Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Spam coming from the folks at Webpods.com (wht users: webpods, webpodscom)

[ub3r]

I've gotten a couple of spam from the folks at webpods.com. One to my whois email address, and one to the address i list on my photo hosting service support page.

Message goes like this:

ACT NOW!!! 30-DAYS OF FREE WEB HOSTING!!!

“Discover the perfect solution to all your web hosting problems”
by <<< SPAMMER? >>>
Why do some web hosting companies treat their customers like something the cat dragged in while you try everything possible to get online and stay there?
Well... I'm sick of it and it's time for a change, it's time for you and me to grab the ball and run with it.

If you could read just one article about how you can find the perfect web hosting company for you and your business this is it. I dare you to read this entire article and not change the web host you’re using right now.
Ever since I've had my sites hosted with you I've been nothing short of impressed. You've clearly over delivered on everything you said you would do from the level of your technical support to the extra 2 gigs of bandwidth you added one month for no cost at all when I went over my limit.

Anyone not hosting their site with you right this very minute is missing out on some truly outstanding hosting.
<<< SPAMMER? >>>

Before we take a step further I’ve got one important question for you…

Do you suffer from any of the following? (check which boxes apply to you)

You experience slow responses from my web hosts technical support.

You get unreliable up-time.

You find it difficult to add scripts to your site.

You just don’t have enough bandwidth.

When you asked for a refund you didn’t get one.

Your web host just doesn’t give you enough control over your account.

You need more webspace but your existing web host wants an "arm and a leg" first.

Yes, it’s true web hosting can be the most frustrating and technically challenging aspect of running any online business!

But guess what? it doesn’t have to be anything like this at all!

Imagine what it would be like to have your website hosted with a company that made the whole experience as painless and as profitable for you as possible.

Listen closely because I’m about to reveal something to you that not many other web hosting companies would dare to admit…
FACT: Few companies participating in the survey of 1,000 US companies who subscribe to PCWeek said they were "very satisfied" with their hosting providers. Source: TeleChoice

So what does this mean and how does this effect you and your business?

The result of the survey mentioned above proves that globally the standard of web hosting is very poor and must therefore result in people continuously moving from one web hosting company to another.

So how do most web hosting companies react to this trend?

They give you...

1. Higher hosting costs because of low customer loyalty and high set up costs
2. Poor support because of poor investment in staff.

Doesn’t it worry you that you these 2 facts alone could be costing your online business more than just the cost of over priced and under serviced hosting?

When you consider that whoever you're hosting with right now is probably not giving your the best return on your investment this is definitely food for thought.

In the next 5 minutes I’ll show you the 5 key ingredients needed that make up an excellent, customer focused, reliable and low cost web host. More importantly I can show you what you should be doing right now to ensure the stability and success of your presence online.

Here are just a few of the things you’ll learn from reading this article:
The importance of customer focused support

Which state of the art web hosting control panel gives you the greatest control over your online business.

Where in the world should your web host be located?

Why you need flexibility

The importance of website backup and restoration

Did you know there’s a definite formula to providing great hosting that many hosting companies fail to recognize?

When you get all these key ingredients in place and in the right amounts customer satisfaction and loyalty is a mathematical certainty.

When you know this formula it’s easy to apply it to any web host your choose and work your way backwards to discover if they’re right for you and your business.
Take it from me if you're looking to make the switch to a new web host you've come to the right place... <<< SPAMMER? >>>
<<< SPAMMER? >>>

IMPORTANT: Do not buy the services of any web hosting company unless they meet the following 7 criteria:

Between you me and the lamppost there’s a lot of confusion surrounding web hosting and what you should be looking for. I want to give you 7 extra criteria or elements you absolutely, positively must have in any web host service you use:

One: An uptime guarantee no less then 99.9% backed up by a refund either in cash or in hosting.

Here at <<< SPAMMER? >>> we have a 99.9% uptime guarantee like no other I've ever seen! We'll give you 1 months free hosting if your site goes down for 2 hours or more. That's how confident we are!

Two: A telephone number you can call in an emergency.

You can call us Toll free <<< SPAMMER? >>> if you have any problems.

Three: An easy way of contacting technical support with any questions you might have.

You can personally email me here with any questions you might have.

Four: A customer response time of no more than 7 hours.

If we don't get back to you with an answer within 7 hours or more we'll give you 1 months free hosting. What other web hosting companies would give you this?

Five: A detailed and easy to use control panel to help you manage every aspect of your web hosting account and online business.

When you sign up to any web hosting package you'll get full access to cPanel which is the industries leading web hosting control panel. To manage all the financial aspects of your account we have this additional state-of-the- art control panel for you.

Six: Extra bandwidth should you need it.

Unlike every other web hosting company out there we're not interested in bleeding you dry when you get lots of traffic arriving at your site. If you go over your bandwidth allowance during any given month we'll give you an extra 1Gig for free before even considering any extra costs that might be involved.

Vitally important and final point:

Seven: Backup and restore management

Having the ability to backup then restore your website in seconds is vital! If your website exists in 2 places; on your PC and on your webserver what happens if your PC crashes and you loose you master copy?

Your web hosting account with us here at Webpods will be backed up automatically once a day to a dedicated offline hard drive for added security. In addition to this you can also back up and download your entire site from within the cPanel control panel itself at any time you like.

Secrets of a web hosting specialist...

My name is <<< SPAMMER? >>>, I'm the CEO of <<< SPAMMER? >>> and I’ve been providing high quality hosting and specialist programming solutions for a wide variety of successful online businesses for the past 3 years.

So you could say that by now I’ve picked up a thing or two about web hosting and how it should be done. I’m not talking about grabbing a handful of hosting features and packaging them up in the hope I’ll be able to sell them, as many people are doing. Instead, I’m referring to providing you with carefully planned and constructed hosting packages that meet the needs and demands of your business.

I'm so flexible in my approach to web hosting that I can even put together a special hosting package just for you and you alone if you request it.
<<< SPAMMER? >>>, thanks to your knowledge and depth of experience I was able to transfer my website from my old hosting company to you in just a few totally painless steps. My main concern was having to re-install countless CGI scripts again which would have taken a month of Sundays to complete. What you suggested I do was sheer genius!
<<< SPAMMER? >>>

Here are just a few of the things I’ve learned in my extensive experience as a professional web hosting expert:
You, the customer always, always come first.

Use the very best web hosting control panel online. All the web hosting accounts we provide here at <<< SPAMMER? >>> use the very latest version of cPanel.

Whilst it's easy to find reliable and very cheap hosting in the far East remember they could be any where up to 10 hours ahead or behind you. When it comes to telephone and email support be prepared to wait.

The best place to have websites hosted is in the USA. Not only will you gain access to the very latest and best technology but also even if you're located in the UK the time difference is not a problem.

As a web host it's important to be flexible because each customer is different and unique.

Always ensure all sites are regularly backed up to a secure offline hard drive.


Let me ask you a question...

Are you happy with your existing web hosting company or are you looking for a completely new web host for your business?

If your answer is "yes" to this question then you've come to the right place!

You and I both know that if you've read this far in the letter, you're seriously interested in either making the switching to a new web hosting company or you're starting out from scratch.

Would you like to try a web hosting package with no risk to you whatsoever?

How about I remove all the risk from you and place it squarely on my shoulders and ask you to try a web hosting solution from <<< SPAMMER? >>> absolutely risk free.

In fact if you're in any way, shape or form not happy with the hosting service I'm going to provide you with here today then I'll happily give you a no questions asked full refund within the first 30 days.

All that's left to do now is take action.

Click here now and try a risk free <<< SPAMMER? >>> hosting solution today!

At your service,
<<< SPAMMER? >>>

Checking around wht, there hasn't been any mention of the spam, but i did find that the company has two different accounts. So, they should get a smack with the ban stick for that.

[Mxhub]

What a loser. They had to resort to spam to get their business? This is sick.

[ub3r]

each of the emails come from a machine whose hostname is TOSHIBASAT

Received: from [69.40.208.139] (port=60384 helo=TOSHIBASAT)
Received: from TOSHIBASAT (72-160-172-24.dyn.centurytel.net [72.160.172.24])
Received: from TOSHIBASAT (72-160-172-24.dyn.centurytel.net [72.160.172.24])

the two that were addressed to my gmail were from the same source, but the one addressed to my whois email was from a different one.

[JRSEOMarketing]

Originally Posted by MxHub

What a loser. They had to resort to spam to get their business? This is sick.

I believe it.. you should see how many spam emails I get from web hosting companies per day.. I would guess off the top of my head atleast 5 a day from fairly well known companies to my domains WHOIS email, which I hardly use.

[KGIII]

It's not uncommon to see hosting company folks in here asking opinions on looking up the information via IP address and then sending them email or postcards. Personally I delete all the stuff without even looking at it so I'm not sure if it'd even do any good but who knows? I guess someone must be making money spamming because they're still doing it.

KGIII

[ChrisTech]

Do everyone a favor and report them to spamcop or their upstream providers.

I don't run a business, and I use godaddy's domains by proxy for all my domains. I'm sick of all the same from it, I'm sick of all the harrasing phone calls. Since I switched over, I haven't seen the emails, nor have I recieved anymore 2AM telemarketing phone calls to my cell phone. Unfortunate that I have to do it, but I enjoy sleeping well at night.

[Ramprage]

Contact the upstream provider and get them shut down. Also reporting to things like RBL lists is a good idea.

[PixelManual]

Without a doubt they make money off it -- from those who do not know enough about the industry. It's just a game of risk, and sometimes it pays off.

However, the practice is just despicable.

[KGIII]

PixelManual: I don't suppose we can hunt 'em down and burn 'em at the stake? What is worse is that they drag our reputation down by their antics. Burning at the stake isn't acceptable really. It isn't harsh enough. It's actually possible to have an email campaign without SPAM/UCE complaints... Few bother to take the time though.

KGIII

[ub3r]

I had a chat with the webpods folks on AIM, and according to them, they're being joe-jobbed by a disgruntled customer:

sdrawkcab yekim: Hi there.
sdrawkcab yekim: could you please stop spamming me?
sdrawkcab yekim: http: //www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=521980
webpodscom: I didn't know someone was doing this. I will look into the person doing this. This is not us. We no longer have Webpods.com
sdrawkcab yekim: According to whois, your domain was created on march 11, 2000, and it expires in 2009.
sdrawkcab yekim: was it hijacked?
webpodscom: Yes. It looks like it may have been spawned from an angry customer to cause trouble.
webpodscom: We do not have centurytel.. .We have Adelphia
webpodscom: Name Address: nolmstd-cadent1-68-71-97-77.clvdoh.adelphia.net
Remote Port: 63233
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
sdrawkcab yekim: Alright, thank you.
webpodscom: Please let everyone know it is not us. That someone is forcing us to get angry comments. We are 100% anti-spam noted from ControlScan.com
sdrawkcab yekim: I'll just call centurytel in a couple days.
webpodscom: That is fine. Do a traceroute on the IP address.
webpodscom: Give them the output and this will help Centurytel get the person
sdrawkcab yekim: it drops out after ge0-2-rt-bras.lr.centurytel.net
sdrawkcab yekim: they probably drop icmp packets
sdrawkcab yekim: but, we've got email headers.
webpodscom: The email headers would do the job. Track down lr.centurytel.net it sounds like the main router location
sdrawkcab yekim: Received: from TOSHIBASAT (72-160-172-24.dyn.centurytel.net [72.160.172.24])
sdrawkcab yekim: the emails are coming from there
sdrawkcab yekim: i think it might alreayd be down
webpodscom: There is a program called Neo Trace Pro 3.25 type in the ip and get the location. Then you can google earth the latitude and longitude.
sdrawkcab yekim: not responding to pings.
sdrawkcab yekim: neotrace is useless.
webpodscom: Hmm
sdrawkcab yekim: neotrace will not give you a definative location, only the location that whois records reflect.
sdrawkcab yekim: you can get the same by running a traceroute, and whoising each ip address.
sdrawkcab yekim: i have to go though.
webpodscom: Hmm. I would definately contact Centurytel.
webpodscom: Maybe they can solve that spamming issue. I too get crap like this all the time. Its literally "pissing me off" ;-)

The technician i talked to didn't seem very smart, but, you know...

[anon-e-mouse]

That's had the same whois details since 2001

webpodscom: I didn't know someone was doing this. I will look into the person doing this. This is not us. We no longer have Webpods.com

[Chachi]

Originally Posted by anon-e-mouse

That's had the same whois details since 2001

Jan is that just a twitch - or have you fallen into the habit of winking in every post

[RossH]

Originally Posted by Fazel3

Jan is that just a twitch - or have you fallen into the habit of winking in every post

She switched from decaf to regular

[sgarbus]

Originally Posted by RossH

She switched from decaf to regular

Maybe she'll be even more efficient! Now she can stay up all night!

[KGIII]

Joe-jobs are, really, a very real risk and, fortunately, most blocking systems use IP based solutions which aren't truly effective but are the best that we have at this point. More often then not it works on behalf of the spammer (when it's "legitimate" SPAM that is) as well as the IP address sending the message is the one blocked instead of the content.

I can say this and feel like I'm no more dishonest than anyone else. Were I to engage in unethical email marketing and to have been called on it then, well, I'd claim it was someone else as well. Who knows but it'd be good if the industry was in a position to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know the accused, I don't "know" the person getting the emails, and so I'll leave it at this and it's repeating the above...

It would be good if the industry standards were at a level where you could give them the benefit of the doubt and trust them when they said they were innocent. I'm willing to do that and see what happens but it'd be nice to see the headers of the emails and to have some sort of information as to why the WHOIS information's not changed in a long time (thanks Jan) and yet this is 5 years later and being used now to do some sort of Joe-Job.

KGIII