Folks: I am a reporter exploring a story on Web hosting fraud. As many of you know there is a case currenly with one northwestern state where a Web hosting firm is charged for offering bad service (didn't offer refunds within 30 days, didn't put sites up on time), with a proposed fine of $2K per instance.

Two questions to both Web hosters/resellers/customers in this context:

1. What is the general feeling -- is this a case of fraud or simply bad service (it's a free country -- dump the bad host. find a better one)?

2. Any stories out there where people were charged with fraud for bad hosting; or where customers/resellers feel they were wronged and either pressed charges or found other ways to get justice?

Off line comments welcome: max@smetannikov.net

Impossible to speculate on your example without knowing the particulars. Also, no one would be wise to publicly make an accusation of fraud...unless they employ a very large and good staff of attorneys.

If you want some fodder for your investigation just do a little searching here....there is one host that consistently has the most serious accusations against them....and you might find something to pursue.

Not telling you the host....but I'll give the first hint and others can follow with additional clues.

Hint 1-I live near Dallas, Texas and they are within driving distance.

Hint2: Yeah I know which company you're talking about! Because you *****ed my site with them also.. lmao

What paper/magazine are you with?

Originally posted by WannaBaHost
Hint2: Yeah I know which company you're talking about! Because you *****ed my site with them also.. lmao

Excellent hint. Just hope our friend gets it ;)

If you woukd like to talk about bad hosting practices see the following thread.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30365

Be sure to do a search for "said company" in the WHT forum.



2. Any stories out there where people were charged with fraud for bad hosting; or where customers/resellers feel they were wronged and either pressed charges or found other ways to get justice?

You may want to look into why some hosting companies don't offer any form of refunds. I won't point towards a certain company that cost me $80 because of this policy (caugh... k i k k o.com ... caugh). I'll just say I was with them for 4 days, payed $40 setup and $40 for my first month on a high bandwidth virtual account. During day 4 my account just disappeared into thin air. It took me 5 solid days of emails and messages to their live help person to get some sort of reaction. Their answer? They just set up a new account and I lost everything on the old account. It may be a nice detail to add that most of the messages to their live help were sent back to me because they hadn't been opened within 48 hours after sending them. They did admit they were wrong, but when I said I was cancelling my account, they were surprised and wanted to know why. They seemed to think a 5 day reaction time for a total collapse of an account was normal. In the end they said: fine, leave then, but we have a no-refund policy. I don't really want to do a chargeback on my credit card, but if they try to charge me for an extra month, they can count on it I will. I even had an email off their support department today (2 weeks after I cancelled my account) stating there will be some downtime due to them moving some servers, so why do I think they will keep charging me...

LOL, what a nice long rant :stickout

Thanks to everybody who posted and replied off-line, I got some pretty solid leads.

One last question to the group: is anyone aware of BBB complaints/litigation against ***** because of what apears to be a dismal customer service record? I am working against a deadline so any leads here would save me a lot of time. Thanks again.

Did you do a search on here? I'm actually surprized that is the only sort of complaint filed. The service wasn't as bad as the billing errors that screwed the bank account for my site up.

Just visit bbb.com and type in their LEGAL business name I am sure will find what you are looking for without problems..

Just do a search. You'll find everything you need.

Just as an FYI, Ft. Worth BBB chief said ***** has resolved all customer-related issues and thus BBB is off its back...

Originally posted by A.K.A. max
Two questions to both Web hosters/resellers/customers in this context:

1. What is the general feeling -- is this a case of fraud or simply bad service (it's a free country -- dump the bad host. find a better one)?

2. Any stories out there where people were charged with fraud for bad hosting; or where customers/resellers feel they were wronged and either pressed charges or found other ways to get justice?

Sounds like liberalism gone amuck. Sure, let's sue the local McDonalds because they don't serve hamburgers as quickly as Burger King. Lame. One thing about the hosting business, you can't please everyone. Many times, the host is wrong, and many times, the customer is wrong. If a customer is wrong, they can still cause trouble for the host, and may of them do. I do believe that most web hosts are upstanding. A few bad apples have spoiled the bunch.

Originally posted by A.K.A. max
Just as an FYI, Ft. Worth BBB chief said ***** has resolved all customer-related issues and thus BBB is off its back...
Not true. Here is their BBB Reliability Report (http://www.fortworth.bbb.org/common.html?bureau=ftworth&compid=98080001&location=/home/common/www/bips/report.php).

Originally posted by A.K.A. max
Just as an FYI, Ft. Worth BBB chief said ***** has resolved all customer-related issues and thus BBB is off its back...

Probably bought them off as they do all of the hosting review sites .