Web host is holding my sites/email hostage

Hi All,

I was hoping someone can help me with this. I had a VPS running at Gearworx.net and up until Monday afternoon, everything was great. I did receive an email from them last week that they were 'upgrading' their servers/services and that everything would be better.

I had a brief e-mail exchange with one person there (I think there's only two people that work there) and he was going to set up the new server.

On Monday afternoon at around 1PM all services stopped working. I have several clients with email and web sites hosted there and all clients, and myself, were gone!

I contacted Gearworx of course and at that time they were still responding. Will, the person I was in touch with asked me for my mail server serial number to activate it... so I was fairly confident everything would be up and running in the morning...

When I checked on Tuesday morning, it appeared that a server was running at the same IP address but every site I go to shows an error connecting to the database it is connected to. It appears that they indeed installed a new server but didn't configure it properly.

On top of which, no email server is configured and none of my clients had email.

After the last email mentioned above, I tried and tried in vain to contact them again... and so far they haven't responded. I haven't received an email or phone call from them since Monday afternoon!

I can't get into the server because the passwords are not the same (or have been reset on purpose), in order for me to configure the server correctly.

I have paid my bill (on time as always through a Paypal subscription) and that shouldn't be the issue... in fact, if it was, one would assume they would have contacted me for payment.

I believe the server is being held hostage for some reason... they know they have the power to completely block me out and that's what they did.

I have had to move all the accounts (email so far only) to another server and most clients are up and running again. The biggest problem I have now is that the previous mail server still has a lot of client mail on it that my clients need.

Can anyone help me to resolve this either amicably or through a third-party association that can hold the ISP responsible?

Thanks for any help.

Nonny

 

Then you should open a ticket to them or if they do have a way to contact via any online chat/livechat. If there is no response regarding this then open a paypal disputes on them if you are just paid for the vps. Cancel you paypal subscriptions too.

 

Hi Asako,

Thanks for your reply. The point, however, is not that I don't want to pay them anymore (that's a given), the point is that I have no access to my data, specifically email accounts that have emails in them from my clients that they need.

I have no way of retrieving them.

I am wondering how I can force them to re-instate my access. I tried in vain to open tickets, call, email... no answer, period!

Any other suggested would be welcome.

Thanks

 

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, I would suggest to perform backups of your VPS next time so that you can move freely if this type of thing should happen in the future.

I would suggest waiting for a bit while and trying to contact them again, sometimes when a web host got a problem, they got floods of emails and phone calls so they eventually leave them unattended.

 

If the phone doesn't work and e-mail doesn't work then you may as well just say you're screwed. Ensure that you have daily backups of your stuff next time I guess is all you can do.

 

Its almost three days now, have you managed to get in touch with them? The only thing you can do is keep trying to contact them,grab your data and move your hosting account to a more reliable web hosting provider.Inorder to avoid such mishaps,it is recommended to sign up a hosting package with reputed web hosting providers who have multiple contact options.
In future it is recommended to do some research about the host before you sign up with them. May be we can suggest a host for you.Please let us know your server requirements and the geo location where you wish to host your website.

 

Backup, Backup & always backup, that is the first mantra.

 

I agree. You need to take care of your backups personally. There are a lot of such situations going to be. So be aware and never give up
Good luck

 

I am sorry to hear about this. I wish companies like that would seek help if they don't understand what their doing. Like how to set-up a new server.