Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Reseller Hosting : High bandwidth charges

[johannes]

Hi,

I have a reseller account with cpanel/whm

I just received an account for Bandwidth overcharges/spikes @ 5040GB $1089.04 USD

1) In WHM this monthly bandwidth for my total reseller account shows just below 600mb
2) The usage for the account that i am told is the cause for the problem is set to a monthly limit of 10gb bandwidth
3) i only had Word Press installed on this account and it wasn't even in use

Any suggestions on if this kind of bandwidth is possible and how can i be held responsible

Thanks

[amaZe]

Dam, how is the possible if your only limited to 10 GB..

[Nnyan]

Is that five thousand GBs??? Kinda high, I would have the reseller provide you with a detailed line item for the bandwidth charges showing exactly what is using how much.

[HostingDeals]

I would point on the WHM measurement to them and have them explain exactly how you used that much bandwidth. I know for a shared server, if you used that much on a Wordpress site, you'd be suspended for using too many resources before you can blow through 5000GB of traffic.

[johannes]

That is what i like to know as well;

1) When you setup an account in WHM and you limit the bandwidth to say 10m will after you downloaded just over 10m should the site show no more bandwidth
2) Is it possible for a account to be hacked and 5040gb of bandwidth used , that is an account setup with cpanel and whm and to bypass the 10gb limit?

i setup another account for only 10mb bandwidth and uploaded a file for 1.7mb. i then downloaded it 8 times but there is no warning and i can still download the file.

(overselling is not enabled on this reseller account)

[IHSL]

I'd be suspicious of that for a number of reasons, not least the fact that if your account had pushed that much traffic you would have heard about it as soon as the rush started. For that much traffic to be used (5TB), it would cripple the server not just on the resource side (apache limits would probably be hit first on a cpanel machine, then sql) but it would have also caused a major network bottleneck.

I'd be asking the provider to show proper documentation on how exactly this occurred (though I doubt it did).

Simon

[johannes]

i have just received his reply from my support

I understand that the invoice may come as a shock, the bandwidth reads under the IP and cPanel doesn't pick it up hence the reason you would of been shown bandwidth graphs which picks up everything as it reads data from that port on the switch.

What normally happens with this kind of overcharge is we pickup 50% of the bill and 50% is billable to the client. Over time the spikes ranged from 10-50Mbps with an average of 28Mbps (your being billed for 14Mbps @ 360GB per 1Mbps = 5040GB bandwidth.

Can some explain the above pls

Please note that
1) The account that is setup under cpanel in WHM is set with a 10gb bandwidth limit

[IHSL]

I would not trust that at all, they would have seen this coming a mile and a half away. 5TB doesn't just slip through the net. You don't pay for burstable bandwidth, you are paying for a reseller account. Don't just accept (though, again, I doubt you will) that answer, dig deeper.


I would get them to show you some backing for this, it obviously wasn't http traffic so get them also to find out the traffic type and whether it was incoming/outgoing.

There's more to the issue than meets the eye. I can't say this enough: If that traffic was valid and yours, they would have seen it coming a long time ago.

Simon

[johannes]

if i am paying for a reseller account that have a bandwidth limit of 200gb per month and this account is not enabled for overselling how is it possible for the bandwidth to go over 200gb without me knowing about it.

Shouldn't the account be suspended when the 200gb limit is reached?

i mean 200gb ----- 5040gb is a long way surely?

Also i am told it was Word Press problem. I think i had 2.2.1 installed but had not even posts on blog. I wasn't using the site actively.

[01globalnet]

I think they are trying to scam you!! It is their job to monitor server traffic. You have a reseller account and that's all. Also, check their terms of services if they have something there.

Were you using (or your customers) url's like http://serverip/~username/bigfile.zip ???

Ask them for logs - again it is their job to monitor traffic and they should pay for overage usage!!

[TonyB]

Yeah that is absolutely insane I would not pay that. I'd love to see them give actual proof of that sort of usage.

[johannes]

Thanks for your input,

I am told that there is no monitoring of this usage as cpanel doesn't allow for bandwidth monitoring on an ip address. So it sounds like anybody can access the account via ip/~username and do as they please

Isn't that normally blocked?

[johannes]

Originally Posted by tonyFF

Were you using (or your customers) url's like http://serverip/~username/bigfile.zip ???

No not at all. The account they say used this bandwidth only had Word Press installed with one post on and thats it. I do not access the server via ip.

[01globalnet]

If they insist on charges, I would name the host here. How it is possible to have a server and throughout a month not to monitor these high usage....

It seems shade from their explanation too!! Do not pay anything!

Agree, this is insane!

[Evolver]

Whats probably happening is that their server that they sell reseller account on is on 95th percentile billing from their provider. So they got hit with the bandwidth bill from their server provider and now they are trying to get you to pony up the $$. Its possible some file was being redistributed from one of your accounts but thats not your problem as you are on a fix bandwidth per month? Either way they should have been monitoring their bandwidth stats.

Also like stated before that much traffic would have slowed down the server considerably especially on a shared server.