Hi. Website is actually not mine. It belongs to a friend of my wife. She has a small soap making start-up. Website was made about 2 years back to give the brand an online face/ presence and to take orders online via the contact form. Now they hired someone to make the website.Some amount was agreed (no written records of this as she tells me, only telephonic conversations) in return of which he would make the website in return of a given number type of features/ pages/ design. He made the website but it was not as per their agreement so they only paid him 50% to what was agreed. Now yesterday, some "apparent" hacker "hacked" into their website and contacted them saying you should transfer their website to a "secure hosting" (I dont know what the "hacker" meant by this) and also gave them screen shots of emails and what not. She got concerned and contacted the developer and requested him to transfer it to a secure web hosting. If not, she asked him to provide the details of the web hosting so they can transfer it themselves (by hiring someone else or whatever). Now, I don't know why, this dev got upset and said that he would only do it if they pay the remaining 50% to him. He then deleted the website. Now he said do whatever you can, I will not restore it if you don't give the rest amount or you can build it yourself. Saying this, he sent the domain registration details to her by email (which she has shared with me). But she has zero knowledge on how websites work to know that alone domain control can not solve her problem. She needs 1st: The backup files and 2nd: A web host to host them some where in order to get her site back. She contacted me and I asked her to forward all the details the dev gave her. From the URL, I found out the domain registrar and using "www.whoishostingthis.com" I found out that it was hosted on http://www.singlehop.com. I asked her to contact the SingleHop support guys and explain them the situation to see if they can give her the backup if she is able to establish her identity as the owner. The SingleHop support guy on chat told her he can not give any a/c details or backup and that she must contact the guy who she hired for any help. Correct me if I am wrong that there are three possibilities here: 1. Website was hosted on a reseller hosting a/c. In that case, will sites like "www.whoishostingthis.com" still show the host as SingleHop or as the "ResellerHost". I think the latter. So this possibility is pretty bleak. 2. The guys bought a new shared hosting a/c for them and no other website is hosted on this. If this is a case, is their any procedure where, after establishing that she is the owner of the brand", she can get the a/c details, or atleast the backup? 3. The guy had a hosting a/c himself on the website where he hosts other websites he "develops" too (and this would also be wrong on the dev's part too, no?. In this case, IMO, it would be next to impossible for the web host to provide any help even in the form of backup. Can they be requested to ask him to give her the backup or anything? The website was not huge (1-2 static pages (I am assuming that they were static from the info she gave me, she could be wrong about static HTML as she is not knowledgeable on this) were only working as he didn't complete it and also a contact form which send to send the query via the contact form to their email address) . She has asked me to help and atleast temporarily rebuild the website over the weekend and hopefully I will be able to replicate the website with help of google cache (for design and content). For the time being, I will host it on my web host. But even if I am able to do it somehow, she is still losing the hosting. What are her options? What can I do to help her so that she can get her website back along with the hosting. How do I/ she approach this. And please, do not think I am lying. Really asking for help here.
This is totally her fault for being careless! First you say the website was made two years ago and then you say they hired someone to build the website. I don't get this. Your friend has a website but doesn't even know where the website is being hosted at. Is this correct? Whoever she 'hired' took her website and now wants the rest of the money. Either pay the guy or forget about it. There's no third option. Archived websites have home page cashed only and are often broken, so you won't get much use out of it. No evidence, no case. The only thing left is to trace the phone number and appear at the person's home. No hosting provider will give you a backup copy without account identity no matter who you prove to be, unless your request is backed by a legal warrant. You can at best check the nameservers in your domain control panel to see where they point to, but if the hosting wasn't registered under her account, you can forget about it. She needs to face the situation, unless she pays up her website is lost forever. This may sound harsh but she got what she asked for. Let this be a lesson to her and to the rest, this is not how you conduct business. If you, however, restore the original design and need a temporary host for her website, you can use mine (link in my signature) for as long as you want. I would also suggest this and other webmaster boards to find someone to fix the design for some pocket money. If the web design cannot be restored, I suggest http://99designs.com for a new one. Good luck.
Let me get this straight. They agreed on a price. He made the web site. She decided it wasn't what she wanted so she then modified the agreement post-work and decided to only pay him 50%? If that is the case she is at fault. I could tell you why. He was owed the 50% because that was what was agreed on. When she refused to pay him the full agreed upon amount then demanded for the site to be transferred for free he decided to delete it. Your friend made a terrible business decision...twice.