Host I Can = Steal I Can

[Curt]

Ashraf is telling the story about how dotTech lost all data and was robbed by a company named HostICan. You can read the full story at http://dottech.org/t...ng-them-honest/19662 but here is a snippet from the post:

The issue at hand is the fact that HostICan never explicitly told me why my account was suspended (aside from a vague e-mail), they never gave me a chance to rectify my mistake (I could have kept my other websites on HostICan and moved dotTech away from HostICan, back onto a dedicated server), and they lost five weeks worth of data in the process (luckily we didn't lose everything, since I had a five week old backup).

I have repeatedly tried to e-mail, chat, and call HostICan to try to get this issue resolved; but they are ignoring all forms of communication and to this day my account remains suspended even though I paid for four years worth of service and only got five weeks.

-Ashraf, dotTech

I have already filed a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regarding HostICan's behavior. Although I don't expect much to come out of the complaint, it felt good filing it.

Next step on the anti-HostICan campaign: Spread the word. This is me spreading the word:

Avoid HostICan more than you would avoid the plague.

Unless stated otherwise, you may redistribute the content of this post in accordance with the guidelines set by the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

[Bamse]

"after all four years of shared hosting for $78 is a banging deal" is the real problem, his own. Another thing is the TOS he was under. He does not say much about that. He can be pissed all he wants, does not help much if he violated TOS. Such hosting deals can typically be nulled in a flash if that was the case. Does not have to be traffic, too high cpu usage is enough. Should they promise unlimited bandwidth there will be something like "unless traffic hurt performance on shared server" - which it will Don't think it is typical to delete content during suspension though. He should still have access to ftp and database but if they really did delete stuff so he could not even upgrade = not in hosticans interest, he probably have agreed to that as well when signing up. He will need a good lawyer to get anywhere.

[mouser]

Ashraf is a really nice guy and dotTech is a nice site.  I can see how a cheap shared hosting site might tell someone that the site has too much traffic to host, and ask them to move in the near future, etc., but it sounds like they were completely unreasonable about the way they did it and their behavior afterwards.

Hang in there Ashraf!

[Bamse]

From a quick glance at their terms it seems like there is a clear policy regarding suspension. He get 7 days to respond/fix issues or else... He claims he never got a chance to respond and they even deleted all content. That must be strongest and perhaps only point holding water. Rest are not really arguments but comes down to him making a stupid Admin decision based on wishful thinking.

They also have a term about choosing service. If you beforehand or when signing up know you have a high traffic site it is your responsibility to not chose shared server That alone can be a problem perhaps. In more words but that is what they mean. They have covered them self many times but should not delete site. Not even in their interest, they just want him more powerful and more expensive server. He should claim valuable content was lost and has been suffering ever since because host went berserk and wiped him out with no option to rectify his mistake.