Letshost.ie suspended my hosting without notice.

Red Alert

A lot of businesses get flak on boards.ie for perceived and actual shortcomings in their service. The web hosters are unusual in that they have the 'instant kill' ability on someone's account - compared to most other businesses like Pubs, Supermarkets and others. Imagine if other businesses behaved like letshost.ie and started barring customers for having the audacity to express an opinion.

Oryx

Im glad to see Letshost have finally come on here to give their side. That was needed. While I accept that you (letshost) feel that you were working within your own t&cs to remove the OPs site, Im sure you have gathered from here that while it may have been legally right, the majority opinion is that it was unfair and extremely heavy handed. It has reflected terribly on your company regardless of your understanding of the circumstances.

That, coupled with your delay in responding here, makes it seem as though you have more regard for protecting yourself legally than dealing with your public image.

I am self employed and Im sure not all the comments about my business are favourable. However, I do not have the power to put my customers out of business when I am unhappy about what they say. (I have to either fix my problems, ignore the comments, or deal with the customer directly.) You gave yourself this power, and used it, and that is why you are getting such flak now. If you had simply come on here and addressed the ops original comments, you would not find yourself the subject of a multitude of unfavourable google hits.

cormie

Seems fair enough to me. A breach of T+C's is a breach of T+C's, if it was the other way around it would be a different story. If I could just go and cancel my Three Broadband contract by a click of a button because they aren't providing the service as advertised and in their T+C's, I surely would.

As I've said, any dealings I've had with letshost have been very professional and I've had no problems with my products from them.

pug_

I'm not convinced. A couple of things don't tally between the two stories, and I haven't seen anything to suggest letshost acted appropriately in this instance.

Not having seen the original first post it's impossible to comment on whether or not the T&C's were technically broken. However irrespective of this to the best of my knowledge the first contact between letshost.ie and the OP was a phone call where the OP was asked to remove the post, they didn't actually remove it but edited it to make it opinion and therefore not in breach of T&C's. It was subsequent to this change that the account was suspended, and therefore to my mind anyway the account was suspended for the OP having an opinion, this is I believe is a completely unacceptable attempt at forcing censorship.

The second thing that strikes me is the way the account was suspended. Not only was the domain being redirected to a page notifying visitors of the suspension (the appropriate way to suspend an account) but the DNS record for the site was changed to an invalid IP address 1.1.1.1 this is to my mind inappropriate, and excessive.

The reason I say this is because a change to a DNS record can take 24 hours or longer to propagate so regardless of whether the change was reversed in 25 minutes or not the damage was not going to be undone until all DNS servers on the Internet expired their records for the OPs domain. letshost.ie must have known this before making the DNS change, it's their business after all. This makes me wonder about the actual thinking behind such a change, was it merely to suspend, or was it to teach some kind of lesson.

miju

it's good to see letshost reply here. but in the interest of openess if they have a screen grab of the original post I'm sure they would have no problems in posting the screen grab.

as it stands any posts / comments that i've seenfrom the OP have not particulalry breached letshost.ie's T & Cs (which BTW is a very generic T & C and is wildly open to interpretation / over reaction ) . the posts certainly weren't defamatory or offensive (if they were he would have more than likely recieved some sort of infraction on boards.ie )

what it looks like still, is lethosts has gone from bully boy mode to damage control mode and has made upsupported claims on the OP (and I'm thus far inclined to believe the OP over letshost given your actions thus far)

bren2002

I have to say I think this issue was handled extremely poorly and unprofessionally by letshost.ie.

If a customer criticises or comments on the quality of a service or product offered by a company, that company should try and address these concerns and improve on the areas criticised. The customer is always right and the customers opinion is always the most important, regardless of how the company feels.

Contacting the OP and threatening legal action before attempting to address the concerns or comments is wholly unprofessional, as is summarily terminating a service.

They have done themselves no favours whatsoever.

foggy_lad

dont know anything about letshost or hosting in general but my concern is how they knew it was there customer who had posted originally? they might suspect but would have no way of knowing for sure who the original poster was.

they deleted/suspended their service to a customer for something posted here where anyone can sign up and post any kind of remarks whether opinion or fact.

Sully

People re-read LetsHost post. They claim it wasnt an opinion but directly defamtory. We heard both sides of the story, and I can understand where LetsHost are coming from if what they say is true and if the post was actually defamtory.

Oryx

Sully wrote: »

People re-read LetsHost post. They claim it wasnt an opinion but directly defamtory. We heard both sides of the story, and I can understand where LetsHost are coming from if what they say is true and if the post was actually defamtory.

Can a mod from the forum where the comment was originally made see the unedited version?

bren2002

LetsHost wrote: »

We will always learn from constructive feedback, and I am a firm believer in openly talking to anyone about any issues they may have with us to successful resolution. We host a large number of customer websites, and were the second largest .ie registrar in the country in 2007. With that comes certain responsibilities, to provide reliable services, support Irish jobs, etc., and these responsibilities are undertaken by me and everyone at LetsHost very seriously.

Graeme Conkie
Director
LetsHost

Like the responsibility to provide a robust and reliable service? Taking a site offline and corrupting it's DNS is irresponsible, and as I have said wholly unprofessional.

miju

KtK wrote: »

Can a mod from the forum where the comment was originally made see the unedited version?

once a post is edited a mod cant see the original post, which is why i asked if letshost would be willing to put up a screengrab of the post they claim to have.

that way we'd all be able to see exactly how derogatory and offensive the post really was (though I'm guessing the original post wasn't).

as an aside i've seen some very bad comments made about hosting365 and blacknight made on boards.ie . however, unlike what letshosts have done they actually responded immediatly to the posters comment apologised (in some cases) and at all times offered the poster to directly contact them so they can resolve the issue for them.

that is how you respond to a customer issue NOT shutting a site down for a negative opinion on the servers being located in the US and as a result would be sluggish sometimes (which is 2 correct facts your servers are located in Chicago and any Irish internet user would suffer slight sluggishness on occasion in connecting to a server in the US)

pug_

There's another important point that people seem to be missing.

If the time line given by the OP is correct then the site was suspended after the original post was amended to it's current form. So irrespective of how the original post was worded the site was suspended because of what it says now which is just stating opinion.

We know the OP was contacted prior to the suspension and asked to remove the post, OP chose to amend it instead. I find it difficult to believe that letshost decided to suspend the account without checking to see if any action was taken after the phone call, leading me to believe that the current ammended wording is what led directly to the suspension of the account and not the original which was no longer available at the time of the suspension.

professore

Boggles wrote: »

I knew it, there is no such thing as bad Press!!!

Yeah look at Bertie !!!

Orion

LetsHost wrote: »

Regarding our contact with the poster, the original posted had a direct link from his website to his website (now removed) – this was a publicly available link, leading to a contact us page with a telephone number. As this was publicly available information, it is my opinion that no beach of privacy was made. As the link goes to a web page hosted by us, and the comment on the post stated that people should not host with us, I felt a sufficient link between the two existed to allow me to connect them. The author of this thread agreed he was the publisher on the telephone call.

That be as it may I still think it is completely unprofessional. You have an account here and you could have replied to the post rather than ring him. You did not know that he was the author of the post prior to the phone call. Yet you rang anyway.

LetsHost wrote: »

It is not and never has been the intention to remove or suspend any hosting accounts that are on our servers, that comply with our terms and conditions / acceptable use policy. We are in the web hosting business and it we take the responsibility of hosting our customers sites extremely seriously. I took the decision to reactivate the account 25 minutes before this post was published, and I stand by my decision to suspend in the first place.

And I stand my decision to never even consider using your hosting service especially after this statement. If you really think that a criticism of your service should lead to a suspension of a hosting contract then you are delusional imo. All you have done here is given yourself bad press, lost 1 existing hosting account and countless other potential ones. And this statement does nothing to mitigate your actions.

LetsHost wrote: »

I trust this goes some way to explaining our actions and believe that now the Lets Host side of the story has been aired that it allows you to make a more informed decision about us, our services and offerings. We considered this necessary as disappointingly many industry professionals and boards users had formed opinions without hearing the full story. We would hope people in the industry specifically would know better.

It does do some way to explaining your actions. And only reinforces my personal opinion that you were way out of line. Even if he called you a shower of cowboys who didn't know html from rtf you were still wrong to suspend the account. You had the opportunity to reply on the thread before doing so and didn't use it. You called him and he edited the thread - and you still suspended it. This behaviour is inexcusable. It is pure bully boy tactics and it has backfired on you. Nothing you say can persuade me otherwise after this post of yours. If you had just said "oops we screwed up" then you may have had a high ground to defend. But you didn't.

parsi

This event seems to put letshost in a very unprofessional light. It worries me that a company can see one offending comment and immediately seek legal advice and cease the site rather than attempting to deal with the actual problem.

Interestingly if one is in a dispute with a service provider one cannot unilaterally stop payment but it seems that a service provider can unilaterally stop providing a service.... or thinks they can.

I don't host with them and hadn't heard of them before now. However like most boardsies if I do come across them I'll certainly avoid them.

Sponge Bob

Any Technology Company that is that quick to spend money on lawyers for advice has to have something wrong with it....IE spending money on lawyers that is better spent on a good drinking session for their own staff instead !!!

For not bringing their staff on the piss instead ...of a thursday....- 3 points and a place in Sponge Bobs memory .

Sully

The main point LetsHost has said is the post that was claimed by the OP is not the actual post. Lets not rule judgement until we know what the post actually is.

miju

Sully wrote: »

The main point LetsHost has said is the post that was claimed by the OP is not the actual post. Lets not rule judgement until we know what the post actually is.

well according to the OP he orginally posted

Di11on wrote:

Don't go with letshost.ie if the performance of your website is important to you. Their servers are US based and it is my experience that performance can be very sluggish.

after being contacted (putting it mildy i think) by letshost he edited it to

by Di11on wrote:

If speed and performance are important for your website, I wouldn't recommend letshost.ie. Their servers are US based and it is my experience that performance can be very sluggish. It even times out on me from time to time.

If the "alternative" original post was made by the OP has suggested by letshost was made then I presume the account would have still been suspended so I'm inclined to believe the OP at the moment.

Of course as I said letshost say they have a screengrab of the original post so this whole thing could be cleared up easily if they posted that (providing they have it that is )

forbairt

LetsHost wrote: »

We host a large number of customer websites, and were the second largest .ie registrar in the country in 2007. With that comes certain responsibilities, to provide reliable services, support Irish jobs, etc., and these responsibilities are undertaken by me and everyone at LetsHost very seriously.

Graeme Conkie
Director
LetsHost

Hi Graeme ??,

As someone who hosts sites in Ireland and the US I have one question to ask.

If you support Irish Jobs (and add this statement to your argument / response)... why are your servers located in the US ? (apologies if its blatantly obvious) Is the US hosting provider Irish owned ?

I've followed 2 other threads and would be interested in seeing the full transcript of everything that happened (pictorial evidence / boards records of the posts in question)

Orion

Sully wrote: »

The main point LetsHost has said is the post that was claimed by the OP is not the actual post. Lets not rule judgement until we know what the post actually is.

Actually I don't think it's relevant. They should not have rang him anyway. Despite that they say he confirmed he was the author of the post they could not have known that before making the call. And by their own admission they suspended their account after the post was edited. As I said earlier letshost's action are completely unprofessional imo irrespective of what the original post was.

AlmightyCushion

forbairt wrote: »

boards records of the posts in question

Boards has no record of what the original post was before it was edited (unless an edit history is kept in the database but I seriously doubt this is the case). The only way would be if someone posted up a screengrab or google has it cached.

forbairt

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Boards has no record of what the original post was before it was edited (unless an edit history is kept in the database but I seriously doubt this is the case). The only way would be if someone posted up a screengrab or google has it cached.

unfortunately a screen grab = ROTFL in my opinion

There are a few plugins for vBulletin that enable the history of posts ... I would have hoped boards would have it enabled ...

miju

forbairt wrote: »

If you support Irish Jobs (and add this statement to your argument / response)... why are your servers located in the US ? (apologies if its blatantly obvious) Is the US hosting provider Irish owned ?

well going from their website it's so they can charge lower prices as other Irish hosts are "profiteering" even though their basic (pretty much equivalent) package is more expensive than hosting365's for example

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

google has it cached.

google cache only has the edited post

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

It would be very handy for situations like this.

indeed it would , though i'm sure dillon would have no problem with letshost putting up their screengrab of the offending post like they say they "have" rofl

AlmightyCushion

forbairt wrote: »

There are a few plugins for vBulletin that enable the history of posts ... I would have hoped boards would have it enabled ...

Well it's in the next version of vBulletin so whenever we upgrade to that we'll have it. Hopefully sooner rather then later. It would be very handy for situations like this.

Sully

Macros42 wrote: »

Actually I don't think it's relevant. They should not have rang him anyway.

But if he broke there T&Cs and said something against the company that is defamtory - then they have every right to follow the case up via whatever method they prefer. I think an email / letter is better but thats their choice.

There is a difference between personal opinion and stuff that isnt factual or damages the company. At first, I thought it was terrible but if letshost are being honest - then I can see why they acted that way but it depends on the post.

Despite that they say he confirmed he was the author of the post they could not have known that before making the call.

They may have spotted the post, spotted the sig, and checked was it a client. System said yes, they made contact. If they called not being aware it was a client, then I would find that very unusual.

And by their own admission they suspended their account after the post was edited. As I said earlier letshost's action are completely unprofessional imo irrespective of what the original post was.

Based on the fact the poster broke the T&Cs.. and the post was defamtory they claimed. Whats odd is they suspended then removed the suspension.

Its a tough call.. if the OP pushed the boat and went to far, broke the hosts T&Cs I dont see the problem with calling the client, asking for it to be removed, suspending the site for breaking the T&Cs.

Note: Id prefer the post was fairly bad for the suspension or call to be made.

Orion

Sully wrote: »

They may have spotted the post, spotted the sig, and checked was it a client. System said yes, they made contact. If they called not being aware it was a client, then I would find that very unusual.

How could they have known that the op was going to answer the phone? I still think it is disgraceful that they would call him.

And regardless of their T&Cs, their behaviour has to my mind been completely unprofessional and I, for one, will never have any dealings with them.

I stand by my opinion (possibly on the other thread) that the reason they restored his account was probably because their legal advisor choked when they told him what they'd done without any documented proof that the poster was the client. A phone call is not documented proof.

di11on

As a previous poster pointed out, I'd just like to remind people that after they called me, I edited the post to directly address the issue they had with the original post. They mentioned the line which in their opinion was defamatory, and this is the line I edited.

So, I actually edited the post per their request but my hosting was subsequently terminated regardless.

Red Alert

Why are companies so eager to censor through enforcement of terms and conditions? If I get a crappy bread roll in the supermarket it's my right to express my opinion that I didn't like it and wouldn't recommend it. I had never heard of LetsHost.ie and now I will never use them.

Sam Vimes

Chosen wrote: »

For example, the consumer law states that you can return any goods in the first 7 days since the invoice date, for no special reason ("I don't like it").

no it definitely doesn't say that

http://citizensinformation.ie/categories/consumer-affairs/consumer-protection/consumer-rights/consumers_and_the_law_in_ireland

You have no grounds for redress if

* You were told about the defect before you bought the item (for example, if the goods were marked 'shopsoiled')
* You examined the item before you bought it and should have seen the defect
* You bought the item knowing that it wasn’t fit for what you wanted it to do
* You broke or damaged the product
* You made a mistake when buying the item (for example, if you bought an item of clothing thinking it was black when it is actually navy)
* You change your mind

Gizo

i have used Letshost for a number of years now, i have had some issues with members of my site experiencing slow connections to it, but on the hole its fine.
They have never hidden the fact that the servers are based in the US and im sure they are there for cost effective reasons, and to pass very reasonable rates onto the customer. Their customer service is excellent and i regulary drive them mad im sure
I realise this is not the main issue at hand, but i just thought id post my ipinion of them.
I am in no way connected with them i might ad.