avoid Ipowerweb - misleading business practices

[nickybee]

Hey - just thought everyone might want to know about this.

ok so I own never.com - and have done so for a number of years - since back when it was actually possible to get domain names like that...

It used to be with verio.com - then I took it to ipowerweb because a friend recommended it no less...big mistake that turned out to be.

After about 6 months of fairly regular usage Ipowerweb shut down my account on monday morning.

When I woke up I found that email was "suspended" and the web site and ftp access were no longer there...

So I called Ipowerweb Billing thinking maybe there was a credit card problem and after a short wait was told that there was no CC problem - the site was blocked by the ABUSE team. I was asked whether I had been sending out mass mailings recently.
The answer was of course "NO" but the lady in billing I spoke to was unable to discuss things further - she simply said this issue would have to be resolved with the ABUSE team by email.

"What email ?", I said , "you've just disabled my email."
"Well could you not go and get a free one like hotmail or something ?" she said.

That hit me like a brick.

"COULD YOU NOT GO AND GET A FREE ONE" - hmmm let's see here...
So I should through the hassle of registering for a free email address in order to be able to debate an address that I am PAYING FOR...

That makes sense.

Anyway - it was no fault of hers - so I decided to email ABUSE - and got a back an automated ticket #.
That's the only thing I EVER got back from them.

But the fun didn't stop there.

While waiting endlessly for any contact from ABUSE I decided to call tech support to see if they could shed any light on the matter.
The first call got me no answer other than the one I already knew ("Oh you have to email abuse - those guys don't talk on the phone") but the person I spoke to did say he would escalate the issue.

This resulted in absolutely nothing.

A few more hours of no email later I spoke to another tech - this guy was more useful. He chatted to a few of the other techs and looked some stuff up and finally explained (for the first time despite multiple contacts with ipowerweb by me having been made up to this point) that it was not outgoing spam that the account was being blocked for.

But "incoming" spam - though they were very vague as to why...
(note that I have a catchall to /dev/null setup on the account and check my email like 1000 times a day so there's no way the filestore could have grown unless something went very wrong with their systems)

I said this was not my fault that there is simply a lot of junk floating towards never.com since the address is quite high profile.
He explained that it was causing such a drain on the system that it was shut down with no notice.

(Prior to this point I had looked up the customer service agreement for Ipowerweb and had seen that Ipowerweb is fully within its rights to shutdown the service in such an instance)

At this point I was of course curious as to why

(A) no one had explained that up to this point
(B) no one contacted me once the system had been shut down (contact phone numbers must be for something ??)
(C) where we go from here ? - which again no one had as yet bothered to even mention

We (me and the tech) discussed where we go from here and that's when the big bombshell was dropped

Words to the effect of "We will not reactivate this account. But if you upgrade to a better account and pay approximately 19.95 per month rather than the 8.95 or so you are paying now we can make it all work."

Hmmmm...

Let's see here...

********************
OPTION 1.
ISP has heavily loaded server.
Emergency measures need to be put in place
(Customer could be offered upgrade):
Suggested method of offering upgrade:

Upgrade customer account to advanced system:
Contact customer stating they are on 48 hour notice on advanced system and they must start paying more or they will be cutoff.
Leave it up to customer to decide to do something about problem or get cut off
**********************************

or

***************************
OPTION 2
ISP has heavily loaded server.
Emergency measures need to be put in place
(Customer could be offered upgrade):

Kill customer account - disabling all access to ftp, email and web.
Ask customer to pay more or essentially have dead site and no email ?
***********************************

Now which do you think the responsible company would choose ?
And which is daylight robbery ?

I figured you'd agree with me.
In spite of the fact their agreement states you're allowed to cut customers off - it seems exceedingly professional to utterly fail to communicate the reason why you have cut them off once you have done it.
And it seems borderline criminal to effectively "force" them into having to pay more to get any kind of access to their data.
This is where the root of Ipowerwebs deceptive business practice lies.

What's to stop Ipowerweb from cutting off anybody's account and asking them to pay more to upgrade or lose their data ?

Not very much.

So what to do now...well since I was told in no uncertain terms that I could not get the account reactivated I have taken steps to setup a new account somewhere else.

Most recent email from Ipowerweb today says

"We will not be reinstating you nor giving you access to your files. Our admins have decided to waive the penatly fee that we normally charge to client that violate our terms and conditions. I apologize for any inconvenience."

It's signed Rojeh Y.

So anyways I'm with hostforweb.com right now...and so far they seem good - but I just wanted people to hear the story so they can avoid ipowerweb.com for good.

Nick

[fishfreek]

Thats an awful story yet I fear its not an uncommon one. This kind of crap

nor giving you access to your files.

is honestly going to land them in a very public lawsuit one day when they screw over the wrong person.

I thought for sure JS had a simular story about ipowerweb but now i cant find it.

[Emancipator]

unreal! If you need a good hosting company that wont screw you around I can reccomend a few I use or have friends that run.

Sorry about your luck.

[nickybee]

As to that public lawsuit somebody mentioned...

Does anyone think there is any legal recourse for this - I mean i have now transferred all my domains away from them and since they were not really commercial domains it might be hard to claim for financial loss...

can one sue them for unfair business practice - basically shutting account down and forcing you to pay more to get access to your data (this behaviour is not explicitly defined in their customer service agreement)

has anyone tried this before ?

nick

[fishfreek]

My thought is that they are keeping you from accessing YOUR data. Even to get it off their server.

Like Hey open my ftp up so I can at least get my files off your site. "No we wont do that. We will hold yur data hostiage"

[JuggoPop]

I could see how you would get a lot of incoming junk... people that don't want to use a real email address probably use "somthing@ never.com" to be clever...

kind of like "eat@ joes.com"

why not reposrt them to the better business bureau?

[Emancipator]

Iam with Juggo.. report em to BBB

[nickybee]

will see if anything happens - will post if I have something relevant to add.

nick