I've sold quite a lot of websites at DigitalPoint in the past few months and my reseller has builded up with so many accounts, and right now I'm looking to move to a new host because my current host is starting to get really slow and the usual MySQL connection errors and downtimes are starting to annoy me. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to keep track of who has bought which site as I've sold so many sites in the past few months. I could look through my PM's, but I've had to delete a large amount of PM's in the past few weeks because I've been getting closer and closer to the PM limit. Ok, I'll get straight to the point now.. Basically, I've sold a ton of websites and haven't been able to keep track of who exactly has bought what and now I am looking to transfer the sites over to another host. The thing is I'd prefer not to move everything over as it's going to cost me $5 for the transfer of each site. I know it's my fault for not keeping track of who has bought what, but it's happened and there's nothing I can do about, except learn from my mistake.. I have no idea how to inform the buyers about this. Should I just backup the sites I've already sold and provide the backup to the buyer if and once they contact me regarding the status of their site (which will probably be inacessible)? I really don't know what to do and would like to keep the costs for the transfer as low as possible as I already have quite a few sites that I would need to get transferred. Please help me out.
SO, you are hosting all of these sites for free? In any case, and since you did not keep records. Make backups regardless. When they contact you about the site being down, send them the backup and let them deal with it. It was free hosting anyway right? You should still make an attempt to contact them, but that is my advice.
Yes, I am hosting them free. I also believe in the various threads I've listed sites for sale I've specifically mentioned that I'll keep sites hosted for atleast 1 month. I've actually hosted most of these sites for longer than that (around 2-3 months maybe?) but couldn't really be bothered suspending any of them or contacting the buyers to let them know that I can no longer host them for free. Since I didn't keep track of who bought what, I can't do this. I will see what I can do to contact the buyers and let them know.
One thing to do is probably to run through all your domain names through a Whois and see if the ownership belongs to you or someone else. If it is someone else then it would have been one which has been apparently sold to someone else. Then check to see if the domain name still points to your account IP address. That way you can decide what to remove and what to keep and what to inform who to move the sites out.
Doesn't your reseller account list contact email addresses for all of the sites? I would drop everyone an email telling them of the move and asking that they transfer their sites to their own host. For one thing it would save you having to transfer their sites and for another, it might help take the load off of your own hosting, thereby giving you a little bit of breathing room.
I agree, try the whois data or the contact form on the sites if it's there. That'll be a lot quicker than wding though months of PMs
The problem is I've created all the accounts in WHM using my email address. I doubt any of the buyers would've been bothered enough to update the email address on file through cPanel.
Yes, thanks for your suggestions guys! I'm going to try and see if I can contact these guys through whois. Again, thanks for your help! Much appreciated.
Before you have to move -try suspending them on the server. A suspension notice will get their attention pretty fast