Winning case, or not?

[bosnia]

Well, this is my experience with rackshack.net(now ev1servers):

We had wonderfull bosnian online comunnity running well. About 15 000 members, 10-15 new members daily, 150-200 000 monthly unique hits and more than 1 000 000 (million!) monthly page views...

One day, I noticed our website is not running ?!?
httpd was down, httpd restarted but nothing .. I couldn't get it on ..
I did nothing that could affect this, honestly nothing.

I contacted support and explaind my situation, they replied that they'll check it. Next reply said that reboot is required.

And finally in about 2 hours later I recived 3rd reply. System was out of swap memmory and they can't boot it again, and they will have to replace HDD?!. Disturbing part comes now.. If I want so, they will put old HDD as a secondary for ADITIONAL cost.

I said NO, it wasn't my fault ?!? Let me just recover my data and you unplug it...
They said I have to pay !
NO !

And that was the end of our friendly, fast growing online community ...

I'm kinda man of principles and I didn't wanted to pay for it, about $ 60..
Now I regret because of that.

So, I probably would never sued them, but if I did, what would it happend?
Then, I knew nothing about their SLA's & TOS's etc., nor USA laws - same as now

btw: my writen english is just :ziplip: , sorry

 

[Blue]

Sue them for what?

You should have just paid for the new drive. I can't understand why you allow such a community to go down over a few dollars.

 

[ldcdc]

I can't understand why you allow such a community to go down over a few dollars.

Maybe $60 for him are not exactly what $60 are for you Blue... It's a possibility as he lives in a different part of the world.

Regardless, I don't think I would've let the forum die. Move it to another host yes, but not close it for good.

 

[Blue]

Very possible. Although, a forum that is generating 150-200 thousand uniques a month can easily sell advertising for far more than $60 and they obviously had enough money to pay for a dedicated server so I don't see how $60 would be a huge deal.

 

[bosnia]

Maybe $60 for him are not exactly what $60 are for you Blue... It's a possibility as he lives in a different part of the world.

Server costs were about $ 200 - 300 (bandwith was a bit more expensive then )

Regardless, I don't think I would've let the forum die. Move it to another host yes, but not close it for good.

It wasn't forum. It was full featured website with free membership where every members had their own page, guestbook, picture gallery etc etc .. 100+ users online all the time, ~350 record
Kinda spinoff www.lunarstorm.se
3 months of php coding only ...

Sue them for what?

I've lost all that data because of HDD failure .. and they didn't alowed my to get it back(data) until I pay for that (?!?) Traslated, they wanted to charge me to restore my data.. What if I used it as backup server? Come on now ??

I can't understand why you allow such a community to go down over a few dollars.

I'm kinda man of principles ..

Seems like I had no case at all

But, I guess this was informative question(story) anyways ..
What happend is history, I'm looking at the future now , thanks for your replys.

 

[Blue]

No offense but your principals cost hundreds of people their websites.

 

[ldcdc]

Blue has a point there. What about them and their hard work? Maybe your principles should've been more geared towards their well being... Time to change priorities in your list of principles.

 

[bosnia]

No offense but your principals cost hundreds of people their websites.

No offense taken, but you've got it wrong. It was our website, and members personal pages ..

What about them and their hard work?

Their hard work ?? They sign up, answer few questions... and thats it ..they have their page, then they msg. eachothers.. etc etc ...

Nevermind ...
:smilie3:

 

[Blue]

Those pages may not mean a lot to you but they may have meant a lot to the people who maintained them.

Sure it was your website, but you offered your space to others, some of who may have relied on that space or put a lot of energy into that space. Just because it was free doesn't mean that it wasn't important to some people.

Your attitude seems pretty callous.

 

[ldcdc]

OK, not "hard work", but work nevertheless. See, I get free email from hotmail. If they close the service tomorrow I would lose some emails that I have stored there, I would have to modify the email address that I use for some forums etc. Bottom line is I woudn't be happy about it.

Another bottom line is that you were the provider of the service (which was free) and you could do whatever you wanted with it.

 

[bosnia]

Those pages may not mean a lot to you....
..... doesn't mean that it wasn't important to some people

?? I've spend about 1 y. developing it countinously (only coding took 3 months) etc.. and about $2 500 and it ment nothing to me ??
It sure was my most important website ever!

My attituude ? Beacause you are accusing me of something which you obviously don't understand, and your going well OFF topic..
Imagine your web server(suppose you have 1) went down with no fault of your own and your provider says "hey you have to pay if you want your stuff back" ?

ldcdc, bottom bottom line was they refused to plug in old hdd for just me to restore data/and thats it/ unless I pay them for that, I mean its (their)hardware failure, coudn't they plug it for me to restore data.. 1 hour maybe .. no no, first pay, then we can do it they said ...

I hope both of you wont take it really personaly about anything ..
regards

 

[Blue]

Imagine your web server(suppose you have 1) went down with no fault of your own and your provider says "hey you have to pay if you want your stuff back" ?

I would do whatever it takes to get the sites back online. Part of doing business.

Back on topic.

No, it's not a winning case. You have nothing to go on.

 

[bosnia]

I would do whatever it takes to get the sites back online. Part of doing business.

Back on topic.

No, it's not a winning case. You have nothing to go on.

... Back then it really pi**ed me off having to pay for something that was already mine, like I said I regret .......

thanks for your replys

 

[Artashes]

Bosnia, I did some researching based on the Civil Code. Could you please tell me if at the time of failure you think you have paid more than 50% of the cost of the server (hardware) or less?

If talking straight business, I would have paid that $60. I've been in tough situations, I've lost business myself which cost me greatly, but I still went through it. You just can't stop operations because of few unfair things happening around you. Not to mention such a powerful community as yours. If you didn't want to pay that $60, did you really expect to pay thousands for lawyers?

Best,

 

[bosnia]

Bosnia, I did some researching based on the Civil Code. Could you please tell me if at the time of failure you think you have paid more than 50% of the cost of the server (hardware) or less?

Thanks for your resarch, we have been with them for about 5 months before this happend. In that period we payed them about $ 1800. Now you know.

I've just noticed that I forgot to say that after this we have moved to another provider and started from the beginning. In just about one month we had more than 5 000 members... So, we didn't stoped there. But just in a while other issues arrised and we were forced to shut it down.
Financial issues. We were closing to a 1TB bandwith use, and we couldn't really pay for that much.
After 2 years our domain name PR is still 5

 

[Blue]

Bosnia, have you tried to generate revenue from your site with advertising space or google ads?

With the volume of traffic you get the site should be self supporting.

 

[Artashes]

Thanks for your resarch, we have been with them for about 5 months before this happend. In that period we payed them about $ 1800. Now you know.

And what is the average total price for a server like you had? Does anyone know?

Either way, if you have paid for more than 50% of the server's total cost (pure hardware cost), you might have a case - at least the court will consider you as the principle owner of the property. However, since it is a "month-to-month" agreement, it could get moe trickier.

 

[bosnia]

if you have paid for more than 50% of the server's total cost (pure hardware cost),....
However, since it is a "month-to-month" agreement, it could get moe trickier.

Well, I think I did, it was Celeron w/ ram 512mb.. and it cost about $ 200 /mo that time .. Does these calculation include only server cost or server + bandwith I've paid for?

Yes, that migth be tricky part

 

[stoavio]

Why should a customer have to pay for faulty hardware? He's not responsible for it - the provider should have added the drive at no additional cost seeing as the problem initiated with them.

Lame.

 

[Artashes]

Why should a customer have to pay for faulty hardware? He's not responsible for it - the provider should have added the drive at no additional cost seeing as the problem initiated with them.

Maybe he's been with them long enough that the hardware unit ran out of warranty.