Bad day

C

CMTHosting

New member
I have had bad day with a customer, here are the eMails. I'm in red the customer blue :agree:

Dear Customer,

We have had a complaint that your site hosted with us contains a virus and SPAM eMails you been sending from your mail box. You have 24 hours to remove the virus or SPAM eMails. Failure to do so will result in your account being terminated with no refund, and a dispute to paypal and a formal complaint sent to the attorney general of Texas. I do not appreciate people like you giving abuse from our network of servers and this won’t be tolerated. You have also been reported for using text on your site that is protected by national and international copyright law. As stated in our Terms and Conditions located at www.cmthosting.net/tos.php a second violation will result in a payment of £100 GBP required from you. I suggest you read the Terms of Service very carefully until you fully understand the rules.

So, please remove all the files and stop sending out SPAM, or you leave me no option but to report this to the USA Police under the SPAM protection act. No excuses will be accepted.
Thank you,

Christopher Thompson
Abuse Department

eMail: abuse@cmthosting.net

Hi,
My site doesn’t contain any virus’s thanks, so I don’t need to remove any files and who made the complaint?


Dear Customer,

I can ensure you that your site hosted with us contains a web virus, I will ask you again, to remove all the files connected to your site and I also recommended you run a web based virus scan, also download a free AVG for security. If you don't follow these instructions your account will be terminated you have 24 hours to remove ALL files. In reply to your question I can't let you know who made the complaint because of the date protection act 1988. We have seen the folders that contain the virus ourselves so please REMOVE folders, downloads & upgrades. I have suspended your FTP accounts, so you can no longer upload files via FTP, Your cPanel will be terminated if you don't follow our instructions. Again I recommend you read our terms of services which are located here www.cmthosting.net/tos.php. This is your last warning a second violation is £100 GBP an Invoice will be sent to your PayPal eMail address.

With Regards,
Christopher Thompson
Abuse Department

eMail: abuse@cmthosting.net

Hello,

I think I have been un-treated with this and think a report to CMTHosting direct is in order. You have no right to suspend my FTP accounts; I’ll be taking legal action. I have removed the files although I don’t see why I should of.



Dear Customer,

Thanks for removing the files so quickly. We treat all our customers friendly and are here to protect you and the people who visit your web page. Feel free to make a report here is the eMail address info@cmthosting.net although if you checked out the rules you would find out, you’re the person in the wrong not us. As for taking legal action, I’m sure the USA Police would like to see you, You have sent out over 50,000 SPAM eMails to people all over the Internet that’s a life time jail sentences and a £1,000 fine plus, so I’d recommend you not taking legal action because you’re the person in the wrong, I have kept all eMails you have sent from your account and will be forwarding them to the Taxes Police for them to take further action.

I said to you before you signed up to our services to read our Terms of Service, it’s your problem you decided not to follow these instructions. Here are the terms of service if you would like to read them www.cmthosting.net/tos.php I’d recommend reading them all and printing of for further reference.

I hope you have learnt your lesion not to SPAM. the UK and USA police are cracking down very hard on this subject, Your account is now available to use again however FTP won’t be available for another 24 hours for extra security. This has been your first violation so no payment is due however if you don’t follow our rules or advice I will suspend your account again and make a charge to your paypal address. This is your last warning. You cannot upload the files you had before so you’ll need to make new ones which contain no viruses.

Because you used your inbox to send SPAM we have disabled you to send eMails from our mail system, So you’ll need to use the eMail address your Internet Provider gave you when you registered on the web.

If you have any further questions or would like to make a report against me, eMail info@cmthosting.net

Thank you
Christopher Thompson
Abuse Department

eMail abuse@cmthosting.net

Hi,
I don’t think I’m being treated right here, Your running a rubbish service here. I have made a report myself to the director of CMTHosting.
Mike

Hello,

After that comment I have terminated your account with us. I don’t think you fully understand what you have done wrong here. As for you making a report to the director I am the main director of CMTHosting, the Taxes police have also been informed about you and what you’re doing.

As for running a rubbish service, you’re the only one to make that comment, our customer feedback can be found here……
http://www.cmthosting.net/testimonials.php
Its people like you who make our services look bad, I’d just recommend giving up now and go back to the day job.

I will not be accepting any new orders from you and your IP has been blocked from viewing all our websites & services. I have also posted all the details you have done on local forums so people know to avoid you.

Good luck in finding a new host; although I’m 99.9% sure you won’t find anyone to accept you as a customer.

Regards,
Christopher Thompson
Abuse Department

eMail: abuse@cmthosting.net
 
Last edited:
Christopher,
Very tough day it sounds like, but I would remove/change the name of the client so he doesn't try to lash out against you. ;)
 
It does indeed sound like a rough day. Although, I will admit that you showed a lot more patience than I would have in that situation. I'd have turfed him on the spot. Spamming on my network?? Begone!!!! Zero tolerance.

Vito
 
The way you handled it sets a great example for the hosting industry, kudos for that.

It seems like you have had a bad day, as everybody else agrees, and like vito said, you were very patient with him.
 
Section II of your TOS explains it all. I don't see how there could have been any argument between him and you. It is clearly stated on your website.

Anyway, even though you had a bad day yesterday, hopefully, you are having a better one now, after everyone is telling you how well you handled the situation (including me ;)).
 
First, let me say that I think you handled the situation good.

However, I can't help but notice one thing missing.

I noticed that you did not account for the possibility that the customer may have actually been blind to all of this.

There are some instances of a customer's account being compromised (usually through fault of their own, or a malicious hacking attempt), and the hacker/attacker uploads the files, and sends the mail, after creating an address for themselves.

Outside of that, you handled it well, and the only thing I can see that could have been handled differently, is possibly using the communication to explain which files were in violation, as well as the email address(s) in question. Just in case, in the rare instance, that the above scenerio would have been the case. Afterall, we don't want to make our customers the victim twice. Once by an attacker, and then once by us...the host.

I don't think however that the attacker/hacker scenerio was accurate, as the customer removed particular files even without you telling them which files were in question. That tells me that they knew exactly what you were talking about. However, initial communication did not make that clear (which of course is my purpose for posting ;) )

The thing to also keep in mind, for those of you that have not yet been threatened with legal action....

1. You do have every right to remove any rights from a customer that you choose. It's your service, server, and "property."

2. Almost every abuser/spammer/kiddie hacker, will threaten to sue you for stopping their illegal actions. Just remember, that you have grounds, and proof for not only a counter suit, but in the case of hacking, you also have a federal complaint and charges that can be filed against them. So if they threaten....tell them to do it. Chances are that they won't, and if they do, they're only damning themselves.

3. Unless you TOS states otherwise, you have no obligation to backup, restore, or provide backups to these customers. They were suspended/terminated for breaking your terms, and possibly the law. Providing them with the files that they used to do this (in the case of breaking the law), you "could" be held accountable for assisting them in the illegal activities.

4. While general a time waster, unless you have reason to suspect....you have every right to review/view your customer's account in detail. Including but not limited to, looking at their files, etc. You are protecting your business, and server, and possibly the entire network, by doing so. DO NOT, allow a customer to lead you to believe that you invaded their privacy by doing so. Remember, they're in your house, you're not in their's.
 
Wonderful suggestions, Mark. All points could be held as guide to many hosts.

In regard to handling the customer, it seems you did very well. In my opinion, I think you could have provided more evidence in your emails rather than just stating you host that and send spam. It could have helped making the customer believe that you have hard evidence evidence against them. Pointing them to specific files and possible displaying part of the log from spamming activities would have made it easier. As Mark said, you have the right to screen the files your customer uploads on your server. Since not all signed customers could be actually responsible for those files or spamming (if they gave some rights to their users), if that was me, I would have been really frustrated with it. By giving customer more details on your case, and if the customer acted on it himself by terminating an account of "their" user, you could have retained another paying customer, assuming he is honest.

Best,
 
I certainly agree that sometimes the customer is blind to the situation, especially if they have upload scripts or are a reseller and have clients of their own.

But, you did give him a notice of warning first. The way he responded I would think suggests he put the files on his account himself.
 
cats-hosting said:
The way he responded I would think suggests he put the files on his account himself.
Click to expand...
Yes, I also believe that's what he gave the client away. "Who made the complaint?" :D
 
OK, call me crazy, but for a minute there I got a little lost....

As for taking legal action, I’m sure the USA Police would like to see you, You have sent out over 50,000 SPAM eMails to people all over the Internet that’s a life time jail sentences and a £1,000 fine plus, so I’d recommend you not taking legal action because you’re the person in the wrong, I have kept all eMails you have sent from your account and will be forwarding them to the Taxes Police for them to take further action.
Click to expand...

I'm confused...lol. Since when do U.S. authorities give out life sentences for spam? And since when do we use pounds for our fines? And why would the IRS (Taxes Police) handle spam complaints. lol...I'm just slightly confused there
 
To answer your question about the IRS, I believe Chris meant the Texas police, since he made a reference to the atty general of Texas.
 
What if someone uses his/her email to spam other people? My friend owns a domain and her mail box was spammed by her own email address...weird...
 
Daisy said:
What if someone uses his/her email to spam other people? My friend owns a domain and her mail box was spammed by her own email address...weird...
Click to expand...
Daisy, that actually happens a lot. Spammers do not actually use your e-mail address, but just make it look like it came from your e-mail address.

When you receive such e-mails, make sure to check full header information (properties) to see where the e-mails are actually arriving from.

Best,
 
I had the same problem a while ago. A spammer used random email addresses at one of my domains as the 'reply to' addresses when they sent out thousands of junk email messages. Luckily Spam Assassin was able to pickup most of the emails that bounced back to me. There isn't really too much you can do other than alert the owner of the IP address the messages are really being sent from. Eventually it dies away as the spammer moves on to another unsuspecting individual :rolleyes:
 
vito said:
It does indeed sound like a rough day. Although, I will admit that you showed a lot more patience than I would have in that situation. I'd have turfed him on the spot. Spamming on my network?? Begone!!!! Zero tolerance.

Vito
Click to expand...

Well said Vito, I think you should call the police and report him for the spam.
 
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