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you have just had an experience with a
customer from hell. Approximately 5% of all customers are customers from
hell. Your defining moment of truth is his signature on your contract,
which if you are not a dunce, yhou have one and it covers eventualities such as
you describe. If you do not have a contract, download his shitty little
site on a disk and send it to him, then write off the 76 bucks and go on with
your life. Your life will improve when you don't deal with lowlifes.
But put him in collection.
Michael L. Dean
SourceView Corporation
P. O.
Box 4713
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
925.372.8439; fax-925.372.3841 (after 10pm
PST)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
International service provider for:
1. Internet
access, email, efax, news feeds, web hosting;
2. Certified and Bonded Domain
Name Registration & Management;
3. Marketing, market research, public
relations and press management;
4. E-Commerce Website creation, development
& management;
5. Software Programming and Development
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 10:55
AM
Subject: Re: Off Topic - termination of
website, overdue account
If you give him the files, you lose $76.
Talking to a lawyer these days cost $200/hr. You can write off the $76
and get rid of a headache - he's not worth it. If you give him the
files, he'll most likely go away quietly and you can better service your good
clients.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 1:02
PM
Subject: Off Topic - termination of
website, overdue account
Sorry for the off-topic subject but I have an issue that came
up of importance
to ISPs who host websites and it is domain registration
related.
We recently terminated an account who got hosting and dialup
services from us.
Many friendly emails were sent, phone calls with
promises to pay the overdue
accountand re-faxing the invoice, termination
was the final remedy. I thought as
a service provider I have the right to
do. No payment, no service. I feel I am
not obligated to provide or
continue to provide internet services with a
customer in bad standing. In
the past when we lost a client to another ISP, we
have in the past
assisted the process when the account was paid in full.
Rather than
paying the amount owing he decided to move the domain to another
ISP. We
disabled FTP access and email access to the domain and dialup
access
immediately upon finding out his desire to move the domain. We did
not hold back
transfer of the domain, we responded within 12 hours after
receiving the request
for transfer from Netsol as we were the
administrative contact on the domain.
He claims since we terminated
the account, we should pay for moving his domain
Netsol charges, and loss
of business. By the way the site has been moved for a
week and the site
is still unreachable at the new ISP. He claims that he owns
the data on
our servers and we must allow him access so he or his new ISP
can
download his site. Apparently he did not backup his own website. We
were not
paid or contracted to any site design or backup his business
data, just hosting
and dialup.
He is now also claiming that we are
responsible for reconstructed his website
for $5000 he says a contractor
is charging and wants me to pay it. The site was
maybe a $300 or $400
site. I have talked to a lawyer but I'm also trying to
research
this further in case this comes up again.
He came into our showroom
and was verbally abusive to me personally and the
business in front of
two customers. I do not want to give him access to our
servers fearing he
may attempt electronic abuse.
Is the data sitting on our servers,
property of the ex-client who is trying to
get out of paying $76.93. Are
we responsible to give ex-clients access to our
servers. Are we as ISPs
responsible to backup and make available whenever
current or ex-clients
want copies of their website ?
I was willing to let his new ISP get
FTP access once the account is paid by
certified cheque only, and that
the ex-client sign a form stating both parties
are no longer under any
financial obligation to one another. He refused to sign,
I refuse to give
him FTP access.
I do understand that ISPs cannot holdback domain
transfers, we did not, but are
we also responsible to for ex-clients poor
business practices of not backing up
their own website? I cannot believe
a court of law is going to force ISPs to
keep files on all clients, in
case the screw up and loose their data with their
new ISP. This is not
common sense but stupidity unless I'm missing something
here. Sorry for
the length of the post, your comments are
welcome.
--
Thanks,
Mike
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