's one of the reasons I'm here!!!

What is amazing is that ProWebSpace's rate sheet talks about their "groundsbreaking" unlimited bandwidth offer, never worry about bandwidth again, etc. I've seen other hosts here use their TOS to terminate accounts at will and without prior warning for "excessive resource usage", which personally I thought was just asking for trouble, both in business and legally.

I thought we should reply to this thread and shed a little more light on this situation :)

Due to the data protection act I unfortunately can't go into great detail as to why we had to say goodbye to this customer, however there were additional circumstances surrounding this action which forced us to close the customers account. Saying goodbye to a customer is only ever done in extreme circumstances as a last resort. On this occasion my staff sent 14 emails to the customer in a bid to correct the position they were putting us under (not bandwidth issues). The customer refused to make changes and in order to protect our other customers we had to suspend the account and continue our discussions to try and reach a solution. In fairness, the original poster (who was brought in by the customer) wasn't made aware of all the issues and because of customer privacy we could not inform them, so we have no hard feelings to the poster :)

Even though our systems we're abused, in an act of good faith we refunded the customer in full and even helped them transfer their site to another host (btw, this host also had to close the account after a few weeks, presumably for the same issues). My staff tried very hard to please the customer but to no avail.

Hopefully this has shed a little more light on an unfortunate situation :)

Scott
ProWebSpace.com

Are you responding to the right thread? I can only assume not.... but if you really are responding to the right thread.... are you calling me a liar too in addition to my client? Here's why I'm wondering whether this post is an error or, if not, a ludicrous attempt to reply:

1) You respond here to "shed a little light" almost a half YEAR later. Perhaps this is the response time to customer service requests.

2) The client (who coincidentally contacted me a few days ago so I guess the post is for real) had no problems whatsoever with the DMCA and, if you'd like I'll post all your correspondences to shed a beacon of light, everything had to do with bandwidth usage. The note was an immediate cancellation because, after 2-3 days of usage, it was determined that you'd be losing money so you withdrew your offer which was already accepted immediately. The words are paraphrasing YOUR OWN company's written response and explanation.

3) You still haven't explained here, how in ANY good faith, you can promise UNLIMITED bandwidth and send a cancellation of account notice, less than a week after turning on the service, due to the fact that you will be losing money per your calculations. Nowhere do you set any conditions and the typical scam is including the "we have a right to terminate this agreement at any time and for any reason" type clause in your terms of service. If so, that is commonly termed as an "illusory" agreement because it is designed to deceive and provide nothing of consequence. It is also known as fraud if you truly didn't intend to provide unlimited bandwidth... and 2-3 days of usage before termination is about as clear an indication of bad faith as you get.

An apology would have been better in order rather than this incredibly poor attempt to explain some reprehensible actions with a whole bunch of smiley faces. Nobody is fooled here.

Hi Slinky :)

I'm certainly not calling you a liar, just that there were additional discussions between the customer and ourselves that I feel you are possibly not aware of (from reading your post).

Unfortunately nothing we did seem to please the customer and as you recall a refund was given :)

"You respond here to "shed a little light" almost a half YEAR later. Perhaps this is the response time to customer service requests.
" - lol :) We have only just been made aware of this post from a happy customer of ours, and no, I'm not going to start giving out our customers details :)

If you want to make public the correspondents between us then we have no problem with that, however we will certainly not result to putting private communicates from a past customer for all to see to back ourselves up.

I certainly don't want to get into an argument over this and hope no offence has been caused. I do agree that the situation was unfortunate but we did do all humanly possible.

This is all I really have to say about it :)

Warm regards,

Scott
ProWebSpace.com:)

Unfortunate incident? The misfortune only happened to my client. And no, you were not giving my client full money back and it was a long, nasty, drawn out process for something that should have been simple.

And you STILL haven't explained your reasoning as to how you can offer "unlimited bandwidth" and shut off a client WITHOUT prior notice because you suspect you won't make enough money. THIS is the point, no matter how many others you allege to occur to deflect the focus on the issue (and which I have never seen nor heard and most probably would have IF there was a problem).

You hope no offense was caused? Then why promise unlimited bandwidth when you don't mean it? When a client gets notice in e-mail that his/her has ALREADY been shut off, without notice, because you don't want to provide the unlimited bandwidth that you promised, you better believe there is a HUGE offense created. Don't even tell anyone here that if your pipe was shut off without notice for the same reason and your clients were screwed, you wouldn't be furious.

It boggles my mind how you can continue to post and not answer this one, simple, question regarding your policy of "unlimited bandwidth" which is nothing more than an outright lie.

As I said, instead of sending smily faces and some hogwash excuse, the first thing you could do would be to apologize and change your policies to make them fair. I cannot believe this is evading you.

Originally posted by prowebspace
Hi Slinky :)

I'm certainly not calling you a liar, just that there were additional discussions between the customer and ourselves that I feel you are possibly not aware of (from reading your post).

Unfortunately nothing we did seem to please the customer and as you recall a refund was given :)

"You respond here to "shed a little light" almost a half YEAR later. Perhaps this is the response time to customer service requests.
" - lol :) We have only just been made aware of this post from a happy customer of ours, and no, I'm not going to start giving out our customers details :)

If you want to make public the correspondents between us then we have no problem with that, however we will certainly not result to putting private communicates from a past customer for all to see to back ourselves up.

I certainly don't want to get into an argument over this and hope no offence has been caused. I do agree that the situation was unfortunate but we did do all humanly possible.

This is all I really have to say about it :)

Warm regards,

Scott
ProWebSpace.com:)


Originally posted by prowebspace
I thought we should reply to this thread and shed a little more light on this situation :)

Due to the data protection act I unfortunately can't go into great detail as to why we had to say goodbye to this customer, however there were additional circumstances surrounding this action which forced us to close the customers account. Saying goodbye to a customer is only ever done in extreme circumstances as a last resort. On this occasion my staff sent 14 emails to the customer in a bid to correct the position they were putting us under (not bandwidth issues). The customer refused to make changes and in order to protect our other customers we had to suspend the account and continue our discussions to try and reach a solution. In fairness, the original poster (who was brought in by the customer) wasn't made aware of all the issues and because of customer privacy we could not inform them, so we have no hard feelings to the poster :)

Even though our systems we're abused, in an act of good faith we refunded the customer in full and even helped them transfer their site to another host (btw, this host also had to close the account after a few weeks, presumably for the same issues). My staff tried very hard to please the customer but to no avail.

Hopefully this has shed a little more light on an unfortunate situation :)

Scott
ProWebSpace.com