What are your views on Vortech Hosting?

http://www.vortechhosting.com

Well the owner Brad posts on this forums a lot, and I have talked with him before, and they seem like a real solid company. I would go with them if I was in your shoes, but your post is a little vague. Is there anything in particular that you want to know?

Steven

Nice people, very helpful and knowledgable.

They seem to be nice...you don't see alot of negative comments about them.

Okay. I decided not to signup with Vortech Inc's. sub company called Matrix Reseller (Matrix Web Hosting) for the following reasons:

1. They list the following clause in the Terms of Use Agreement
You shall be held liable for any and all costs incurred by Matrix WebHosting as a result of your violation of these terms and conditions. This is including, but is not limited to, attorney fees and costs resulting from Postmaster responses to complaints from and the cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations. Matrix WebHosting’s current hourly rate for Postmaster responses to complaints and cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations is US $100 per hour, with a minimum one (1) hour charge, plus US $1 for each bulk-email or Usenet message sent, plus US $1 per complaint received.

Okay. I thought this will just mean if 'myself', the reseller, sends spam mail they will charge me and so they should.However it doesn't if one of my clients sends spam mail I will also be charged.

I.e. if the reseller's client send unsolicited email the reseller will be charged $100 plus $1 per email and $1 per complaint.

So say someone signs up for my service (myself being a Matrix reseller) and within the first 20 minutes send out 5000 unsolicited emails I will get a billed from Vortech Inc. for $5100! I think this is just a little unfair. Maybe they should terminate the the reseller's client's domain at maximum, like what most other companies do.

I checked all this out with there sales team just to confirm.

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2. My next point. They have the following in there FAQ page

Legal adult content is permitted. Content deemed illegal or offensive by Matrix (this includes ANY form of Warez-related website), UCE (spam), and any form of IRCD are not permitted. Each violation carries a $300.00 charge, or possible suspension and/or termination. Matrix will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation.

The same applies here. If my client breaks this term, not me the reseller I will get billed $300!

This is why I didn't signup, I can't afford to take that chance!

For starters, we have never charged ANY reseller the fees you have listed. However, listing it in the AUP does work wonderfully to deter people from signing up to become resellers and then reselling as "bulk friendly". We run one of the cleanest networks around and we intend to stay that way. Spammers are killed as soon as we see them.

We are by no means hard a$$es. If a reseller called us up and said they were having problems with a spammer signing up and spamming away, we would do everything within our power to HELP the reseller with the problem, instead of terminating their account or charging them. The fees are a LAST resort for resellers who refuse to turn off their spamming clients.

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The adult content, is the same concept. It is there to deter people from reselling to people that want to upload kiddie porn and other illegal adult content. Once again we have never had to charge any reseller for such an offense.
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I am sorry but we will not change our AUP to get a sign up. We stand by a very strong ANTI-SPAM policy and just because you don't like our AUP ,does not make it a bad AUP. We do not want spam, warez or anything illegal on our network, period.

By the way, are you having some kind of problem with the host your with now? Is that why you are trying to tear apart our AUP?

I could not agree more with Vortech .. better avoid problems from the start, keep your TOS dude :)

. . . . . . . Is that why you are trying to tear apart our AUP? I think tibpringles simply explained why he didn't sign up.
I doubt his only intent is to discredit Vortech Hosting.
Just that he read the TOS and was concerned about being charged monies for things he would have little control over.
Although, I don't see anything wrong with the AUP. I understand it is written in that context to discourage certain activities. Which could maybe have been explained better by sales staff that replied (as tibpringles indicates happened) to his questions.

I see what you mean here.. In his emails it was a little more like this..

"I advise you go and take a look at some other companies TOS's, you don't see this sort of thing in there's. I don't think anyone in there right mind would try building a business under there conditions!"
There was more but not going to go on..

Many of our users do and love us for it. Really our resellers love us for it.. It keeps them in line and keeps them from ever getting a bad name.. No one likes spam but we HATE it.. :)

Just to put it simple we like feedback and thanks very much tibpringles..

But i really never see us making this change to our over all AUP. Just as CRego3D said "better avoid problems from the start".. :)

Well, that shines a little different light.;)

And, I like your TOS.

Can I use it? :D

Sure i don't mind.. :) Just try and change it around a bit so it does not look the same..

>>>You shall be held liable for any and all costs incurred by Matrix WebHosting as a result of your violation of these terms and conditions. This is including, but is not limited to, attorney fees and costs resulting from Postmaster responses to complaints from and the cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations. Matrix WebHosting’s current hourly rate for Postmaster responses to complaints and cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations is US $100 per hour, with a minimum one (1) hour charge, plus US $1 for each bulk-email or Usenet message sent, plus US $1 per complaint received.

If reseller charged then it is meaningless. How can a reseller be aware of their clients whether they spamming or not?

Easy they each get there own DNS using there domain and there own IP from us so 99% of the time who every is doing the DNS also get the complaints along with us as we provide the IP space.. :)

We would also send the reseller a copy of a complaint if we did get one to make sure they know about it.. But we would not charge them at any point unless it really got out of hand that would be the last thing we would ever do..

Originally posted by Vortech
But we would not charge them at any point unless it really got out of hand that would be the last thing we would ever do..

You should add this to the AUP then...

Yea but then that kind of kills it for the real spammers.. :) It may keep us from getting some customers but it keeps us from getting a lot more spammers as well.. hehe

well then ppl think they can do it then... I wouldnt put that in..

Its like " If you break the law.. we might send you to jail.."

Originally posted by Billabong2k2
well then ppl think they can do it then... I wouldnt put that in..

Its like " If you break the law.. we might send you to jail.."

Yes I would tend to agree if it was an end user account but it's not, it is a reseller account. The reseller may have little control over what the end user does. Remember this contract is between Vortech and the reseller not Vortech and the end user.

Whether Vortech impose a fine on the reseller or not do you really think that will deter the end user from spamming? Do you really think the spammer cares if Vortech charge the reseller?

Maybe a policy where if the reseller didn't deal with the end user within a certain time span the fine may be imposed

IMO Even if Vortech may or may not impose the policy it should still be defined. Any agreement you may have should be in black and white.

Just my $0.02 but at the end of the day it is up to Vortech, it's there business and I am sure they know there business better than anyone else :)

oh ok, that makes more sense now ;)

Good points.. I will think about adding a sub section in the AUP for just resellers this may help but it will still have some very tight rules to them as well but i may be able to define what goes on better for them.. :)

The parts that are there will stay any one have any good wording i could add to http://www.matrixreseller.com/tos/index.php just for resellers..

Something along these lines:

Matrix WebHosting’s current hourly rate for Postmaster responses to complaints and cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations is US $100 per hour, with a minimum one (1) hour charge, plus US $1 for each bulk-email or Usenet message sent, plus US $1 per complaint received.

Matrix WebHosting Inc. Reserve the right to impose this policy if the Account Holder does not take action against their offending client within [insert a reasonable time period here, 72 hours?] after being notified by Matrix WebHosting Inc. If the Reseller themselves sends unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations they are subject to the above charges and/or account termination without notice.


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It might need to be worked on a bit. I would also suggest something similar for the $300 charge you mention on the FAQ. If you are going to charge people this it should be in the TOS/AUP or it is not a binding contract... or maybe I just missed this... :stickout

I hope this can help you in some small way hehe :)

One last section you might want to review

MatrixWebHosting.com expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that the MatrixWebHosting.com services will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted.

At the top of your site you say "99.9% uptime or your money back".

Your TOS/AUP contradicts your advertising...

If you provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee this should be in the contract.

I think that's all I can spot for now anyway. If I notice anything else I will be sure to let you know :D