How to go about dealing with a business?

[Jeff7]

Sorry for the ambiguous title there....and sorry if this thread gets a bit ambiguous.

In short, I suck at dealing with people, especially in a situation where I need someone else to give me something they don't want to give me.

Backstory:
My webhost, Global Internet Solutions, sent me notification in November 2009, indicating that they had suspended my account due to excessive server load. However, I was still able to log into the Control Panel, and my bandwidth was showing as somewhere around 500MB/70GB used in the past month. They said that this load warning was due to some kind of application (forum, something like that) running. Problem is, my site is all just basic, antiquated HTML files with some pictures here and there. Most of the rest of the disk usage is from using my site as an imagehost, mainly for Anandtech.
After several back-and-forth phonecalls with Gisol, of which they say they have no record now, they were never able to give me a good reason for why they said my account had a problem. After what became the last phonecall then, they said they would "look into it," and I never heard anything about it again.

Stupidly, I did not seek another host.


This week: I found that my e-mail was inoperable due to a login error, and trying to reach my site's Control Panel only yielded a message of "You account has been suspended for the following reason(s): Your account is currently suspended." I did still have access for creating a trouble ticket, which I did.
After a day or two, I finally got a call from customer service. (I did try calling Gisol, but all you can reach right away is a call center with a person who can only reply in carefully-read canned phrases.) They said I was significantly over my 35GB bandwidth limit (35? What happened to 70, like my Control Panel says?), and that I had already incurred $400+ of overage fees. I guess this is legal, as cellphone bills can evidently do the same thing? I really don't know; my cellphone prompts me when my minutes are running low.

They weren't able to retrieve any bandwidth stats, as they were also locked out of the account. The only way they offered to make that $400 fee "go away" was an account upgrade, with a move of the site to a new server with "unlimited" bandwidth capabilities. So.......okay, fine, I want the site back online, and I don't want to lose all the files - and I want to be able to see my usage logs. Upgrade time, apparently. :\
Bing!, the account was back up and running within a few minutes of making payment. The thing is, I'm showing bandwidth usage of 391.2MB/70GB. Yeah, still the same thing, with limitations shown on bandwidth and disk space. I'm also showing as still having the same billing plan as before.

I called up again, and was told that this is because the account hasn't been fully migrated, and that he was still in the process of transferring everything. :hmm:

Long and short of it is, I have no clue what my rights are with this stuff, or what I can ask, or what I can say to them. $400 in overage fees, yet they can't produce any evidence of this overage, except a notification on some call center guy's computer? Are they even required to provide evidence of this overage in order to charge me for it?

My other suspicion was that my account was simply not wanted. It was $7.95/month for 1.5GB space and 70GB/month bandwidth, at least according to what the Control Panel says. They don't even offer that package anymore. Their lowest plan is $20/month, though it does come with much higher advertised limits.

I guess I don't know what my options are, or were, or even what the right questions to ask would be. Obviously I prefer $7.95/month, or less. But I also don't like the threat of a $400 fee for something which I find very difficult to believe. Admittedly, I rarely checked my bandwidth usage stats, because I don't think I ever even exceeded 10% of the monthly bandwidth limit, and my monthly hit rate is probably less than 1000.

It's kind of like that I think I just got screwed over into making an upgrade for no reason, but I really haven't got a clue what to do about it, or even what can be done.


Cliffs:
- Account suspended for excessive bandwidth consumption.
- This is very unlikely; I doubt I ever used even 10% of the allotted bandwidth.
- Paid for an account upgrade to avoid a $400+ overage fee.
- No evidence was available to confirm or deny, as the entire account had been locked down tight.
- I've got no idea what my options even were, and don't know what can be done at this point.



The scary part: I might need to buy a new car in the next year or so. I'm pretty sure I'll need a shirt that says "Naive Sucker" on it.D:

 

[SlitheryDee]

Sounds like they screwed you. I suggest backing up the site and getting a new host if you have no obligations to the provider past this month. Doubt the overage charges would hold up or that they would even pursue collecting it. I would want to be rid of these people ASAP whatever the case.

 

[PottedMeat]

They weren't able to retrieve any bandwidth stats, as they were also locked out of the account. The only way they offered to make that $400 fee "go away" was an account upgrade, with a move of the site to a new server with "unlimited" bandwidth capabilities. So.......okay, fine, I want the site back online, and I don't want to lose all the files - and I want to be able to see my usage logs. Upgrade time, apparently.
Bing!, the account was back up and running within a few minutes of making payment.

assholes.

Can you cancel after a month or something?

I've thought about saying 'i'll think about it' then call again a few hours later for a different CSR when I didn't get what I wanted... if it's a small company though you may get the same person.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Make them identify where the bandwidth requests are coming from if they want to charge you

 

[Jeff7]

assholes.

Can you cancel after a month or something?

That was not given as an option. It's a contract deal for quite a few months of service; that's apparently what they do.

I've thought about saying 'i'll think about it' then call again a few hours later for a different CSR when I didn't get what I wanted... if it's a small company though you may get the same person.

I don't know....I called three times over two days, and I got the same guy taking the message each time, and the two times I talked to someone who could actually deal with issues, it was the same rep.

Make them identify where the bandwidth requests are coming from if they want to charge you

Ok. Stupid question time:
"Make them identify..."
How? This is the kind of thing I was hinting at when I said I suck at getting things from people when they don't want to give them. Or rather, I don't know how. If I have nothing to offer in return, what leverage do I possibly have? For all I know, they could send the overage charges to a collections agency. I have no idea how any of that stuff works though.


There is going to be a bandwidth spike right now though - site backup in progress.


Hmmmm....including a folder called Webalizer which appears to have many more logfiles in it than the Webalizer interface on the Control Panel. About 300 objects are present in that folder. Should be interesting.

 

[EagleKeeper]

The technical details are beyond my knowledge on how they would have the information

However, they are saying that you are using xMBs of bandwidth. Their system has to determine where the requests are comming from. They should have logs.


Ask them point blank to provide you with the usage logs. They should have the time (in some type of increments) and the amount being used.
In order for them to provide that information; the raw data must also be available showing where the requests were coming from.

No logs - How can they prove that it is your bandwidth?
They can go suck an egg (being polite)

 

[Jeff7]

Ok, maybe I have something now.
I downloaded all the Webalizer logs, including usage stats for the past month, and apparently everything for as long as my site's been in operation.
Jan 2010 stats, if I'm reading them right:
- 393 hits
- 10.114MB total transfer....

......hello, hello.
I have some odd folders here.
indik, nkdhh, and cubdu

Indik is filled with php files which seem to contain random garbage, reminiscent of filler in spam.

Account breach? Those files are responsible for most of my bandwidth consumption. Peachy.


I figure to let those folders stay there as evidence, but change my password promptly.

 

[Jodell88]

26% of your vistors came from Russia? :hmm:

 

[Jeff7]

26% of your vistors came from Russia? :hmm:

Apparently I'm all the rage thanks to Yandex, which I guess is their equivalent of Google?

Maybe Russians are just in love with 90's-style 4.01 HTML coding. Why my Tesla Coil section still uses frames. Wonderful, resizable frames.

But check out the "Top 30 of 239 Total URLs" section. Most of them are pulling from that "indik" folder.

It looks very much like someone's been using my site as a spam generator. I wonder if hiring the Russian mafia to hunt down the person responsible would be a conflict of interest?:awe:


I have put in a trouble ticket detailing these goings-on, and pointing out the mystery folders - as well as saying that this would've been a lot easier to figure out if they'd have at least let me go over these server logs. The CSR I talked to said he was at a call center, and didn't have the ability to unlock any accounts; he said he had just as much access as I had. Given that it took about a full day just to get in contact with a CSR, contacting anyone with technical expertise would be as easy as taking a train to Saturn.

 

[yinan]

At these costs, you should just upgrade your Internet service at home and serve up your site yourself. I think it might be cheaper or at least you would have more control over your data.

 

[Jeff7]

Hello,
My account has recently been suspended and then resumed based on my understanding that it was necessary to upgrade it in order to avoid an excessive bandwidth usage fee.
I have found some folders which I did NOT place on the server, and which appear to contain random spam-like files.
In my account, the folders are:
indik
nkdhh
cubdu

Indik has the most files in it.

I will change my Control Panel login as soon as I finish posting this message.

If this is the cause of any bandwidth overage problems, what can be done about this, since it may not have been at all my fault. Now that I have access to my site logs once again, which should have been pulled up by a customer service rep in the process of resolving this whole mess, I see that these .php files in that "indik" folder are responsible for a lot of bandwidth usage.

If that's the case, and this is because of some account misuse, I'd like to know what my options are. I'd also like to see specific evidence of these alleged overages, because I'm not seeing them in the Webalizer logs.

Jeff

A: Hi Jeff,

Thank you for contacting the Support Department @ GISOL, INC.

As one of our agents previously explained to you the logs that you are looking at are incorrect and are inconstant. We have no way of checking to see if those files are the cause of the bandwidth, however the files are very small in size and it doesn't look like they take up a lot of the bandwidth.

The account as a whole is your sole responsibility so if for example someone got your password and did something with your account it would be the customers responsibility unless the whole server was hacked and that was the cause which is not the case here.

You now have Unlimited Bandwidth and should not come across this issue again.

Sincerely,

Gisol Inc
Support

I is screwed?

 

[lxskllr]

I is screwed?

Sounds like it. Ultimately, they're right. The responsibility for the site, including keeping it secure falls on you. You could fight with them, but is the hassle really worth it?

 

[D1gger]

Change providers. These guys are not helping you except to increase your monthly fee.

 

[Jeff7]

Sounds like it. Ultimately, they're right. The responsibility for the site, including keeping it secure falls on you. You could fight with them, but is the hassle really worth it?

Yeah.....sucks. I didn't expect overage fees, or anything like this. I figured the site would just get suspended or cut off if it ever got to its bandwidth limit.
Nope, when companies can charge you overage fees for overages they aren't obligated to warn you about, well....surprise surprise, a big bill awaits. And of course, if you can't afford a lawyer, you'd best be able to afford the bill.

Change providers. These guys are not helping you except to increase your monthly fee.

The upgrade was a contract. I'm stuck with them for awhile.
Their service is adequate. Their customer service...not so much. Though I'd imagine that this is the norm these days. The Customer Service department exists as a placebo, and not much else.


On the other hand, I've now supposedly got "unlimited" bandwidth and disk space. :hmm:
Maybe I should pull up the TOS and see just what I can do to get my money's worth. Maybe I should host CD and DVD images of every single freely-available Linux distribution ever made. :awe:

 

[PottedMeat]

On the other hand, I've now supposedly got "unlimited" bandwidth and disk space. :hmm:
Maybe I should pull up the TOS and see just what I can do to get my money's worth. Maybe I should host CD and DVD images of every single freely-available Linux distribution ever made. :awe:

offer to host windowsupdate files for microsoft out of the goodness of your heart. :awe:

 

[Jeff7]

offer to host windowsupdate files for microsoft out of the goodness of your heart. :awe:

Yeah. ALL of them. Every service pack for every OS Microsoft ever made.

 

[lxskllr]

Start a free file sharing site, like RapidShare, no size limit.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

Most of the places I've been hosted with don't charge for overages either. They usually just suspend the site once you hit your cap. Maybe there's a setting in your cpanel or whatever they're using. Honestly your host sounds a little shady anyway with their "unlimited" plan.

 

[Jeff7]

Most of the places I've been hosted with don't charge for overages either. They usually just suspend the site once you hit your cap. Maybe there's a setting in your cpanel or whatever they're using. Honestly your host sounds a little shady anyway with their "unlimited" plan.

They were quite clear over the phone too.
"Other service plans may advertise unlimited bandwidth and space, but they actually cap you at some level. Our advertising is accurate, and we do offer true unlimited bandwidth and storage space."

Uh huh. Fine, I want 32 OC-192 connections, and my own communications satellite. I'd also like to start a site to overtake Archive.org - everything will be archived.



Ah yes, just like the olden days of "unlimited Internet" with dial-up - but if you stay connected for a few days straight to download a huge file, or just for the hell of it, they tell you that you're online too long. Advertising doesn't really give a damn about what some petty dictionary might say.

" ABSOLUTELY UNRESTRICTED ACCESS!!!!"
Some restrictions may apply.