Superuser.net - Ouch

[oldguy]

I searched the endless fog of web hosts and after careful consideration of my needs and budget, I settled on a bargain hosting company. BIG mistake. There is no support at the host I chose - Superuser.net. Zero. None. Nadda. I have tried since November to contact tech support. Zero returned emails and zero returned phone calls.

Fortunately I don't need much support. Except of course when something goes wrong with my host. Like mailing lists. That's my latest debacle. cPanel mailing list setup will not work and I have tried nonstop for a week to get a response from superuser.net.

Now I wish I had spent that extra $5/mo for support. But then Superuser.net advertised 24/7 support. Now I'm gun-shy and have no idea who to trust. I need a new domain and am about to start the whole host search thing all over. My needs are modest. 500mb or so, 10-15GB, 5 or so mySQL databases, PHP, pop mail, mailing lists, subdomains, the typical php/mysql host. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers

[monster]

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[oldguy]

Sorry, $15/mo upfront for a year's service is out of my current budget. Things are tight. Real tight. This is a startup for an unemployed I.T. guy trying to get back in the business. I also prefer to do business with a U.S. firm. No offense. Just my philosphy.

Cheers

[Thanol]

How large is your monthly budget?

[John Scott]

OldGuy,

Welcome to the forum. Have you operated an online business before? Just curious.

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[oldguy]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

OldGuy,

Welcome to the forum. Have you operated an online business before? Just curious.

Thanks for the welcome John. In answer to your question. No, my experience is primarily with inhouse systems. All I am trying to do is setup a presense on the internet. It won't be an e-commerce site or anything of that nature. The site I referenced in my original post was a political action site I setup for a friend. That's what makes the lack of support so annoying. I have someone breathing down my neck over things which I am finding excedingly difficult to resolve because of the poor choice I made with the web host.

I am one of thousands of unemployed I.T. guys struggling to get things going again. All I need at the moment is a dependable low-budget site that can handle mySQL, php (no safe mode), ssh access, and will give me the lattitude to set file and directory permissions as needed. I plan on using Mambo OS content management system for my front and backends.

Again, thanks for the welcome.

[oldguy]

I just wanted to post an update. The following is an account of what recently transpired:

Superuser Networks, aka superuser.net. What can I say. Such saints they are. I finally got my first client. As the new guy on the block, I searched high and low for a webhost in my clients price range. Cheap. So I found Superuser Networks. 500mb, php, mysql, 15gig/mo. They pay for your domain name. Tons of extras for one low price.

There's just one catch. Actually, two. Number one. There is no support. None. Zip. Nadda. Oh, they advertise 24/7 support. But, the phone is some type of perpetual answering machine. And, over the past three months, I have yet to have an email answered. I counted them. Fourteen emails to support. Kind of misleading since most of those were repeats begging for attention on the same matter. I've really only had about three problems. That is, up until a few days ago.

And, the second catch. Remember I mentioned they pay for your domain name? Well, when they register your domain, they list themselves as registrant, admin, and tech contacts. According to their website (buried on some back page in fine print), they do this because they register so many domain names. You're supposed to email them requesting they change the domain info. Yea, right.

I've been trying to get them to change the domain info for days. I think the first time I asked was over a month ago. And, like everything else, I never receive a response. I wrote DotRegister, their registrar, telling them what my problem was and asking them to help. Their response was, "We're sorry, but if you are not listed as either the registrant or administrator then you will have to contact your domain agent. Please contact Cyberamericana, your domain agent, and ask them to make you administrator."

First of all, what the heck is a domain agent? Second of all, I did a whois on Cyberamericana. Guess what. Yep. Superuser Networks. So I write DotRegister back and tell them what I found out. They write Cyberamericana asking them to change my info as requested. That's when the proverbial cow dung hit the fan.

After a number of refusals by Superuser Networks, I advised them that I would be preparing documents for submission with the National Arbitration Forum. Like I told them, my client has every right to be fairly represented as the owner of the domain name. Superuser Networks really blows a cork on that one. There response to DotRegister? "We have contacted our attorneys and it looks like we will soon be in litigation with Mr. Smith. Do not change anything in the domain information and especially do not change anything in the domain record." Oh, and did I tell you they claimed they called the police too? Yea, right.

And the the coup de gras. The site is now down. And the domain name has been removed from Superuser Networks' name servers. So client is stuck without a domain name or a website. Fortunately, I found someone who would temporarily host while we work things out with the domain name issue. As soon as we wrestle control back, we plan to move the domain name to Godaddy or someone else.

There's much more to the saga but I wont bore you with the details. Oh well. We live and learn.

[oldguy]

Update: I got a call from the local police department today. Apparently, there are others out there having problems with superuser.net. And apparently, some have made threats. Looks like I got blamed for that. Like I told the police department, every one of my emails was diplomatic and to the point with copies being sent to DotRegister. I suppose Mr. Derek Gogol, owner of superuser.net, thinks he got the last laugh. But in reality, it was I who laughed last. It cost me a whole five minutes of my time. The matter is resolved as far as the police is concerned. Now if I can just get the domain rescued from bondage we can all move on.

[jadzia]

I'm so sorry about the hassle you had with this company. I'm glad my first time out seeking hosting, V7 Inc had been recommended to me! I got lucky. I couldn't imagine the battle over a site name. My site name is currently owned by someone else too, but I can trust her, she's my sister. Good luck with this! And for future reference, go with V7. John is on top of everything. Most problems are handled immediately, with some taking a little time (depending on severity of problem). My site has never experienced any downtime that I know of.

[HATE ABUSERS]

Unfortunately Mr. Alan Warren of Weatherford, Texas, aka the "oldguy" is an abuser and extreme racist who hates everyone who is not white or speaks with an accent. He is also a liar, because the only email he sent was a racial slur. Let me quote the email he sent to me:

"Go back the **** to the middle east where you belong you ****ing foul smelling piece of shit arab."

That's after he called at 4am on the Sunday morning and got voice mail instead of the support person. I guess he didn't like the sound of the recorded voice...

But that's not all. No, no, no!!! He also threatened to buy a ticket to VA and put me on life support. Oh, how nice! Let me also tell you that while he was spitting out racial slurs and threats, at the same time he was working on a Christian website !!!! The website name is ihspray.org (www.ihspray.org) WOW !!! Blows you mind, doesn't it? Nice christian boy that oldguy is, who flies around the country like bat from hell and puts people on life support! Mr. Alan Warren, let me enlighten you: you are not a christian even if you think you are, because you don't know what it means to be christian, so you should really think about converting. Other religions will fit you more since you are prone to issuing terror threats. Believe me.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you want to deal with person of this kind. Unfortunately, there is no way to find out that the guy is psycho and will threaten you. For the 7 years that I've been dealing with people on the Internet, this kind of racial hatred never happened to me. So, congratulations Mr. Alan A. Warren! You are the first racist I had the misfortune to run into on the Internet. That's why your racial slurs and threats were reported to Weatherford, TX Police Departement, where you live. Just in case.... you can never be sure these days. Especially taking into the consideration that Mr. Alan Warren is currently unemployed as he stated in one of this posts. If he has the time to send emails loaded with racial hatred and post threats of bodily harm, he may have the time to try to do good on these threats as well. Now since police has called you Mr. Warren, you can be sure they know about it and your name is now officially in their files!

Now, I bet that if you knew about this, you would've never asked mr. Alan Warren to consider hosting his domain with you..... :idea:

[John Scott]

Personal issues are of no concern to most readers here.

[Emancipator]

I really dont think mud slinging belongs on this forum. My opinion this thread is serving no purpose to any readers.

[vixen337]

I've had bad experience with SuperUser too and I've gotten email from many others. I agree that one guy who's posted comments to my site is racist (he's used slurs in a few posts) but most of the complaints are are fairly sane. I was fairly sane. I was mortified by Derek's behaviour. He flooded my blog two years after I posted about his bad customer service and demanded I take the original post down and then he created a defamatory website against me. He used multiple IPs as well so it was almost impossible to finally ban him.

Here's the whole story:
http://www.insidedelirium.com/archive/000168.html

I don't really want to add to this thread, but BEWARE of superuser networks. For someone who claims to be a business to make a page about a former customer just because the customer posted a few of the emails THEY themselves sent baffles me. Most of what he does baffles me. I used to think he just had poor customer service. Now I think he's just nuts.

[HATE ABUSERS]

When I saw the last post, I almost wanted to say "hello ms. Galiano, I was expecting you"... I didn't, because I am not really happy to see her - or rather her posting - again.

I personally think ms. Amanda Galiano is now stalking me. I don't know why. Really, all I did was close her account when she requested it to be closed. She got mad at me because I sent number of emails asking her to confirm her intent to cancel domain hosting service. If I had sent just 1, it would have been ignored. Just like the one sent to her a week before that, with no luck - there was no answer. There was no phone calls, nothing. I knew some people were prone to do chargebacks when they move their domain and don't inform their web host about it, for whatever reason. I was simply trying to avoid that. That's why I emailed her. This is what set off all this chain of events. A few emails. If she thinks it was a crime for me to email her, then so be it. She claims it was spam, but spam is unsolicited email. She was still a customer.

Then, after 2 years, she is no longer a customer, and I find out she posted some nasty things about me. She personally attacked me, not the company I work for. She called me "awful Jerk" and "ARSE". I got mad. It was an attack on my person. I rarely call people "jerks" and when I do, I have a good reason and it is not in writing and not in the Internet, where it can stay for two or twenty years. Now, for whatever reason she claims that she was unsatisfied with the service, but that's also a lie. Look what she said in her cancellation notice (fax I still have on file):

"I had no problem with your services until then [when she tried to transfer the domain], I just needed more space."

I still have all the emails I wrote to her providing her with technical support. But on her website (which I have indexed) she claims the tech. support was nil. Well, I guess she thinks she can write whatever she thinks at the moment. Truth for her doesn't really matter.

She says that she doesn't want to post to this thread, but she does anyway. It doesn't surprise me. I think she will post everywhere she can find a word about me. I don't post anything about her. It is she who adds more and more posts. I believe this is called stalking. Cyberstalking, to be exact and there are laws against this kind of behavior.

I really don't understand why ms. Amanda Galiano is doing all this. She moved her domain over 2 years ago. Just host it with someone else, stop dwelling on it. Don't post nasty lies about other people; let it go. But for whatever reason, she won't. It looks to me like some kind of unhealthy fixation, I really don't know how to call it besides "stalking".

I think this case will end up in court anyway. I don't want it to, but it looks like there is nothing else I can do to stop this madness, this constant posting of nasty lies about me and the harassment by miss Galiano. Even the racist nut that posted threats against me and insulted me by using extremely profane and racist languange in his email was drawn to ms. Galiano's website, like a fly. So if I have to spend few thousand from my savings on lawyers and courts to make her stop, so be it. I don't think I deserve to be called jerks and have my life ruined by this person.

[John Scott]

I think this case will end up in court anyway. I don't want it to, but it looks like there is nothing else I can do to stop this madness

Why not ask your (ex) customers what it takes to make them happy (ex) customers?

[HATE ABUSERS]

I am not really interested in what would make mr. Warren happy, because I am afraid I would only get more profanity from him. I am not proud about the fact I had to call police in his home town, but he got for issuing threats.

As for ms. Galiano, I would really like to know what would make her happy. Because I really don't want the lawyers to sort it out at my expense, but it looks like I will have no other choice. Everytime I look at her website, I see more lies. This is the only website that is against my business, and it is growing because of ms. Galiano "hates" me as she admitted herself and also because the likes of mr. Warren are drawn to it. So, ms. Galiano, what would make YOU happy? I bet the response would be something like "grow up", but that is exactly the advice I could give to her. So, at this point, I am just curious if there is anything else that could be done to change the direction in which the things are now moving.

[vixen337]

The emails were fine. I blogged because they were annoying me that day. I forgot about it. I didn't tell my friends everyday that Derek from superuser networks was a bad host. I didn't even mention you again for TWO YEARS. If you look at the ONE review I made at the time, I said you were a good host with a solid service, I just didn't like your tech support (and I did call you before I called Network Solutions. I had to go through a big ordeal to prove the domain was mine. I got an answering machine, left a message and you never called me back. Much for the time I tried to replied to your email and it bounced. I'm sorry, but I did make every effort to try to contact you as have many people who complained about your service to me). Granted, I didn't call after I finally got NS to put my domain in my name. I called after I contacted NS and they said I should try getting you to help. At the point when you sent your 20 emails, I was frustrated and I felt like there was no way I was never going to contact you. How can I reply to an email addresses that bounces? How can I call to cancel if you never answer your phone (and I called you twice in the long time you were my host...you never answered your phone or returned the call).

What upset me was not that situation so much. That's been two years. It was over and done with Big deal! What upsets me is that you harrassed me on my website ("Another dumb [censored] posting? You know what I think? You are all lesbian and you just can't help yourself but post nasty lies about others." those are your words..and that's a mild post. Nobody will ever know about all the ones you posted that I deleted and if they go to read it, they'll see some of your other wise sage words) AND then you made a liablous website against me. How immature is that? You put my real name and my real address on it too. You'll notice that I had never mentioned you by your full name or address in ANY of my postings. You don't think I have it? Or maybe you think I'm impressed that you know mine? Maybe you think I'm embarassed by what I say in my blog? It's the truth! It's YOUR WORDS for the most part. You, however, didn't even register your site about me in your real name. Who's the one who is embarassed of his words? Why not put "Superuser Networks Says" on the page? What are you going to tell your lawyer? I spoke to one and he says *I* have a case. I've posted nothing liablous against you. It is negative, yes, but it doesn't count when it's your words that are making you look bad.

I only posted here because someone emailed me a link and I asked if I would. Here's a tip: LEAVE YOUR EXCUSTOMERS ALONE. What happened two years ago is in the past. You had a decent host. If you weren't so childish, I would still say that. Personally, I think the stuff that's happened after the actual customer experience, that you've posted, that you did yourself, is worse than the one blog post I made two years ago. That site is not about you. As a matter of fact, only 3 or 4 posts out of 400 are about you at all. The only reason 2-3 of them are there are because of the way you've acted. The email you sent to me when you found the post from TWO YEARS PRIOR was horendous:

"You dumb, obnoxious, antisocial [censored],as if the original "JERK" epithet in your fax wasn't enough, you are now calling me "THE ARROGANT ARSE"?!?!?! Let me tell you who do I think YOU are: an Uneducated, Obnoxious, Rude, Antisocial [censored] with 100 or more psychological problems!!!"

Again, your words. And that was about something I wrote two years previous. Was that really called for? Had you said, "I'm sorry for the confusion we had two years ago. I think that is reflecting negatively on my service and I don't think that's fair. I have many happy customers." or something like that I would have probably taken it down. Like I said, I did call you a jerk because I was frustrated. I would have probably said, "Maybe he's right and I judged too quickly." You just proved that you are a jerk by sending me that! I don't understand how you don't see that.

It's funny. You say my site is growing. I never had one comment posted to the old blog post. It never got looked at all. Since you posted your comments, it's one of the most popular. I get lots of ex-superuser customers now. Who's fault is that? The post was there for two years without anyone seeing it. You made rude comments to it to get me to take it down and now it's popular. Ironic, isn't it?

You're right. This whole mess has gone too far. You're the one who brought it there.

[oldguy]

For the record, Derek Gogol of superuser networks, the police did contact me. And they were pretty much annoyed at having to deal with the situation. They did not believe your story. They know you lied to them about the "emails". The next time you try to fake an email, it would help if you spelled things correctly. You didn't even get that right, lol. The only reason the police doesn't pursue charges for giving a false statement to a police officer is because they don't think you're worth the hassle. Nice try Derek, but the whole thing cost me a whopping five minutes of my time and we all got a good laugh out of it. And, next time you profess to being a Christian yourself, you might want to make sure your reputation doesn't precede you. Reputations can help or they can hurt. At Google search hits numbers two and four, I'd say in your case they pretty much burn. You reap what you sow.

[HATE ABUSERS]

Miss Amanda Galiano, I am trying to explain to you that you posted bunch of lies about me and my company, and even before I contacted you by email they were showing as number 2 hits. You also entitled your blog entry "Holy Hell (Superuser Networks)" in big red font. Which may be a really catchy tile for a blog entry, but uncalled for taking into account it was indexed by search engines. You then stated you "hated" ME, but you made it sound like you received bad service from my company. If you hated me, that why would you lie about the service you received, when somewhere else you stated you were happy with the service? You must admit you received technical support from me, because I can prove it. When I found your original post, it really annoyed me that you posted my correspondence which was intended for you only, the fact that the matter you posted about was 2 years old, and most of all, because you lied about the service I provided to you. As a matter of fact, I do have many happy customers. The ones that abuse me are probably not happy by default, so I can't help them. For example mr. Warren unfortunately seem to belong to that group. What your lawyer told you, may not be what will actually happen in court. I contacted number of lawyers, looking for the best one I wanted to retain, and since lawyers are only people, they tend to have different opinions. Their knowledge also varies, so unless you spoke to Johnnie Cochran, I wouldn't be so sure. (This was intended as a bad joke of course, J.C. being the lawyer who can probably get you off anything).

Even in your original post, you used my name and my company name. Do I post anything about you? No, the site you referred to is gone. I didn't know what else I could do. It was a bad judgment on my part as was the email I sent you when I saw your original post. You of course posted it on your website, and then your friend "ladyx" started to argue with me which got me going. I realize the email I sent to you was not necessary, and I do apologize for it, even though you called me "jerk" and posted very negative comments about me as well as lies about the service. I don't think it was necessary, and I could paraphrase what you said, and tell you to "leave the people you did business with 2 years ago alone".

Miss Galiano, I did leave you alone. The only reason I am posting here is because you found my post here and you posted about me first. You don't see me browsing the internet and posting things about you, do you? I do have access to your website but you don't see me posting there. I am not stalking you, but I certainly feel that I am being stalked by you. I would simply like it to stop.

As you can see, I am not looking for trouble. I don't want to waste my time and money on something that we can probably solve ourselves. Unless of course you want this to continue it, in which case we can't solve it by ourselves. As you said in your previous post, you started posting things about me on your web site because they [the emails] were annoying you that day. You had a bad day, I can understand that. I also had a bad day when I sent you the 2nd email. As you said, now the whole mess has gone too far. But since the "whole mess" is on your website, under your domain, I can't do anything about it save going to court. So let me know what else you would want to hear from me. I deliberately post here, because I do not want to email you, as I believe you would say I am harassing you. At this point I do not have that many options left, and if I need to take action it must be sooner rather than later. I have no idea why you could not contact me by email that day over 2 years ago. But, you probably do realize that you could have emailed me from another mailbox, for example free yahoo or netscape mailboxes that were available at that time. Or you could have called in to cancel. It started with the emails I sent to you asking you to acknowledge the transfer of your domain to another provider. It may or may not end up in court. Anyway, the emails I sent you to get your attention so that I could accept your domain transfer probably were not worth raising the hell about in the first place.