I am a web designer and I currently have a client who is having a very hard time getting her domain name register to relased her domain names. She originally registered the main name with godaddy.com, and registered the subdomains with her web hosting company. She is now having a problem with their services and the owner of the company has refused to release her domain names. He has locked them all down. I am currently helping her move her main site. Lucky for her she has receipts for purchases of subdomains and I have helped her contact Icann to get her domains moved to a new provider. He has also harvested her clients's emails addresses and is threatening to sell them to her competition. It is getting out of control. Be very careful who you register your domain with. Company in question is Mavrickteam.com also known as ihostthem.com. If you have a site with them, I would advise you to quietly move it to another provider. They are NOT ethical at all.

I am a web designer, and have been doing this for about 5 years now and have never encountered such a problem. I use different web hosting providers depending on my clients budget and needs. I had a problem come up a few days ago where one of my clients got into an argument with the Mavrick Team (AKA Ihostthem.com) web hosting and computer services company's owner regarding services. She has reported to me that he went into her email account, and has emailed her clients false information about her services after their heated discussion. She told him that she was going to press charges. He told her that he had harvested all of her clients email addresses and will email them to her competitors if she does not back down. What can she do? I feel awkward as I am in the middle of it now. I was the one who referred her to Mavrick Team (aka as I Host Them) for web hosting services, and moved her site to their servers. This man has created such a big problem for this women now. Her clients are doubting her services and he is blackmailing her. She does not owe him any monies. She has forwarded two of the emails that her clients forwarded to her, so I know she is not making this thing up. I advised her to move all of her emials to a personal email account, contact all of her clients to let them know that someone has access to their info, and I am helping her move her site. She had registered subdomains of her main site with him and he would not release them to be moved to another provider (I helped her with that one). Who can she report him to? Please reply with some constructive advise.
Thank you.

Start by having her contact a legal professional in her area who is familiar with libel (defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures). Show this person all emails, all domain registration records, and anything else necessary. Advise your client to work with said legal professional to clear her name - this may include phoning all of her clients and explaining what happened. (Don't do that until you've received advice from the libel lawyer, though. This might weaken or undermine the legal strategy against the aggressor. The lawyer will have a better idea of how to proceed.)

If your client meets any questions about this incident calmly, openly, and clearly, without slamming or denigrating the aggressor...she'll come off looking much, much better and will stand a better chance of maintaining the respect, and continued business, of her clients.

Depending on what the agressor has said, your client may meet some fairly direct questions about her business methods. Personally, I would advise answering these questions openly and without becoming defensive. That will make her look more mature, more professional - especially in contrast to what the agressor appears to have done, which is definitely not professional or ethical.

You may want to advise your client to speak to someone who knows cyberlaw, to get the subdomains freed up. (...don't know how the aggressor is able to hold onto subdomains if the primary domain is on a different set of nameservers...that's an interesting trick.)

Wow! that sounds like a crazy situation! I would personally involve whatever authorities i can, as well as seek legal advice from an internet-experienced attorney. There's no way I would let some vendor hold my data aka my clients hostage.

There's the BBB (www.bbb.org) you can contact, and you can do your best to spread word about this guy to the general public.

I am currently at a loss to help you here, other than suggesting that she contact a lawyer who is familiar with internet laws and regulations and in the meantime suggest that she tone down any actions that she is pushing forward, for the sake of what he might do with her client's info.

She needs to act quickly too, as this rather unscrupulous individual could really hurt her reputation.

Karolskip, I am sorry to hear about your experience, but please do not start more than one thread about this. We merged them into this one.

Thank you for merging them Artashes.
Thank you to all of you who have shared tips on what to do. I have shared the advise given with her. Unfortunately, the attorney that she has spoken to says that this can be a very lengthy and costly process, as they can always appeal. She does not have that much money right now, and attorneys don't do those type of cases on contingency. Icann has helped her move her domain names over to another provider, but they are not finning them. I am almost done moving her site. I am changing all of her email links to her new email address. The police told her that since he has not sold her client email list, they can not do anything as of yet. He sent the emails from her email account, so it would look like she sent it. The BBB told her that since this is a legal matter, they can not get involved. She is just having a breakdown. Poor lady. I don't know what else to tell her.

I have never heard of Maverick Team or Ihostthem before, but after reading this...I am rather happy that I never had to come across them!

There are enough shady companies out there, and I find out about more all the time it would seem.

That's why it's a good idea to read reviews and such before agreeing to pay for any service.

Well, she has moved from their servers completely, I just finished moving all of her files and emails, ect... last week. She has informaed clients of his doing, but unfortunately, the situation left a bad taste in the mouthes of many. Some customers have said that they will continue to do business with her, others are freaked out that her hosting company was able to go in her files and just email them and are freaked out about their personal information being compromised.

I am glad you were able to get the files moved away. Hopefully this thread will show up when people are searching for information about that company and it helps steer prospective customers away from them.

Personally I would take this to a lawyer and begin the legal process. I'm not familiar with the laws involved but I am almost certain your client is in a position to sue. Unethical behavior like that won't impress any judge I know.

Dear Karolskip,

My name is Merrick Reid. I am the owner of MavrickTeam, Inc. I am really sorry to hear about your experience. Personally, this is the first time I am hearing about your problem, and I do ask that you visit our contact page http://www.ihostthem.com/contact.php and send me a message (include your forum screen name) this way I can get to the bottom of this issue.

I absolutely do not condone these types of actions and if this is indeed true the employee that tried to hold your information hostage will be terminated on the spot.

I also do have a few questions?

Was there any information sent to your clients email list? Employees at our company do not have access to customer email list.

You said you contacted ICANN. We only resell domain names through Enom, and they have told me they have never had a complaint about my company. As a matter of fact, we haven't lost a single domain name neither through expiration or transfer in the last four months?

Your response is appreciated.

ICANN is not a registrar. I would suggest checking out the following links to read up on them Mavrick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN
http://www.icann.org/about/

In reference to my above post. I forgot to mention that Karolskip, in the event you send a message and you do not get a response within 24 hours, please post a notice here. I take every customer experience with my company VERY serious. This is how i found this post.

I will also continue to monitor for your response.

I have been working on a couple of large projects and have not been here for a few weeks. Here is my reply to you Reid -->Instead of coming on this discussion board and acting as though you have no idea what this is all about, you should be working hard on fixing what you have done to this poor women and her family. A public apology to her and her clients would be a good start. I am absolutely disgusted with the way you do business. Perhaps you would like for those who received those emails from you to come forth on this forum as well and share their experience. You are very lucky Reid that all she wants to do is move forward with her life, and does not care to revisit this subject. If you had done something like this to someone like me however, it would be a very different story, I guarantee that. And yes, you are right, employees do not have access to email information, however the owner of the company does. I hope that when you look at yourself in the mirror, your see a conscience as clear and innocent as you portray it to be.