The Weekly - Hostingplex Are A Shower of Dunces

(Hostingplex Are a Shower of Dunces can be viewed on just about anything, but looks slightly less awful with stylesheets switched on which, as you can read this, they aren't.)

It's currently 7:03am on Saturday, July 31st, and 5,267 people have learned that Hostingplex are a shower of dunces. (One today.)

How Hostingplex killed off our site for something we didn't do without supplying evidence we did, while ignoring everything we said and breaking their own T&Cs

Current Stats
Last update: 15/1/2007
The Weekly is back (back! Back!).
(Hostingplex continue to ignore every question, obv.)

The Weekly was off for: ROUGHLY THREE MONTHS

(Just to make it clear, we're not claiming some official notice of exoneration by Spamcop.net, perhaps with a small badge or hat. We examined Spamcop's publicly available info and pestered them with three million questions and they kindly answered the lot. The conclusions are solely ours.)

Good evening. I am MR NASH and this is MR MILLINGTON. Together with our STOOPED CLERKS and MEALY URCHINS we run The Weekly, the magazine which strives to maintain Britain's standards. The Weekly, founded in 1898, has been online since 1998 and, as behooves we keepers of its cultural and, in a sense, geopolitical significance, we looked about for the cheapest possible host so we'd have to exercise the least possible bother and could more splendidly invest our time darting around the soaking brick alleyways of London-town solving crimes and committing crimes.

Accordingly, in May 2005 we joined Hostingplex and were satisfied; pleased in fact to the extent of renewing our hosting with them the next year.

And then it all went wrong.

The story in short
Hostingplex, our hosts for 1.5 years, shut us down, instantly and without warning, accusing us of spamming. We didn't spam. Demonstrating a complete lack of interest in establishing the facts (and flatly contradicting their own T&Cs) Hostingplex have ignored our every request for evidence of spamming, our every submission of exonerating evidence and our every request to download our data (ftp and e-mail) which they are holding hostage for USD150.

Your questions answered
Q. What are you doing -- I mean, what are you doing?
A. Tragically, Hostingplex have repeatedly demonstrated with piercing clarity that the last thing they're interested in is the facts. So we're displaying the facts.

Q. Did you spam?
A. No. We sent out a legit confirmed opt-in newsletter, the wildly erratically published yet popular Mil's Mailing List Message, in which MR MILLINGTON yammers on and on and on and on about what's happened to him recently; for example, making it look as if he intended all along to cup a famous author's genitals, and appearing on Woman's Hour. (The two examples are unconnected.) Interestingly, this is at least the sixth edition we've sent via Hostingplex.

Q. No, really.
A. No, really. We're desperately jittery about the faintest chance of bothering people who don't want to know -- you can't get on Mil's Mailing List until you (a) voluntarily go to the sub-up page;* (b) sub up and; (c) confirm your sub-up by clicking on a verify link that's tied uniquely to your address and revealed in the e-mail you're sent. Only at this point are you added to the list. (In fact, it's only at this point we're told your e-mail address at all -- the List keeps no record of addresses which are not verified.) Then, then, after each ish goes out we examine all the bounces and delete the 550s and 511s, so if you haven't bothered unsubbing by the at least two official methods you don't end up hanging around if you've swanned out of your subscribed address or are now dead. The whole thing takes agonising hours, which is why MR MILLINGTON seldom sends a Mailing List Message more than once every couple of months; also, he is endemically lazy.

Q. But you were caught out by Spamcop, fatty.
A. As you can see in the full story section, we research in depth Hostingplex's claim (that they were blocked by Spamcop because of us) with the help of Spamcop Forum bods and an epically patient Spamcop Deputy. By the information obtained this way, and the information supplied in Hostingplex's own accusations, we are thoroughly cleared. (Spoiler! Oh.)

Q. Why not move to a different host?
A. Of course, we have the mag pages backed up, but large quantities of what you'd call ephemeral data -- inboxes, logs, the latest lobes of Doris Stokes for the popular reader tussle-game Cooee, Loves!, etc -- exist only on Hostingplex's server, as you'd expect when your site is shut down instantly without warning. (We're on dial-up, so a rigorous back-up scheme is impractical. And, y'know, you don't expect your host of the last 1.5 years to cut you off without justification.) Quite apart from the fact this valuable data is ours, the logs, for example, will hold important evidence. Also, we're not letting Hostingplex get away with this. Their tenacious inaction (summarised neatly as "LA LA LA, WE'RE NOT LISTENING, LA LA LA") clearly demonstrates they'd like nothing better than for us to go away quietly and write off our losses. Their final message all but states this explicitly.

Q. They don't know you very well, do they?
A. It would appear not.

Q. Okay, so why not pay the USD150, download the data, then try to get the money back?
A. By their own T&Cs, Hostingplex's "standard fee" for "site reactivation" is a fine levied against wrongdoers. We've done nothing wrong. (Nor, incidentally, do we want the site back on at this time.) On the wider point, we're in Britain. Hostingplex are in Canada. They're already ignoring us. What do you think would happen?

Q. Perhaps there's a crossed wire in the overworked support department. Have you tried someone else?
A. We've been CC'ing the head of the company, Kevin Moonlight, on every message via forum PM. He hasn't bothered once piping up in any context. The only logical conclusion is that he fully sanctions, endorses, approves and is otherwise happy with the actions of his employees.

Q. What do you want?
A. We want our data back. We want our name cleared. (Hostingplex's own T&Cs insist they hold an "immediate investigation," which of course they haven't.) And we want to inform people who might be thinking of choosing Hostingplex how the company acts when something really quite important comes up.

Q. What did you expect, choosing the cheapest available host?
A. We dunno -- what we paid them for? Justice? Fairness? Abiding by their own T&Cs? As we say, we were with Hostingplex for 1.5 largely trouble-free years before they went tonto, so it's not as if we saw this coming.

Q. I want to write to you / send you threats / pretend to be a disinterested party shaming your ridiculous conduct but forget my IP is at Hostingplex HQ / e-mail twenty or thirty photographs of myself, a raven-haired goth lass, to MR MILLINGTON for his private collection. Is there some mechanism to do so?
A. As it happens, yes.

The story in detail
What happened and who said what. The coloured boxes are verbatim (no, really -- MR NASH genuinely is like that; we've attempted severally to abandon him in copses) "support tickets" to and from Hostingplex's support department. As a measure of politeness, we've obscured the name of the techy bod who took the call. It's the same one each time. MR NASH will conduct the commentary. Please do not attempt to stand up while the story is in progress. Note: the times in this section are in Canadian.

I'm twittering away on T Weekly as usual when suddenly everything goes dead: no ftp ("Sorry, authentication failed"); no e-mail ("Your account has been suspended"); the mag itself replaced by the hideous and alarming message, "This site is currently suspended. Please contact customer service for further information regarding this issue." Swiftly I e-mail the support department.

MR NASH SAYS
Hello. What's this about then? Everything appears to have gone off in the last ten minutes -- ftp, e-mail, the site itself; the lot. The account is theweekly.co.uk.*

"ANDREW VIMTO" SAYS
Hello,

The Hosting account for theweekly.co.uk was suspended on the 23rd of October for sending SPAM. Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop.

Hostingplex has a zero tolerance policy towards sending SPAM and ultimately had to suspend your account for breaching our Terms of Service.

If you are aware of a mass email please address exactly what the intention of the email was and how you will further prevent it from reoccurring. I have pasted a portion of our TOS below for you to review and understand the circumstances.

Commercial Advertisements with E-mail Inverdigm takes a zero tolerance approach to the sending of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) or SPAM over our network. Very simply, this This means that customers of Inverdigm may not use or permit others to use our network to transact in UCE. Customers of Inverdigm may not host, or permit hosting of, sites or information that is advertised by UCE from other networks. Violations of this policy carry severe penalties, including termination of service.

Thank you,
"Andrew Vimto"
Hostingplex Customer Service

Blimey. There's obviously been some kind of mistake -- the latest Mil Mailing List Message ("Mil's Mailing List #42") went out to our many subbers between October 19th and October 21st, for example, finishing well before October 23rd. Also, I was chatting to "Andrew Vimto" only recently about our Mailing List and I know from dutifully reporting spam to the ace company for yonks that Spamcop can be trigger-happy but that mistakes are easily rectified. A swift check of the usual spam block sites shews we're in the clear, so I politely ask Hostingplex for details so I can sort it out. As you can see, T Weekly lives on server3.hostingplex.com, or IP 66.48.80.139.

MR NASH SAYS
>The Hosting account for theweekly.co.uk was suspended on the 23rd of
>October for sending
>SPAM. Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network
>resulting in a
>blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop

The claim that we've sent spam is extremely interesting, because we haven't. As I've explained previously (KFH-592971)* we run a Mailing List -- which requires subscribers to verify their addresses before they receive anything -- and have been falsely blocked as spam by Comcast, which you've acknowledged are notoriously trigger-happy in this area. Ironically, it's in this report that I wonder if someone else on server3 (66.48.80.139) is spamming and we're caught in the crossfire.

You'll appreciate that accusing us of spamming without providing details isn't exactly helpful. (The Mailing List wasn't even sending on October 23rd, for example.) Could you at least supply the Spamcop report URL so I can examine the offending message? (Ironically, because you've suspended everything, I can't see the warning e-mail Spamcop have likely sent to (our postmaster address) giving the details themselves. Super-ironically, I think Spamcop are ace and report all my spam to them without fail.) Of course, you're certain the e-mail came from theweekly.co.uk and not one of the 800+ other sites on server3.

Spamcop, as you know, describe themselves as "aggressive" and can round up innocent parties if used incorrectly -- they auto-delist after a few hours by default because of this very sensitivity. Of course, I couldn't check before because of the suspension meaning I've only just read your reply, but we're certainly not on there now -- and are not in Spamhaus.

You may be interested to know that, as a result of reporting spammers, we've been targeted by these idiots as their latest fake domain* -- ie, there's a lot of spam about purporting to be from random gibberish at theweekly.co.uk to the extent that I've had to set up special bounces disclaiming involvement. A cursory inspection of the IPs of course reveals it's not us, so I can't imagine that's what's caused this problem.

In summary then: we don't spam, we haven't spammed and please supply details of the spam we're supposed to have sent. Obviously it would be neato-keeno if you switched us back on in the meantime, but I suppose that's up to you. Thanks.

I've always e-mailed Hostingplex Support rather than using their clumsy online form -- this has never mattered because they're usually swift to reply and my questions fairly ordinary. The slightly worrying silence, especially after "Andrew Vimto's" first, fast response, leads me to wonder if I've been routed to the wrong department. E-mailing for help automatically classes your "support ticket" as "Level 1 Support" which Hostingplex define as mostly to do with understanding C-Panel and Front Page -- perhaps not the ideal recipient for a complicated, vital problem. (I later read in a Hostingplex forum thread that the priority flag, which you can set with the online form, has no influence over a prob and all faults are dealt with in strict rotation. Why it's there then is a bit of a mystery, but still.)

MR NASH SAYS
Er, is this tagged as "Low Priority" or something? It's fairly important from my point of view. Some kind of info-type update would be helpful. My site and e-mail have now been dead for four and a half days. Any longer and it's reasonably likely somebody's going to notice.

Still nothing. A slight complication here is that I'm giving Hostingplex the benefit of the doubt, so haven't changed my e-mail and site pointers to our reg company. (Obviously the domain, theweekly.co.uk, is registered independently and not in Hostingplex's control. We're not stupid.) I have a swimmy vision of Hostingplex's crack support division hurling dozens of well-informed, detailed messages at my normal contact address -- which would appear to be arriving correctly, but of course vanish into Hostingplex's server because of the "suspension." Keenly alert readers will realise that, as a side-effect, any ordinary theweekly.co.uk e-mails will be vanishing too. And, of course, mag chums will be seeing the hideous and alarming message, "This site is currently suspended. Please contact customer service for further information regarding this issue." I really am giving them the benefit of the doubt.

MR NASH SAYS
This is becoming a bit of a palaver. As my account is suspended, I can't read my e-mail, so replies to (normal address) are useless. Accordingly, I started another ticket (PPI-143696) with my emergency contact, (emergency address). That ticket's gone unanswered for 48 hours, and as there's no (emergency address) online support access (nor does there seem to be any way to set one up) I'm lurching back into this ticket instead. I enclose the PPI message at the end for convenience with its spam-refuting details. There appears to be no way to change the ticket priority from "low" or "level 1 support" even though, fairly obviously, it's quite important. (I did think of starting a new, "critical" ticket, but that'll probably just confuse things further.)

A HANDY SUMMARY
You say I'm a spammer fingered by Spamcop and have suspended my account. I'm not and have asked for details of the supposed spam (especially as Spamcop acknowledge they vacuum up a lot of innocent parties they delist by default and we're not in fact in their database). Since then: silence. My account -- which, incidentally, has now been with Hostingplex for 1.5 years, running a site that's been going since 1998, so it's not exactly as if I've cunningly signed up to spam from a made-up page then vanish overnight cackling with a big bag of five pound notes or something -- has been dead for over four days. Quite apart from the grimness of having our entire silly comedy mag disappear, this transparently means I can't check any e-mail or logs to see what might have happened.

Chaps: a zero tolerance policy toward spam is commendable. Might I politely suggest that a zero tolerance policy toward establishing the facts is less of a fine idea. I'm innocent and bewildered and (as far as I can see) my entire site is being held hostage by a shadowy uncontactable inquisition who expect me to confess to something I didn't do and then promise not to do again what I didn't in the first place. Why not have a nice cup of lemon tea and write back instead? Thanks.

THE PPI-143696 TICKET FOR CONVENIENCE
(Copy of October 25th, 1.01pm message as above.)

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt, there. Note that I start CC'ing Kevin Moonlight, Hostingplex's owner, via forum PM at this point. (His e-mail address, or indeed anyone at Hostingplex's e-mail address, is nowhere to be found on the site. Nor, as it occurs to me later, do they have a complaints department address.) To be doubly sure he's fully in command of the facts, I private-message (or PM) the complete exchanges so far. This takes a while, because forum PMs are limited to 5,000 chars. We know he's not fictional or on holiday or anything because he posts to the Hostingplex forum as well as appearing on external forums to, er, answer Hostingplex customers' questions. And advertise Hostingplex jobs. And has renewed Hostingplex's Kayako licence when the entire support department unexpectedly shut down for a day and a half. Anyway, I'm a bit cross by now.

MR NASH SAYS
Hello. Right. I'm completely sick of this. My account, theweekly.co.uk (account number), has been suspended since October 23rd. I've been accused by Hostingplex of spamming. I do not spam, have not spammed and have asked repeatedly for details (eg the Spamcop report URL). As I'm locked out of my e-mail and site, I can't examine any logs, etc, to see what might have happened. I've tried contacting Hostingplex by e-mail, by multiple support tickets (AVP-849293, PPI-143696, etc) and by forum PM (to HP-Kevin). Nobody has replied to anything since the initial accusation of spamming on October 25th. I've had to switch nameservers back to my reg company so I can receive e-mail and display an acceptable holding page. This whole thing has now gone on for a week.

I've been with Hostingplex for 1.5 years and am paid ahead for six months' service. My site's been running since 1998. What possible motive would I have to spam? You'll agree that an accusation of spamming is about as serious as it gets, so you'll understand my bewilderment and evaporated patience at your silence. How can I possibly defend myself when I'm locked out of my logs and when my questions and suggestions and requests for evidence are totally ignored?

As I say, it's been a week, and I've run out of patience. I'm copying this to the current ("low priority" -- still) support ticket; to a new, "critical priority" ticket; and by PM to HP-Kevin. It's Monday lunchtime with you chaps at the moment, so I expect a reply by the end of the day and -- at the least -- to be able to log on to my account e-mail and ftp so I can examine the circumstances around the supposed spam. I understand perfectly well how things can go wrong, which is why I've kept everything to private messages and posts and have been really quite light-heartedly nice about the whole thing. If I receive no reply, I can conclude only that you're not interested in establishing the facts or resolving the situation, and can see no recourse other than to publicise my dissatisfaction with Hostingplex as widely as possible on webhosting forums, etc.

Hurrah! Expressing an interest in going public seems to have done the trick. Even though they still manage to be a day late. And don't answer or resolve anything. (Note the ominous way they appear to be saying that payment has to precede "getting in to details on the spam," ie the evidence supporting Hostingplex's position.)

"ANDREW VIMTO" SAYS
Hello,

Your site was causing excessive damage to our mail server and with thousands of spam email. We have a zero tolerance policy as previously mentioned.

Before getting in to details on the spam, your site can be re-instated for our standard fee of USD150. This fee is directly referenced in our TOS* and will allow our technicians to clean the account and re-instate it. If you wish to proceed with this just respond to this email and we will create an invoice.

We do want to work with you to resolve and prevent any re-occurrence but in order for us to put the site back online you will need to pay the USD150. If you have any additional questions please let us know.

Thank you,
"Andrew Vimto"
Hostingplex Customer Service

Amusingly, my e-mail reply, sent immediately, is bounced 24 hours later. All subsequent e-mail replies are also bounced. I switch to answering directly via the online form, CC'ing Kevin Moonlight, Hostingplex's owner, via forum PM every time. Sending this one again through the form gives me the chance to correct the "double opt-in" phrase, which I'm informed by Spamcop's forum is a dead giveaway of spamming. (How embarrassing. I've always called it "verifying" anyway.) This foreshadows my adventures with Spamcop trying to establish the facts myself -- Hostingplex are increasingly clearly not interested in backing their accusations with any form of evidence.

MR NASH SAYS
>Your site was causing excessive damage to our mail server and with thousands of spam
>email. We have a zero tolerance policy as previously mentioned

Please supply evidence that we sent spam as opposed to, for example, a legitimate irregular double-opt-in (EDIT -- I'm told the correct phrase is "confirmed opt-in") mailing list newsletter that's been running for yonks -- at least five editions via Hostingplex. You say we were blocked by Spamcop which, as you know, often vacuums up innocent parties, hence its auto-delisting policy. The Spamcop report URL would therefore be exactly helpful to determine what happened. Please also supply evidence of this "excessive damage." Did we exceed our bandwidth limit, for instance?*

>Before getting in to details on the spam, your site can be re-instated for our standard fee of
>USD150. This fee is directly referenced in our TOS and will allow our technicians to clean the
>account and re-instate it

What has reinstating the site got to do with answering my questions about evidence of spamming? Or are you seriously saying that you refuse to supply the evidence without a USD150 fee?

>We do want to work with you to resolve and prevent any re-occurrence but in order for us to
>put the site back online you will need to pay the USD150

I don't want the site online at this point; I want to be able to go in and examine my logs and records and e-mails and retrieve my data. You've accused me of spamming. This is a serious charge which I wholly deny. You'll agree I have a right to defend myself, especially if you're refusing to supply corroborating evidence such as the Spamcop report URL. I've switched nameservers to my reg company, so the site won't be accessible via theweekly.co.uk while I'm examining the logs. Feel free to lock the SMTP; I don't want to send e-mails, just read them.

It would be exceptionally handy if you didn't take about a week to reply this time.

(If you don't fancy reading the whole thing, this is the most important message.) Another six days pass. Fed up of missing e-mails and the horrible holding page, I've finally switched nameservers to our bare-bones reg company. (So much for giving someone the benefit of the doubt.) I've also been chatting to the Spamcop forum and, subsequently, an incredibly helpful and patient Spamcop Deputy. The results are interesting, AS YOU WILL SEE.

MR NASH SAYS
No answers to any of my questions. No reply of any kind since October 30th (and then only because I CC'd the head of the company and expressed an interest in going public. "Critical priority," there).

>We do want to work with you to resolve

This is rubbish, isn't it? You haven't the slightest interest in establishing the facts. Good job I never give up when it's a matter of justice and fairness and having serious charges laid groundlessly against me.

Say, fellows, know what I've been doing? I've been talking to Spamcop -- you remember them, you cited their company in your October 24th claims.

>The Hosting account for theweekly.co.uk was suspended on the 23rd of October for sending
>SPAM. Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a
>blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop.

Accommodating chaps, Spamcop; unsurprisingly keen to establish the facts where their name's been invoked. Think your questions through and ask them politely and you can find out a lot about reports made against you. This is particularly helpful when your hosts have accused you of spamming but refuse repeatedly to supply details or evidence.

Here's what I've found.*

1. 66.48.80.139 (server3, where theweekly.co.uk lives) was never blocked.* The blocks were on 204.92.120.30 (s1.edge, which I believe is your dedicated e-mail server).

2. There were three blocks: Block A, October 20th (10.16pm) to October 21st (10.09pm); Block B, October 22nd (1.34am to 10.50am); and Block C, October 26th (1.01am to 10.46pm).*

3. There were two reports to Spamcop about our newsletter ("Mil's Mailing List #42") on the blocked IP: both on October 22nd at 7.45am.*

4. Both reports were from verified subscribers. In other words, the people complaining about Mil-42 had voluntarily popped over to a page, typed in their address, clicked Subscribe, waited for a confirmation e-mail, then clicked a unique verifying URL.

5. Let me just say that again. Both reports were from verified subscribers. In other words, the people complaining about Mil-42 had voluntarily popped over to a page, typed in their address, clicked Subscribe, waited for a confirmation e-mail, then clicked a unique verifying URL.

6. Once more. Both reports were from verified subscribers. In other words, the people complaining about Mil-42 had voluntarily popped over to a page, typed in their address, clicked Subscribe, waited for a confirmation e-mail, then clicked a unique verifying URL.

7. As you can see from the timeline, the 204.92.120.30 blocks CANNOT be caused by Mil-42. Block A and Block B were in place BEFORE the reports against Mil-42 were made. Block C was added AFTER you, Hostingplex, told us, "Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop," so we can't be that one either. Those are the only 204.92.120.30 blocks in the timeframe.

8. There were five reports of actual genuine real spam on that IP to Spamcop on October 20th at 3.15am, about a car site in France. You know, the October 20th, 3.15am, that ties in neatly with the start of Spamcop's blocking. The spam came from somebody else on the Hostingplex network.*

Let's just compare these established facts to your claims of October 24th, 8.55am.

>The Hosting account for theweekly.co.uk was suspended on the 23rd of October for sending
>SPAM

Transparent rubbish. As I've stated repeatedly, and asked for details to the contrary, we send out a wildly erratic and popular confirmed opt-in newsletter.

>Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a
>blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop

Also rubbish. You were blacklisted because someone else sent actual genuine real spam from another Hostingplex account. By your *own words* we can only be responsible if you have a time machine.*

In summary: we didn't spam, we've never spammed, and you have *spectacularly* messed up.

Here's what I think happened. You're blocked by Spamcop because someone on Hostingplex is spamming. You panic and glance rapidly at the send stats. We stand out because our confirmed opt-in newsletter is popular. You don't bother to establish the facts; we're sending a lot of e-mails, we'll do. You shut us down. (Meanwhile, of course, the spamming continues. Have you seen your Spamcop stats recently?)

But, hey, there's more. Remember how you threw your T&Cs at us rather than, for example, answer any of my questions or supply any details of the supposed spam?

>Hostingplex has a zero tolerance policy towards sending SPAM and ultimately had to
>suspend your account for breaching our Terms of Service

Well, I've been examining those T&Cs too.

From http://www.hostingplex.com/legal/tos.html (duplicated exactly at http://www.hostingplex.com/legal/aup.html for some reason):

>Mailing lists must be true opt-in mailing lists. Before sending any email to a listed user, a
>confirmation email, with a tracking number, must be sent to the new subscriber, to which
>they must respond with a confirmation that they wish to be added to the list. You must keep
>these confirmations on file, so that in the case that a spam complaint is made against you,
>you have proof that the user did indeed opt-in. In addition, you must provide at least one
>easy way to opt out; see the MAPS guidelines (http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/manage.html) for
>details. Opt-out requests must be hono("U" -- Ed)red immediately.

As you'd know if you'd bothered to establish the facts, this exactly describes Mil's Mailing List. (In fact, there are at least two opt-outs, so we're even better than that.)

>Violation of Inverdigm's SPAM policy will result in severe penalties. Upon notification of an
>alleged violation of our SPAM policy, Inverdigm will initiate an immediate investigation
>(within 48 hours of notification). During the investigation, Inverdigm may restrict customer
>access to the network to prevent further violations. If a customer is found to be in violation
>of our SPAM policy, Inverdigm may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend or terminate
>customer's account

As we've seen, there was no "violation." More interestingly, there was no "immediate investigation." Our access was not "restricted." You shut us down, refuse (still) to let me in to inspect my logs and recover my data, told us nothing and refuse (still) to answer any questions. (How can I display proof against spamming when you totally ignore me? Do you see?) We're innocent. You, in fact, are in material breach of your own T&Cs. Zounds, the irony.

So then. To recap, we didn't spam, we've never spammed, you have *spectacularly* messed up and our site's been down for FOURTEEN DAYS while you, I dunno, pile up little pyramids of baked beans while clapping your feet together and banging a rubber bicycle horn with your forehead or something. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with running a hosting company; you've made no attempt to establish the facts -- you've ignored all requests for details -- your only response has been to try to extort USD150 from us in order to "clean the account." This has gone *far* beyond making a simple mistake you could have rectified in five minutes with no harm done if you'd bothered to talk to us.

I'm more fed up than you can possible conceive. No more requests; no more asking. I'm now demanding that you immediately restore ftp access to (ftp info) so I can retrieve our data, records and logs which you are holding hostage. This data includes e-mail, so I'll also need pop. Note that I'm *not* demanding the site be switched back on -- no doubt you'd smugly charge me USD150. After you've withdrawn that threat and after I've retrieved my data, then I'll want the site reactivated. You will then, at the tiny minimum least, credit the lost 14 days (or however many it is by then) to our account.

I look forward to your reply saying, "Gosh, sorry about that. We've been staggeringly inept. Can't imagine what came over us. How ridiculous to accuse you of spamming without establishing the facts. Everything's now fixed. Sorry again."

(CC'd to Kevin Moonlight and ticket EIW-616144. This stopped being "Level 1 Support" quite some while ago, don't you think? I suppose those baked beans and bicycle horns take up all sorts of valuable time.)*

Hostingplex take three days to think this over. Obviously they're collating evidence from their comprehensive in-house files -- the ones that identified Mil-42 as the source of the Spamcop blocks -- in order to counter our defence of FACTS and, er, oh.

"ANDREW VIMTO" SAYS
Hello,

When an account is suspended we cannot allow access to the Hosting Account. Our TOS explains this and how we proceed with these situations.

On a Shared Hosting package customer share an IP and when we get complaints and notices from our providers our business and reputation is at jeopardy. For our security and our customers we had to suspend the account for sending spam. We were listed in Spamcop and were blocked from many large ISP's.

As mentioned in our original notice to you we can reactivate the account for a fee of USD150. You can then either download your files or resolve the issue.

Let us know how you wish to proceed.

Thank you,
"Andrew Vimto"
Hostingplex Customer Service

Sigh. (At this point, we've been shut down and denied access to our data for eighteen and a half days.)

MR NASH SAYS
(I'm posting this online, again, because support@hostingplex.com has just bounced me, again.)

>When an account is suspended we cannot allow access to the Hosting Account. Our TOS
>explains this and how we proceed with these situations

Be honest: have you read anything I've said? Anything?

I've read the T&Cs closely. They in fact "explain" nothing of the sort that is relevant to your shutting down our site. They do however mention several obligations Hostingplex is under, so please advise me how your "immediate investigation" is going and give details and evidence of any "inappropriate activity" that has been "detected."

>On a Shared Hosting package customer share an IP and when we get complaints and notices
>from our providers our business and reputation is at jeopardy

Mmmm. In much the same way, I'll be bound, that our business and reputation is at jeopardy when we're accused of spamming without any evidence whatsoever and our site is shut down and our data held hostage and our hosts refuse to supply details of the supposed spam or indeed answer any questions at all.

>For our security and our
>customers we had to suspend the account for sending spam. We were listed in Spamcop and
>were blocked from many large ISP's

Ah, right, so you haven't read anything I've been saying then. Good to have that cleared up. You'll have missed the bit in that case where I mention talking to Spamcop, a lot, over several days and resultingly discovering some interesting facts. You know -- facts. Dead handy, facts, in establishing events. A quick summary then.

1. The complaints made to Spamcop about Mil's Mailing List 42 were all from verified subscribers. In other words, they voluntarily signed up and voluntarily confirmed their subscriptions in order to receive Mil's List by their own choice. To be fair, you couldn't have known that, but it could have been cleared up in five minutes right at the beginning and I've told you several times now. Lord knows why someone would go to the trouble of signing up with verification for a list and then report it as spam, but we do seem to attract dopey dimbos.

2. Bit of a clincher this. Two of the three Spamcop blocks were in place BEFORE the Mil 42-related reports; the third was added three days AFTER you shut us down. They appear in fact to have been triggered by actual genuine spam (about car sales sites, for example) that someone else on Hostingplex has been banging out unimpeded for quite a while now.

>As mentioned in our original notice to you

Actually it wasn't -- you didn't mention any such thing for eight days -- but that's not important right now.

>we can reactivate the account for a fee of
>USD150. You can then either download your files or resolve the issue

This directly contradicts your T&Cs which refer to "restricting" access and "immediate investigation," neither of which have occurred. Please also explain how we can "resolve the issue" when we are innocent and you refuse to answer any questions.

Your entire case assumes we have spammed -- and all your blithe references to T&Cs rely on that assumption -- but you refuse to supply any evidence that we did anything except send a popular and legit confirmed opt-in mailing list newsletter to readers who signed up for it and confirmed their subscription. After taking the trouble to research the Spamcop block with Spamcop themselves, I've demonstrated that you are wrong to blame us for your listing. Your response ("La la la, we're not listening, la la la, USD150") is less than convincing. Let's try this just one more time.

1. Please raise the ticket from Level 1 Support. It is perfectly clear this is inadequate, not least because it takes you from seven to ten days to reply each time; and I suspect the evidently overstretched Level 1 Support bods are not being given the info necessary.

2. Please supply details and evidence that we spammed. ("You have spammed," is neither detailed nor evidence.) If you're convinced you're right, you'll have all the facts to hand. Indeed, they'll have been required by your "immediate investigation." Note that the info we obtained from Spamcop -- and, er, your own timeline -- contradict your version of events, ie that Mil's List is responsible for your blocking.

3. In the absence of details and evidence, immediately reinstate our account's pop and ftp so I can retrieve our data, e-mail, logs and records. The domain is currently with our reg company nameserver, so the site will be inaccessible to the public while I retrieve our data; nor am I interested in smtp. This qualifies as "restricted" access as required by your T&Cs.

4. Our site's now been shut down and our data held hostage for 18.5 days and counting. Please supply a contact e-mail address for your complaints department or a senior member of the company. I've been CC'ing Kevin Moonlight by forum PM but he hasn't bothered replying and I can't find any suitable address on the About page (except, ironically, abuse@). Hostingplex's behaviour in this matter has been thoroughly unsatisfactory.

(Ticket EIW-616144, CC'd to HP-Kevin.)

"ANDREW VIMTO" SAYS
Hello,

Our two previous responses explain how to resolve the issue and get your account back online if you wish. You were suspended for sending spam as noted. Please respond by letting us know if you wish to reactivate the account for our standard fee so we can both move forward.

Thank you,
"Andrew Vimto"
Hostingplex Customer Service

We're actually dizzied by this for several days, reeling around in disbelief and making eye noises. It's clear Hostingplex just aren't in any way interested in any thing related to fixing the problem. Which is where we came in.

MR NASH SAYS
>Our two previous responses explain how to resolve the issue and get your account back
>online if you wish. You were suspended for sending spam as noted. Please respond by
>letting us know if you wish to reactivate the account for our standard fee so we can both
>move forward

Y'know, I genuinely can't work out if you believe the transparent rubbish you come out with or if you have no idea what to do and couldn't care less.

Anyway, thanks for confirming once again, Hostingplex, that you have no interest in the facts, no interest in your customers and no interest in your own T&Cs. In case you've already forgotten:

1. Please supply details and evidence of the spam. (Note that we've provided quite a bit of evidence against your claims.)

2. Please supply details of your "immediate investigation" that was launched "within 48 hours" as required by your T&Cs.

3. Please supply ftp and pop access to our account so I can download our data, e-mail, logs, records, etc, which you are holding hostage. This is "restricted access" as required by your T&Cs.

4. Please supply a contact e-mail address for your complaints department and the complaints department of your father company, Inverdigm.*

As you've repeatedly exhibited no interest in resolving anything (nor, indeed, any interest at all except in saying, "LA LA LA, WE'RE NOT LISTENING, LA LA LA USD150") and our site has now been held hostage for, egad, 30 DAYS, we'll be taking further measures.

(CC'd to EIW-616144 and HP-Kevin as usual.)

I've posted our story in places we know Kevin Moonlight, Hostingplex's owner, pops up (for example, his own forum) but, three days later, still no response. Lots of people write in with messages of support. (Bless.) A correspondent excitingly reveals Kevin Moonlight's e-mail address. Spook. How did we miss it? I'm pretty sure I combed the Contact Hostingplex and Contact Inverdigm pages. Of course! How silly of me. You magically guess you're supposed to look at the totally unconnected certificate of the registration info of the licensee of the back-end "control panel" software instead. Pffft, my dimwittery. Anyway, I try, try again with sterling brevity.

MR NASH SAYS
Y'know, you really ought to check your forum PMs. Or your forum. Or your support desk. Or bother putting a working e-mail address* anywhere on either of your sites. Or take any kind of interest in your company.

http://theweekly.co.uk/dunces/

I await your response with *exceeding* interest.

Obviously, nothing at all happens and Hostingplex owner Kevin Moonlight continues to keep his counsel (from his customers). Then, extraordinarily, a totally unexpected development. I've long given up checking the forums for Kev's appearance where Dunces was publicised, but happen to do so now while hoovering my bookmarks.

I find this. The original Hostingplex thread has been reactivated and now features a post from official Hostingplex representative "David J." (Er, that's his name, not our made-up one, which would have been "Derek Joists.") It's particularly intriguing because he's helped us before.* Here's what David says, a few days before we manage to notice.

"DAVID J" SAYS (ON DEC 14th, 6.08pm)
From what I am aware of the situation there were thousands of exim processes being created on the server by (The Weekly's) account.

As far as the reference to spamcop: I do believe that was dubious and a mistake on our phone representatives' part.

The original poster was provided his backup a few weeks ago as requested and we consider the issue to be resolved.

Well, well, well. Suddenly the much-cited spam is "thousands of exim processes" (which, I think, is computer jargon for "e-mails")? Suddenly blaming Spamcop is "a mistake"? This is indeed a totally unexpected development.

(And one the impact of which we manage to bish as explained in this comment.)*

As David's now bunged this up publicly and it's the first time we've seen it, I leap untidily into action.

MR NASH SAYS
Hello folks. That'll teach me to give up checking the various forums after six or so weeks where this has been posted waiting for some word from Kevin Moonlight. I only saw the new replies ten minutes ago by chance while housekeeping.

In a rapid summary, I spotted halfway through 7/12 David's unexpected return in this thread and, remembering him from yonks ago as a swiftly helpful chap, PM'd him quietly.

True to form, he had a working archive version of the site uploaded *by the end of that day* but forbore from commenting on what had happened outwith his stewardship.

I was hoping to keep things under wraps until the CD was irreversibly in my hands (the archive is wildly too huge to download by dial-up, so a chum posted a copy) because I fully expected that if Kevin Moonlight or "Andrew Vimto" realised David was helping out instead of yawping "LA LA LA USD150 LA LA LA," thus giving the lie to their claims the data couldn't otherwise be recovered, they'd delete the (unconfirmed as complete) backup and we'd be back where we started. Of course, we've been scuppered by the seasonal post and I'm still hanging around the wafting letter-box -- and now the die's been cast by this surprisingly reactivated topic.

So, in the interests of fairness, thanks again to David for his sterling work as I said in the PMs to him; but this is exceptionally far from resolved. The goggle-boggling throwaways in the reply above --

From what I am aware of the situation there were thousands of exim processes being created on the server by (The Weekly's) account

and

As far as the reference to spamcop: I do believe that was dubious and a mistake on our phone representatives' part

-- info I've never before seen in any shape or form -- demonstrate that Hostingplex DO know what happened and HAVE KNOWN ALL ALONG but clearly kept silent because their accusations were DEMONSTRABLY GROUNDLESS ("Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop...") and they, I dunno, couldn't be bothered mentioning it because they were distracted by a wasp or something. (Incidentally, nobody phoned anybody anywhere, so I don't know what that's about.)

It's blaringly evident that the backup exists because of David's PERSONAL professionalism, not Hostingplex's COMPANY imbecility. (Remember, we heard nothing whatever except "LA LA LA USD150 LA LA LA" until David happened to join the support department -- which occurred SIXTY-EIGHT AND A HALF DAYS after we were cut off without explanation.) And, y'know, I can't wait to examine our logs and see what these all-new never-before-suggested nebulous "exim processes" might be. E-mails from a popular, confirmed opt-in mailing list that's been running for at least five editions on Hostingplex over the length of our 1.5 years with the company, perhaps. Or maybe spooky ghosts in big hats, or someone from Spamcop who can be implicated again repeatedly without existing.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I also ask Mil where his CD is, so we'll see how that goes (or, more accurately, has gone) but this new info is q interesting. Can it really be the case that Someone in Hostingplex has let slip to the accommodating support bloke and thence (er) their own customer forum that their entire campaign against us -- accusing us of spamming, providing no evidence, killing off our site, factlessly blaming an anti-spam company, attempting to extort a large fee to retrieve our data, ignoring our every point and question -- has been -- and they've always known it as such -- a litany of lies? How long will it actually take for the implications of that to dawn upon the participants, eg us? Can we possibly become the top search result for "Hostingplex" on Google? Find out in the next exciting episode!

Hello again everybody and a happy space world of tomorrow to you all. You'll probably have noticed The Weekly is back (back! Back!). No thanks to Hostingplex, of course -- we're now somewhere else altogether. Obviously then the CD did arrive and had everything on it, so hurrah for David J and Mil's stamps. I examined the CD rim to spindle and couldn't find anything in the logs that indicated any kind of problem with the Mailing List. The only thing that sprang out was that Hostingplex switched e-mail servers to their brand new dedicated postbox smack in the middle, which we knew already and chat about above.*

Tragically, by this point the story of Hostingplex Are a Shower of Dunces has vanished from the Hostingplex forum, evaporated by Hostingplex somewhere around January 2nd. No doubt someone accidentally pressed the wrong button with their elbow after a few too many bottles of Tizer and I'm sure Kevin Moonlight is fearfully cross that the saga is now longer available in his "Customer Testimonials" section (though curiously other complaints remain -- it must have been a particularly bony elbow to hit exactly a single wrong button in the middle of all the others) (plus the second wrong button which accidentally deleted "ghostie," my Hostingplex Forum name. Not to worry, I've re-registered with the same details. Just have to wait for "administrator approval" before the account is activated, which I'm sure will be along any moment now. After all, it's only been a week).

Not to worry either about the lost thread, Kev; I've carefully saved it so I can pop it back on the moment I'm cleared to post.

Anyway, back to the story. (Slightly confusingly, after a few posts with GMT, we're now back to Canadian time because of the saved version, so we jump back a day from the previous entry.)

DAVID J SAYS...
While I wasn't here during the ordeal I can assure you Kevin would not terminate users over nothing.

I've worked with Kevin for almost two years* and each and every time we've dealt with an abuse issue generally I would be the one calling for the account to be suspended.

Kevin on the other hand has always been well beyond fair in all cases.

Now in this case, as previously mentioned I do believe the spamcop references to be incorrect.

However there is no question in my mind that the hundreds of exim processes referenced by Kevin (in the ticket) were correct.

I have previously requested an official response direct from Kevin to your posts elsewhere on the net (Primarily WHT) and hopefully he'll join us this evening to respond!

Enjoy your holidays as well.

Note: My apologies for referencing Al as a 'phone representative'. He's primarily a phone based representative. He tends to answer a few support tickets here and there. In this case I believe he got 'spamcop' a tad mixed up with 'blocklist'.

We were added to a blacklist as a result of the outgoing mail sent from your account but there was no addition to spamcop from what I am aware.

(Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as noted earlier I was not here during the situation the thread references.)

Note that the "thousands of exim processes" are now "hundreds of exim processes" (and we still haven't heard what on earth they are). I'm beginning to feel a bit sorry for David at this point -- all he's done is swiftly return the data for free his employers were holding hostage for a large sum of money, but as those employers simply can't be bothered participating, he's our only point of contact. (Incidentally, Kevin Moonlight never does quite find the time to join in anywhere.)

MR NASH SAYS...
I appreciate you weren't here when everything happened, but it's clear you possess info that's been withheld from us, so tragically you're in for a big bunch of questions. Of course, any sensitive replies can be PM'd or kept in the "support ticket."

The first and most obvious question is, please explain exactly who at Hostingplex has told you this info and when they did so.

Please supply details and evidence of these "exim processes." (NB: Kevin Moonlight has at no point participated in any way whatever, except to approve by his silence of everything Hostingplex have done to us.)

Please explain exactly what Al's job is at Hostingplex.

Please supply details and evidence of this blacklisting, including the blacklist involved.

Thanks. Incidentally, the CD arrived yesterday; I've been examining it for clues, but nothing's yet leapt out.

All obvious questions -- repeat number 53,022 in fact, of the ones we've been asking from the beginning. Note how astoundingly reasonably we take the news that all that work with the helpful folk at Spamcop was a complete waste of time because Hostingplex were actually secretly referring by magic code, or possibly ignorance, to a completely different blacklist altogether. You see why I'm interested in knowing what Al (ie "Andrew Vimto" from earlier exchanges) officially does at Hostingplex. For the record, at this point I'm suspicious he's in fact ("Phone-based representative... a few support tickets here and there...") in the sales department.

DAVID J SAYS...
The information I've provided you was not intended to debunk any of the previous details given to you.

My conclusions regarding spamcop are based on your contact with them, not my own.

With that said the facts are:

The account was caught spamming -- there were several hundred exim processes caught running as your username.

The rest I'd consider null points. It's unacceptable that the issue took as long as it did to resolve and I provided you your backup in return for the delay you endured.

Ahhhhh -- my mistake on the "somebody other than Spamcop" point. Naturally I was thrown by somebody from Hostingplex trusting what we said. Odd though that Al or Kevin, who of course have the facts at their fingertips and have presumably been hard at work on the "immediate investigation" required by Hostingplex's T&Cs, didn't correct David. (And, obv, anyone's free to examine the tiringly lengthy Spamcop info we collated over weeks and weeks if they want to "debunk" anything of their own.)

Still no idea what "exim processes" are (except my earlier guess that they're a fancy name for "sending e-mails") and there's that accusation of spamming again without any evidence again. Tsk.

MR NASH SAYS...
("Exim processes...")
I have no idea at all what this means. (Hence, for example, asking what it means.) We run a (conf opt-in etc etc) mailing list, which openly and unsneakily e-mailed the mailing list subscribers in exactly the same way it's previously e-mailed the mailing list subscribers for at least five editions while at Hostingplex. Mention of "exim processes," whatever they are, is -- literally -- the most information I've ever been given.

There's obviously a detailed record somewhere of what happened (no doubt carefully indexed and saved as part of the T&C-required "immediate investigation"). It seems only fair I see it. For one thing, if there's a suddenly disastrous bug in the Mailing List prog, obviously I need to know where so it can be fixed. The records would provide valuable clues.

("The rest I'd consider null points...")
I couldn't disagree more. We've been accused of spamming -- a serious accusation. At no point before your appearance had ANYONE at Hostingplex provided ANY DETAILS WHATEVER so we could establish the facts, despite repeated requests and a *lot* of work of on our part trying to find things out externally. Every question I've put has been pertinent to this. (For instance, I'd like to know what Al's job is because he repeatedly demonstrated no interest in answering any of my questions. Is this because he's not really a tech support bod at all? And knowing which blacklist our IP appeared on would be an important step in finding out why the blacklist was imposed. And so on.)

("As long as it did to resolve...")
Once again, a large thank for the archive; you've been fantastically helpful. But nothing's been *resolved.* I don't know anything more than I did when our site was killed off. I don't know what happened. And it's perfectly clear that we only have our data because you happened to come back. Your PERSONAL efforts do not reflect Hostingplex's COMPANY behaviour. I want to know exactly what occurred that led to Hostingplex killing off our site. Nobody can learn from anything without the facts.

And that's the end of the Hostingplex Forum thread, readers. Shortly after, it was mysteriously deleted, leaving NONE AT ALL of our questions answered. Yes, we have our site back -- as a result of a new employee's PERSONAL efforts, not Hostingplex's COMPANY behaviour.

Hostingplex have explained NOTHING, provided NO EVIDENCE of any wrongdoing on our part and have taken NO RESPONSIBILITY WHATEVER for their actions. They've repeatedly said that spamming (etc) damages their reputation. We quite agree. We didn't spam. Accusations of spamming damage our reputation. It behooves Hostingplex to provide evidence backing up those accusations and otherwise to withdraw them.

Saying, "Our technicians detected your account sending SPAM on our network resulting in a blacklist being placed on our IP address by spamcop," and then folding your arms and throwing your head to one side with closed eyes, raised nose and pursed lips is not evidence.

It'd probably help too if the evidence managed to explain away things like our bruisingly exhaustive examination of Spamcop's freely available info and the way every single person who subscribed to Mil's List, including the idiots who reported themselves as spam victims -- see comment in Spamcop bit -- confirmed their opt-in and we have all the certificates in a tidy pile. This type of evidence would particularly be of utility if what you actually mean is, "You sent out a big lot of e-mails so obviously they must be spam. LA LA LA WE'RE NOT LISTENING LA LA LA USD150."

(Readers can try Mil's List themselves if they like, just to check we aren't big fat liars or something.)

If you make serious claims, prove those claims or withdraw them. This isn't ethically sophisticated.

It's transparently obvious Hostingplex want to forget the whole thing ever happened and flounce on with hosting sites for people who have NO IDEA how Hostingplex conduct their business; people who at ANY MOMENT could find their sites killed off, their data held hostage and their every question and point ignored and ignored and ignored and ignored by a company which blatantly flouts its own T&Cs.

Still, no doubt my forum re-registration'll be approved any minute now and I can pose again that vast array of complex and bewildering questions.

1. Where's the evidence we were spamming?

2. And, er, oh.

Conclusions
So, what can we conclude from this? Hostingplex have demonstrated over and over again that they have no interest whatever in facts, evidence, fair play, their customers or their own T&Cs. Our data is still locked up on their server. They're still demanding USD150 for its release. They've wilfully ignored our every point and every question. Their "Level 1 Support" department is clearly unequipped to deal with this problem, but the head of the company and their "Level 3 Support" tech, Kevin Moonlight, doesn't want to know either. (Level 2 doesn't appear to exist, incidentally.) They only bother to reply when you mention going public except then reply only with "LA LA LA, WE'RE NOT LISTENING, LA LA LA, USD150."

There's only one conclusion, readers, which you've probably guessed by now: Hostingplex are a shower of dunces. We implore you in our manliest possible tones: do not sign up with Hostingplex, because when something goes wrong that isn't your fault they'll respond with accusations, wilful ignorance and extortion (and then say you're damaging their rep).

We'll be keeping this going at least until we get our data back.