Does a host have the right to yank your account over one spam complaint? I know someone who claimed that this happened to him but this doesn't make sense to me. If hosts did that, it would be too easy to sabotage your competition by putting out false spam complaints. Don't they have to have proof or many complaints before resorting to terminating someone's account?

I don't know that there are any laws pertaining to this, but I seriously doubt it. Getting cancelled over one spam compliant is possible, but in most cases like this, I always prefer to hear both sides of the story before jumping in and committing to one side or the other. More often than not, the host has a much different side to the story.

A host has many "rights" - you must remember you're using THEIR services. While I wouldn't personally recommend pulling an account on ONE complaint, it is within their rights to do that I guess.

We normally have a few complaints and traces etc that we do to find out how many emails were sent out, and then act accordingly.

Many of the quick suspensions or terminations without any interraction are performed by smaller hosts that don't want to have to deal with the battle on behalf of the client. Pulling after ONE complaint is not something that should ever be done, but if you're getting complaints from ISPs, SpamCop and can trace the message on the server, then a suspension is in order until you contact the client. Who knows, maybe the client's site was COMPROMISED and it wasn't their fault for the spamming. You can then help them upgrade their software and make their site more secure to prevent the action in the future.

When it comes to things like hacking, or phishing sites etc - we suspend first, THEN ask questions.

Hey,

Well, I have never heard of anything like this. I have to side with Steve, two sides to one story. I think if this is the case the user must have been saying some rude things towards the host or affecting the server in some way.

In some cases the host may be forced by there upstream providers (if they use ISP allocated IPs).

When I recieve a spam complaint I ask for proof and then contact the owner of the account to discuss this with them.

We never kick a customer for one spam compliant just like that, first we check if the customer is doing a mass emailing and see what kind of emails is he sending. if the customer has a good list and his email are good, then we will help him with this span compliant. but if we see the customer is sending thousands of junk email, then to protect our network, we got to stop him.

Read the TOS, some host may charge you a fee over the first complaint. After the first the fee may increase or/and termination of your service.

Many host have a zero tolerance over spam.

I think a discussion with the client (assuming we're not talking about massive spamming) is due - customer loyalty first! If the customer is found to be in complete violation of the ToS and the situation isn't resolvable, can him.

Almost every ToS I've seen has some sort of rule about spam and how it can get your account terminated. As others have stated, it's a good idea to look into the issue yourself first and then contact the client. If the client seems to be truthful yet there is proof that spam is being sent out, it could be that someone hacked their account which is quite common so in that case, your priority should be helping the client secure their account once again to prevent the spam problem from persisting.

I would doubt that one spam complaint would get your account terminated. There is probably more to the story than your friend is telling you.

I would personally check to see if there is really a mass mailing going on. If yes, I then check for how much it has been running, and for how much we had that customer. If the customer is a long-term customer, hence the campaign has been running for some time, I contact the customer to resolve it.

Otherwise, I just suspend their account, open a support ticket and wait for their reply. If they do not reply in a week or so, I usually terminate their account. They will be either fraudsters or spammers.

I like to get to know each client and what they are hosting so I can make sure that nothing out of the ordinary occurs.

Always give the client the benefit of the doubt, even if it is a repeat issue. If you determine that you are getting tired of the SPAM complaints and find yourself spending a lot of time to serve this one customer, then make them a deal where it will benefit both sides (charge them per SPAM complaint). I have implemented this before and it worked like a charm (went from getting 20+ complaints a week to 1 or 2). Just need the right motivation!

Having problems with the spams, definitely some users are likely to ignore it due to some reasons that its a waste of time dealing with it.

We're just the opposite. I don't care what my client's are hosting as long as it's legal. Spam complaints are dealt with on an individual basis - some accounts are terminated and others aren't - all based on internal legal counsel.