wow. total fail.

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
I work at a hosting company / datacenter

Customer that was routinely late with payments for a dedicated server finally gave up on paying. We said we would hold onto the server temporarily to give them time to pay up before we would recycle the server back into inventory.

6months go by. Nothing.

Guy calls up today and says he is about to give a presentation to hundreds of people and needs the server back online asap. Says he is willing to pay by credit card to get caught up.

We are like... ummmm, we deleted everything 3 months ago and rented the server out to someone else dude. Sorry.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
Hahahaha pwned. What an idiot.

btw you left off the best part of the story. What was his response?
 

sao123

Lifer
May 27, 2002
12,656
207
106
renting out the server to someone else could be a problem, but surely you have his data on a tape backup somewhere?
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
You should have a backup of his stuff still, yeah?

No.

Customer rented a dedicated server, fell two months behind, we pulled the server offline until they got caught up, and they quit responding to us.

They were not paying for backup services, nor do we just backup every customer that cancels. We have about 6,000 servers here.

Why, in this case, would we be responsible for the data? We kept the server on the shelf, un touched for almost 3 months apparently before putting it back into inventory so it could be rented out and we can make money with it.
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,891
6,057
146
Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
You should have a backup of his stuff still, yeah?

renting out the server to someone else could be a problem, but surely you have his data on a tape backup somewhere?

You have to be kidding. 6 months without payment? He did not want that content, apparently.
The customer is a total tool if he:
A) expected anything to be there
B) had not backed it all up locally the day he decided to quit paying the bills.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: sao123
renting out the server to someone else could be a problem, but surely you have his data on a tape backup somewhere?

It was our server. If you evicted someone from an 'apartmen't because they didn't pay rent for 2 months, and they left all their furniture there, what would you do? We basically held onto it for 3 months in the 'apartment', not renting the 'apartment' either. We finally cleared out the 'apartment' and rented it to someone else. The tenant comes back 6 months later and says, "hey I want to move back in and show someone my awesome apartment and furniture today"
 

ViviTheMage

Lifer
Dec 12, 2002
36,189
87
91
madgenius.com
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Originally posted by: ViviTheMage
You should have a backup of his stuff still, yeah?

No.

Customer rented a dedicated server, fell two months behind, we pulled the server offline until they got caught up, and they quit responding to us.

They were not paying for backup services, nor do we just backup every customer that cancels. We have about 6,000 servers here.

Why, in this case, would we be responsible for the data? We kept the server on the shelf, un touched for almost 3 months apparently before putting it back into inventory so it could be rented out and we can make money with it.

Oh yeah, you didn't need to be doing anything else for him then...he's lucky you kept it for the 3 months after the fact...
 

Ns1

No Lifer
Jun 17, 2001
55,420
1,600
126
it's too bad you DIDN'T have it on a tape so you could charge him a 5 digit restoration fee.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,699
60
91
Originally posted by: Ns1
it's too bad you DIDN'T have it on a tape so you could charge him a 5 digit restoration fee.

True, but rolling the dice like that on every customer that cancels (some of which may have hundreds of gigs of data) would probably cost more to manage than what we could get, even if we charged 5 figures.
 

Terabyte

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 1999
3,875
0
71
Can you make sure I get a BOC from the next Woot off?? Thanks ;)

Yeah, that guy is an idiot. He didn't pay his bill, so he got cut off. Haha
 

heymrdj

Diamond Member
May 28, 2007
3,999
63
91
I know that story. Working for RTG and USDC for those several years showed me alot of stupid non-paying clients who would come back even threatening us with lawsuits to get data. Absolutely brainless IMHO. I mean cmon 6months?
 

sao123

Lifer
May 27, 2002
12,656
207
106
Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
Originally posted by: sao123
renting out the server to someone else could be a problem, but surely you have his data on a tape backup somewhere?

It was our server. If you evicted someone from an 'apartmen't because they didn't pay rent for 2 months, and they left all their furniture there, what would you do? We basically held onto it for 3 months in the 'apartment', not renting the 'apartment' either. We finally cleared out the 'apartment' and rented it to someone else. The tenant comes back 6 months later and says, "hey I want to move back in and show someone my awesome apartment and furniture today"

I meant a problem for him... as in its gone and if you dont have another hes SOL... but if you did have another... I see some profit in "EXTRA" expenses encurred from restoring data from backup.
 

randay

Lifer
May 30, 2006
11,018
216
106
maybe you should warn that they will lose all their data when their service is cancelled. might have got an extra month out of him. instead, all you have is a boring story.
 

Exterous

Super Moderator
Jun 20, 2006
20,616
3,840
126
Originally posted by: Genx87
Hahahaha pwned. What an idiot.

btw you left off the best part of the story. What was his response?

Yeah - what did he say?
 

apac

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2003
6,212
0
71
Originally posted by: randay
maybe you should warn that they will lose all their data when their service is cancelled. might have got an extra month out of him. instead, all you have is a boring story.

I'm sure his company did.