According to Lightship, their lawyers have advised not to make a public statement but they are responding directly to CW scammed customers:
--------------------------------------------------------
Good morning. Lightship has decided for the time being to not post information on the company website regarding Cyberwing. However, we are replying to direct inquiries from concerned Cyberwing customers that contact us.

Contrary to Cyberwing Communications' assertions, the ongoing outage being experienced by customers of Cyberwing has resulted from Cyberwing's repeated failure to pay to Lightship certain contractually-agreed amounts. Lightship was ready and eager to continue to provide Internet services, including technical support, to Cyberwing.

We would request that Cyberwing customers contact Cyberwing directly regarding any service, support and data-related issues.
-------------------------------------------------------------

As most of us thought, a large company like LS would not get "pissed" because Shawn is moving to Virginia and shut him down. They had a reason. At least their statement makes sense.

You still get banned in the IRC channel #cyberwings for mentioning this.

Yeah, they banned me yesterday :bawling:

This is sad. It really is.

When Shawn started his company I was an advocate for the simple reason the community was there.

Rather than bore you with a long post I wrote an article for CompuNotes this weekend. If you want you can read it there.

Web hosting Down ... The Cyberwings Story (http://www.compunotes.com/OpinionSection/webhostingdown.htm)

Excellent analysis. It really emphasizes the fact that people will listen to someone's claim and accept it as the truth.

i like the part about the cult following, i have noticed the same thing in the chat room :eek:

Patrick,

Thanks for sharing your article with us - I enjoyed reading it.

In my own humble opinion, Cyberwings is bordering on fraud and conspiracy. One person not telling the truth is a lie and a bunch of people lying is a conspiracy. You went easy on him in the article. Shawn has made many statements which were proven untrue and my bottom line has always been, once they've lied to me, how can I ever trust them again?

So, is Shawn a fraud or incompetent? I think he is both. Perhaps he did start out with good intentions but greed got the better of him. Regardless, my observations has been that he is a terrible businessman although maybe a competent salesperson.

This is like a soap opera - I can't wait to see what happens next.

Sydney,

Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to make sure the article included facts and not speculation.

Lightship is not allowing Cyberwings to access the data. That much is known. What isn't known is why. There are a couple of very valid options:

1) Cyberwings didn't pay their bills. This was rumored to be the case in the RackShack issue, but no facts were ever discovered. That is the same here. Lightship says Cyberwings owes money, but doesn't say why.

2) Cyberwings didn't pay a termination fee. The contract with Lightship may have included a termination fee. For instance, if Cyberwings decided to pull their information and servers due to performance issues there may have been an early termination penalty. If they didn't pay then they wouldn't get their data and servers.

Past that, I can't think of anything else.

The most disheartening thing about this is that there are people who have sites and data they cannot get to. It's not a simple matter of moving to another host when you cannot access your data. I'd be screwed, really screwed, if I lost any of my sites completely. Like I said in the article, I learned my lesson.

The complete and utter lack of real communication from Shawn has been the compelling factor in all this. I think he's mad a tactical mistake in staying a cheerleader and not addressing concerns and issues in a forthright manner.

If a deadline is delayed, say why. If the technical specs aren't what you say, explain the difference. A simple FAQ would be the best solution to this.

The overworked CW staff and volunteers in the chat room should be applauded for holding on, but how long can they go without any solid footing? They are taking heaps of abuse that they don't need.

Thanks again for the feedback and I hope you weren't someone affected by this.

From the several months I've been involved with cw, the operation had an external appearance of a pyramid.

This month's bills had to be paid by this month's receipts, requiring continious sales to generate income. Everything works fine as long as they could increase revenue(or allow suppliers to wait on payment) at a faster rate than expenses. Of course that can't last forever and the whole thing collapses.

Shawn's veracity - His own statements concerning the ownership of the Maine center after July 8 are in direct contradiction to his statements prior to that. His early statements concerning the Virginia center, at the very least, were misleading.

The fact that broke my trust is :

Shawn told everyone that Cyberwings built the data center in Portland Maine. I was under the impression that he owned the DC and staffed it with Cyberwing employees.

I thought it strange that such a small company would be able to afford a data center but I did not want to second guess how he funded this venture. I simply took his word for it.

Of course the truth comes out now that their servers were really co-located.

The only reason I can think of that Shawn cannot be more forthcoming with information is because he needs time to get his lies straight. He has not meet one deadline yet, even though he set them himself.

When he enters the chat room, people bombard him with questions and he picks and chooses which question he answers. I have never received much substantial information from these Q & As and when he does say something useful, it turns out to be a lie.

As of right now, Shawn's estimated time of being operational in their 'premier data center' in VA is ASAP (this is a direct quote), even though he says he already has the new servers "in hand" (I really think he means "on hand").

I do have several domains hosted with him and have asked for refunds. Cyberwing asks to give them 10 days to process the refunds and I am on day 6.

Again, let's see what happens.

I agree, your article offered an excellent analysis. This seems to be an excellent example of what happens when you attempt to expand too quickly. Putting promotions before a solid business growth plan can be disasterous.

Pre-paid revenue is a dangerous thing for a business. In my last lifetime, when owning a company called Beeper Boutique, we were on the high end of teh market, if you cac call it that. We sold pager service for $12.00 per month (paid monthly) while other charged only $3 to $4 per month PROVIDED that you paid a year or two or three in advance. Seemed like a good idea, but if you spend the money you rely on future profits. In an expanding market, that works for a while. However, when the market slows a bit or sales slows a bit, it hurts.

In once instance in Pasadena, there were a few hundred of another companies customers tossing rocks through his windows when their service was shutoff by the carrier. In that instance, some of these people had paid for two and three years of service.

One should always be cautious when paying for many months in advance. It is a bad idea if you don;t know who you're dealing with.

If you charge monthly for your service, collect monthly, and pay your supplier monthly, even a new business person can figure out at the end of teh day of there are profits or not.

Disclaimer: I speak not of any particluar company but of an industry in general.

Robert

Originally posted by Gordo
Shawn's veracity - His own statements concerning the ownership of the Maine center after July 8 are in direct contradiction to his statements prior to that. His early statements concerning the Virginia center, at the very least, were misleading.

Very misleading, indeed. He stated emphatically on the CW website that they owned and operated their own data center, and from what I read about the move to the VA DC, his information implied that they were building their own DC there as well. In my opinion, highly unethical to say the least. I would like to see him clearly address this issue here at WHT. He won't, more than likely, but it would be nice.

Cyberwings is dead, period.

If I were Shawn, I would be looking for a plane ticket to Mexico or somewhere. Just being mistaken or lying is not against the law, but fraud can be.

In hindsight, it's pretty obvious why so many had to wait weeks after paying for their account, for the accounts to be opened, and then only after target dates were repeatedly delayed. There simply was no place to put the accounts, until additional funds came in from yet another sale.

Why don't the dissatisfied CW customers create a fund to send a few representitives to pay a surprise visit to this Shawn.

Originally posted by IT Hosting
Why don't the dissatisfied CW customers create a fund to send a few representitives to pay a surprise visit to this Shawn.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

You piss of this many people, I'm sure some nut probably will...it's best to just be upfront with people from the beginning.

I just talked to Cyberwings billing company 2checkout.com 877-294-0273 and they were willing to refund my money even though I paid in April.

They noted they were flooded by complaints as to Cyberwings and THEY lost contact with them.The old addresses they had went dead and the last address you see floating around here all emails to that domain are ignored.


If I'm all wrong and could not wait a little longer for the new data center to open...brand new...5,000,000 square feet? --well..I take my guessing odds and get my refund when I can.

This is turning into a real cluster F, if you know what I mean.

I have been with CW almost a year, 8-14-2001. I have 16 sites on cobalts which are still running, at least for now, in his Q&A session of 7-15 Shawn is saying to back up those file because "NO ETA ON WHEN THAT MOVE MIGHT HAPPEN, BUT IT VERY WELL COULD BE *SOON*!", in the middle of all this crap going on, why? Those servers at RS are all thats running, leave them be, do not create bigger problems.

There may be something else going on with the servers at RS. I don't know, but there is not a good track record here.

I have about 10 sites, plus room for much more on the plesk servers that are down. all in design and for sale stage.

I feel bad for some people that paid for lifetime accounts, some spending hundreds, infact the birthday sale was over for maybe 2-3 days when the servers went down. man I would be bumming.

Of course some of the people in the chat room are full of it, saying "I am losing hundreds of dollars a day," WHAT? You are making hundreds of dollars a day and your on a $5 a year host, you deserve to be screwed, what are you saving? $10 to $20 a month. That's just stupid!

I use CW as a start point for sites, if they start making money I move them to a better host. After all think about it, how can you charge $5 a year? pack the server? I don't know.

As for those latest sales I hope they where not trying to pay old bills with new accounts. Some of the people after the sale where saying they got unbelievable amounts of space and bandwidth for peanuts, I taking you would be paying $200 - $300 on a dedicated server, I'm saying dedicated because there is no way you can move the bandwidth there talking about on a shared account, and they spent $150 lifetime. What?

I have been an adult webmaster for 4 years, I know if your making money and what to move traffic reliably, you have to spend some money.

I DO HOPE IT WORKS OUT!!

I like being able to try out new sites and give my friends and family free hosting.

Best Of Luck To CyberWings.

OF course they were willing, because if they weren't willing your next step is chargeback. And Visa/MC whoever certainly would be on your side in this instance.

Am I the only one here who believes virtually NONE of what Shawn White is saying. In reading over some of the posts of the last two weeks, people continually talk about his servers, and he has bought new servers, and he has new servers in hand, and he has built this new DC in Virginia, and his lawyers are working on things, etc., etc....

WAKE UP PEOPLE....Shawn is lying...I doubt if Shawn ever owned any servers. Shawn is doing like so many of us...He is leasing servers. The only difference he is lying and claiming to have a big office and big staff and such.

If anyone could ever figure this out I would bet that he is fairly young, and running this from his home (which is ok if done right), leasing servers which he was reselling too cheap. I doubt that he has any employee's at all. It is easy to make up more names, and sign various names to emails.

I'm not saying that Shawn ever intended to defraud anyone. He may have been totally on the up and up to begin with and things just started snowballing too fast.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally posted by BluemoonHost
I agree, your article offered an excellent analysis. This seems to be an excellent example of what happens when you attempt to expand too quickly. Putting promotions before a solid business growth plan can be disasterous.
Slow steady growth is good growth. :) You can gradually expand your infrastructure as your revenues grow. You can grow to a very large size and still be stable this way. A large house needs a good and solid foundation.

Originally posted by EzHost
Am I the only one here who believes virtually NONE of what Shawn White is saying. In reading over some of the posts of the last two weeks, people continually talk about his servers, and he has bought new servers, and he has new servers in hand, and he has built this new DC in Virginia, and his lawyers are working on things, etc., etc....

WAKE UP PEOPLE....Shawn is lying...I doubt if Shawn ever owned any servers. Shawn is doing like so many of us...He is leasing servers. The only difference he is lying and claiming to have a big office and big staff and such.

If anyone could ever figure this out I would bet that he is fairly young, and running this from his home (which is ok if done right), leasing servers which he was reselling too cheap. I doubt that he has any employee's at all. It is easy to make up more names, and sign various names to emails.

I'm not saying that Shawn ever intended to defraud anyone. He may have been totally on the up and up to begin with and things just started snowballing too fast.

Just my 2 cents.

I'll go one better. I don't believe a SINGLE word that comes from Shawn White. He has lied at every turn of the road about EVERYTHING. Anyone who isn't looking at the world through rose colored glasses could see that simply by looking at the Cyberwings website MONTHS ago...It was obviously all lies.

Yeah, the guy owns his own datacenter and hangs out in IRC selling people lifetime hosting for $10. GET REAL!!!

We all let ourselves fall for things that are too good to be true. It's human nature to hope for a great deal. But for crying out loud...what does it take???

Like many others, I am also a victim of cyberwings. :mad:

I just wish that I have 30 minutes to access my phpBB2 database so that I can get my data.
I also need to be able to access FTP to get my important files. I don't care about the refund at this point. Data is more important for me now.
If Shawn does not have access to the server, how in the world am I going to get my data back?

I have always backed up my data regularly so I actually lost only about 2 weeks worth of data. But still, they are important data. The sad thing is that this came at me without warning. When I first notice a lag time to my forum, I became worried and wanted to back up my MySQL data from my phpBB2 but for some reason I could not fully back it up because of the limited bandwith. I did try to back it up.

So I just let the days go by hoping the forum's speed would be back to normal so that I can back up my database. But unfortunately, I never get a chance to do so and you all know why..... :bawling:

Originally posted by lightnin


I'll go one better. I don't believe a SINGLE word that comes from Shawn White. He has lied at every turn of the road about EVERYTHING. Anyone who isn't looking at the world through rose colored glasses could see that simply by looking at the Cyberwings website MONTHS ago...It was obviously all lies.

Yeah, the guy owns his own datacenter and hangs out in IRC selling people lifetime hosting for $10. GET REAL!!!

We all let ourselves fall for things that are too good to be true. It's human nature to hope for a great deal. But for crying out loud...what does it take???

no, he makes the billions from the losing weigh pyramid plans ;)

or the millions from the get out of speeding ticket guides :stickout

X-MAN, I totally feel your pain. A similar situation happened to me a while back. I just want you to know that what I said there was in no way an attempt to belittle the situation you are in. It was geared more towards the people who are still Cyberwings 'believers'.

I don't know much about CW but hear alot of bad things. I was just thinking, maybe if he does restart (under a new domain name, name, address, SS#, and Birth Certificate<--this don't make sense=)...this time, you think he would actually be a normal host after he has enough $ that he 'scammed'. I would usually not bash about other co. but what he did is totally unethical. I hope he has learned a lesson and quits this way of life.

Originally posted by Gorgar
[B]This is turning into a real cluster F, if you know what I mean.

Of course some of the people in the chat room are full of it, saying "I am losing hundreds of dollars a day," WHAT? You are making hundreds of dollars a day and your on a $5 a year host, you deserve to be screwed, what are you saving? $10 to $20 a month. That's just stupid!

Yeah, I agree totally. When my web business began attracting more and more traffic and the returns began to grow, I upgraded to bigger accounts, then a dedicated server. Hosting was costing me $380 a month. But that was ok because my gross was covering it with ease. Since the advertising vaporized, economy has slumped, and sales have dropped to around 10% of what they were last year, I can no longer afford to pay premium hosting services. The problem is I still have all the traffic and downloads! So I took a chance with CW and got a few $8 accounts to stash my forums (a couple of which burn through 10GB of bandwidth each month). That was three months ago, now I have 1200 members all pissed off at me (of course) and Shawn lying about everything from getting us back up to who owns which DC.... it is a bad deal that an honest man (me) has found himself in.

It's funny, a co-worker and I discussed the CW strategies back when we bought out accounts and it sure seemed like a scam then :D The two week delays in getting accounts up, the sales getting crazier and crazier. Like one guy said, we talked about the chances this was a check-kiting scheme. Why do I care now? Because I do not like to see people scam others and get off scot free. And he won't... trust me.

I think there is some better news on the Cyberwings front. Well, better in the context of most sites down ...

Anyway, in the chatroom an associate of Cyberwings, not sure if she is an employee or a volunteer, named Jan posted that PayPal will refund money to people from Cyberwings accounts. She said this news came from Shawn who indicated that there is no fraud investigation from the PayPal side.

Shawn should also be in the chatroom in an hour.

Anyway, I looked on PayPal and the best link I could find was:

Buyer Complaint Process (http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=352&loc=349)

From what I have heard the charges need to be within the last thirty days.

From what I've seen in the CW chat room, there are people still sending money for non-existant accounts that will be up 'soon'.

I think Shawn is setting himself up for a wire fraud conviction with every dollar he accepts.

I hope someone has alerted the authorities in Virginia to what's going on...as well as the ones in Maine.

For me at this stage, I don't know what I should do:

1. Get another host and upload the data of my phpBB2 that I have backed up before the fiasco. I will be losing 2 weeks worth of posts that I can never get back.

or

2. Be patient and wait for a miracle that somehow Shawn can get the server back so that I can back up my files. Once I finish with backing up....I am atta there...period!!!

X-MAN,

Is your site generating revenue? If so, I don't think you should wait. If it's a personal site and you feel comfortable riding it out, do it.

It all comes down to reading everything that has been posted and deciding for yourself whether you believe you will get your data.

Everytime I read the update, it gives me a little MI (Myocardial Infarction).

To answer your question, my forum is a fun site and does not generate any revenue. However, my users want it back badly. I can restore my forum with the missing 2 weeks posts but I really want to have those posts back because it has attachments, music streaming posts, etc....that are important.

I am leaning towards thinking you want to wait due to the prices you were getting at Cyberwings. If so, then you should wait. If/when they come back up the prices will be lower than they were before according to Shawn.

Shawn is in the chatroom now for those who would like to know.

His opening statement:

[23:40] * CEO-Shawn is very disappointed & fed up with the community talking here right now. Please know that our legal counsel IS present and is logging all names, netmasks and everything SAID in these rooms presently. Those of you against CW, please state your position and take your side, those of you with us, do the same, and those of you against us, I am about to raise hell with those of you aginst us immediately.

An update ...

Shawn indicated he won't answer any questions until the IRC COP leaves the room/gives control to Cyberwings. I couldn't understand. He did say:

[23:43] * CEO-Shawn I've had enough. 100% of our accounts are paid up in full, I have PROOF of everything and so do the account holders. I've already contacted the US Marshalls and they will be enforcing our court order to retrieve our servers from LS. NO ONE has the right to hold someone elses assets, period.

CEO-Shawn/#cyberwings CANNOT take new pictures of the NEW DC due to FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SERVERS being on this site with us.
Period. If you do not like that, sorry, it's the way it goes.


this is a goodie :stickout

Actually there is a shred of truth in that statement. Servers that are contracted to fed agencies or running federal services need to be locked away from other servers. We do this through a keypunch in our computer room. The servers are surrounded by fencing from the roof to the floor. I don't know about the pictures, but I do know about the access.

The pictures at this point wouldn't help.

I hate to be the one to say it but what did some people expect from a company selling lifetime accounts.

I just moved hosts you guys ! For the 1st time i really feel bad!
This guy could have lit the internet not his DC.::)

Hope he understands that a community is not really surrounded by a cult!!

All those special pps with the @ should think about it!!

Cheap,, Well,,, You Get What You Pay For!!!!!!!!!!!!

Free for 6 months, again, =)

Just a disclaimer..................I have a chat log..............so..........
Sue Me Cyberly......YOur....LiFE....iS.........ONLInE...........

This is quite entertaining: :stickout

* CEO-Shawn - LOTS of people have been calling VARIOUS data centers in Virginia as WELL as Cogent. Please note that we have made our Non Disclosure Agreements, Confidentiality Agreements & UNDERSTANDINGS with ALL people involved in our situation right now VERY ROCK SOLID that NO INFORMATION, good, bad or indifferent will be released to ANY customers, inquiries, etc. OUR PROVIDERS will not even ACKNOWLEDGE that we are a customer!
* CEO-Shawn Cogent, nor ANY provider we are dealing with, will respond to ANYONE with ANY information, period.
* CEO-Shawn will ALSO announce that he had to undergo a VERY intensive background check (Criminal, etc.) before he was allowed to have his hand biometrically scanned for our new data center. We are in the same facility as MANY government & financial institutions and we are not playing with small data centers any longer.
* CEO-Shawn So for those of you who kept posting ANNOYING things about me being a fraud, whatever. I am running a VERY legititmate business hre with VERY legitimate intentions and we are going to be back FULL force very shortly.

Heh.

I tried to check the status of Cyberwings tonight. Not really expecting much. I wasn't expecting to be blocked from access. You are no longer allowed to enter unless you have a registered nick. They only replied to the people that swalled the CW propaganda anyway. If you asked for the truth you were called negative asked ask to leave. Or they would moderate and the unemployed cyberwings staff would talk about the weather until they drove everyone off. He's still trying to sell lifetime accounts.
How lame would you have to be to buy one. Last time i was at the chat site they were still asking about the next sale.
One born every minute.

Originally posted by goedesign

One born every minute.

On the net I think its every second.

Originally posted by pgrote
X-MAN,

Is your site generating revenue? If so, I don't think you should wait. If it's a personal site and you feel comfortable riding it out, do it.

It all comes down to reading everything that has been posted and deciding for yourself whether you believe you will get your data.

X-man...only you can decide how critical it is to do one thing or another. However, here's an idea that could possibly get you BOTH back online immediately AND your 2 weeks of data(though probably a little later on).

If you switch to another host, restore your data as you have it(sans the 2 weeks you mention), and run THAT as a live forum. When(if) you ever get the other two weeks, restore that as a SEPARATE forum, or under different info. If you're creative, you can do this WITHIN a single database, but you can always just use a different database. Either way, you'll need to change the info in a "config" type file in your forum info, but that should allow access to those two weeks as a separate forum. Personally, I think going into THAT separate area before opening it and deleting everything prior to that span(which would already exist in your running forum), and leave just that 2 weeks. Set the forum to a "locked" status, so people can view, but not post, so they can access files, etc.......

This way, you get back and running, and possibly in the very near future, you can restore the other two weeks. I know...PITA no matter what you do, but being down and an active forum with many wanting it back, well, that can't be fun either!

BTW...this whole CW thread/story/issue is "very" interesting indeed....almost surreal. I don't know how much you have invested there, but as I noted, only you can decide whether it's worth staying or not, or what to do about leaving.

I wish you well!
Take care...
Michael
Eskie Pages

UnkleMunky,

Thanks for the advice.
I have asked my users at my forum (using a temporary Invisionboard forum instead of my phpBB2) about what they wish I would do and they want me to wait because they don't want me to spend $100 on getting a new web host.
They are considerate but also anxiously waiting for the return of my forum.

So frustrating.

The chat is almost over and I can say that there was no proof of new servers or a new DC offered. Shawn kept everything behind a confidential veil.

A couple of notable quotes:

[00:35] <Cyberscribe-CWV> <pgrote-away> Understanding a move take a while, will the procedure be to get one server online, then the next, etc. or have them all ready at one time?
[00:35] * CEO-Shawn - We will have ALL servers online at ONE TIME and will NOT be held back by a limitation of boxes.
[00:37] * CEO-Shawn needs EVERYONE's patience, support & understanding for these LAST FINAL DAYS - I guarantee you, in my personal word, that we will have functioning servers online VERY shortly (Thurs-Sat) and that ALL ARRANGEMENTS have already been made.

I asked the question as to whether servers would be made available as they came online or all at once. Shawn said all at once.

I would think that in the interest of customer support get one up, put your best customers on it and work backwards. It's his call not mine, so ....

He also said that the servers will be up at the latest on Saturday. He commented very briefly on the Lightship issue. His comments were along the lines of going to get a court order and to have the US Marshals go get the hardware.

The last comment that struck me as extremely odd was his denial that any of the newsgroups posts were his. He especially denied the infamous golden fleece post.

Message Here (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=y9J77.123032%24EF2.16987590%40typhoon.nyroc.rr.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain)

You can clearly see that the email address is shawn's, the city is shawn's and the broadband provider is shawn's. If he didn't write it then someone in his house did.

And this is what pushed me over the edge. I have tried to maintain some sort of objectivity, but to deny this post is from him? Come on. Here is the complete header:

Reply-To: "Shawn J. White" <swhite@maine.rr.com>
From: "Shawn J. White" <swhite@cyberwings.com>
Newsgroups: az.forsale
Subject: FS: $5.00 secret kit
Lines: 12
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2479.0006
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2479.0006
Message-ID: <y9J77.123032$EF2.16987590@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 00:05:50 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.30.0.10
X-Complaints-To: abuse@maine.rr.com
X-Trace: typhoon.nyroc.rr.com 996105950 66.30.0.10 (Wed, 25 Jul 2001 20:05:50 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 20:05:50 EDT
Organization: Time Warner Road Runner - Portland ME

Anyway, I am looking to interview large account customers affected. Please PM me if interested. I have made the same offer to Shawn.

CEO-Shawn will ALSO announce that he had to undergo a VERY intensive background check (Criminal, etc.) before he was allowed to have his hand biometrically scanned for our new data center. We are in the same facility as MANY government & financial institutions and we are not playing with small data centers any longer.

And this took, what, less than a week?

Also, let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, I worked for a failing dot com.

We had a really nice cage at Exodus.

We owed Exodus a lot of money.

Exodus wouldn't let us check out equipment from our cage. We were escorted to our cage to work on servers.

RIGHT before they were going to pull the plug, we went Chapter 11. If you know about Ch 11 your providers CAN'T pull the plug on you after you file. Court says so, man, Exodus was PISSED.

We couldn't get so much as a floppy out of the cage, until the bankruptcy court ordered them to allow us to. Man, Exodus was REALLY pissed.

So, I suppose yes, you CAN have your hardware held for non payment.

Originally posted by Jag
I hate to be the one to say it but what did some people expect from a company selling lifetime accounts.

What you are witnessing here are people gaining the kind of experience that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

<edit>

Unless they're morons.

</edit>


-Bob

What can I say? Experience is everything in this internet world?
After watching nudies on 9600 baud dwnlds from.........
well eary 90's.............
The net has progressed, much-------------) LARGE---))
you really have to still take a look at your server space and trust the provider-------mine just happens to be dixie;) now..........

Originally posted by TMX


What you are witnessing here are people gaining the kind of experience that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

<edit>

Unless they're morons.

</edit>


-Bob

This deserves quoting :D

Yes this is a lesson.

To some of us, it's Xmas in July.

Here is an update from the last chat:

CEO-Shawn needs EVERYONE's patience, support & understanding for these LAST FINAL DAYS - He guarantees you, in his personal word, that we will have functioning servers online VERY shortly (Thurs-Sat) and that ALL ARRANGEMENTS have already been made

CEO-Shawn is very disappointed & fed up with the community talking here right now. Please know that our legal counsel IS present and is logging all names, netmasks and everything SAID in these rooms presently. Those of you against CW, please state your position and take your side, those of you with us, do the same, and those of you against us, I am about to raise hell with those of you aginst us immediately.

CEO-Shawn is NOT going to let anyone ruin Cyberwings, period. We will be back online VERY shortly and then all of the naysayers can promptly Eat their words.

CEO-Shawn has spent the past 12 hours in our new data center hooking up new servers - I cannot take pictures because we are in a government shared facility. Non Disclosure Agreements & confidentiality agreements protect US and our providers - NO ONE will be given information (ANY INFORMATION) by our new providers, PERIOD.

CEO-Shawn - LOTS of people have been calling VARIOUS data centers in Virginia as WELL as Cogent. Please note that we have made our Non Disclosure Agreements, Confidentiality Agreements & UNDERSTANDINGS with ALL people involved in our situation right now VERY ROCK SOLID that NO INFORMATION, good, bad or indifferent will be released to ANY customers, inquiries, etc. OUR PROVIDERS will not even ACKNOWLEDGE that.

CEO-Shawn has NO PATIENCE with naysayers & trouble makers right now - right now I need your 100% understanding, patience & support while I spend ALL of my days (and some nights) at the DC working on issues.

CEO-Shawn will NOT lower himself to LS's level - we will do everything we need to do above board, legally, and we WILL get our hardware & content back - but until we do, I do not wish to delay the rebuild process.

CEO-Shawn would just like to REINFORCE that I DO appreciate everyone's support during this time - and I am in my FINAL 48-72 hours of this situation and then everything will be in the REBUILD stage. Please bear with me during these last few days and we will all come through this together.

CEO-Shawn is NOT being investigated for Fraud - I speak with PayPal DAILY (we have a personal rep there - we do so much business with them) and we are working cooperatively to resolve the entire situation. I love how people love to start rumors, though.

CEO-Shawn will ALSO announce that he had to undergo a VERY intensive background check (Criminal, etc.) before he was allowed to have his hand biometrically scanned for our new data center. We are in the same facility as MANY government & financial institutions and we are not playing with small data centers any longer.

CEO-Shawn says PLEASE know that my guarantee to you of Thurs-Sat (CLOSER to Friday or Thursday I believe in my gut) will be KEPT and we will start rebuilding this weekend.

CEO-Shawn says YES: all I accounts WILL become AYW (more domains, more space, more bandwidth, more everything free)

CEO-Shawn has spent the past 12 hours in our new data center hooking up new servers - I cannot take pictures because we are in a government shared facility. Non Disclosure Agreements & confidentiality agreements protect US and our providers - NO ONE will be given information (ANY INFORMATION) by our new providers, PERIOD.
Rings a bell. ;):D

Can Shawn be held personally responsible for any losses he caused before that date?

Putting 'Cyberwing' in the Maine Sec of State search engine reveals other interesting facts.

http://www.informe.org/icrs/ICRS?MainPage=x

In a newletter (IRC chat log) that he put out on July 15th - http://www.cwstatus.com/july15qa.htm
he said:
"Yes, I do have pictures I can post very soon to show you the new DC."

In his latest statement here: http://www.cwstatus.com/, (Wednesday July 17th at 0043h) he says:
"CEO-Shawn has been in our new DC for the past 12 hours. New servers are functioning, alive, and well. I asked permission to get PICTURES of the new DC and was denied since we are sharing facilities with certain government servers that are under government rule. Sorry."


I'm not trying to start (continue) trouble - but this just doesn't jive. Aren't Govt computers usually locked in a secure part of a datacenter - probably on another floor?

July 17................new update..............same old story..........SOON
http://www.cwstatus.com

shawn- you promised that the servers would be up last Saturday.. and ip's released Friday.. why should we believe you now?

He's still claiming to have built this datacenter?

I feel sorry for all the people who have web sites down. A lot of things I have read in this forum about this subject sound fishy, but that is just one ladies opinion.

:sickface:

Originally posted by hostpc.com
I'm not trying to start (continue) trouble - but this just doesn't jive. Aren't Govt computers usually locked in a secure part of a datacenter - probably on another floor?

You're absolutely right, this doesn't jibe. Fortunately, I have no dealing with this company or this person, but it is clear that things simply aren't as he portrays them.

It just does not jibe at all.

You have my personal guarantee that I will provide imaginery photos of the imaginery servers. And soon.

I can't say any more to you on this, it's top secret.

Here is the latest from Cyberwings Status page ( www.cwstatus.com )

STATEMENTS from Shawn White in chat

Wednesday July 17th at 0043h

compiled by LSS-CWV



I've had enough. 100% of our accounts are paid up in full, I have PROOF of everything and so do the account holders. I've already contacted the US Marshalls and they will be enforcing our court order to retrieve our servers from LS. NO ONE has the right to hold someone else's assets, period.



I DID authorize PayPal DIRECTLY to IMMEDIATELY issue refunds WITHOUT my consent - I told them to REFUND ANYONE who asked for one and we would be sure their accounts were deleted or never setup again, period. I have a name & department at PayPal that I work with directly - I spoke to her the other night AND I have reference numbers of people who's refunds have already been processed to PROVE it. We are granting ALL refund requests - even the ones that PAYPAL CLOSES due to EXCESS over 30 days.



I CANNOT take new pictures of the NEW DC due to FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SERVERS being on this site with us. Period. If you do not like that, sorry, it's the way it goes.



Look, everyone. SERVERS will be online shortly - if you are not OK with this, please finda nother hosting provider, you all have that right.



CEO-Shawn has spent the past 12 hours in our new data center hooking up new servers - I cannot take pictures because we are in a government shared facility. Non Disclosure Agreements & confidentiality agreements protect US and our providers - NO ONE will be given information (ANY INFORMATION) by our new providers, PERIOD.



CEO-Shawn came on this channel tonight per MANY phone calls from his staff to help resolve some of the concerns at hand here. I am here to address some of those concerns. I will post what I have to update people on and then leave again.



CEO-Shawn has been in our new DC for the past 12 hours. New servers are functioning, alive, and well. I asked permission to get PICTURES of the new DC and was denied since we are sharing facilities with certain government servers that are under government rule. Sorry.



When do you think you will be Going to LS with Law enforcement and a court order?
CONFIDENTIAL.



CEO-Shawn talked with our DC folks and also our line providers late tonight via phone - we have a GUARANTEE from them to have the last of our pending issues worked out by Saturday at the LATEST - Thursday at the earliest. Does that help everyone?



CEO-Shawn - LOTS of people have been calling VARIOUS data centers in Virginia as WELL as Cogent. Please note that we have made our Non Disclosure Agreements, Confidentiality Agreements & UNDERSTANDINGS with ALL people involved in our situation right now VERY ROCK SOLID that NO INFORMATION, good, bad or indifferent will be released to ANY customers, inquiries, etc. OUR PROVIDERS will not even ACKNOWLEDGE that we are a customer! We will NOT have a repeat of the situation with LS with our new situations, we have made CERTAIN of that.



We will have ALL servers online at ONE TIME and will NOT be held back by a limitation of boxes.

We will be working 24/7, including me, working here with our techs.

CEO-Shawn needs EVERYONE's patience, support & understanding for these LAST FINAL DAYS - I guarantee you, in my personal word, that we will have functioning servers online VERY shortly (Thurs-Sat) and that ALL ARRANGEMENTS have already been made.



CEO-Shawn will ALSO announce that he had to undergo a VERY intensive background check (Criminal, etc.) before he was allowed to have his hand biometrically scanned for our new data center. We are in the same facility as MANY government & financial institutions and we are not playing with small data centers any longer.



CEO-Shawn So for those of you who kept posting ANNOYING things about me being a fraud, whatever. I am running a VERY legitimate business here with VERY legitimate intentions and we are going to be back FULL force very shortly.

Let me tell everyone what happened with PayPal so there is no misunderstanding before MACSAMURAI decides to be a PAIN again. When our servers died and things started to run amuck, our PayPal account received TONS of Buyer Complaints. We resolved as many as we can as quickly as we could, then paypal DID restrict our account. I talked to them voice - we are working with a REP there personally to REFUND any complaints, work them out, and then be fine again. As with ANY service PayPal does need to protect their customers, and we want to protect OURS as well, which is why we DO use services such as PayPal. When your account is restricted there is VERY little you can do. I have a long list of PayPal Transaction ID's to fax over to our rep and get her to reverse them all - and those are being sent in daily and worked on - We're not avoiding that situation, we're dealing with it, as quickly as we can. BEFORE people like MACSAMURAI try to twist my words into something they are not, I would rather post the WAY THINGS ARE to all of you so they do not get twisted. MACSAMURAI, you chose to send a CHANOPS message, so you dragged yourself into the center of this discussion. When ANY account, PayPal or whatever, gets complaints quickly, they do the right thing and disable the account until it'sa ll workeed out. We're doing our part, but please note this whole mess will take time. We are tracking EVERY REFUND and NO ACCOUNTS that were setup before will be setup again if they are refunded.

CEO-Shawn is NOT being investigated for Fraud - I speak with PayPal DAILY (we have a personal rep there - we do so much business with them) and we are working cooperatively to resolve the entire situation. I love how people love to start rumors, though.



CEO-Shawn would just like to REINFORCE that I DO appreciate everyone's support during this time - and I am in my FINAL 48-72 hours of this situation and then everything will be in the REBUILD stage. Please bear with me during these last few days and we will all come through this together.

when will the questionnaire be released?
Thurs-Sat

The following postings are false: The GOLDEN FLEECE Posting in the newsgroups and ANY newsgroup postings from me - I have not been near a newsgroup in a LONG LONG TIME.

SIMPLE situation with LS - they cannot hold assets that are not theirs and as time passes they are only creating more of a situation for themselves.

CEO-Shawn will NOT lower himself to LS's level - we will do everything we need to do above board, legally, and we WILL get our hardware &content back - but until we do, I do not wish to delay the rebuild process.



Do you have access to the support tickets?
No

Listen to me people, and listen to me good when I say this. The more time *I* can put into actually WORKING the problems at hand and not combating naysayers, the more I can get done and the faster we can get back to business as usual. We did run into some DC technical issues (cross connect issues, etc.) but they are close to resolved while we are installing more racks, and other parts

Can you provide an APPROXIMATE timeline for account recreation. You mentioned Thu-Sat for forms, then how many days to recreate accounts?
THURS-SAT for servers live - the DAY the servers go live, QUESTIONNAIRE will be posted, along with CYBERWINGS.COM, our helpdesk & BILLING solutions.

ACCOUNT RECREATION will take place 24/7 until complete by 7 staff plus myself plus 4 additional helpers in MD/VA.

[02:01] * CEO-Shawn has NO PATIENCE with naysayers & trouble makers right now - right now I need your 100% understanding, patience & support while I spend ALL of my days (and some nights) at the DC working on issues.



How or when can we get our data back?
As soon as I have those boxes in my hands we will post them online for all to retrieve anything they need to from. Once that period has passed, we will reformat those boxes and make them private dedicated servers.

ANYONE who had even ONE INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT (ven the ones purchased for $1.00) will get an AYW account for that price

How long will it take to set the accounts back up?
I just don't dare guess - I can say with 24/7 shifts and additional staff PLUS myself, VERY swiftly.

Are there going to be anymore I accts in the future? Also, is it mandatory for them to be AYW?
YES< all I accounts WILL become AYW (more domains, more space, more bandwidth, more everything free)

Will any server paths change?
No server paths will be changing on plesks'... /usr/local/psa/home/vhosts will be the standard path still

shawn- you promised that the servers would be up last Saturday.. and ip's released Friday.. why should we believe you now?
Because if you have EVER built a data center, you know that TECHNICAL PROBLEMS are ABOUND in a DC.

Because if you have EVER built a data center, you know that TECHNICAL PROBLEMS are ABOUND in a DC. [/B]

Apparently that data centre is still being built....

"Even the ones purchased for a dollar"

FREE.....................everything..............................


That should help sustain the growth LOL

Sparrow

Originally posted by stu_sp


Apparently that data centre is still being built....

Only in Shawn's head...

I figured it out.

The CIA has hired Shawn to build a new DC for their classified NOC lists and stuff. He has seen Mission Impossible and will be countering all of Tom Cruise & Co.'s measures to break in and swing around. The new DC is obviosly in Langley, VA.

Shawn is obviously the only man who can do it in a week. Plus HE GOT BIOMETRICALLY SCANNED! THAT MEANS HE SI IMPARTANT!!1

And don't forget he went through the exhaustive criminal background check - wait - don't those usually take a LONG time to complete?

I always loved fairy tales which my grandmother used to tell.
So I love Shawn & Cyberwings.
:D

thanks

Originally posted by hostpc.com
And don't forget he went through the exhaustive criminal background check - wait - don't those usually take a LONG time to complete?

They can take months to years.

This is a riot------------just like in the old days when we chatted in his little world---------but no kicks here @ ppls :)

My condolences to all of the Cyberwings customers but this thread has spawned one of my favorite sentences.

Please note that we have made our Non Disclosure Agreements, Confidentiality Agreements & UNDERSTANDINGS with ALL people involved in our situation right now VERY ROCK SOLID that NO INFORMATION, good, bad or indifferent will be released to ANY customers, inquiries, etc. OUR PROVIDERS will not even ACKNOWLEDGE that we are a customer!

The Good, The Bad And The Indifferent
How webhosting changed my life.

Featuring Nathan Lane as CEO-Shawn

Originally posted by Rotifer

Featuring Nathan Lane as CEO-Shawn

:emlaugh: :emlaugh: :emlaugh: :emlaugh:

Its not over it will just get better ! More space , More bndwdth, more free stuff !

Its not over till the Fat Boy Sings !

Originally posted by VONetwork
I always loved fairy tales which my grandmother used to tell.
So I love Shawn & Cyberwings.
:D

thanks

No one loves Shawn & Cyberwings more than me right now.

Though I would like to request that he send me at least a 10 day notice before he decides to screw his complete customer base next time, so I can order extra servers and have them on hand for the flood.

51 signups on July 5th, and it hasn't let up much since. While I'd like to think our July sale is that popular I know where most of it is coming from.

Hello
This thread has made my day.

We lost so many ciustomers to Cyberwings (some of them long term medium level plan ones) that it was almost worth losing their custom to get something like this in return.

Thereis obviously some justice in the World.
Maybe we should send the Cyberwings guy over to Iraq to run their economy.
It would be cheaper and safer than sending the bombers in.

I can't say that we have had many sign ups back the way but we have had a few refugess from Aletia this week.

Gordon

Originally posted by Dixiesys


No one loves Shawn & Cyberwings more than me right now.

Though I would like to request that he send me at least a 10 day notice before he decides to screw his complete customer base next time, so I can order extra servers and have them on hand for the flood.

51 signups on July 5th, and it hasn't let up much since. While I'd like to think our July sale is that popular I know where most of it is coming from.

LOL - You and me both - not quite 51, but enough!!!

Time to get ANOTHER server online. R**ksh@ck will be ending soon :) Time to talk with our provider about a new box/bandwidth I guess.

I got an idea.

Call up rackshack and just take over the billing on those boxes, and then just email the customers and be like "yo, you belong to me now" and include a .wav of an evil laugh.

Haha

Oh yeah ordering server 13 AND 14 as soon as my 2checkout deposit clears from this week. I don't like to take the bank below my safe point and 2 servers would drop me to under my cushion today.

Originally posted by Dixiesys
I got an idea.

Call up rackshack and just take over the billing on those boxes, and then just email the customers and be like "yo, you belong to me now" and include a .wav of an evil laugh.

Haha

Oh yeah ordering server 13 AND 14 as soon as my 2checkout deposit clears from this week. I don't like to take the bank below my safe point and 2 servers would drop me to under my cushion today.

that idea almost sounds possible :-P

Originally posted by GordonH
Hello
This thread has made my day.

We lost so many ciustomers to Cyberwings (some of them long term medium level plan ones) that it was almost worth losing their custom to get something like this in return.

There is obviously some justice in the World.


Well, how considerate and caring of you to laugh at other people's misfortunes.

Remind me to add your company to my "not with a bargepole list".

http://www.aliens.com/
:cool:

Originally posted by ezpc


Well, how considerate and caring of you to laugh at other people's misfortunes.

Remind me to add your company to my "not with a bargepole list".


A good use of your first post - and like I care anyway!

Gordon

Originally posted by Dixiesys
I got an idea.

Call up rackshack and just take over the billing on those boxes, and then just email the customers and be like "yo, you belong to me now" and include a .wav of an evil laugh.

Haha

Oh yeah ordering server 13 AND 14 as soon as my 2checkout deposit clears from this week. I don't like to take the bank below my safe point and 2 servers would drop me to under my cushion today.

Great idea gary - but the customers already paid CW - they aren't gonna want to pay more :(

I do feel bad for the customer honestly. They are the ones that are suffering with the lost data, high expectations and (at this point) poor/no support.

I get lots of questions about how I can offer services at the price I do - it CAN be done. I think Gary has a sound program, and I'm certain I have a good program (yes, we DO watch the competition sometimes). It CAN be done, and done right, for the right price. Unfortuantely, customers tastebuds are a little soured after this fiasco.

To the users reading this - Good Luck!

Is it me or does this fiasco scream with the words

"You get what you pay for"

Originally posted by DanielP
Is it me or does this fiasco scream with the words

"You get what you pay for"

No Daniel, I don't believe it does. What it does say is to make sure you have regular backups of your data, have a contingency program in case something fails and don't judge a host mearly on price alone.

Originally posted by LadyHawk
I feel sorry for all the people who have web sites down. A lot of things I have read in this forum about this subject sound fishy, but that is just one ladies opinion.

:sickface:

:eek: Why should you feel sorry for them?

I mean anyone lame enough to expect to get Lifetime hosting for $10 bucks needs to learn the lesson they are now receiving! and im sure this lesson will carry additional charges :D

OK
Lets look at this logically.

1 server over 12 months say $5400

Put 300 sites on it


That is a cost to host those sites of $18 per year
(these are our real average figures per server)

Then you have support costs, advertising etc before there is any profit to pay the owner of the company.

Even at rackshack:

1 server over 12 months $1415

Cost to host each site = $4.71


Anyone who is offering $1.99 hosting or other silly prices is either cramming sites onto boxes or has no viable financial future.

What you pay has a significant effect on what you get in this industry.

We see hosts like this come and go all the time.
Ultra cheap hosting just does not work.

It doesn't need to either because soon hobby sites will all be hosted at home anyway with hosts doing the complex stuff for SME and business customers (rubs crystal ball)

Gordon

Never mind - I won't say it.

Originally posted by GordonH
1 server over 12 months say $5400

OUCH! Where are you paying those kind of prices for a server? I've got six I'll sell you for $1400 a piece and double my money.

Price is not everything.

Gordon

No kidding. Build 'em yourself and be SURE you're getting top quality.

Interesting

Originally posted by GordonH
It doesn't need to either because soon hobby sites will all be hosted at home anyway with hosts doing the complex stuff for SME and business customers (rubs crystal ball)
Shhhhhhhhhhhh. :D :eek:

Originally posted by demonet


:eek: Why should you feel sorry for them?

I mean anyone lame enough to expect to get Lifetime hosting for $10 bucks needs to learn the lesson they are now receiving! and im sure this lesson will carry additional charges :D

I DO feel sorry for them because I know how important a website is to its owner, whether it is "just" a personal home page or a full blown business site. Losing all your work can be and IS devastating. How can you not feel sorry for anyone in that position?

THOUSANDS of people have expected, and still do expect FREE lifetime hosting, is it really that strange that they would believe that $10 lifetime hosting is possible? Sure, many of them were just greedy, dumping a reliable host for the 'golden fleece', but I am sure many, many went this way straight from a free host not knowing at all what to look for or even what the average price is elsewhere. They probably headed there through recommendations from friends or other sites they had visited etc.

Slamming Cyberwings and/or Shawn for shady practices is one thing, but slamming people just because they were gullible, uninformed or non-hosting savvy is just cruel IMO. Haven't you ever make a bad decision before?

Originally posted by GordonH
1 server over 12 months say $5400



did you hear about $99 server with 600gb transfer and 60gb HD? there are a lot sell that

pay 10 months and get 2 free

serve cost you $990/YEAR

put a 200 domains ( at least )

then each 300mb space and 3gb/mo traffic account will cost you less than $5/mo ..

if you sold it for $18/year then you will make %200 profits ....
recalculate it for 300 domain .. :)

things changed this days

Originally posted by 2Mhost



did you hear about $99 server with 600gb transfer and 60gb HD? there are a lot sell that

pay 10 months and get 2 free

serve cost you $990/YEAR

put a 200 domains ( at least )

then each 300mb space and 3gb/mo traffic account will cost you less than $5/mo ..

if you sold it for $18/year then you will make %200 profits ....
recalculate it for 300 domain .. :)

things changed this days

With this logic, by the time you're making $200 a month in profit, you'll have a pretty large client base to support and not enough money to hire anyone to help. We can't all live off the kindness of others like CEO-SHAWN. There are other costs to hosting besides the server...

Thats true lightnin ... just i tell my openion about $5400/year servers .. there are a lot of costs as well there are a lot of side profits

What I would like to see are hosts that set you up with an account for low front end costs, such as CW was trying to do, and then if you require a lot of hand-holding and tech support, you pay service fees. You see, my websites make a little money but not as much as before. I can't afford steak, I was looking for a cheap burger--but it ain't right to poison me :)

2 things are plainly obvious:

either shawn is a person with good intentions who is a terrible liar and got in over his head.

or

shawn is a con artist a terrible liar and taking ppl for a ride.

i spent a few bucks and still waiting to see if the sites do come back ever.

if they do ill be pleasantly surprised.

Originally posted by lightnin

There are other costs to hosting besides the server...

Thats the issue.

Also its peace of mind.
The high end providers we use work with us to help make the business successful.
There is no worry involved because we know the servers will be up and we will not be messed about with.

We have a cheap brand run on rackshack servers and its a constant worry.
I have had a number of bad experiences there.

The bottom line is that they provide no SLA so I have no SLA to pass on to my customers.

We had an short outage on one of our reseller servers last month due to failed hardware and the high end supplier sent us $500 compensation.
We then divided that amongst the affected resellers and everyone was a bit happier.
You can't do that with Rackshack.

Its horses for courses.

Gordon

There has been a lot of talk about "How can Cyberwings possibly survive with prices that cheap." The answer is simple, and I think shawn himself even hinted he maybe doing it on the cyberwings forums themselves. He is Overselling. It's risky, but essentially he sells accounts at dirt cheap prices knowing full well that 80% of cyberwings customers will never even come close to reaching their allocated bandwidth. I'm not saying nobody does, but i believe that most cw customers (especially) would never come near to their limits. It's no different from a dialup ISP offering "unlimited" plan, speak to any techy and they will say MOST people don't even put a dent in their allocated resources. Simple economics, lose on some customers, make **** loads on others. From personal experience, one of my sites on cw didn't even crack 30 mb a month, so cw is making money on that account. Considering that most sites hosted on cw are personal, I think they doing alright.

You've understated the case about overselling, at least during the 4-5 months I've known about cyberwings.

They weren't just selling accounts cheaply with a lot of bandwidth and space most people would never used. They were just collecting money, the accounts themselves weren't being established, without a lot of prodding by the customer.

While charging $10-$15 for a personal account is risky and most probably a money loser, many of these cyberwing accounts were $3! And most recently $1. I doubt their were even keeping records.

A lot of people are not going to chase getting a $4 account open and that was the business plan if you want to call it a plan.

I believe this view is supported by the amount of information cyberwings is requiring for them to refund. Isn't just a user and domain name enough? They want a complete file of the transaction, IMO because they have nothing. . .

Originally posted by Gordo


.... And most recently $1. I doubt their were even keeping records.



:D Yeah, for a $1 an account, it would burn up more time entering and tracking than it would be worth. You can't even get a comic book for a buck these days.

I think %99 of hosts If not %100 do overselling .. i diffrant ways.

before the $99 servers and cognet .. and since a year the cheapest Dual server cost $340/mo with 100gb traffic

means you can sell 100 accounts only in dual server each one have only 1gb traffic :)

if you sold 200 account each one have 2 gb .. then you made overselling ,, you sold somthing you cant fit ..

becuase the extra traffic that time was cost $4

its the same as Unlimited .... all depend on user who do nothing by his site

Originally posted by Gordo


I believe this view is supported by the amount of information cyberwings is requiring for them to refund. Isn't just a user and domain name enough? They want a complete file of the transaction, IMO because they have nothing. . .


good point, and they cant even access their own email (supposedly) cause it was on the servers that have been kidnapped? likely even if they did have records they wont when they get the servers back...

FURTHER update...

Cyberwings is down to the final hours before our servers go live at our new Premier Data Center. Our Class C issue (duplication) has been resolved - new Class C's will consist of 66.250.148.XXX, 66.250.149.XXX, 66.250.150.XXX, etc. Other Class C's have been reserved as well for strictly Cyberwings use. By this weekend we fully expect to be in REBUILD mode and be accepting questionnaires by Friday Night or Saturday that will begin our rebuild project which is expected to last at least for the remainder of July, perhaps longer. Cyberwings.com, our Billing Solution and our HelpDesk solution will be hosted on its own private server separate from all other hosting we provide. We have already started the DNS propagation for Cyberwings.com and expect to have it online by Friday again. When Cyberwings.com comes online, www.cwstatus.com will go offline. All information about the new account setups, Individual to AYW conversion, free space/bandwidth, etc. will be posted on Cyberwings.com as quickly as we can possibly get it up there after our sites go live again. We will be hitting the ground running when sites go live again, I assure you. I will personally be assisting as many hours of every day that I possibly can to get things back to normal. We have a lot of work to do, let's just do it and get this behind us.

All users who exist in our Texas Data Center please begin to backup your data from the servers at RackShack in Texas. Those will be the next to move to our new Premier Data Center, to follow very shortly. PLESK1, 2 and 4 exist at RackShack right now, as well as a variety of Cobalt servers.

Methodical, Orderly Rebuild

While we want to provide as much information to our customer base as possible during this rebuild project, doing so via an IRC channel is not efficient for us or for you. We will create a REBUILD COMMAND CENTER under Cyberwings.com at status.cyberwings.com shortly after our sites are back up and that will be where we will be posting FREQUENT (3x per day at least) updates as to where we are at on account setups and the rebuild project in general. Once the rebuild project is over, status.cyberwings.com will become a site where you can view the status of every web server on our network with one quick view of a screen. A "Public NOC" of sorts.

Final hours are in progress. Please watch for more updates. I could write more, but need to get back to server configurations and concentrating on making us whole again - thanks to everyone for their continued support - from me personally.
Sincerely,

Shawn J. White, CEO of Cyberwings
Cyberwing Communications

and that is what we call good news, isn't it? :)

Good is a relative term. :cool:

You have to give him some credit for braving the masses.

Originally posted by Rotifer
You have to give him some credit for braving the masses.

Are you in the wrong thread?
:puke:

As opposed to what? Disappearing completely?

Also, what he has done is *not* braving the masses. What he has done is hidden behing ambigous statements, misleading direction and intimidation. That is what he has done.

Cyberwings has yet to hit a date, provide concrete proof of their new digs or to even handle their customers as customers.

Of course he could offer a universal pipe.

Of course he could offer a universal pipe.

What is that supposed to mean?

Originally posted by gallot
and that is what we call good news, isn't it? :)

Even if he pulls this off and by some miracle is up and running, if he maintains the same business structure, chances are it will happen again.

i wonder when cyberwings will just be banned from this forum? :-P

Somehow I doubt any machines are reachable there.

Final hours indeed.

Since when are those Class C addresses? Or am I missing something?

You aren't suppose to understand it.................
Just believe it.........................

According to the Fearless leader ..........All is well and that is all anyone needs to know

Sparrow :eek:

Originally posted by classics
Final hours indeed.


That is what Do [Marshall Applewhite] the cult leader of Heavens Gate said just before he and his followers caught the comet ride into eternity

Originally posted by Farmer Fred



That is what Do [Marshall Applewhite] the cult leader of Heavens Gate said just before he and his followers caught the comet ride into eternity

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You've cleared up a mystery for me. Undoubtedly, Marshall's first name was Ulysses and was sometimes referred to as US.

So when Shawn was calling in US Marshall, he obviously was speaking of Mr. Applewhite.

Originally posted by RSG2
Since when are those Class C addresses? Or am I missing something?

66.250.148.XXX
66.250.149.XXX
66.250.150.XXX

Those are class C's assuming he has use of 0-255 in each of those.

Mmmm. Not really. Those are Class A designations, belonging to Cogent. Subnetting doesn't make a difference. The first octect falls into the appropriate range (1-126). This is a common error, but for simplicity, I can see why people will refer to subnets of Class A/B blocks as something other than what they are technically.

Finally
My CW sites on the rackshack servers are gone as of lunch time today.

Originally posted by MP2100
Finally
My CW sites on the rackshack servers are gone as of lunch time today.

Where did they go? You mean crash or moved ? :confused:

shut down for nonpayment again?

Originally posted by zz4
I just talked to Cyberwings billing company 2checkout.com 877-294-0273 and they were willing to refund my money even though I paid in April.

They noted they were flooded by complaints as to Cyberwings and THEY lost contact with them.The old addresses they had went dead and the last address you see floating around here all emails to that domain are ignored.


That is absolutely brutal. Under no circumstances should an employee of 2checkout.com ever comment so unprofessionally.

After reading this post, I sent the following to each employee:

Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: RE: PROFESSIONALISM


I hope to gawd that the person that posted this little GEM in the WHT forum is lying about this phone call.

No matter (edit for language)....NO ONE should be passing on ANY information like this.

We ARE in contact with Cyberwings. Shawn has given me his cell number, and emails to his (edited) address are being responded to.

Lets show some business sense here and be PROFESSIONAL!!!!!!!


Tom

TomD,

Good call, professionalism at every level is great to have.

-Matt

Originally posted by TomD


We ARE in contact with Cyberwings. Shawn has given me his cell number, and emails to his (edited) address are being responded to.


Tom

To bad his customers cant contact him.:mad:

Originally posted by Gnrl_Custard


To bad his customers cant contact him.:mad:

Also, it's been reported that number is now disconnected....you might wanna check it.

Yes. do check out that number Tom,

please verify that you can actually get a hold of him by talking to him personally.

i pre-purchased a number of hosting accounts in april and have no yet activated them. if the company goes under without refunding me, I'd be wrongly paying for services through 2checkout.com that I did not receive.

And for that i'll have to either contact and require of either cyberwings, or 2checkout.com

As you recall last week... When hosts go bad!

And this week!, enjoy an episode of WHEN CUSTOMERS ATTACK!

Geeze, find another host, move on.

If they suck they suck, if they don't go fish.

Tom, not to tell you your business, but your reply basically confirms the original posters information as being at least mostly true. You are (understandably) pissed at the actions of the unnamed 2checkout employee, but you don't really deny the information.

Of course them kickbanning you from the #cyberwings channel was just pure comedy :D they just got headsurfer too, now that was funny.



Originally posted by TomD


That is absolutely brutal. Under no circumstances should an employee of 2checkout.com ever comment so unprofessionally.

After reading this post, I sent the following to each employee:

Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: RE: PROFESSIONALISM


I hope to gawd that the person that posted this little GEM in the WHT forum is lying about this phone call.

No matter (edit for language)....NO ONE should be passing on ANY information like this.

We ARE in contact with Cyberwings. Shawn has given me his cell number, and emails to his (edited) address are being responded to.

Lets show some business sense here and be PROFESSIONAL!!!!!!!


Tom

Originally posted by Samuel

If they suck they suck, if they don't go fish.

But if your the little fish, ie: just a reseller the hook still hurts.

:o

I really can't understand how a provider can do this to his customers and still show up to "chat" (presumably he's gonna do that later tonight).

If he had paid his bills - neither D/C would have turned off the switch. It's the weekend now, I can't imagine anyone getting back online before Monday (at the absolute earliest)

Not to beat a dead horse, but...

I read above where Shawn was claiming that he had could not take pictures of their new datacenter because of government collocation. We run several applications for government customers and have no problems taking non-government customers into our datacenter. We simply make sure the boxes are all locked up and any documents are put away before anyone is escorted into the datacenter. Pictures are not a problem because it’s just a bunch of racks – no top secret information is written on the boxes, and the data is encrypted anyway.

I can’t speak for anyone else around here, but my background check took four months.

I was wondering why our new account signups had increased a little. I guess this answers that question. Do they really want people to believe that they took down customer web sites so they could move services to another datacenter? That’s just wrong. Downtime is never an option, period!

This just smells fishy. I had to let you all know. Good luck everyone. I hope you had backups.

hostpc.com -> nice website :) I like your "welcome cyberwings note". You're prices seem almost too low also. So which is it 45 or 30 day money back guarantee? Also, there is no link for "About us". From getting burned with cyberwings, I want to know how long the hosting company has been in business - even though all my sites are for non-profits that support parents of kids with disabilities....

E-Mail me directly, I'll setup your non-profits (2 max) for free... no charge.

We've been in business since 1998, our servers are colocated with another major provider. Our staff consists of an onsite owner (me) 1 onsite tech support, 1 graphics designer (on call) and my wife, when she's able, for billing.

I'll be sure to update our site with an "About us" page this weekend. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks!

Where is the cyberwings chat room?? I want to go and say HI to Shawn and see if he is still wanting to sell his hosting company ;)

Originally posted by Kathy_Harris
hostpc.com -> nice website :) I like your "welcome cyberwings note". You're prices seem almost too low also. So which is it 45 or 30 day money back guarantee? Also, there is no link for "About us". From getting burned with cyberwings, I want to know how long the hosting company has been in business - even though all my sites are for non-profits that support parents of kids with disabilities....

didnt i see you logged in the cyberwings chat as....

Katsuey...;)

Nope, not Katsuey, I am always Kathy_Harris because I like to be consistent and think cutesey names are dumb.

I'll email you hostpc.com. Thanks.

Cyberwings chatroom:

http://chat.webmaster.com/chat.htm?@channel=#cyberwings

So I have to get the logs out to show referance to Lars_

speaking with you !

:cool:

Originally posted by Dixiesys
Tom, not to tell you your business, but your reply basically confirms the original posters information as being at least mostly true. You are (understandably) pissed at the actions of the unnamed 2checkout employee, but you don't really deny the information.

Of course them kickbanning you from the #cyberwings channel was just pure comedy :D they just got headsurfer too, now that was funny.





I guess I can't agree with you at all.

I hope to gawd that the person that posted this little GEM in the WHT forum is lying about this phone call.

That's a pretty clear statement. Admitting what?



No matter (edit for language)....NO ONE should be passing on ANY information like this.


Not an admission, just a clear statement to every employee.





We ARE in contact with Cyberwings. Shawn has given me his cell number, and emails to his (edited) address are being responded to.



Making sure there is no doubt amonst our staff.




Lets show some business sense here and be PROFESSIONAL!!!!!!!


Reminding staff what I expect of them.

You obviously read something into my email that simply wasn't there.

Here lemme pull my dog outta this and get back to merely being a spectator. You're right I probably was reading and shoulda not commented on that part.

However, it was funny when they kicked you, but it was nothing compared to the humor level of the headsurfer getting the big CW boot from their channel earlier today!

Now that I will comment on :D

At least the majority of their customers will only be losing a buck or two. Stupid cyberwings.

I keep hearing about $600 lifetime reseller accounts and other big dollar items like that that were sold in his sales and ZAPfests.

Quite a bit more than a few bucks!

I'm out over $200... and I'm not at all happy about it. Latest word is.. no one in the chat room has a clue what is going on. According to the volunteers, The head CEO doesn't know what the problem could be.

I have a feeling I will never see my sites or my money ever again.

MaryLou if you are unhappy, call your credit card company and do a charge-back for services not rendered. If it is American Express or Citibank, they will do it in a flash!

American Express requires no initial or follow-up paperwork.

For Citibank and maybe others save your initial paperwork showing welcome to .....Hosting your account {your domain} has been activated.... Also copy your monthly credit card statement. And print out a screen showing your domain with Site Unreachable. Citibank will send you a form in the mail to put it in writing and attach those copies and send it back in their pre-addressed envelope.

To AMEX, Citibank, and others, You the customer are always right and its up to the other party to prove you wrong. They have a certain time to respond 30 days max I think, and after that, the charge-back is final.

Hope that helps!

Originally posted by MaryLouW - "According to the volunteers, The head CEO doesn't know what the problem could be."

No worry dear, [Shawn] had informed his (volunteer) staff, that he has spend the last 12 hours, (from the time that he wake up at 10:30 am until now) surfing howstuffworks.com (http://www.howstuffworks.com/phone-network.htm) and learning about networking.

The funny thing about the whole situation is, that he may end up the only one to use the LIFE TIME deal, that is in jail I hope. :stickout hehehehe

No fun intended on your behalf, MaryLouW, I am also one of his victims.

On a serious note - I know that it is not new to members of this board, but the case - Washington state v. matrixcubed.com

( hxxp://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:PWRHN7K9nBMC:www.wa.gov/ago/pubs/complaint101800.doc+Washington+state++matrixcubed.com&hl=en&ie=UTF-8[/url] )
has many similarities to Cyberwings situation,... Damn, just make me wonder not when, but how soon, the authorities will bring him to justice for this.

I hope as well that his "STAFF" will be indicted along with him for participation and aiding in this scam that ruin/damaged/hurt many good ppl that innocently hosted their sites with the self proclaimed "Genius" of the hosting industry. In all of the hundreds of the posts, on the various boards around, I failed to find one pointing finger to the self proclaimed CEO-Shawn White - STAFF. TIME IS COME TO POINT FINGERS TO HIS STAFF (paid or otherwise) along with CEO-Shawn White, FOR ASSISTING, PARTICIPATING, AIDING and TAKING PART IN SCAM. I sure do hope that someone will point his "dedicated staff" to this tread, and let them know where and after who we are "going" next.

wkendrvr a member on the AnanTech Forums did post a little story -

A boy arranges to buy a donkey for $20... When the donkey arrives, it is clearly dead. He asks the guy for his money back but the guy already spent it. So, what does he do? He sells raffle tickets for $4 a piece to 100 people. The guy that sold him the donkey asked him what happened when the winner found out it was dead. The kid replies, "He was happy I gave him his $4 back" Net in kid's pocket $396 for a dead donkey...

Shawn and his aids got to know, that aside from return the monies that subscribers to his "service" lost, they would have to pay for remedy/damages they have cost all of us.

I don't buy the notion "You get what you pay for...". Do we all have to pay in access of $ 600 bucks to be considered as victims of this liar, or $ 20 or even $ 1 are victims too ? Give me a break, CD recorders used to cost thousands of dollars, today you can get some for $ 30. Do they work ? YES, does it apply "You get what you pay for..." NO. In the event that you approach a vendor or a service provider and you the one that who trying to bargain a price, I would understand a "reason" for bad service, but Shawn White he is the one who had solicited us to host with his service, he is the one who send the tons of "Sale" mail, Time to pay [Shawn], you and your dedicated STAFF.

Ive been putting off reading this thread for a while because its so big but I finally went through and read about the whole cyberwings story and all I can say is I feel really bad for everyone effected by this. I will be crossing my fingers that everyone gets to at least have access to their data, and hopefully gets their account back. Good luck guys!

Originally posted by TechHead


No worry dear, Fatboy had informed his (volunteer) staff, that he has spend the last 12 hours,


Time to pay [Shawn], you and your dedicated STAFF.

Is that necessary? I am sure there are many other overweight people in the web hosting industry who might be wincing at your choice of words. While I am sure you're pissed off, I think you could do without the insults based on his appearance. If his last name was Goldberg would you be saying "time to pay up, JEWBOY"? Or if he was black, Hispanic, bald, quadrapalegic, etc? Surely you can insult the man without resorting to these kind of comments. There is plenty of material. Heck, I even remember someone being called "Weaselboy" not too long ago and that was appropriate to the situation.

End of rant, back to lurk mode.

<<MOD NOTE: Not necessary, and was removed>>

G"Day. and thanks Cyberwings, the best $3.90 ($7.40 aud) I have ever spent. Not only did I get $3.90 worth of entertainment but I was able to use the site to create a test homepage for a prospective client who has since asked me to do him a homepage and arrange hosting for him. I dare say I won't actually use cyberwings for the final hosting, however I will make more than the $3.90 I spent. It has also served as a timely warning to my customers not to go for the cheap priced hosting but to let me arrange a suitable reliable host for them.

Anyway what can you buy for that price .. 3 glasses of beer perhaps. It would cost more than that for a feed of fish and chips.

As for the comment made about people expecting to much for to little ... if you had come from somewhere like Homestead or Geocities who were offering FREE hosting then paying $3.90 a year sounds reasonable and if one was to sit down and try to do the maths, what with webhosts getting money from advertisers and supposedly making big bucks from large accounts then one would assume they were offering the "cheapies" as a form of advertising and a way to entice you to spend more in the future.

AS for the comment made about the "fatboy" I have no idea what physical build Shawn White is but I had assumed they were just using a saying (cliche) like "not over to the fat lady sings".

To finish off this post ... I am becoming quite an expert on these "fly by night hosts" what with being involved (as a client) with Homestead then Directoris and now Cyberwings. With Homestead it didn't actually cost me any money and I really learnt a lot about hosting ..web pages ... what not to do etc ..
with Cyberwings I gained far more than I lost, however with Directoris I did get my fingers burnt and I will not rest while they remain on the net ... not actually sure if there still going at the moment.

Laurie ..aka The Doctor

Originally posted by TheDoctor
It has also served as a timely warning to my customers not to go for the cheap priced hosting but to let me arrange a suitable reliable host for them.


Laurie,
Not all low cost web hosts are out to scam people. Some of us take our businesses very seriously. Just because CW is that way, please don't assume all of are.

:)

I'm not sure that the reference to Headsurfer in this thread refers to the Headsurfer aka Robert Marsh. I believe there was another "Headsurfer" in the CW camp, and by the looks of the following they were an irc.cyberwings.com regular:

http://www.joely.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Just thought I'd (hopefully...could be wrong) clear that up. Sorry about the troubles you folks have experienced.

(there's also some quotes at that URL that might raise a smile)

Cheers

Gary

well anyone who was still thinking there was a chance this wasnt a total ripoff scheme, it looks like the scam is about over and is now offical. start calling your creditcard companies if you havent already and report this conkid to the proper places.

now the chatroom is gone too so any hope you were holding out for CW has been shown to be a truckload of your know what..

ohwell - if it looks like *** and acts uacks like *** its a scam.

Originally posted by magick
well it looks like the scam is about over - now the chatroom is gone too.

ohwell - if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck its a scam.
If the above link doesn't work try :

http://www.bluesweb.co.uk/chat/

And then type in /join #cyberwings when you enter the room

They've put their chat room on moderation mode now, how stupid!

Actually it is pretty smart.

Why take the abuse supporting a service that has nothing ti support? There are no working servers at this point. Why let people beat up on you?

Smart move on their part.

Let's make the distinction between Shawn and the CW staff. The staff doesn't know any more than we do as Shawn hasn't communicated to them.

Cyberwings is down to the final hours before our servers go live at our new Premier Data Center. Our Class C issue (duplication) has been resolved - new Class C's will consist of 66.250.148.XXX, 66.250.149.XXX, 66.250.150.XXX, etc. Other Class C's have been reserved as well for strictly Cyberwings use. By this weekend we fully expect to be in REBUILD mode and be accepting questionnaires by Friday Night or Saturday that will begin our rebuild project which is expected to last at least for the remainder of July, perhaps longer.

Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: CYBERWINGS.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS101.GROUPNS.COM
Name Server: NS102.GROUPNS.COM
Updated Date: 18-jul-2002

NS101.GROUPNS.COM
66.250.151.5
july 20, 2002:pimp:

Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Server Name: NS101.GROUPNS.COM
IP Address: 66.250.151.5
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com

I have been requested to gather as many names as I can of people affected by
the outage of the Cobalt servers at RackShack. It has been suggested to me that
I/we may be able to gain access to the downed Cobalt servers if there are
enough people to ask for it.

In my particular case, we have data that we really will suffer if we lose.

Right now, the Cobalt servers are down. I do not expect they will come back up,
since the original name servers have been located elsewhere. It is my
understanding that RackShack actually owns the hardware and that they typically
re-deploy the hardware within a few days. We have until about Tuesday or
Wednesday only to intervene before the data is lost for good.

Cyberwings will not communicate with us. Hence, the only way to get these
servers available again is to plead our case with RackShack to help us out.

Can anyone affected by this please get in touch at the e-mail
cyberwings@t... ?

I am using this forum and will post to others I can gain access to since
CyberWings staff have pledged that they will not help to put people in touch
with one another for this purpose, nor allow a link to be posted (or a mention
of what is going on) on their #CYBERWINGS chat forum. I do not have
confirmation, but it currently seems that they are refusing to allow access to
our data for some reason.

What we are seeking is a couple of weeks uptime on these machines to allow data
recovery. Since the CyberWings backup of this data is being restored to PLESK
servers rather than Cobalt servers, in our case the sites will not operate
properly.

Again, if you want RackShack to give us all access to our data, please get in
touch -- cyberwings@t...

Thanks!

For those who want a condensed version of what is happening a second article in the series is finished.

Web Hosting Down ... Cyberwings' Next Chapter (http://www.compunotes.com/OpinionSection/webhostingdown2.htm)

I may write a book about this.

Originally posted by Gnrl_Custard
So I have to get the logs out to show referance to Lars_

speaking with you !

:cool:

Are you referring to me? If so, go ahead and pull them out and waste your sorry ass time. I have no idea why you are after me and who the hell you are.....

i am offering $100 reward to any information leading to the exact wherabouts of Shawn J White. my name and all other contact info is easily found on/from my website which you all know by now. $100 is yours - and you know where to find me because unlike Shawn i have nothing to hide - if you lead me to Shawn White. I need verifyable contact information on his CURRENT whereabouts. A phone number, address, etc... http://cyberwingsowesmemoney.com/

Does it seem petty or foolish to pursue legal action for a mere $382.50? Not at all. The rewards will be far greater than money.

This is a serious offer, open to anyone at all who can lead me to him. Staff, Volunteers, Interns and vendors he has associated with are welcome to reply.

me_too@cyberwingsowesmemoney.com

DeepNorth, you mean to tell me there are CW customers who had 3 weeks to get their data off the CW Rack Shack servers and despite all our (Maine CW customers who got 0 warning) grieving, they didn't?? Dumb!

Kathy_Harris, why so touchy? You haven't done anything wrong...have you?

cwowesme: I'll give YOU $100 if you post pictures of the results when you find this scam artist.

Hmmm, yeah I'm one of them =D. See I backed up everything on the site (rackshack servers) on Thursday. But forgot one thing... the forum's database. So yeah :bawling: .

Worth a try if they are willing to give us access to the servers.



As for the servers in Maine, has anyone been able to get information off of them? Need the database off of there too...

Just wondering, no biggie...

Yeah, I'm touchy. I'm a know-nothing person who likes to stay in the background. I rarely post. WTF with this guy?

In answer to one of your questions:
Why would anyone in their stupid mind move a bunch of accounts to a system that isn't up. That has got to be about the worst business/customer oriented decision I've ever heard.

I know were he lives :) yes it is me The famous furtune teller from the CW chat room. I told you all this would happen. but no i was mocked. HA

so yes i have sniffed him out.

Originally posted by pgrote
For those who want a condensed version of what is happening a second article in the series is finished.

Web Hosting Down ... Cyberwings' Next Chapter (http://www.compunotes.com/OpinionSection/webhostingdown2.htm)

I may write a book about this.
Brilliant, keep em coming as I guess there will be another article that needs to be written sometime soon!

Cyberwings' General Manager, known as Geek4Rent has just been klined and kicked and banned from the IRC network that the #cyberwings channel resides on, one of the most hillarious things I have ever seen, getting banned from your own channel!

Justin,

A little history is necessary for that. Hopefully this is a lesson for other web hosting services.

A customer of Cyberwings who is expecting her refund, which was promised more than a week ago, called Geek.

Geek didn't like that, so he posted her private number in the IRC chatroom.

It was not a number on whois or in a phone database.

The IRCops heard about it and:

*** Geek4Rent has quit IRC (Kill by OperServ (You are banned from this network: Disclosing other users personal information, such as home phone, etc.. Is DEFFINATELY not tolerated on this network. Email kline@webchat.org for more information regarding your auto-kill!

I am not an IRC expert, but being "klined" is something that isn't good.

Prior to this a CW staff member posted:

[16:11] <Josh_CWV> :-* to all our CWV/Staff butts :)

Again, not an IRC expert, but I think :-* is kiss.

I guess the best thing to walk away from this with is that web hosting services that have issues should A) Communicate, B) Admit when they're wrong and C) Treat your customers like customers.

Geek4rent was akilled because he basically pasted a users PERSONAL info to the #cyberwings channel.

[4:45] Geek4Rent i'm not sure i should give you details...what with all the legal threats and all

[4:46] Geek4Rent you should all ask my caller for those details...

[4:46] Geek4Rent she can be reached at 71*-*2*-34**

NOTE: The number has been * blocked out. For security reasons.

I'm missing the action...where is the chat at now? I know the CW site was torn down...

irc.webchat.org
#wingtalk

Originally posted by pgrote


The IRCops heard about it and:

*** Geek4Rent has quit IRC (Kill by OperServ (You are banned from this network: Disclosing other users personal information, such as home phone, etc.. Is DEFFINATELY not tolerated on this network. Email kline@webchat.org for more information regarding your auto-kill!

I am not an IRC expert, but being "klined" is something that isn't good.



I am an IRCops on a different network and a KILL is not good. You are in the database which not only remembers your nickname but also your mask & IP address. Basically it's death!

On another note - I guess they paid their IRC bills, that channel seems to be the only thing running for them.

Just an FYI, the channel seems to have moved to the irc.chatspike.net network...channel #cyberwings

Also, www.cyberwings.com (http://www.cyberwings.com) seems to be semi-working now...

Right that the address is semi-working...and I think Geek was lured into posting that stuff (It's been rumored that he's been very drunk for two days now). Before that he had hijacked the #cyberwings channel, which had been under moderation for hours by deopping and devoicing all the staff, interns and volunteers, and then methodically kicking everyone one at a time. The Channel breifly reopened, and when one of the volunteers asked about the deal with RackShack (Jan from the staff supposedly had talked to Shawn, but wouldn't tell what they had talked about), Geek got hacked off and booted everyone again. Lasted all the rest of the night and late into the afternoon today. I missed the part where he and the rest got booted from the network, but I think the user knew what he was going to do and called him for the purpose of getting booted (He's basically come down hard on everyone the past two days). Of course Jan didn't help by calling her a silly little woman who didn't understand law either. I would seriously hope that as bored as you all are with this, you keep watching to see what not to do with your own customers. The outage was already horrendous - the treatment is what's going to kill them (the people that they jumped on/booted/etc. were there biggest supporters).

Uh okay.... cyberwings sounds like a playground of 12 year old not-so-l33t ha><0rz running around on irc.

I went to the cyberwings site today to see if it was indeed up and this is what I got......


This is the placeholder Cyberwings has installed temporarily while we reinstall our website and related services. We are fully installed into our new Premier Cyberwings Data Center and will begin our rebuilding project immediately. All sites from the Maine DC and the Texas RackShack DC will be reinstated on our Premier Cyberwings Data Center servers during our rebuilding project. Please watch here for more updates VERY shortly.

This page has been put in place by Cyberwings for your information.

I've been idling in their chat, and all I can say is, if I ever have a 3 week plus downtime of ALL my customers I hope I still have so many cheerleaders stroking my ego in irc after 3 weeks, man talk about loyalty.

If my servers were pulled down for 3 weeks I'd be burned in effigy, or for real maybe, I'm sure of it! :D

No doubt dixiesys, I dont understand it either. He still has over 200 people in the chan, STILL woundering when the services will be back up. Its just CRAZY.

If he really wants to make a fortune he should teach classes on how to gain customer loyalty heck I'd get my checkbook out! :D

Originally posted by Dixiesys
If he really wants to make a fortune he should teach classes on how to gain customer loyalty heck I'd get my checkbook out! :D

Yes, whenwe had an outage of 10 hours nearly 2 years ago we lost 30% of our customers instantly.
He obviously has some secret if he is able to keep his customers
hanging around for this long.

Gordon

Update:

CEO-Shawn - Enough fun and games. People have been playing games with #cyberwings for days now, now that I am back and our new DC is on the rebound, I'm done putting up with games. Trouble makers will be kicked, banned. NO Guests allowed. I'm retaking control of this channel for Cyberwings with the blessings of the IRCOps who will also no longer have OPS in this channel either.

CEO-Shawn - Our New DC is 100% Functional. We have a placeholder up for cyberwings.com. 2 Servers are Live right now. 16 more servers are installed, ready to go. As soon as we get them cabled, configured & ready, they will be online (very shortly.)

CEO-Shawn told everyone LAST Tuesday/Wednesday that we would be online between Thursday-Saturday - we missed that date, I apologize, we had a bad router we had to replace with a new Cisco router. We are online today with 2 servers, online shortly with 16 more. We are on the rebound and will be putting ALL staff into FULL REBUILD MODE immedaitely.

CEO-Shawn will NOT be restoring OPERATOR ACCESS to ANY CW Interns or Volunteers. ONLY Myself and 2 other people will have OPERATOR access within this room.

CEO-Shawn Look folks, I'm not going to sit here and be harassed tonight - I've put up with this for too long. You speak with us in a RESPECTFUL and ORDERLY manner or else you get KICKED, Banned and left out in the cold. I am rebuilding this company and I have ZERO TOLERANCE for Trouble Makers at this point.

CEO-Shawn - New DC in Virginia is online, 100% Functional, 2 servers online immediately, 16 more to follow as soon as we get cabling in place to hook them into the Switch. Already configured, ready to roll. TEST DOWNLOAD FILE: http://www.cyberwings.com/plesktestfile.sh - please note with EVERYONE testing this download file our lines might get a bit congested.

CEO-Shawn - REFUNDS - If you ASKED for a refund, you are gettig one. NO going back on that. ALL refunds asked for WILL be granted and you can reorder in the future if you wish - but if you asked for a refund, you're getting it. Those of you who have stuck with us, great, and thank you.

CEO-Shawn - Cyberwings.com will be updated within 24 hours with ACCURATE & Updated Information. Questionnaire to begin rebuild project will be online in 24 hours as well. PROCESS Outline will be online at Cyberwings.com - REFUNDS will be granted, no exceptions. You asked for one, you get it. You can re-order later at our new pricing. Those that stuck by us, thank you very much.

Cyberwings.com will be FULLY updated with accurate, updated information with 24 hours and the QUestionnaire will be available within that time as well. Processes will start moving.

CEO-Shawn - Guests please change your nicknames - Guests not allowed, period. At all. Nicknames that are blatantly CW harassing will be removed. Trouble makers will be kicked & banned by us. No exceptions. We are taking back our channel, our space, and our right to rebuild a community. People

with us, thank you. Those of you who are against us, goodbye and we're sorry to see you go. Those of you who are undecided, stake your sides now, because we're not looking back. I am leaving now, to get some much needed rest (I am human) and will be at our DC again all day tomorrow putting more servers online. Will update people

CEO-Shawn Look folks, I'm not going to sit here and be harassed tonight - I've put up with this for too long. You speak with us in a RESPECTFUL and ORDERLY manner or else you get KICKED, Banned and left out in the cold. I am rebuilding this company and I have ZERO TOLERANCE for Trouble Makers at this point.

Very interesting way of referring to "very pissed off customers who have been down for over 3 weeks and told their data is inaccessible while we gave poor and at times even apparently false information to them while scrambling to find a place to put some servers to get something back online". Gotta tip your hat to the sheer balls it takes to look an angry mob of your own abused customers in the face and call them all trouble makers.

Originally posted by Dixiesys


Very interesting way of referring to "very pissed off customers who have been down for over 3 weeks and told their data is inaccessible while we gave poor and at times even apparently false information to them while scrambling to find a place to put some servers to get something back online". Gotta tip your hat to the sheer balls it takes to look an angry mob of your own abused customers in the face and call them all trouble makers.

I agree 100%, even if by some miracle things get turned around and things were just wonderful, I could never do business with someone who had that degree of contempt for their customers. To me he's just blowing everything off and not willing to accept any responsibility for what's happened.

I have made mistakes in the past, and basically you just have to grit your teeth and let people vent.

Originally posted by Dixiesys


Very interesting way of referring to "very pissed off customers who have been down for over 3 weeks and told their data is inaccessible while we gave poor and at times even apparently false information to them while scrambling to find a place to put some servers to get something back online". Gotta tip your hat to the sheer balls it takes to look an angry mob of your own abused customers in the face and call them all trouble makers.


Well, we, like you, work VERY hard to retain our customers, so I'm sure we'll be fine in the long run. I just can't imagine having that much contempt for a user base that took you from the ground up... Some people will never learn, I imagine.

A month ago I thought this was a pyramid scheme. It's obvious a more accurate description would be that of a charlatan and his followers.

A leader arises attracting a following and a certain number of followers become "true believers". At some point problems develop and many of the followers realize they have made a mistake, start dropping out or even critisizing their leader.

The piped piper uses this dissatisfaction to his own advantage. By blaming those of so little faith as complainers and bellyacres, he not only shifts the blame to them but reinforces the commitment and enthusiam the true believers have in the cause and their leader.

We've seen it in religious and political matters. Now Shawn has brought it to web hosting.

Originally posted by JaysonH
He still has over 200 people in the chan, STILL woundering when the services will be back up. Its just CRAZY.

But be assured that not all 200 are customers that are waiting for service to be restored. Many are people like you and me just observing. Kinda like rubber necking when we go by a car wreck.:blush:

I've never observed a car wreck - but so many people are mentioning it...

Have I missed out on an essential part of life?

Moving on swiftly - does anyone think CyberWings can actually rebuild after this? Hmmm...no...

:pimp: :erm: :puke: :dunce:

'nuf said .

My refund is still nowhere to be found.

Can somebody please run a traceroute on my refund?

From where I sit it seems to be looping between Shawn's ego and his rear-end, which may in fact be closer to each other than you might think.

I don't care about placeholder pages on PLESK boxes. Cyberwings' servers are useless to me since I left the train wreck almost a month ago. I have my data and my sites are all safely tucked away at a reputable, reliable host.

I just want my money. I don't want promises and assurances. I want my refund. Plain and simple.

Just about any form of US Currency will do. Paypal preferred, but US Postal Money Order is fine too. I'll even take it in pennies, nickles, dimes or quarters. Personal or company check will not be accepted.

I'd like my $382.50 please.

Is that clear enough?

Laurie aka macsamurai

I have two sites... www.kaptainmyke.com and www.texas-import-racing.com

I never got a chance yet to backup all my stuff. I have local things, such as my graphics and flashes, etc...but i lost my 800 photos in my galleries, user databases, and a public forum. Will i get to backup or copy my stuff? I got screwed. It's Monday now, no servers are up from "thurs-sat" like Shawn said.

I'm very very very very mad :angry:

Can anyone help me? or give me some advice? I dont check here often so please email me at theblueghost@hotmail.com I don't know what to do. i cant even transfer my domains cuz i cant contact cyberwings at all. help!

Your domains (assuming you registered through CW) are actually with GoDaddy (ultimately) so just call them and they'll fix you up, I've had two customers mention this is what they did and they got immediate resolution on the phone and are moved and up and running (well up and propagating).

Originally posted by kaptainmyke
I never got a chance yet to backup all my stuff. I have local things, such as my graphics and flashes, etc...but i lost my 800 photos in my galleries, user databases, and a public forum. Will i get to backup or copy my stuff?

I don't know this for certain. But I think Cyberwings is starting everything from scratch. In other words, just like opening a new account.

My best guess is your galleries and databases are lost, especially if they were on those Lightship Plesk servers in Maine. Just my observations from watching the forums, etc., is that if your account was on the rachshack texas servers, you may not lose everything.

Yes, I did everything with Cyberwings....who is GoDaddy and how do I call them? thanks! very fast reply, btw ;)

Originally posted by GordonH


Yes, whenwe had an outage of 10 hours nearly 2 years ago we lost 30% of our customers instantly.
He obviously has some secret if he is able to keep his customers
hanging around for this long.

Gordon

I've been following this since yesterday just out of curiousity. Yes he does have a following but I think it is the 10% that will do absolutely anything to save a buck.

I had an email yesterday asking what deal if any I would offer those fleeing cyberwings. My answer to myself was - ummm... NONE! My answer to them was nice and polite though, but still "none".

People don't learn. They have an unworkable deal with cyberwings. Unworkable because the math doesn't fit, everything falls apart and they go searching for another unworkable deal.

Offer a deal for cyberwings customers? I think not.

Offer hosting which is built on a workable formula? By all means lets talk!

According to what I have read, the new Cyberwings pricing plan will be on a monthly basis....I believe it starts somewhere around $2 a month and up. This of course is for new customers only.

From what I understand, any of the old customers, staying through all this will be kept at their same prices for the lifetime of their accounts, plus an increase in storage, bandwidth, etc. etc. etc.

grr, just got an email confirming my 2checkout.com payment...you woulda thougt he'd turn off the recurring billing for the time being....

Originally posted by studiok
From what I understand, any of the old customers, staying through all this will be kept at their same prices for the lifetime of their accounts, plus an increase in storage, bandwidth, etc. etc. etc.

That makes sense. The bills couldn't get paid on the old pricing plan so lets double the quotas and keep the same prices. This get's funnier by the moment.

Also 2 dollars a month isn't enough money. 2checkout is going to be taking about 55 cents that leaves $1.45 a month to cyberwings. What's the bandwidth quota on that $1.45 a month account? If it's over half a gig I guarantee he's losing money, unless the electricity, support, advertising etc is free. If he's not losing money he isn't making much. I'd hate to have my months of work and reputation depending on a company that isn't making any money. But that's just me.

Just a question from a bystander, but does this CEO-Shawn person always talk in the third person?

kaptainmyke, I'd have to agree with Gary in that holding out hope for the data at this point is probably unwise. You can reach GoDaddy at the following numbers. I can say that they do have good responsiveness, as we had to call them when working on an issue for a client who had transferred over just recently:

Domain Support (480) 505-8899
Technical Support (480) 505-8877
Billing Issues (480) 505-8855


Good luck.

Annette,

Speaking in the third person is something Shawn seems to have down to a science. It's like watching a bad Saturday Night Live sketch where an athlete is being interviewed and the reporter looks confused. You typically only see that kind of ego from athletes, superstars or celebrities. You don't expect to see that kind of ego from a person who has caused so much trouble for so many people.

I agree with you.

Was that quote from earlier in the thread? I'll confess to not having read the whole thing because it seemed to be another nuclear meltdown. :)

Originally posted by revoh
grr, just got an email confirming my 2checkout.com payment...you woulda thougt he'd turn off the recurring billing for the time being....

Well, he's gotta pay the new bills somehow :) Consider it a contribution, or write to support@2checkout.com to stop the recurring billing at Cyberwings.

haha, do you think he would WANT to turn off recurring billing?? :stickout

I would love five mintues of conversation with Shawn. Just to find out how in the hell you can pull this off. I mean he has taken customer service to a new all time low. Yet every time I ask tough questions in chat I get shouted down by the "believers".

Heck, all I want is my money just like macsamurai. Mine is not as much as her's but its my money. He never set my lifetime ayw account. Unless he refunds my money in the next three days I consider him a thief pure and simple. Enough with the refund email accounts I have done that a number of times now. Sorry I digress.

Originally posted by Annette
Was that quote from earlier in the thread? I'll confess to not having read the whole thing because it seemed to be another nuclear meltdown. :)

That was from the second article I wrote.

I responded to your post, because it was interesting someone else picked up on it.

Has anybody considered taking legal action against Mr. Shaun?

You paid for a service, he didn't supply that service...lawsuit dead ahead...?

Originally posted by pgrote


That was from the second article I wrote.

I responded to your post, because it was interesting someone else picked up on it.

I see - although I'll also have to confess to only having skimmed the first article. :)

Well, I'm not sticking around...I'm just gonna eat this and find a new provider/hoster and move my domains over and start from scratch. Anyone who knows of a $20-$30/month for 200-300mb space let me know...I'm down.

There's really not a need to spend that much money Cap'n....

hi ..

.. CYBERWINGS is coming UP & STANDING AGAIN .. THE Community Hosting Company ..

Cool, care to share the url to your web site?

You got a kool-aid mustache :D

lol

That is the one of the funnier things I have seen about this. This is amazing. Going on four weeks with no service. Cross that out. Make it no service still.

Cyberwings' grand plan was to get all the servers up and running and then get their customers up. Have no idea why. One would have thought they would have gotten a server up, moved their most important accounts on there, gotten a new server up, moved their next priority accounts up there, etc.

Good luck, Sevennn. Hope you get your data.

Was it me, or did Sevennnn's message say a lot more before than it does now?

Hmmm, it did say more. The messages don't show when they were edited.

OTHER HOSTING COMPANIES HAD PLAYED ENOUGH(using other nicknames) >> THE SHOULD JUST NOW SET & WITH DEEP THINKING >> WHAT TO DO .. HOW THEY WOULD COVER THEIR LOSE >>> LOL .. :D

I believe that Shawn has just signed a Book deal & movie rights to this saga and is awaiting to get his sign on bonus to finalize his DC in DC (Virginia). Then he will capitalize on this by creating www.cyberwings2.com for his sequel, w/ yet another breakthrough deal at $0.50 for lifetime hosting. However, this time he will be smart and cram everyone in ONE SERVER, & have another one waiting when that one crashes. As expected he will have double the supporters and over 400 people sitting in the chat rooms anxiously awaiting their REFUNDS. . .

it always happen like this ..
when People feel that they are WEAK .. have nothing to say ..
cannot challange somebody .. they just say bad words on him ..
making fun (making up) on him ..

i know that all of that would help you feel better .. (as u are weak)..

that's y i don't plaim you .. LOL ..

Originally posted by sevennnnnnn
it always happen like this ..
when People feel that they are WEAK .. have nothing to say ..
cannot challange somebody .. they just say bad words on him ..
making fun (making up) on him ..

i know that all of that would help you feel better .. (as u are weak)..

that's y i don't plaim you .. LOL ..

It's not your fault seven, I don't 'plame' you. My issue is with the person that performed the lobotomy. Not the recipient.

http://www.m-w.com/home.htm

anybody know the latest?

Originally posted by JustinSurfer
anybody know the latest?

Nope.. :)

And...stay away from Cyberwings. :D :D :D :D :D

I guess in all this some things i learned:

some of us, including myself, could have conducted ourselves a little better. certainly even if Shawn's business conduct is less than professional, that's no right for us also to stoop to a low level, and become barbaric. Some of the things said against Shawn and some of the web-sites posted, IMHO, were just plain unnecessary. There's really no need to curse a fellow man in that manner.

Originally posted by massive..."Some of the things said against Shawn and some of the web-sites posted, IMHO, were just plain unnecessary. There's really no need to curse a fellow man in that manner."

I agree with you, it should be... worst :smash: :smash: :smash: hehehehehehhehehehehe :smash:

for the latest go here:
http://www.cyberwings.com/

they'll update it, eventually one day. but whatever you do, don't comment about them being a total fraud with a legion of teen personal sites in their "community". OR ELS U R WEEK. yuk yuk.



Originally posted by JustinSurfer
anybody know the latest?

Originally posted by massive..."Some of the things said against Shawn and some of the web-sites posted, IMHO, were just plain unnecessary. There's really no need to curse a fellow man in that manner."

On a second thought, my educated pal (who worries so much about "fellow man kind"), we should also start to take actions not just post.

UNITED STATE CODE > TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 63 > Sec. 1343. - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

Sec. 1343. - Fraud by wire, radio, or television (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1343.html)

"Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both".


So, lets see how we can satisfy you my friend, we going to take ACTION now and get serious, be it for "only" $600.00 or "only" $4.00. (times X 16,000 subscribers, according to "OUR LEADER - CEO SHAWN J. WHITE).

As soon as I get a new host, I will have some more information comings.

BTW, I am aware that there is a Bounty ( posted by another member ) for our beloved Shawn White, I will join and add $ 50.00 for FULL verifiable information ( Phone numbers, current addresses, list of equipment that he owns (if any) ), OR, I will pay $150.00 Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest and Conviction of Shawn J. White. (I hope others will join as well)

I am sure you will be happy now, my friend massive :)

Of lock of other way to communicate with Cyberwings and/or with Shawn White, here is my NOTICE - SHAWN WHITE, Do the right thing, come foreword, return the monies that so many people have asked/requested for, and pay restitution for damages you have inflicted upon innocent clients of yours (us). You have got 5 ( five ) working days to respond. ( I would appreciate help in obtaining a mailing/email address/s for the parties above to serve such notice)

I can be reached at circusmagic@hotmail.com

http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp

Originally posted by TechHead


On a second thought, my educated pal (who worries so much about "fellow man kind"), we should also start to take [b]actions not just post.

..snip...


did you misunderstand me?

This was posted on Anandtech, if you all have personal interest in this issue to pursue legal and publicly available records. I suggest you do as I and call the State of Maine. I followed address listings through state and county records and actually got a hold of Shawn's former landlord. This was by accident because he had listed his former condo as his office location and the county had the property owner phone number on file. None of this I will publicly post but you can find out current information quite easily.


The state of Maine Division of Corporations. (207) 624-7752 This is the number I originally called my first time and they forwarded me a couple times but at least it is a good start. Here you can ask POLITE inquiries into the legality of being not licensed at all with the state, even as a sole proprietor and selling services for years. You can even inquire as to the legality of then filing for a Business
Corporation license only in June of this year (after being questioned regarding their filed status) and if you need to be registered with the state in some way if you are a sole proprietor previous to this date. They may tell you some bisinesses are not required to be registered with the state as long as they are registered in the town/county, ask for the county clerk to Old Orchard and then ask them if there is any Cyberwings or Shawn J. White licensed for any business there. A curious person could probably find the exact address listing for the former data center if they wanted to check it out themselves. Do not make false accusations but if you have concerns, echo them.

The State of Maine Attorney General Office (207) 626-8800. The Attorney General is among other things, charged with enforcing all state laws. If cyberwings is in need of investigation as to their legality or if they have not been a legal enterprise for say (failing to provide services promised or being registered as a state corporation) then the attorney general should be aware. If the secretary of state or old orchard county clerk make you think that something is amiss, give the AG a call.

I do not recommend the better business bureau as they are mainly an institution formed to promote businesses and have little backbone from my experience and their results are almost never in favor of the consumer.

Actually, there are no requirements for a business license in Old Orchard Beach, Maine for a sole proprietorship in a services business - so this is simply barking up the wrong tree. The State Attorney General's office can do nothing for you here.

How do I know? I live here :), and when we originally started our business, we tried for weeks to find out how to get a business license. There was nothing short of incorporation that would let us do so. The State responded that "Maine was not in the business of collecting a registration fee just because you want to be in business," and the very nice lady in the State office directed me to Town Hall. The Town manager was also very nice about it, letting us know that the only business license required in OOB was for selling certain physical merchandise. I don't recall now exactly what that was for, but it seems to me it was tourist realted.

You can easily verify this yourself by calling 1-800-541-5872 and asking for the Business Answers office, or by sending email to business.answers@state.me.us.

The State likes to have a Federal Tax Number on your income tax return, but it too is not mandatory.

Cool huh.

-t

ps Of course once you incorporate all things get messy, but prior to that, Maine is a very easy state to start up a business in.

Thank you taoofbean and thewitt for the information you guys posted.


Originally posted by taoofbean
...Corporation license only in June of this year...


In other words, Shawn was a CEO even before he had a corporation... Hallelujah "Wonder Boy" :smash: :smash: :smash: heheheeee, Damn, why that doesn't surprise me ???? :confused: :smash: heheheheeee

Originally posted by lightnin
It's not your fault seven, I don't 'plame' you. My issue is with the person that performed the lobotomy. Not the recipient

LOL bro, very funny :)

I am about a day away from taking some action. I was promised a refund in three days on Sunday. This guy is unbelievable.

I wonder if the agency mentioned above would be able to help?

Latest news from cyberwings.com:


This is the placeholder Cyberwings has installed temporarily while we reinstall our website and related services. We are fully installed into our new Premier Cyberwings Data Center and will begin our rebuilding project immediately. All sites from the Maine DC and the Texas RackShack DC will be reinstated on our Premier Cyberwings Data Center servers during our rebuilding project. Please watch here for more updates VERY shortly.

-------------

Announcements made by Shawn White, CEO of Cyberwings in chatroom on July 24, 2002 at approximately 1am EDT



CEO-Shawn - Due to an intermittent equipment failure at our new dc (a piece of equipment we have replaced twice so far in 48 hours), I do not feel comfortable posting the QUESTIONNAIRE to users yet. I want to be sure this piece of equipment (A Media Converter - our router & servers are fine & well) is 100% stable before I proceed.


I do estimate that our questionnaire will be online sometime today (Wednesday) with the ability for users to post information into our database for us to work on.

CEO-Shawn has been working today with our equipment provider to ensure stability on that converter - so far, since it was replaced Tuesday morning at 2:00am, it has been almost 100% stable except for 10 minutes this afternoon when they powered DOWN our circuit while replacing fiber tips that were deemed questionable.

CEO-Shawn wants to be able to deliver 100% stable, non-questionable stability and I do not want to move ahead quite yet until we fix this one last piece. I hope you all can understand. I will return sometime during the day tomorrow to update everyone and to be here live when the questionnaire goes online. Thanks for everyone's support.

The way this guy continually calls himself 'CEO-Shawn' in the 3rd person is getting creepy.

Originally posted by the-creation

Latest news from cyberwings.com:

Announcements made by Shawn White, CEO of Cyberwings in chatroom on July 24, 2002 at approximately 1am EDT

CEO-Shawn has been working today with our equipment provider to ensure stability on that converter - so far, since it was replaced Tuesday morning at 2:00am, it has been almost 100% stable except for 10 minutes this afternoon when they powered DOWN our circuit while replacing fiber tips that were deemed questionable.


Yes ladies and gentleman, the first Cyberwingru NUCLEAR REACTOR ( re: Stable ? Powered Down ? ) is finally in place. Tomorrow I/he/who? will devote time to calculate the distance from our/my/who's? secret DC to the main MotherShip for a 'lunch' to orbit, scheduled Feb 17th 2012 (or there after).

Is the MAGNIFICENT trying to find an excuse not to pay his bill, this time to Cogent, for equipment failure ??? nop, I didn't think so :)

:uzi: :crap: :angel: :dgrin: :beer:

the story of their life.... 'nuff said

Actualy you are not far wrong .

Logic suggests that both LS & RS are after him for payment due - which is running very late . And there's no doubt that his new *cheaper* upstream provider has gotten news of his business habits by now.

As soon as he was disconnected from both LS & RS he started badmouthing them . Extremely odd seeing that the people on the RS servers weren't complaining as their service was still supplied .

Until the CEO decided that meeting payment deadlines was of no consequence . And the plug was pulled .

How long , if ever , will they last at the new location ?? I'm taking bets on this NOW

:stickout

:eek:

I knew I forgot something ...

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Shawn+J.+White%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

Read all 20 odd pages to get an insight into this budding entreprenaur . :dunce:

Then ask yourself , would you have spent ANY money with him after knowing this ??

Originally posted by fantasmic0
:eek:

I knew I forgot something ...

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Shawn+J.+White%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

Read all 20 odd pages to get an insight into this budding entreprenaur . :dunce:

Then ask yourself , would you have spent ANY money with him after knowing this ??

Quite enlightening.

Originally posted by classics
The way this guy continually calls himself 'CEO-Shawn' in the 3rd person is getting creepy.

I believe the CEO-Shawn bit is there because it is a cut & paste from IRC....

The phase we're in now is technically called "running out the clock"(ROTC).

Paypal will not reimburse a customer or charge a client's account(assuming there's money in the account) after 30 days. So it's the 30 day window which has motivated the substantial efforts to give the appearance the enterprise will continue to operate.

The actual efforts to provide the service or a means to request the refund have been zero. The numerous vague deadlines and excuses is by design, a natural component of the ROTC strategy. Don't allow people to request a refund directly and string along the others as much as possible so they don't request from Paypal within the time window. The questionaire business is the centerpiece of this strategy.

Cyberwings was not a corporation until very recently, so personal liability would not normally attach after its formation, as long as the acts were corporate, thus the continous use ot the title "CEO".

If any sites are restored it will only be briefly, in order to discourage those who paid in early July to not make the Paypal refund request -- then it's lights out for Cyberwings.

Hi friends,
Kindly help me!
I paid my hard-earned $20 for AYW plan 2 on 20th June during the infamous "sale" :(
I paid it through Paypal and in turn through my credit card.
Now, how to get it bacK - shall I ask my credit card company to reverse the debit? Is it correct to do that?
Kindly lead me to a solution.
I had paid another $12.50 during April 2002 (thru 2checkout) which I haven't used. I dunno if I ever get it back.
But I am worried about my $20 first.
Please ....please!
Thanks
S.K

Kichu,

I suggest you refer to paypals website. They frown on you reversing the charges via your credit card. This is because they take the hit as the merchant of record vs. Shawn White. I have a pending buyer complaint at Paypal they ask 30 days to resolve it. This is entirely to long.

Also the protection plan does not cover services, only physical goods. So no insurance. Shawn knew what he was doing with the paypal thing. I have about 60 more days available to reverse with my CC company so I have a last resort. Many that paid big bucks use their bank accounts to fund the paypal transaction they may be hung out to dry if this thing does, as it appears now, go belly up.

I have a promise from a cyberwings employee that my refund would be handled by today so far no such luck.

Good Luck!

Just to add some info for all you that have been bilked by Shawn White, here's a site that has been set up to help you get a refund:

http://www.yepo.com


Hopefully, as an organized group, you guys will be able to accomplish something.

Gawd....................... Thank Gawd I have no accounts w/ them.

thewitt: thanks for your response. Obviously you should know better than I in this instance. I was apparently misinformed/misunderstood when I talked to the state office that told me all corporate incorporations (even sole proprietors) must be registered with the state, except for the certain counties that keep track of that information themselves.

The helpful county clerk at Old Orchard told me basically the same but didn't state that apparently some businesses don't have to register. She said that many businesses, mainly Internet ones, haven't filed and they just have no way of enforcing their filings due to the fact they have no one patrolling the Internet for Maine based businesses and validating their papers. She didn't sound concerned about one more business claiming papers of incorporation but existing nowhere but Shawn's mind.

Does a media converter really have anything to do with servers?

I dunno what it is, but it sure doesn't sound like something to do with servers!

It can webhappy. It's typically used to connect the broadband connection being used such as a T1 to the router. It can also be used to attach fiber to a server.

More importantly the Cyberwings Rack Shack servers seem to be up. GRAB YOUR DATA NOW AND RUN.

Of course, Cyberwings isn't saying why it's up, how long it will be up or why it went down. Sigh.

Looks like Plesk2 at Cyberwings is back online. Haven't read any updates on their site yet, though.

Originally posted by Gordo
The phase we're in now is technically called "running out the clock"(ROTC).

Paypal will not reimburse a customer or charge a client's account(assuming there's money in the account) after 30 days. So it's the 30 day window which has motivated the substantial efforts to give the appearance the enterprise will continue to operate.

The actual efforts to provide the service or a means to request the refund have been zero. The numerous vague deadlines and excuses is by design, a natural component of the ROTC strategy. Don't allow people to request a refund directly and string along the others as much as possible so they don't request from Paypal within the time window. The questionaire business is the centerpiece of this strategy.

Cyberwings was not a corporation until very recently, so personal liability would not normally attach after its formation, as long as the acts were corporate, thus the continous use ot the title "CEO".

If any sites are restored it will only be briefly, in order to discourage those who paid in early July to not make the Paypal refund request -- then it's lights out for Cyberwings.

sad but prob true. everyday theres a new problem or look another piece of equipment broke and had to be exchanged today.. what a surprise!

this bs co. wont come back and if it does it will only be long enough to lure some more suckers in for another disappearing act.. then in the end it will be the 'lack of support' and the 'troublemakers' that get blamed for its demise while ceo-scam laffs all the way to the offshore bank... either that or this is some poor clueless fool that got in over his head but im betting poorly crafted scam)..

anyway, this guy may be dumb, but if you havent gotten a refund yet, youre gonna look dumber..

im not holding my breath anymore, ive filed refund requests for 2 small payments i made, ohwell if it sounds too good to be true, guess what?!

:confused: :nuts: :eek2:
My sites on Cyberwings (rack shack) just came back to life?

Whats up with that?

You better back up your data NOW. Rackshack, in trying to help Cyberwings customers has made the servers available till 6pm tonight according to one of their representatives. This is only so you can get your data back.

HeadSurfer: you now officially rule in my book. :)

I'm sure the CEO himself will take credit for it, though.:rolleyes:

Hey,

I don't care who gets the credit. Headsurfer runs the company and he had to be involved.

I think this is an upstanding, fantastic move on his part. I don't know if they brought them up to reformat and resell them or what, but it's available for people to get their data.

Way to go and good form!

Originally posted by Gordo
The phase we're in now is technically called "running out the clock"(ROTC).

Hey Gordo,

Excellent post, and dead-on the money, IMO.

-Bob

Unlike some people, I am dead serious about this issue and would like to see not only every person who paid Shawn J White/Cyberwing Communication a penny get their money back, but also would like to see Shawn J White get what he is due.

I have, in fact, consulted with an attorney. Whether or not there will be civil proceedings still remains to be seen, but it is being considered and the facts as we know them are being looked into. Any additional information about such proceedings, should there be any, will be provided as soon as they are known.

In the interim, I have been advised to do the following:

File complaints with all relevant agencies in all relevant states. Most links can be found here: <http://www.fraud.org/info/links.htm>

1) The Attorney Generals offices of Maine, Virginia, *and* your local state. If any crime was committed by Shawn J White and/or Cyberwings, it was committed in whatever state YOU are in, not just whatever state HE is in, as the services were offered to you in your state.

2) The FBI and Computer Crimes Units in Maine, VA and in your State or locality

3) the Internet Fraud Complaint Center <http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/howtofile.asp>

4) The FTC <https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01>

5) The US Postal Service <https://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFraudComplaint.htm>
if you paid Shawn J White/Cyberwing Communication via money order or other method using the US Mail, you may have been the victim of Mail Fraud

Fact: There is strength in numbers. The Attorney I have consulted with has witnessed first hand how enough angry, vocal “victims” Can achieve results and initiate a criminal investigation by any or all of the agencies mentioned above.

I urge anyone who has been a victim of Shawn J White/Cyberwing Communication to take action against him/them as described above. It does not matter if you paid a penny or a pound. Most of those agencies have online forms you can submit, so it shouldn’t take much of your time.

Please remember when filing a complaint to proofread your information for both spelling and grammar) and have any evidence you have in any form, at hand and available to you for followup communications. Be clear, concise and state only facts, not rumors or speculation. Shoddy information will not hold up well. Verifiable information holds weight and gets results.

Please also enter your information into the Refund Log Database at <http://www.yepo.com>. By having everyone's inforamtion in one place, it will assist us all when/if the time comes to present our case.

Thank you and good luck.

Laurie <aka macsamurai>

This saga seems to be like that show Dallas - but with servers...

Everybody really should try their best to get a refund as soon as possible and to retrieve their data right now (they'll be going down in 34 minutes if the 6pm deadline is true?)

Shawn will probably claim to be abducted by an alien next...it's the only logical move.