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Reason #3 in "Why we're so good" (http://www.thiswebhost.com/reasons.html http://www.thiswebhost.com/reasons.html): "We want to help. Customer service is very i

Reason #3 in "Why we're so good" (http://www.thiswebhost.com/reasons.html http://www.thiswebhost.com/reasons.html): "We want to help. Customer service is very important to us, so we'll treat you like a valued client and not like a number."

Jabbles 15y ago
How many people do you think "we" is? Could the person that runs the twitter be an employee? They advertise 24/7 customer support. Even if it is an employee, and he is terminated because of this, would that allow you to trust the company again? If it turns out to be the founder/CEO, then we have no hope for the company. But how devastating would it be for your startup if one of your employees did something like this, without your permission. We all know how difficult it is to recruit the right people, but should a mistake like this be un-recoverable?
- citricsquid 15y ago
  I did some looking. The Twitter account appears to have been used by their "Technical Director" Jules. Jules is the same person who replied to the tickets. I then got ahold of their company documents, Jules is not listed as a company owner (or Director) whereas 3 others are. Therefore I am making the assumption that he is indeed only an employee and not someone associated with the higher up management.
  - jarin 15y ago
    Jules is also listed as the company owner on the reviews: http://www.webhostingreviews.com/thiswebhost-reviews.htm http://www.webhostingreviews.com/thiswebhost-reviews.htm And is the registrant of the domain name (and the only contact).
    - samarudge 15y ago
      WhoIs lookup shows him as the domain owner Registrant Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson () Fax: South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Administrative Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Technical Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Also he appears to be using a fake phone number on the WhoIs, am I right in thinking you're not allowed to do that?
      - aeden 15y ago
        Technically you are not allowed to provide fake information, although you may use an identity proxy as long as they provide the means to contact you in case of a dispute. In reality, enforcement of valid identity information is essentially non-existent.
        shabble 15y ago
        I'm personally aware of at least one incident in which someone who had their domain revoked for 'joke' contact details in the whois db. Then again, istr they did piss off an old-school sysadmin (in the a.s.r sense).
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        samarudge 15y ago
        What?!? This information was on the PUBLIC WhoIs database, it's avaliable to anyone. I did this to show the contact information for the site, anyone could have done this but I did it so no-one else had to. http://www.whois.net/whois/thiswebhost.com http://www.whois.net/whois/thiswebhost.com
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        samarudge 15y ago
        There was no intention to track him down, someone posted a comment asking to check on the WhoIs to find out the owner. I do not want to figure out their phone number, I merely noticed it's clearly incorrect (against the ICANN T's & C's)
      - petercooper 15y ago
        As a Brit, it doesn't surprise me at the British address here. I work primarily with US companies but the most obnoxious service I get tends to be from the British ones. An idea of "honor above money" seems to be more prevalent here in the UK, whereas in the US it seems you're more likely to just get ignored.
- jarin 15y ago
  thiswebhost.com appears to be hosted on LiquidWeb's servers, which makes me think it might be a reseller account for Sonet7 (reseller hosting owned by LiquidWeb). I know a couple of people who resell white-label cPanel hosting, and it's definitely not a full-time job, so I would guess it's probably just one guy (the WHOIS will tell you who). I know from experience that it's nigh-impossible to stop yourself from using the Royal 'We' as a lone entrepreneur.
  - ck2 15y ago
    If it's on liquidweb shared hosting then there are four levels of backups with rotations on an external drive array. They don't mess around. Not sure if they could do an end-run around a reseller to liquidweb and prove ownership, but the backup is definitely there and undeleteable at a reseller level. Someone should point that out to the former customer.
  - ahyes 15y ago
    more than likely a dedicated server. [root@web5 ~]# whois 67.225.136.53 -h rwhois.liquidweb.com -p 4321 [Querying rwhois.liquidweb.com] [rwhois.liquidweb.com] %rwhois V-1.5:003eff:00 rwhois.liquidweb.com (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-1.5.7.4) network:Class-Name:network network:ID:NETBLK-THISWEBHOST.67.225.136.52/30 network:Auth-Area:67.225.128.0/17 network:Network-Name:THISWEBHOST-67.225.136.52 network:IP-Network:67.225.136.52/30 network:IP-Network-Block:67.225.136.52-67.225.136.55 network:Organization;I:THISWEBHOST network:Org-Name:ThisWebHost network:Street-Address:19 Dorset Close network:City:Chelmsford network:State:Essex network:Postal-Code:CM2 9UD network:Country-Code:GB network:Tech-Contact;I:sales@thiswebhost.com network:Abuse:abuse@sourcedns.com network:Created:20110816 network:Updated:20110816 network:Updated-By:admin@sourcedns.com
- pseudonym 15y ago
  It depends entirely on how it's handled by the actual owner, assuming this is just an employee. If you're good at spinning PR and responding correctly, the right apologetic stance can flip this from a PR nightmare to free good PR. The trick is responding fast, responding apologetically, responding honestly, and more than making up for the original mistake. "We apologize for the lack of respect our CS rep has shown you; he's been terminated and we'd like to offer you a free two years of service and we'll do our best to recover your lost data."
  - anthonyb 15y ago
    Not very likely. Go and have a look at the rest of their Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102087912497221633 https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102087912497221633 https://twitter.com/#!/oscargodson/status/102092891979132929 https://twitter.com/#!/oscargodson/status/102092891979132929
    - ecounysis 15y ago
      That is amazing. Based on their twitter stream you know they are bad news. They would be better off if they spent less time "defending" themselves, and more time making their customers happy enough so they don't want to make "incorrect public statements." https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102089336509562881 https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102089336509562881
      - eropple 15y ago
        No kidding. I really love this line from their latest blog post: "I would like to remind people that contacting us with abusive e-mail messages is in fact illegal" "You suck" is not illegal, gents. Man. What slime.
        mikeash 15y ago
        My favorite part is where he says he'd like to unsuspend the one guy's account, except that he used a Naughty Word and so there's no way he can do that now. I mean, what the, ahem, fuck?

Jabbles 15y ago

How many people do you think "we" is? Could the person that runs the twitter be an employee? They advertise 24/7 customer support. Even if it is an employee, and he is terminated because of this, would that allow you to trust the company again? If it turns out to be the founder/CEO, then we have no hope for the company. But how devastating would it be for your startup if one of your employees did something like this, without your permission. We all know how difficult it is to recruit the right people, but should a mistake like this be un-recoverable?

citricsquid 15y ago
I did some looking. The Twitter account appears to have been used by their "Technical Director" Jules. Jules is the same person who replied to the tickets. I then got ahold of their company documents, Jules is not listed as a company owner (or Director) whereas 3 others are. Therefore I am making the assumption that he is indeed only an employee and not someone associated with the higher up management.
- jarin 15y ago
  Jules is also listed as the company owner on the reviews: http://www.webhostingreviews.com/thiswebhost-reviews.htm http://www.webhostingreviews.com/thiswebhost-reviews.htm And is the registrant of the domain name (and the only contact).
  - samarudge 15y ago
    WhoIs lookup shows him as the domain owner Registrant Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson () Fax: South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Administrative Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Technical Contact: ThisWebHost Jules Robinson (domains@thiswebhost.com) +1.5555555555 Fax +1.5555555555 South Building Upper Farm Basingstoke, HAMPSHIRE RG23 8PE GB Also he appears to be using a fake phone number on the WhoIs, am I right in thinking you're not allowed to do that?
    - aeden 15y ago
      Technically you are not allowed to provide fake information, although you may use an identity proxy as long as they provide the means to contact you in case of a dispute. In reality, enforcement of valid identity information is essentially non-existent.
      - shabble 15y ago
        I'm personally aware of at least one incident in which someone who had their domain revoked for 'joke' contact details in the whois db. Then again, istr they did piss off an old-school sysadmin (in the a.s.r sense).
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
      - samarudge 15y ago
        What?!? This information was on the PUBLIC WhoIs database, it's avaliable to anyone. I did this to show the contact information for the site, anyone could have done this but I did it so no-one else had to. http://www.whois.net/whois/thiswebhost.com http://www.whois.net/whois/thiswebhost.com
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        samarudge 15y ago
        There was no intention to track him down, someone posted a comment asking to check on the WhoIs to find out the owner. I do not want to figure out their phone number, I merely noticed it's clearly incorrect (against the ICANN T's & C's)
    - petercooper 15y ago
      As a Brit, it doesn't surprise me at the British address here. I work primarily with US companies but the most obnoxious service I get tends to be from the British ones. An idea of "honor above money" seems to be more prevalent here in the UK, whereas in the US it seems you're more likely to just get ignored.
jarin 15y ago
thiswebhost.com appears to be hosted on LiquidWeb's servers, which makes me think it might be a reseller account for Sonet7 (reseller hosting owned by LiquidWeb). I know a couple of people who resell white-label cPanel hosting, and it's definitely not a full-time job, so I would guess it's probably just one guy (the WHOIS will tell you who). I know from experience that it's nigh-impossible to stop yourself from using the Royal 'We' as a lone entrepreneur.
- ck2 15y ago
  If it's on liquidweb shared hosting then there are four levels of backups with rotations on an external drive array. They don't mess around. Not sure if they could do an end-run around a reseller to liquidweb and prove ownership, but the backup is definitely there and undeleteable at a reseller level. Someone should point that out to the former customer.
- ahyes 15y ago
  more than likely a dedicated server. [root@web5 ~]# whois 67.225.136.53 -h rwhois.liquidweb.com -p 4321 [Querying rwhois.liquidweb.com] [rwhois.liquidweb.com] %rwhois V-1.5:003eff:00 rwhois.liquidweb.com (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-1.5.7.4) network:Class-Name:network network:ID:NETBLK-THISWEBHOST.67.225.136.52/30 network:Auth-Area:67.225.128.0/17 network:Network-Name:THISWEBHOST-67.225.136.52 network:IP-Network:67.225.136.52/30 network:IP-Network-Block:67.225.136.52-67.225.136.55 network:Organization;I:THISWEBHOST network:Org-Name:ThisWebHost network:Street-Address:19 Dorset Close network:City:Chelmsford network:State:Essex network:Postal-Code:CM2 9UD network:Country-Code:GB network:Tech-Contact;I:sales@thiswebhost.com network:Abuse:abuse@sourcedns.com network:Created:20110816 network:Updated:20110816 network:Updated-By:admin@sourcedns.com
pseudonym 15y ago
It depends entirely on how it's handled by the actual owner, assuming this is just an employee. If you're good at spinning PR and responding correctly, the right apologetic stance can flip this from a PR nightmare to free good PR. The trick is responding fast, responding apologetically, responding honestly, and more than making up for the original mistake. "We apologize for the lack of respect our CS rep has shown you; he's been terminated and we'd like to offer you a free two years of service and we'll do our best to recover your lost data."
- anthonyb 15y ago
  Not very likely. Go and have a look at the rest of their Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102087912497221633 https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102087912497221633 https://twitter.com/#!/oscargodson/status/102092891979132929 https://twitter.com/#!/oscargodson/status/102092891979132929
  - ecounysis 15y ago
    That is amazing. Based on their twitter stream you know they are bad news. They would be better off if they spent less time "defending" themselves, and more time making their customers happy enough so they don't want to make "incorrect public statements." https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102089336509562881 https://twitter.com/#!/thiswebhost/status/102089336509562881
    - eropple 15y ago
      No kidding. I really love this line from their latest blog post: "I would like to remind people that contacting us with abusive e-mail messages is in fact illegal" "You suck" is not illegal, gents. Man. What slime.
      - mikeash 15y ago
        My favorite part is where he says he'd like to unsuspend the one guy's account, except that he used a Naughty Word and so there's no way he can do that now. I mean, what the, ahem, fuck?