Expose On A Server Hosting Scammer - Proof Included
Jul 31, 2007
ClubHostCity, CyberToad, IICT, etc - ALL Scammers - Proof Included
Three months ago I was looking to move to a dedicated server from my VPS account at WiredTree. I posted on a couple of message boards and found an ad on the cPanel.net forum and decided to PM the owner, "Spiral" as he goes by on their forum. That's when my hosting experience started to spiral out of control...
The owner PM'd me back and forth several times (posted below) and mentioned that he "OWNS" most of the large datacenters and hosting providers, even LayeredTech and others even bigger. He went on and on about all the places he owns and how I could get a great discount through him, regardless of where I wanted to go through. He even stated that nobody in the business does anything even half as good as he does. Sounded good enough...
Well, after deciding on the server he suggested at LayeredTech's site, he said he was going to set everything up for me and send me the billing and login details. I got several emails and PMs giving me all the normal info, IPs, addresses, logins, etc. I setup the subscription for payment in PayPal and was happy as could be...
As I started noticing some software issues that I wanted to get help with, since I had a "fully managed" server, I tried contacting the supposedly stellar support for the CyberToad/ClubHostCity/IICT.net/etc company. As I sent numerous emails to the support@clubhostcity.com email address I was told to use, I never once got a response. After finally getting in contact with the admin via a private email address I had, I was told it must have been a fluke and it wouldn't happen again. What I didn't tell them is that I tried sending emails from 8 different email services, both free & premium.
As time went by and I had more issues, I tried repeatedly to contact numerous email accounts and phone numbers that I found across the net for this company, still to no avail. No auto-response, no personal response, no answering machine, nothing.
Finally, this past Friday, my server went completely offline for no apparent reason. Again I tried contacting anybody I could think of and still I got no response. Finally I got a hold of a phone number for the admin and he answered, from his "hospital" bed. He stated that the server had a power supply issue that took out the motherboard and ruined the hard drives. The only option was to wait as they got everything figured out and back online. This was the last I'd hear from the one-man "support" staff.
Well, after three and a half days of trying to call this number back, I got tired of the notice that the number had been disconnected so I dug down and worked as hard as I could at getting LayeredTech to understand my situation and to help me. They looked through their logs and tickets and discovered something that just blew my mind... The reseller cancelled my server and dozens of others for a supposedly "future hardware upgrade reasons". Keep in mind, they cancelled the servers all together, leaving the drives with all the data to be recycled into other member's servers. LT confirmed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the servers, no hardware or software issues at all. They had been cancelled flat with no upgraded hardware ordered, nothing. They even saw the proof that I've paid for them in advance on time and that I have nothing on my server against any TOS, not even a single curse word.
Finally, after working tirelessly, I convinced LT to put the server back together and keep the hard drive from being wiped. I had 10 hours to get my data moved over to a new service (SoftLayer) that has been absolutely awesome to me. I've gone to a site that is related to this cluster f8ck of companies and saw in the forum that numerous other individuals are having their servers taken offline and haven't been able to get any type of response at all.
Since this issue started, I've done a lot of deep digging and discovered a lot of things that I really don't like about this group of companies that really makes me worry for the safety of other customer's data and businesses. I'm a smart cat and I don't get taken very easily and I'm sure others won't be as fortunate as I was at getting their data back.
Below are some of the pieces of information that I'm sharing for proof...
Quote:
Chat log with Matt Tilson on MSN, screen-name of "mdtilson@hotmail.com" & "CyberToad":
CyberToad: Do you do anything special that requires the system outside of Cpanel or the hosting accounts?
Me: nope, I just use it for the websites and the maintenance/setup of said sites
CyberToad: LOL. You do realize I own 76 hosting companies and most all the major data centers, right?
Me: I wasn't aware of that:-O
CyberToad: IE: Not a problem
CyberToad: Did you by chance see my post from earlier this week in Ads / Offers on cpanel forums?
Me: I was just looking through the ads/offers section as we speak
Me: I see the one you posed but it's for $145/mo
Me: I see a decent one for serverpoint
CyberToad: That's one of thousands of configurations but one that might work for you here. If that is something you might be interested in, I can give you $20 off the monthly price and apply the VPS upgrade money towards it
Me: thanks do you have a site with the different plans or options or are they mostly per request?
CyberToad: I have many, many sites. Top pick for dedicated servers would be [url]. Our main shared / reseller brand would be Clubhost City at [url], for VPS hosting rackforce.net, for free hosting cybertoad.net
Me: wow, I'm taking a look at layerdtech right now, this is your company? nice
CyberToad: one of many
CyberToad: (Side note, I was on the Plesk development team and using that for many years before getting involved with Cpanel so well familiar with both sides)
CyberToaderver has IMAP, POP3, SMTP, SMTP2, Webmail
Me: Sorry, I need to be more clear, Google doesn't have it so don't worry about changing anything for that
CyberToad: Spam protection on the server is about 100 years more sophisticated than anything Google has or will likely ever have and probably 200 years ahead of anything Cpanel has by itself
Me: I honestly can't tell you how much of a relief and learning experience it has been to work with somebody that knows what they're doing. I will recommend your companies to everybody I know. I've never been so impressed with customer service for anything
CyberToad: PHP v5.2.2 (pre-release) for scripting and v5.2.1 with full options for web sites
CyberToad: Oh well you haven't seen our customer service yet! (haven't gotten past me yet..... we have 24 hour monitored support, helpdesk, ticket systems, live chat, AI expert help systems, toll free support, multiple help regional centers, etc
Me: Hey, you've already sold me
Me: My site is down again. I'm not able to login even to cPanel to try and restart things and I haven't been able to get a response from ClubHostCity's support staff either.
CyberToad:
Me: I've sent four different emails to support@clubhostcity.com the past week from different email accounts (including one on the server you host) and have yet to get a response, again.
Me:?
CyberToad: We haven't received any mail from you
Me: Do you use webmail?
CyberToad: Uh yeah .... I'm on the Squirrelmail development team!
Me: I need to get info on who I should contact with urgent issues like my server being unresponsive. I tried looking around at clubhostcity.com and the helpdesk link doesn't work and I'd like to know who I can contact since I have the completely managed service included in my monthly fee.
CyberToad: The helpdesk like works perfectly unless you are going to the wrong page. [url]
Me: My site is to a crawl and won't even fully load for me. I'm at work so I can't log into cPanel and see what's going on because of the firewall here. Could you please take a look at my server and see if something going on?
Matt, My server appears to be down again and has been for about 15 hours or more. I tried getting a hold of clubhostcity's support to no avail and I really need my sites back up. Can you please take a look at it?
Me: I don't mean to sound like a jerk but this has been completely unacceptable. I cannot get in contact with anybody to get my server back in gear. It's going to be going on 24 hours and that is unacceptable by any standard.
CyberToad: Instead of sending email (especially since your mail provider isn't working right), I would suggest submitting support tickets directly using our helpdesk ticket system at http://support.clubhostcity.com
Me: I can't ever seem to get a response, I've sent this same question around 6 times over the past month or two. I still can't submit any tickets via the support help desk as it doesn't give me any option of where to send one.
Me: My server is completely down and yet again I can't get a hold of anybody with any support at your company. Please respond.
Me: Anything you can do to get this fixed ASAP would be great. The server has been down for almost two days and I've been emailing support@clubhostcity.com trying to get help to no avail.
Me: I know you have other things going on but I really need to have my sites back up. Can you please have the techs move the drive to a new machine or something? It's been 48hrs and I haven't even heard why the server's been down, let alone an ETA on when it'll be up. This is costing me a lot of money by having my business offline.
Me: I have confirmed with LayeredTech that the issue is not hardware or server related but that you (the reseller) actually requested the server be turned off. This is a complete nightmare for my company and you have no right to do this. I need my server back up and running now.
View 14 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Oct 21, 2008
if there's any host which has hosting & shoutcast included in the plan?
I currently don't have an estimate of how much gb etc. for hosting & kbs, listeners for shoutcast...
So just post all the hosts you know which have webhosting & has shoutcast INCLUDED
View 2 Replies
View Related
May 1, 2009
I've recently ordered two new servers with Windows OS, and am wondering how I go about making sure the hard drives I ordered are the ones actually installed, and the RAM i ordered is the ram actually installed.
I know the amount of ram and amount of diskspace is correct by Properties and My Computer but not sure how to figure out the others.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Dec 30, 2008
For some reason i need refund for their webhosting service 6 days before, their sals department said the billing department is not aviailable during christmas holidy, and refund will be done at sunday. but now, it's wednesday, i still got nothing from them and they sales dapartment and billing department even do not response my ticket now!
View 8 Replies
View Related
Nov 22, 2007
I am writting this becasue i am tired of playing games with this company called E-Dentify Internet, aka EASYRACKS.NL and they are refusing to issue me a full refund
I paid for 3 servers appox 1 month ago
Intel Pentium 4 3,2Ghz/1GB DDRRAM/160GB 7200RPM HDD
Intel Pentium 4 3,2Ghz/2GB DDRRAM/160GB 7200RPM HDD
Intel Core2Duo E6750 2,67Ghz/4GB DDR2RAM/320GB 7200RPM HDD
After i paid i sent an email straight to them to confirm my payment and email me back and tell me the eta on the server setup. I waited around 4 days, i sent them another email stating if i didnt hear anything back i might have to open a dispute with paypal. I finally got a reply, this is what it said
'Money recieved, you can see in your paypal.
Core2Duo and 1 P4 machine will be done tomorrow."
Waited the next day, still nothing, so i sent another email,
Finally after 8 days of waiting i got 1 server, but guess what? its the wrong server. I got Core2Duo 6600, 2.40GHz/ 3.5gig ram when i paid for Core2Duo E6750 2,67Ghz/4GB. Now if i walked into a store and paid for something i expect exactly what was advertised and stated
I emailed these guys back to ask why this has happened, and no reply what so ever so i figured id call. I called this guy named "Paul", i talked to him for about 10 minutes explaining what i got and i did not get what i paid for and these were his exact words " thats ******** ". Now i dont run a company but i do know that their should be some respect between the buyer and seller. I then told him, i have been waiting around 2 weeks for a server and i just want a refund.
He said that a refund cannot be made as we already delivered the servers. I told him i received a server which was not what i paid for, and i still have not received the other 2 servers. He then said ok we will give you a refund but we have to minus out the price for the server info we sent you. I stated my claim professionally and asked that they refund me via paypal and issue me a full refund of 266 EURO and he stated that cannot be done and the refund amount would be less then 266 EURO. After 10 minutes of telling him he said ok but still was hesitant to talk about the refund.
After i hung up i emailed them, and i got a response saying forward me your bank details. I asked why? he said thats the only way they refund. I really do not understand why they would want to do it via bank as i live in another country. Anyway i sent him my bank details
It has now been over 17 days since he confirmed that my refund would be sent
I have now filed a dispute with paypal and i explained everything in my claim, Paul did reply as i am guessing they dont like disputes and this is what he said
" Hello,Servers we're delivered but rejected by the customer. All in
agreement with out TOC.Refund will not be issued."
Is this guy some kind of joke? I did not reject the servers, if he had delivered what was paid for, i would have happily waited
Where is my refund Paul? This is absolutely shocking the way i have been treated and your lies are extremely bad
I did not pay 266EURO to you for nothing. I do not want your services anymore and i highly recommend everyone stay away from this company. They will take your money and not respond to your emails. I have to send 5 emails just to get their attention to respond to me
again i repeat do not deal with www.easyracks.nl or E-Dentify, complete scammers and liars.
Im glad they have the dispute system in paypal, i am guessing i will get my money back after nearly 1.5 months of waiting around.
If you guys dont beleive me just do a search here for easyracks.nl their is a post about paul scamming another dude on this forum. These guys need to be stopped. I can also get my server admin to confirm all
View 14 Replies
View Related
Feb 5, 2009
After deciding recently to use 3ix.com's hosting service (as reccomended by a few friends) my account was setup within 5 minutes, all good so far. Until I decide to use thier "customer support", take this at shock value:
[url]
[url]
Considering the size of the company, and I was talking to "Techinal Support", I am appaled, by the lack of knowledge and cheek I recieved.
Overall I am appaled by the customer support.
To be honest at first I thought the operator was confused, then I realised she's a thick as a plank.
The companies director(s) will be receiving this as present from me to them
View 14 Replies
View Related
Dec 12, 2008
Does included mod_mono module in cPanel/WHM support ASP.NET 3.5?
I didnt found any related details on that project`s website.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Dec 5, 2014
How to update out of date components included in VPS? For instance...
rkhunter is at v1.3.4 whereas the current version is 1.4.2. Why both about updating? Well, in part to reduce the number of false-positive warnings and in part to gain more current protection.
A yum update isn't possible as 1.4.x has moved on quite significantly from 1.3.x and while downloading and installing rkhunter isn't terrible difficult, trying to get it to update the 1.3.4 version included with VPS seems somewhat more difficult...
SpamAssassin is at v3.3.1-3 whereas 3.4.0 is the current release version and 3.3.2 is no longer supported, meaning 3.3.1 is definately way out of support. Why bother? Better spam detection and blocking
When VPS will update to something nearer current versions of both of these components?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Oct 8, 2012
I was trying to set up archive-my-tweets [URL] .... and I seem to have gotten stuck with a 403 error. When I remove the .htaccess file the 403 goes away but so do the rewrite rules so that's a problem.
You'll see the contained .htaccess file that's included in the project.
Basically for now I'm just trying to run this on my mac. I have set up the files in a subdirectory of my personal web server. The personal web server is working fine--but when I go to the /tweets directory I get the 403.
View 8 Replies
View Related
Aug 2, 2008
With a competitive price, comparable to Google Apps Pro Edition.
In my opinion is a very good product, http://tinyurl.com/68d9h5
that unfortunately I can't resell yet
I still think that Scalix and Zimbra provide a better -final user- experience that Open-Xchange but in business, speed is a must, and having a product before a competition is a competitive edge. You can't keep waiting a company forever.
BTW, Just wanted to take advantage to comment how poor and oldie look the webmail interfaces, we hosting providers provide to our users. With the exception of Windows Email systems and Roundcube, most control panels come with Squirrelmail and Horde, look old. They are good and stable but they are and look good.
Some days ago, I got a new customer and after I gave him the login info for their Cpanel 11 account and webmail, he told me:
"..I don't like the webmail.. I use Yahoo email all the time, and it is easy to use. Squirrel looks simple, but it is "ugly"..."
I must admit, that I felt embarrased.
What did I finally do with him? Configured Google Apps for free for him. Now he is happy. But I am thinking is that if I start to find more customers like this, my business will end up in charging for configuring "nice webmails..."
View 1 Replies
View Related
Mar 5, 2009
I'm hosting wmv,wma,mp3 files, streaming of video can be done with Windows hosting, but my website script is with php.
Do you suggest Windows Server 2008 hosting or redhat linux hosting?
View 6 Replies
View Related
May 6, 2008
Do website builders generally go with shared hosting or dedicated server? I mean, if they work on several websites would they get a dedicated server instead of shared? From what I understand through reading shared hosting is basically if you only have one website. So one with multiple websites would go with a dedicated server?
View 12 Replies
View Related
Mar 14, 2007
to get the best/right configuration:
DNS records in DNS server and DNS records in Hosting Server.
So, I have one VPS acting as DNS server and few VPS for domain site hosting.
I have it now (working ok) like below but can You please comment if there is something 'extra' or something I should reconfigurate (or delete) to make better performance/clear
ns1. & ns2.server.com are registrated and working ok
DNS server DNS Zone for <customer.com> (cPanel output):
Zone File for customer.com
$TTL 14400
@ 14400 IN SOA NS1.server.com server.server.com
customer.com 14400 IN NS NS1.server.com.
customer.com 14400 IN NS NS2.server.com.
customer.com 14400 IN A 11.11.11.11
localhost.customer.com 14400 IN A 127.0.0.1
customer.com 14400 IN MX [0] customer.com.
mail 14400 IN CNAME customer.com.
www 14400 IN CNAME customer.com.
webmail 14400 IN CNAME customer.com.
ftp 14400 IN A 11.11.11.11
Hosting server DNS Zone for <customer.com> (Plesk output):
11.11.11.11 / 24PTRcustomer.com.
ftp.customer.com.CNAMEcustomer.com.
customer.com.NSns2.server.com.
customer.com.NSns1.server.com.
customer.com.A11.11.11.11
customer.com.MX (10)mail.customer.com.
localhost.customer.com.A127.0.0.1
mail.customer.com.A11.11.11.11
webmail.customer.com.A11.11.11.11
www.customer.com.CNAMEcustomer.com.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Aug 8, 2008
Does a typical LAMP setup for a high enough traffic site(s) take enough resources to affect the performance of a game server? (we'll say 1million page views per day)
I'm speaking of say, 2MB of ram, dual xeon 2.8 type machine, with IDE drives. Nothing too fancy. 1 milion page views per day may be pushing it, so what about say, 200 per day?
Just wondering if anyone has a setup like this and how it fairs out at the game server end. I'm thinking of moving my websites over to my game server + add more sites over time, but don't want it to lag the game. I know as a fact bandwidth would not be the issue, I'm thinking more ram/cpu. The game I host (Ultima Online) uses very little bandwidth with even 30+ people online. I use less then 1% of my link capacity at most times. I've seen it spike to 5% and that's most likely when I was downloading data.
View 10 Replies
View Related
May 17, 2007
Purpose: I want to make my site load faster
Different Options Host images under the same domain - So no additional three way TCP handshake required.
Different subdomain for images - Browser pipelining can be utilized.
Different domain altogether - Browser pipelining can be utilize and also can avoid the site wide cookies with every request.
What is your opinion about this?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Jun 4, 2008
I recently came from a VPS server where my provider gave me the names of their DNS servers which I then pointed my domain name to with GoDaddy.
I recently signed up for a dedicated server and asked my provider for their DNS servers. They replied that I needed to run DNS on my server.
Is this normal for dedicated hosting providers? Do I just need to point my domain to the public ip address on this server or do I need to load/configure DNS on my server? Is there sofware that I need to install?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Feb 26, 2008
I have found few web hosting services with support for:
- ASP.NET 2.0
- SQL Server 2000
Can anybody recommend such a provider with a solid reputation? In addition I should mention my site will be accessed by visitors in Europe (besides the US), how would I know the page load times are going to be acceptable? Do some providers 'specialize' in hosting sites for which a large part of the traffic comes from abroad?
View 14 Replies
View Related
Aug 18, 2008
We'll its time our business finally moved off of the Godaddy $30/month VPS server. We're setting up an eCommerce site with X-Cart and need a better server. Rather than paying $80 or so per month for a good VPS, we're considering buying a server (maybe a Dell) for around $1000 (Dual Core Xeon, 1gb ram, 80gb HDD) and running it off our Bell Business High Speed Ultra 6mb package (with dedicated IP) at our business. I'd likely install CentOS and a free control panel.
What are your thoughts on doing this? The site isn't super busy and we don't use much bandwidth. Would our customers likely have speed issues with the site if we ran off our own connection?
View 14 Replies
View Related
May 27, 2007
.NET hosting that has SQL Server 2000 or 2005.
I also want to know if there are .NET hostings that support SQL jobs or automated tasks (like the cron jobs feature under Linux). All the ones I found don't have this available.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jul 21, 2006
im looking a free hosting server, let me explain what im looking for, i have some free softwares on my hard drive, i want to host them so other people also downloads these and its give me also a web location to store them in one place, for this im looking a free hosting server which support a great amount of web space and bandwidth.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Sep 17, 2007
I need to make a dns hosting for a client of mine. He will change his domain name nameservers to point to my server.
His website is hosted on another hosting company. On my server I will create all the necessary CNAME and A records to point www on the server of the other company.
My problem is with the MX records though. Because my client owns a local mailserver, (I think it's MS Exchange server) I need to create a primary MX record to deliver all the mails to that mailserver. No problem till here.. But he also needs a secondary MX record in case his mailserver is inaccessible ,so all the mails have to be queued on my VPS and when his mailserver is accessible again to deliver all the mails.
Any idea of how I can configure my dns zones for that?
View 1 Replies
View Related
May 29, 2008
I need a good but cheap DNS hosting service for hosting 4 domains of mine. Any ideas?
View 6 Replies
View Related
Oct 5, 2009
I have built a website based off of The Beer House template/book and am about ready to launch it. I need SQL server 2005, and ASP.net functionality. I will either use the included forum module or am considering a third party forum such as aspplayground.net.
I would like to spend $10-$20/month, I don't mind paying a bit extra to have a fast loading site, but I don't want to spend too much. I would appreciate any suggestions.
The database will handle the forums, the store, the users of course, and a custom database I am building for some vehicle information. To start out the database is not very big (maybe 20mb), but I expect it to grow to support the forums and users, etc.
Also, I have already built a database (mdf) file on my computer through visual studio 2008. Is it true most shared hosting accounts wont allow you the access to copy and paste the database file directly? I don't really want to have to recreate all these tables on the host server.
View 14 Replies
View Related
Mar 25, 2009
I have a client that wants to expand their website with a downloads section that has thousands of files and tens of gigabytes. I'm considering two options:
1. dedicated hosting:
- Is it an advantage to use a dedicated hosting service in the same city as opposed to one in another country?
- How would I go about changing hosting providers if one doesn't work out?
- How would I go about making and restoring backups?
- How does one access a dedicated hosting machine nowadays? Is it still via Telnet or something like that?
2. own hosting
- Do you think it's practical to have a dedicated server and link in company offices?
- Do the benefits of being easily able to change internet link providers and to make snap daily backups outweigh the benefits of a hosting provider's reliable infrastructure?
This dedicated server would only be a file server. The website itself would be on a normal hosting platform that would just redirect users to the dedicated server for the files to be downloaded. How is this kind of thing usually done?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Mar 29, 2009
if im going to open a web hosting business, which processor works best for a server, AMD or Intel?
View 12 Replies
View Related
Apr 29, 2009
I've been getting requests for a VPS hosting from a few clients and I was wondering what everybody's input on the best server hardware configuration for a hypervm server is.
Was thinking something along the lines of the following server configuration:
Quad core processor(s)
16gbs of ram
2x 100GB RAID 1 Main HDD (Do I need this much space?)
4TB RAID 5 VM HDD's
That would allow me to keep the main OS separate and redundant due to HDD failure and leave the VM's on a RAID 5 for the same reason.
What would you change or advise me to do on this configuration? The goal is to host as many VM's as the processor/ram/HDD's will allow without much of a performance hit.
how many we can host with this configuration? Obviously depends on the packages that I haven't thought about yet.
View 14 Replies
View Related
Apr 25, 2009
I want to host a personal FTP server for myself and friends at home. I have 30Mbit/30Mbit unlimited optical fiber net with a static IP, so that isn't my problem. I also know how to setup the FTP on my computer.
The thing I need help with is the domain. How can I make files.mydomain.com be hosted at home while the main domain (and the other subdomains) is hosted by a host? I don't own the domain or a host yet, so I'm open for all options.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Jul 23, 2008
we going to running a hosting company
but not sure how to manage the backup server
Server A = 10 host accounts
Server B = 15 host accounts
Server Backup use rsync to get 25 account
will it be work?
and each domain the name server
ns1.host.com < - Server A
ns2.host.com < - Server A
ns3.host.com < - Server B
ns4.host.com < - Server B
ns5.host.com < - Server Backup
ns6.host.com < - Server Backup
www.abc.com
ns1.host.com < - Server A
ns2.host.com < - Server A
ns5.host.com < - Server Backup
ns6.host.com < - Server Backup
if server A down, so auto point to backup server
so is it work?
View 0 Replies
View Related
Jan 30, 2008
I would like to help my friend to host his email service on my VPS server. His current shared web hosting unfortunately has a quota limit on the number of emails he can send each hour, which is very inconvenient for him.
I know how to modify the MX record of my friend's domain in his current web host using Cpanel, but I don't know how to set up my server to accommodate his email service. I'd appreciate if anyone can teach me how to do it. My server also has Cpanel/WHM installed.
View 4 Replies
View Related
