Who not to host with

Who not to host with

VAServ are the parent company to A2B2, CheapVPS.co.uk and formerly FSCKVPS.  They ran a lot of hosting companies of one sort or another.  I say ran, because 4-ish weeks ago, they were the victims of one of the most destructive hacks I’ve seen.  Apparently weaknesses within the system operating the server (it’s called HyperVM, avoid it) and weaknesses allowing the network to be ‘sniffed’ (essentially like listening in to police radio or something, but online) and potentially the weakness of the administration passwords opened a simple door to the system for the hackers, who tried their darndest to delete as much as possible, and deleted around 4,000 server – about 100,000 sites.  7 of the sites affected were mine, as my FSCKVPS server was taken offline.

When this happened I stayed fairly calm, started moving anything vital to backup servers and such and generally just tried to avoid contacting the company until they’d had chance to take stock, and deal with the more angry and insistent customers.  Seems reasonable to me to do that.  I lost a good deal of stuff, but naturally important data was backed up and the restoration was a pain but not too terrible.

In the meantime, FSCKVPS and VAServ worked tirelessly to restore what they could of their systems, one of their companies was bought out by BlueSquareGroup, and they have now returned to operating.  During this time, I sent several messages to them on twitter and on WHT to express my support for them.  Being hacked is a bit like unexpected illness, it’s not convenient, but there’s no point shouting at a cold, is there?

SO… then they restored my server, it was blank and all they could offer was a new one with no control panel.  I emailed support to ask for a different operating system, as the one they sent me was wrong, and received no response.  It was at this point that I started to think things were unacceptable at VAServ.  They started operating again before they really had capacity to and I’d far rather that they didn’t.

Today, their system deactivated my server for lack of payment.  This was an odd move, because I’m owed two months of hosting, so for the first time I sent an angry email.  Looking back on it, it was unreasonably rude, but it was the only time I had been anything but supportive of people who I, after all, pay for their services.  I said they owed me 2 months hosting, and a control panel, and referred to them as ‘retards’.

That last bit is regrettable, but I’ve been called worse working in tech support centres or on the doors of nightclubs, or anywhere, really.  I know it’s out of order.

VAServ have deactivated my account, and are happily ignoring the fact that they owe me 2 months of hosting as they agreed.  Right now I’d settle for the charges for the 2 months hosting refunded, but that is unlikely.

Essentially, my point is, you can’t ignore customers just because they get angry.  When it comes down to it, if you don’t want angry customers don’t use substandard software and passwords, and for God’s sake, don’t angrily react to justifiably angry customers.

Who not to host with?  VAServ, A2B2 or CheapVPS.  If anyone *does* host with this lot, consider writing to Rus Foster and asking if his password is still “f0st3r”.

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