Thanks to your new TOS/AUP, every client violate the second time of spamming activity will get their account cancelled!

I checked and our ip was never listed in all spam blockers, spam blockers has the most accurate information about spamming, how can your abuse department cancel a server because of a complain letter without actually get listed in spam blockers??

Can someone copy a spam email or write a spam email themselves and change the IP of sending server, send to abuse department then they cancel the server because of that email??

and thanks for your staffs in data center, to have my server immediately formatted for resold after cancellation! I found the old harddisk got formatted after adding to new server! :angry:

You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business, now you evilly kill it because of two letters :angry:

Man that is not good.. That should how you a copy at least..

Sorry to hear that :(

Kevin,

how about answering emails from your customers instead of posting on WHT?

Wow, that sucks. I've been hearing many good, but also some horror stories about RackShack lately. I've just made up my mind not to use RackShack (sorry Robert), but it doesn't seem like your company really cares anymore.

- Matt

Wow

Sorry to hear...

Originally posted by dk2002

You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business, now you evilly kill it because of two letters :angry:

The first thing you should do is salvage what you have left of your customers. You should contact them or at least respond to their thread. I know your server went down, but did your inet connection go down as well? I know you visit WHT often, and I would've at least responded to the other thread. If they were managing your servers there was really nothing you could've done on your end.

If you have a successful business you must have a strong contingency plan. Either a redudant server, offsite differential backup, etc... It looks as if you did not have that, but if you are going to do business it is something you may want to think about so you don't get hit with what you did now.

btw what does "get rip of advertising market" mean? You got a lot of advertising? But I hope you guys can resolve this, or you move on it looks as if you have many loyal customers who just wanted an "explanation" but did not even get that.

I'd like to hear what RackShack has to say about it before I draw any opinion.

Yeah, I saw the word letter being used in the other thread...

So if the two spam complaints were actual letters and not emails, then I'd investigate the server....

Originally posted by The Prohacker
Yeah, I saw the word letter being used in the other thread...

So if the two spam complaints were actual letters and not emails, then I'd investigate the server....

*Off topic* Nice sig Prohacker do you know if anyone has called him? :) Or were that stands or is that in another thread? ;)

Kevin,

I would refund customers that want to leave and give one month of free hosting to those that want to stay.
And please, answer your emails or it looks like you have disappeared and people will start legal action!

whens it going to be fixed?

i cant do anything at the moment :(

Thing with rackshack is they count spam as when someone sends an email not via your server nothing to do with your server but it has an address of a site on your server somewhere on it.

I had 2 case's of it with 9cy.com free hosting before it was moved. They realy don't know how to deal with it. Most isp's I have seen will be happy as long as your prompt in removing the site.... .

Still I can see there side of this they don't want any uplinks cut because of spam. I think there methods are a little over kill but I guess thats why there cheap.

Yes RS does give new meaning to *ZERO TOLERANCE* or is it the right meaning LOL :)

I am also sorry to hear about this for you. I don't think even Burst would've done what Rackshack did to you. It doesn't sound right or fair to me.

It's easy for others to blame you and say you should've had backups, but most resellers cannot afford a second back-up account, and don't have the space on their computers to download all of their reseller accts.

What's really bad is that you can't even get you and your customer's files to move them to another host. They should've at least given you an opportunity to download your files before formatting the hard disk. Most hosts even give crackers that opportunity, and you don't sound like one of them.

For what it's worth...
I am a current hostpacket customer.
Apparantlly I'm not on the server/servers
affected since I can get to my site without a problem. I haven't need tech
support as of yet, but have noticed that the help desk program is sure taking a long time to get on line. I'm sure you've been busy elsewhere. But as an ex-cyberwinger, lack of reliable and truthful info about what is going on is sure making me wonder if I've strayed into yet another poor host. Problems I can understand, but have no choice but think the worst when no info is passed on. Otherwise I've been quite happy with hostpacket.
Hang in there. :)

Originally posted by dk2002

You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business

For be honest i really sorry read that, maybe other hosts will be happy to see how others have problems, but i dont :(

Originally posted by dk2002
You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business, now you evilly kill it because of two letters :angry:

Really? Rackshack killed your business?

Three questions for you: Who was the spamming customer, why weren't they stopped, and where were your backups?

-Bob

Originally posted by chrisb
It's easy for others to blame you and say you should've had backups, but most resellers cannot afford a second back-up account, and don't have the space on their computers to download all of their reseller accts.

If they can't do it, they shouldn't advertise it.

-Bob

.

Originally posted by dk2002
Thanks to your new TOS/AUP, every client violate the second

You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business, now you evilly kill it because of two letters :angry:


No mate, you killed all your customers business.

Apparently RS sent alerts you didn't respond.

Originally posted by TMX
.

Hmm - smallest quote ever - sorry just had to do it - i take it he meant "period"?.

Isn't this just one of the main reasons not to host with a reseller? Oops sorry - controversial comment. Just goes to show IMHO that if you host with a reseller you have so much less control over your data / hosting if even the guy you are buying your disk space from doesn't really own / control that space. But hey - surely a decent host wouldn't just delete all of a clients data without at least contacting all accounts and warning them? Surely not!

Originally posted by Crypto



No mate, you killed all your customers business.

Apparently RS sent alerts you didn't respond.

Sorry mate - but a decent business does not just delete everything if they do not get a response - they contain the situation and try their darndest to get hold of the person - even if that means sending snail mail or whatever.

I would love to hear what RS has to say about this and get there side of the story.. All my servers are with RS and it kind of scares me that they would pull it like that out of nowhere without even giving you a chance to delete the site.. Personally I think they should themselves delete the site off the server without even notifying the owner (or atleast freeze the account) because yes spammers can do ALOT of damage in nearly no time at all.. Anyways I will sit and wait for the whole story.. sorry to hear about your misfortune..

Does anyone have a copy of the agreement signed upon establishing service? That would be the first place to begin when the question of right or wrong actions has been brought up?

What does the signed agreement state?

I know we've spent a pretty penny for our own attorney to have contracts revised with our upstream providers to prevent such actions. I ticks me off each time I see clauses that allow for actions similar to what has been described in this thread and signing something like that is out of the question... If they want the sale they must make adjustments. Since I have seen clauses like this, I just have to wonder if similar clauses aren't within the RS contracts as well.

Stories such as this one should serve as a reminder to others to review their contracts so they are sure they understand who is responsible for what actions and in what manner those responsibilities will be satisfied. It's also a good time to ensure your own AUPs match up with the ones you sign ...

I reckon the guys lying. formatting a hard disk takes effort. Why would someone do it?

More likely he stuffed up the install of the disk and wiped it himself.

If that is the problem.

Note: we still haven't been told properly

You guys in the US - you live in teh land of the lawsuite, how do you kick one off?

Crypto... hahaha you're a farce

"More likely he stuffed up the install of the disk and wiped it himself" haha what a crock to even state this. loll hahaha, damn.

I have a hunch..just a hunch that Rackshack did not format the hard drive. It would be nice to see a Rackshack representative come up and say something about it.

Hmmmmm.... http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70956

Originally posted by Samuel
Crypto... hahaha you're a farce

"More likely he stuffed up the install of the disk and wiped it himself" haha what a crock to even state this. loll hahaha, damn.

What? You've never made a slight error of judgement with red hat and ended up with a spinning magnet?

Originally posted by Deb
Does anyone have a copy of the agreement signed upon establishing service? That would be the first place to begin when the question of right or wrong actions has been brought up?

Here's Rackshack's AUP/TOS:

http://rackshack.net/aboutus/tos.asp

The section regarding spam is fairly clear and to-the-point.

As for a signed agreement, although I obviously can't speak for either party, I'd be surprized if any actual signed documents existed.

-Bob

Originally posted by Deb
I know we've spent a pretty penny for our own attorney to have contracts revised with our upstream providers to prevent such actions.

I don't know you, but I know your company's reputation. You're obviously a smart businesswoman, and reviewing contracts and asking for changes and/or additions before signing is something that smart businesspeople do as a matter of course.

I't been my experience that many people don't give their host's/upstream's policies a second thought until such time, unfortyunately, as they get bitten in the ass by them. Based on what's been written here, that seems to be exactly what has happened to Hostpacket.

Stories such as this one should serve as a reminder to others to review their contracts so they are sure they understand who is responsible for what actions and in what manner those responsibilities will be satisfied. It's also a good time to ensure your own AUPs match up with the ones you sign ...

Sound advice for anyone who's paying attention.

-Bob

I'm cool with that - although I would like to know who the spammer is.

What I am worried about is the alleged loss of data - that just makes no sense to me. Formatting a disk is not something you would do.

For that matter it would be simpler if they just turned the box off and once hostpacket cleaned it up -


from RS policy -
BEGINNING IMMEDIATELY, anyone hosting websites or services on their server that support spammers or cause any of our IP space to be listed in any of the various Spam Databases will have their server immediately removed from our network. The server will not be reconnected until such time that you agree to remove ANY and ALL traces of the offending material immediately upon reconnection and agree to allow us access to the server to confirm that all material has been COMPLETELY removed.

that says nothing about pulling out disks, formatting disks etc. Too much risk of malicous damage here.

My bet is that the machine has been turned off and there was a communication problem - Hostpacket got a new machine with new disk. the old disk is in the old cabinet and it is just turned off.

No -one is going to physically go to the rack, open the cabinet , pull out a disk, put it in a new machine, etc etc. Keeping in mind that they then have to replace the removed disk, mount it, test it etc etc.

Even if it was a new machine - you would just dump the old disk and resore it to the new machine. Doesn't add up to me.

Crypto thats a nice thought that its just a communications issue but I doubt it. Rackshack turns over servers quicker than a traffic light changes colors. Usually 12-24 hours after a server is marked to be canceled its already formatted and sold to another client. I know the server I had for a mere 13 hours that had HD problems was promptly formatted, and re-sold, or according to the tech update that got put in the wrong place in the ticket system in which I got an update for.

Something along the lines of

"Clear to format, place in que to sell"

or similar, I don't remember the exact words.

Originally posted by Crypto
That says nothing about pulling out disks, formatting disks etc. Too much risk of malicous damage here.

Ah, but you left out the final two sentences, which say:

"Severe violations may result in immediate and permanent removal of the server from our network without notice to the customer. Any server guilty of a second violation WILL be immediately and permanently removed from our network without notice."

To me, "immediate and permanent" means bye-bye server, along with everything that's on it.

-Bob

I thought I read that hostpacket advertised they did nightly backups on their website. If their website did state that, then hostpacket flat out lied, and shouldn't be complaining.

Not really Chris if they backed up to a second HD in the puter and RS formated them both BYE BYE data.

I see. Thanks, Monte. I didn't think of that. Well, I don't see hostpacket responding so it's hard to know exactly what happened. It looks like Rackshack covered themselves in their TOS to me, but I think their TOS is unreasonable.

This is why we escaped Rackshack. Rackshack's technical support is brilliant, if they don't know something their only solution to a problem is to format.

I't been my experience that many people don't give their host's/upstream's policies a second thought until such time, unfortyunately, as they get bitten in the ass by them. .. and they obviously should. As an example, here's a blurb from our own collocation agreement (no, collocation is not a public offer from us yet but we do have a couple beta's in progress ;) ) Upon the occurrence of any Event of Default, FutureQuest may, without notice or demand and in addition to any other right or remedy available at law or equity, terminate this License and remove all of Client's equipment from the Facility and store the same at Client's expense. Client hereby waives any damages occasioned by such removal. Any equipment so removed will be returned to Client upon payment in full of all storage costs, past due license fees and charges. If within thirty (30) days following such equipment removal, Client has not requested the return of its equipment and paid any sums owed, then FutureQuest may exercise all rights of ownership over such equipment including the right to sell same and retain possession of any sale proceeds. FutureQuest's exercise of any remedies provided for in this section shall be without prejudice to any other remedies FutureQuest may have provided for herein or by law. Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary, for a ten day period following the occurrence of any Event of Default, FutureQuest shall permit Client to remove soft data from Client's equipment. This basically states, if you've placed equipment in our Data Center, and failed to pay the bill, then we reserve the right to retain and/or sell the equipment. That's a pretty standard statement. The addition of the last line in bold is something not so standard.

The last line of that states that we will allow you to snag a copy of all of the soft data and format the drives if you so choose. Soft data being your and/or your client's content and software etc.

When signing these docs, where other people's property is concerned, it would be wise to include provisions that allow you to obtain that property so that you can return it to the client rather than being held liable for it as well as whatever caused the server to be restricted and/or removed.

Collocation and Dedicated hosting should be treated a bit differently than standard Shared hosting. For $5 to $50 a month you should be able to depend on the host AND yourself to backup the web site that you own. But when you are collocating and/or using a dedicated server, to service web sites that are not owned by you, then you are also responsible for what happens to your client's content, if they so choose to hold you responsible, and if you do not have provisions to prevent that.

My babbling by the way, isn't so much for or against what has been described in this thread. I guess I'm just off-topic lol. I simply felt this thread might be tickling the funny bones of others that have dedicated and collocated agreements, as well as those considering them, to reevaluate what they are agreeing to and consider what provisions they may wish to look for and/or request in the future...

Any server guilty of a second violation WILL be immediately and permanently removed from our network without notice."


This sentence is terrible.

Originally posted by HostMagix
Any server guilty of a second violation WILL be immediately and permanently removed from our network without notice."


This sentence is terrible.

I agree!
Don't they realize that it's not just the HOSTS stuff...it's the
hundreds of innocent peoples stuff too!
Business may be business...but people MAKE the business.

Well I see two problems

1) hostnet for not backing up to a separate server.

2) The damage to me done by Rackshack. Regardless of policy. Policy does not over ride the law.

It might be company policy to shoot people who don't pay their bills - but the law would say something different on the matter. Even if you the customer accepted those terms and conditions.

As an extreme example - you know when you borrow money off organised crime that you are going to get damaged if you don't repay. And if you accepted the money then that would be termed acceptance of a contract. But guess what - when the local thugs break your kneecaps - they have committed a crime.

The fact that they knew that doing so would result in damage, economic loss, stress etc etc to someone else would be enough to nail them. Or at least have a good shot in court.

I think RS needs to revise their policy. That is ridiculous. They need to understand that it may not be the host's fault. The host may cancel an spammer's account, but then their may be another spammer. RS should get in contact with the Host, and resolve the problem, not just go ahead and reformat the server right away.

dk, can you prove without a doubt that this is your original HD? Does your box even work anymore?
I'm with Crypto on this one. It seems very malicious of them to format a HD, and it does take effort. They may have installed another HD in your server to stop the spam account, and to investigate it. Afterall it is a criminal offense. Was it a client of yours spamming? Or was your IP stolen? - another possibility because that is the true identity of your server. Anyone can file a spam complaint. And from the recent Bandwidth problems it wouldn't surprise me if this is yet another big mixup.

It is irresponsible of Rackshack to not notify you exactly what is happening because it is your business and your livelihood that they have suddenly halted, and you need to keep your customers up to date.

dk did you actually sign up for backup service or keep backups yourself? I'd never trust a hosting company with keeping my own customers data safe. Even if you kept a weekly backup of your clients at least you could restore your customers on another server within days with little information lost.

Anyway, I don't know who is in the wrong on this one. There is just too much out there to blame any party. It could have just been a wrong series of events that created this outcome.
This is my opinion after reading through this thread.

Originally posted by Deb
.. and they obviously should. As an example, here's a blurb from our own collocation agreement (no, collocation is not a public offer from us yet but we do have a couple beta's in progress ;) )
And we can all watch live when you fill them racks of yours. :D

Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. What's so hard to understand about that?

When you buy the server is you don't agree to the terms then you're silly for getting it.

Spam is a serious business and some hosts take it to heart more than others.

Originally posted by pgrote
When you buy the server is you don't agree to the terms then you're silly for getting it.

When we signed up this wasn't in our terms. This rule was brought forth many months later. We did not agree to this at all.

Originally posted by Haze


When we signed up this wasn't in our terms. This rule was brought forth many months later. We did not agree to this at all. But you did agree, to allow them to revise their Terms at any time they please. ;)

Originally posted by iamdave
But you did agree, to allow them to revise their Terms at any time they please. ;)

So, if rackshack put in their policy:

"And starting immediately, all of our client's are to stand on their heads and scream offensive words before getting the next month's bandwidth"

Does this mean all of rackshack's customers AGREED to this?

if you agreed to the tou you agreed to it sorry to say. its their company they can do as they please....

yes but all companies do this

only irresponsible ones or ones that dont care for its customers apply them like this

whether or not its written down in the t+c's its still pretty unreasonable to delete the entire servers contents

why not just disconnect it and sort the problems out?? no because they can erase the hd and flog the server to someone else

its all about the $$$$

There are similar clauses in most dedicated/co-location policies I have read. Some don't allow for a strike two...they are within their rights to pull a server upon a first offence.

Rackshack are not to know specifically if a server is for a dedicated site, a shared hosting provider or a reseller services provider.

I don't think this scenario is limited to the hosting industry. There would be plenty of situations whereby if you are leasing something and that equipment is used for something illegal or something that contravenes the terms under which you are leasing it, you lose it.

Someone mentioned above that Rackshack should remove the offending domain/account/content themself...I disagree there as then we'll have reams of threads likening Rackshack to Donhost who have been slammed previously for doing exactly that.

Based on the numbers involved, it would be easy to assume that there's going to be a higher ratio of spam coming out of Rackshack, and they are going to act accordingly. In my experience, the reams of spam we receive come out of other competing networks though, and these other providers simply ignore any complaints that get raised.

It's a shame what's happened to Hostpacket for sure, but it's possible we don't have the whole story. I don't know what other course of action folks would suggest Rackshack take...but if there's another provider even remotely close in volume with a better solution let's hear it.

Cheers

Gary

Originally posted by dk2002
Thanks to your new TOS/AUP, every client violate the second time of spamming activity will get their account cancelled!

I checked and our ip was never listed in all spam blockers, spam blockers has the most accurate information about spamming, how can your abuse department cancel a server because of a complain letter without actually get listed in spam blockers??

Can someone copy a spam email or write a spam email themselves and change the IP of sending server, send to abuse department then they cancel the server because of that email??

and thanks for your staffs in data center, to have my server immediately formatted for resold after cancellation! I found the old harddisk got formatted after adding to new server! :angry:

You killed my business man! you don't understand I prepared Hostpacket for almost a year, get rip of advertising market and start hosting business, now you evilly kill it because of two letters :angry:


I feel sorry for the damage that this has caused to your business and to your clients but surely you must accept blame and admit failing to backup your customers data on a separate server or even download them to your personal pc on a daily bases was pretty dumb.

Hopefully you will learn from this and in the future monitor your clients activity on your server more closely and about the backups i really cant understand why you wasn't doing them?

I would talk to your attorney about this. I'm not one and have no idea but it seems that the reaction is a little excessive, especially when you had several hundred customers on that machine and it potentially destroyed your business. Even if it's in thier TOS they can't make you agree to anything they want.

That would be like me putting a "Walk in" sign on my front door with fine print saying that

"If you enter you agree that I may kill you weather or not you have been invited or are known by me. You further agree to release me from any claims in the event that the first shot only wounds you and you are able to escape before I can finish the job."

Lets see me try to explain that "It was posted on my front door and he agreed to it!" when I'm in court on murder charges.

They should have shown you the e-mails and given you a change to remedy the situation by terminating the customer. If it happened a second time, from the same customer maybe they'd have a reason to terminate you.

Aaron

Originally posted by WII-Aaron
I would talk to your attorney about this. I'm not one and have no idea but it seems that the reaction is a little excessive, especially when you had several hundred customers on that machine and it potentially destroyed your business. Even if it's in thier TOS they can't make you agree to anything they want.

That would be like me putting a "Walk in" sign on my front door with fine print saying that

"If you enter you agree that I may kill you weather or not you have been invited or are known by me. You further agree to release me from any claims in the event that the first shot only wounds you and you are able to escape before I can finish the job."

Lets see me try to explain that "It was posted on my front door and he agreed to it!" when I'm in court on murder charges.

They should have shown you the e-mails and given you a change to remedy the situation by terminating the customer. If it happened a second time, from the same customer maybe they'd have a reason to terminate you.

Aaron


i agree, at least the decent thing to do would be disconnect the server and tell them, even if they take a week to reply... the server is disconnected and is causing no harm, and after all they are still paying for it whether its on or off

what i see here is rackshack using it as an excuse to cancel the server (while keeping hostpackets money) and then sell it off again to someone else, raking in more money

some companies eh?

Robert really needs to reply here about this issue. Silence from him makes him look guilty or that he has something to hide.

If the story is true; there is nothing for him to reply about.

Good one.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
If the story is true; there is nothing for him to reply about. :rolleyes:

Since I quoted a comment from this thread... I like to point out the thread I quoted it in as it may apply here as well...but my thoughts here were 'somewhat off topic'

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71223

Yep, it purely relates.

Rackshack is covering their buts, good link Deb

Originally posted by CubeXHosting


So, if rackshack put in their policy:

"And starting immediately, all of our client's are to stand on their heads and scream offensive words before getting the next month's bandwidth"

Does this mean all of rackshack's customers AGREED to this? Get Real.

Originally posted by CubeXHosting


So, if rackshack put in their policy:

"And starting immediately, all of our client's are to stand on their heads and scream offensive words before getting the next month's bandwidth"

Does this mean all of rackshack's customers AGREED to this? Yes that's right. But a word of warning in case you're considering modifying your AUP... the last company that tried this lost a lot of customers. Namely, the ones who weren't able to stand on their heads.

I may sound like a dumb question, but shouldn't Rackshack also have been disconected from their upstream providers for not following their AUP ?

Doesn’t a change in the AUP have to be announced officially and normally 30 days before it comes into action so all customers are aware of it?

Money... consider the amount of money RS pours into the Upstream... not going to happen as regularly as RS customers being cutoff, this is a simple one...

Originally posted by KHL
I may sound like a dumb question, but shouldn't Rackshack also have been disconected from their upstream providers for not following their AUP ? Not necessarily. Their upstreams may not have received the complaints. People reporting SPAM usually report it to the administrator of the IP addresses that were sending it. Since Rackshack has their own IP address allocation from ARIN, the complaints probably came direct to them and bypassed their upstream providers altogether.

Aside from that, you have to figure that a customer paying thousands upon thousands of dollars a month is less likely to be terminated for SPAM complaints than one who is paying $100. Also consider that if Rackshack deals with SPAM complaints as they are received, their upstream providers are unlikely to see that as a cause for termination. Nobody can prevent SPAM entirely, but they are at least expected to make an effort. In this case, Rackshack took actions to prevent SPAM originating from their network--one of which was the termination of the Hostpacket server. That, to me, shows that they are most certainly concerned about SPAM, and are not ignoring the issue.

How about Rackshack turned to Verio for instance, and told them that we have violated your AUP several times and in light of that please disconect us from using your upstream :D

Originally posted by imitech
Doesn’t a change in the AUP have to be announced officially and normally 30 days before it comes into action so all customers are aware of it? RackShack reserves the right to amend its policies at any time. All Sub-Networks, resellers and managed servers of RackShack must adhere to the above policies. Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate Cancellation. You will be held responsible for the actions of your clients in the matter described on these Terms and conditions. Therefore, it is in your best interest to implement a similar or stricter Terms and conditions or otherwise called Acceptable Terms of use policy.

Originally posted by iamdave
Get Real.

Um, as mature as your comment is, I think I'll reply.

I understand that technically, they agreed that the provider may change the TOS at any time, however I would not say everything in their TOS the clients all "agreed" to.

its easy, if you dont like rackshack then dont use it!!!

rackshack just offer a service, you decide if want it or not

Originally posted by CubeXHosting


Um, as mature as your comment is, I think I'll reply.

I understand that technically, they agreed that the provider may change the TOS at any time, however I would not say everything in their TOS the clients all "agreed" to. You are correct. However, by agreeing to allow them to change their TOS and AUP at any time, you agreed to everything in the TOS, at that moment and whatever may be added to it.

If they require a 30 day notice, then you should receive a 30 day, or more notice that the TOS will be changed, and what it will be changed to.

In a perfect world Samuel...

Sometimes it just isn't possible to give that 30 days if the situation is something that needs addressing directly so as not to affect the bigger picture.

Gary

I still have some rackshack servers, and on 2 occasions I've had spam reports go to Rackshack, in each occasion I acted on it immediately, told Pat that it was taken care of and that any future complaints were people who already had mail waiting and was not new spam. That was as far as it went both times (different occurances months apart). And those servers are both still online, I have a funny feeling there could be more to this, perhaps Hostpacket was slow to comply? I can't see Rackshack just yanking the plug that fast with no warning at all.

Originally posted by Dixiesys
I still have some rackshack servers, and on 2 occasions I've had spam reports go to Rackshack, in each occasion I acted on it immediately, told Pat that it was taken care of and that any future complaints were people who already had mail waiting and was not new spam. That was as far as it went both times (different occurances months apart). And those servers are both still online, I have a funny feeling there could be more to this, perhaps Hostpacket was slow to comply? I can't see Rackshack just yanking the plug that fast with no warning at all. I agree, it seems to weird for RS to just unplug their server, reformat it and put someone else on it, for just a couple spam complaints. If this was the case, I doubt they would have any servers left online, because spam is everywhere and it happens every day...

Originally posted by WII-Aaron
That would be like me putting a "Walk in" sign on my front door with fine print saying that

"If you enter you agree that I may kill you weather or not you have been invited or are known by me. You further agree to release me from any claims in the event that the first shot only wounds you and you are able to escape before I can finish the job."

As I'm sure you're well aware, murder is highly illegal. Pulling someone's account for violating the terms of your AUP - terms which the customer agreed to and that are not counter to any state or federal laws - is not.

-Bob

Originally posted by WII-Aaron
That would be like me putting a "Walk in" sign on my front door with fine print saying that

"If you enter you agree that I may kill you weather or not you have been invited or are known by me. You further agree to release me from any claims in the event that the first shot only wounds you and you are able to escape before I can finish the job." In addition to Bob's response to this....

This would be a good reason to read the fine print prior to signing :stickout

Originally posted by imitech
Doesn’t a change in the AUP have to be announced officially and normally 30 days before it comes into action so all customers are aware of it?

It looks like some where aware of the change, it's talked about in this post dated 6-19-2002:
http://forum.rackshack.net/showthread.php?threadid=7255

Jesus... all of the whining and crying going on in those rackshack forums about this issue is sad... I mean for god sakes what do you expect for 99 a month?!

I have a server with Rackshack and its great :)

Originally posted by hosthero
I have a server with Rackshack and its great :)

me too :)

I mean for god sakes what do you expect for 99 a month?!

I agree :rolleyes:

I mean for god sakes what do you expect for 99 a month?!

What an inane argument. Are you saying that by default, we should pay for only the "best"? How much do you pay for the "best" services then? $500? $1,000? $100,000?

If I pay $99 to Rackshack, does that mean that it is okay for them to do whatever they want to me - a paying customer - because $99 doesn't fit the description of "best"?

I always find the caveat "you get what you pay for" a double-edged argument. How much then should you pay for? Does the fact that you are paying the amount RS itself standardized mean nothing, because apparently $99 is "cheap"?

If businesses use this argument to do what they want to customers - "Hey? Don't like us treating you like ****? Too bad, opt for our $1,000 plan then!" - I don't think you'll be so trigger happy to use that argument either.

It’s not an insane argument by any means. While in some cases it depends on the application. In this situation from the prices this particular provider was charging there is no reason on earth for him to use as cheap of a provider as possible, that just seems more like someone wanting to pad their own pockets more than take care of their customers.

Example 1) I pay a good amount of money to rackspace for my primary server. This houses my monitoring systems, primary site, billing and helpdesk programs. I do this for the fact that they have a long proven track record of near 100% uptime with very stable hardware and a strong terms of service in place to keep me up.

Example 2) I pay a fair amount of money to NAC for my co-location for my virtual servers as well as any servers my consulting clients need me to host. Their not the cheapest, I pay a fair premium for the multihomed bandwidth across 72+ peering points and they are one of the few providers that will reboot a server or be ready to perform work for me in 10mins or less, so I'm paying that premium on the bandwidth for the service. I've yet to have a gripe about them.

Example 3) I sponsor a large download site, I bought a server and sent it down to layerone in Florida. I pay very little for the bandwidth and a small amount for the rackspace. It takes an hour or longer for someone to get to the data center, the ping times aren't the greatest as its mostly cogent bandwidth and there have been a few outages here and there.

Out of all of the examples, the only one, #3, where the provider makes the lowest margin, is where the service and connectivity is lacking. But you won't ever see me complain about it for the fact that for the price its a decent service... nothing to call home about but I can live with it.

True its not *just* about price, but when you have such low margins as rackshack and others, your bound to have problems. Providers such as rackshack, etc were never meant to have companies run off them, their high bandwidth no management servers intended for individuals. If your running a company off of rackshack just to drop your costs then I feel no pitty for you when it turns around and bits you. You have to find the right level of reputation, service and support, and that hardly ever comes with a cheap price tag. If you want to risk it and play the game of chance then by all means only look at the cheap ones and base your prices around only paying $99 a month per server. But I wouldn't want to host with you thats for sure.

The bottom line is that if you want safety and security your better off going with someone who's not offering something so insane. Is it so wrong for a company to make a profit if it means their going to be able to provide a better level of service? Sure you may never *think* your going to need their service or support... I’d even bet that’s what HostPacket thought too... now look at the mess they are in.

I think this complaint deals more with equity, i.e, "fairness" rather than service, therefore the trite "you get what you pay for" argument is moot.

Whether it's $800/mo, $99/month or $1 month, I'd expect to be treated fairly and humanely. That's what I'd expect.

well, its nice to expect such things but its not going to happen.

Rackshack has to keep a tight TOS because they don't have the extra $ to spend on the people it takes to be nice regarding these things. Its much cheaper to be zero tolerance than it is to be nice and work with someone and have to triple your abuse dept just to keep up with the complaints.

So yes, you get what you pay for certainly does apply.

from what i understand, RS keeps extra HD's already imaged for whatever particular configs they have... plain RH configs, ensim, plesk, etc. so when a server gets pulled (or they could reimage across the network), they just swap drives which takes all of about 10 mins including time to reconnect machine. they may not immediately reformat the old drive as I've heard comments from other users that say they have been told that a tech would check and see if they could find their old drive in the cabinet.

but either way, they may sale a lot of servers but there's no reason they can't wait 24 hours before swapping drives or formatting.

just ask around how long it takes to get restores done? then search through the forums to see how long it takes for them to pull a cancelled (or violated) server and redo for sale again? Hours and hours for restores.... an hour or less to redo for sale. Why? You make more money on a machine that's already been paid for by the previous user in terms of monthly charges and then making another setup fee from someone new.

Hostpacket hasn't stated what attempts they have made to secure the data from RS, and no confirmation exists from Rackshack stating the data is gone, you only have Hostpacket's word on all of this, and it's very little eh?

Originally posted by rastoma
You make more money on a machine that's already been paid for by the previous user in terms of monthly charges and then making another setup fee from someone new.

Ummm, ahhh...... .:confused: No. I think you mean the other way around.

You make more from a startup with setup fee using "old server parts" from a previous customer (ie, $99 setup + $99 month fee) than you do getting a straight monthly fee of $99. It is in Rackshacks best interest to shut down the original and get another customer using the same machine. And if you're right about the HD thing then the new customer believes its new. (not saying that is wrong). Just works in Rackshacks favor bigtime. They make twice as much on a new setup than they do a monthly fee.

Originally posted by Hostkookster


Ummm, ahhh...... .:confused: No. I think you mean the other way around.

You make more from a startup with setup fee using "old server parts" from a previous customer (ie, $99 setup + $99 month fee) than you do getting a straight monthly fee of $99. It is in

That's what I said :) I was just confusing in the way I used the word 'then'... I should have said since a customer who has had the machine has basically paid for it in terms of hardware costs after paying the monthly, then when RS sells it to someone else IMMEDIATELY with the same setup fee then you make more money that way :)

Either way we both agree LOL

Oh, yes of course! Had me thinking "what is this dude on?"

I see it now, I just read too damn fast:D LOL

If one of RS's virtual hosting customers violates their SPAM guidelines, will they pull that entire server and all other virtual hosting customers on that one machine along with it?








I didn't think so........

Originally posted by rastoma
If one of RS's virtual hosting customers violates their SPAM guidelines, will they pull that entire server and all other virtual hosting customers on that one machine along with it? No, probably not. But, you can bet that they would deal with the spammer themselves. Since the people on that server are Rackshack's direct customers, they are Rackshack's responsibility. On a dedicated server, however, the customers are the responsibility of the server owner. Rackshack isn't obligated to login to that server and investigate spam complaints--that is the server owner's job. If the server owner ignores complaints of spam originating from their server, then Rackshack is within their rights to disable access to that server.

Originally posted by Site5-Matt
If the server owner ignores complaints of spam originating from their server, then Rackshack is within their rights to disable access to that server.

The point I was making is their updated TOS doesn't allow to even see if the server owner would ignore the complaint or not. Zero tollerance on a dedicated server that my anyone's understanding of the business is that the server owner cannot stay logged into the server 24/hrs a day without moving their face from the computer screen to monitor what happens nor can immediately know what their resellers are selling.

I haven't met a server owner yet that doesn't immediately handle spam complaints if they thought their server was going to be pulled.