Hello, i have an issue with a hosting company that seems to have their servers rented/colocated within the Planet infraestructure/data center.

Since two weeks ago Our Reseller account and ofcourse all accounts below it, are down. We started to get calls from customers, and so do we start calling vizaweb.com and opening tickets. 4 of them were opened, but only one got an automatic repply.

We can get into the support page, and post/open tickets, but no answer from this company. As you can understand, all our customers are calling us and starting Legal actions against us.

Question: what can we do now, and what can TP do for us? we are pretty sure this is not your business as we are Vizaweb´s Customers not The PLanet, but being trapted within this nigthmare we need to look up for options everywhere we can, in order to resolve this situation. We have mailed to messages to TP like this:

our domain is geinco.net (main account)

We need some advice here:

I know this is not your business, but we have a Reseller account with VIZAWEB.COM and they have some dns ip´s that seems to be under your IP Blocks... we paid this company a full year last october, but since more than 2 weeks our websites are down and this people do not answer our support request, not even automatically, and as you may guess, we got customers so angry with us, and we just don´t know what to do in order to get our files back to move somewhere else (even loosing our 220 US$). Question: is there a back door where we can just connect to our cpanel, grab our files (mails for instance) and get out of this company?

Please notice that we know you do not have bussiness with us but vizaweb. We just need some idea of what to do now... maybe they just change DNS or who knows what they have done (maybe they did not pay you). we are just terrified, in panic, horror.... of what´s going on, again, with those guys.

Sorry for this large message, it´s just that we don´t know what to do. they do not take phone calls, no email, nothing...

Thank you for reading so far.....

Sorry if this is not the right place to start this thread, but it does not fit elsewhere... also sorry 4 my english...

Thank you for any light to solve this problem,

Rafael

I feel for you, but... unfortunately, there's not a whole lot we can do to help you out. Keep persisting on the phone calls and tickets until you've reached resolution, but I must stress taking the high road.

If you have backups, you can switch over to a backup host. We don't always have access to the data on the servers, and even if we did, we can't touch it without permission from the account holder or a court.

I always suggest that if you own the content, you should have a periodic backup, even if the company you're hosting through has backups. In this economy, even the companies with the best intentions and plans may have troubles.

I am in a similar situation to Rasta Bits but problems with my reseller go back 6 years and are a never ending nightmare. The story is long and involved but is typical so many people who have their websites set up by a webmaster and then enter into an arrangement with the webmaster that they lease space from them on a resold server.

I will not document the entire story but the worst part of it, which started around the beginning of this year. I had been given permission to access the hosting login by my reseller. My site certificate upon renewal became mis-configured. I tried to log into my ServerCommand but could not find it. Apparently it had changed to the Orbit login site. I could not get in, called support and could not get an updated password as the new passwords are only sent to the owner of the account, not to anyone listed on it in any other capacity which I am (as Technical Contact).

For some reason the reseller who I had previously had a fairly amicable relationship stopped being a nice guy. He would not help me get access to the hosing login anymore so I could not fix the certificate.

I have been losing sales on my site as my shopping cart is dependent on the SSL certificate. The reseller often refuses any calls or emails but did take one call three weeks ago and said that he was going to give me ownership of the account.

Three weeks later, he has not done it. This is a serous problem. I realized that when I had root access before the reseller started behaving illogically so I could move to another hosting arrangement.

However, without filing legal paperwork, it appears that there is no way I can recover my intellectual property on the server, some of which resides at higher leaves than I have access to through my CPanel.

Other hosting companies have specific policies posted regarding terms of service for resellers including a no tolerance policy for resellers who do not provide support for their clients. This seems to be missing at ThePlanet.

I have been on the phone several times today with ThePlanet but there is nothing I can do. Its easy to give advice to people after the fact. However, there should be some easier way to resolve disputes such as I am in.

Off hand I cannot think of ANY datacenter that will give a non-client access to a server to obtain information. Any that would is opening themselves up to all sorts of liability. We deal with many clients whom their side code is closely guarded, if a datacenter were to release it a lawsuit would be started in minutes. If they did take those claims and give up the code what is to prevent people from lying?

ThePlanet sells servers, as long as it is legal they do not mind what yo do with it. Level of support to clients is smoething that can easily be misinterpreted. If I buy a server from TP I don't want to have to worry about some possible fake complaint getting my server pulled because how I dealt with a client - that is my responsibility the are only selling the server.

I'm not sure you are using the term "Reseller" correctly. Most of the clients of thePlanet are not resellers in the way that a hosting reseller would resell someone else's hosting.

For example, a reseller who has a reseller account at Hostgator, would be reselling Hostgators hosting, but Hostgator, who has servers at thePlanet, isn't considered a reseller.

As others have said, thePlanet has no reason to help you nor a legal responsibility to either, IMO.

For myself, I would prefer that thePlanet not attempt to deal directly with my customers, unhappy or not.



No, there shouldn't. I'm sure you are a nice guy, but look at this scenario:

A client wants a website developed for them. They pay $1000.00 down and I create the site. Then they owe me $1000.00. The website is finished and sitting on the server, accessible to the public while I await the final payment. They get pissed off at me, contact thePlanet and get access to the finished site. I'm out $1000, thePlanet thinks they did someone a favor.

No, thePlanet should not be involved with my customers.

People who have a website should always keep a backup of the site in case something happens to their hosting company.

In your specific case, I'm sure that a nicely worded letter from you lawyer would solve the issue.

The resller in my case is leasing a dedicated server. His work with me ended six years ago and I owe him nothing.

My understanding is that he is obligated to provide some kind of support services if I do not receive services from ThePlanet. I cannot talk to techs upport and have things done because I do not have access to main hosting control panel. My access is through a CPanel.

The reseller, in December took a payment from me to renew the SSL certicate on my webiste residing on his server who he is provided by ThePlanet.

I called technical support for the SSL certificate. They told me I needed root access to fix it. That was two months ago.

When people visit my site, their browsers turn red and it warns them that there not trusted certicate installed (it was not installed correctly)

The reseller refused to fix the problem. I could gladly get of the server if I could get root access to the site to mirror it somewhere else. He denies me root accsss. Some of the intellectual property on the sign resides at levels higher than I have access to.

My search engine ranking has become affected because I believe that spiders have detected an untrusted certificate.

I cannot call technical support and ask them to fix the certicate.

I currently have had to retain the services of an attorney. Even the people at legal will not help me without me actually filing a law suit and serving him personally. This requires me to hire investigators to determine his location which may be different than the name filled out on his Domain Registration or any other information he has given me. He lives in a different city and all of this is time consuing and expensive.


I have lost 3/4 of my traffic and my search ranking has plummeted due to this problem. This SEO was developed over years of careful work and because my site has always been trusted.

I think that all of the "intelligent" comments made on this page fail to understand the plight of a website developer with a website which has been on the web for ten years mindmedia.com and who had spends full time on the site developing its content feels or how his livelihood is affected by this situation.

Currently, he has told my attorney that I should get a copy of the change of ownership form from THEPLANET sign it and fax it to him. He will then sign it and fax it to THEPLANET. He does not have the time to do so himself.

So I asked THEPLANET how to ge this change of ownership form. The only way to get the form is to request it through a ticket I file through the control panel. But I do not have access to the control panel, only a CPANEL created and the support tickets there go to him and not THEPLANET.

I hope by now you are gaining an understanding of the delima that I am in. Most web hosting companies have basic standards that people who sell space on their servers are required to comply with.

I looked the forms located on the Planet Legal site. All of the reseller agreements had stuplations that the reseller pay on time and that they comply by Terms of Service. Nothing in the TERMS of service requires that the reselllers provide anything to their clients. As I said earler, most web hosting companies have strict requirements on those who resell their servies including basic support.

I can completely understand the absolute nightmare this is for you.

But I don't understand how The Planet would be responsible for how their customer chooses to run his/her server as long as it is within the posted ToS.

For example, my customers expect me to be the only one involved with their data.
They wouldn't want The Planet having free reign over my server. They wouldn't have a clue who all looked at their data if that was the case. It's my responsibility to verify all data is within the ToS of The Planet.

Yes, this is a horrible business decision and unfortunatly you are stuck in the middle.
But The Planet just isn't responsible for providing support to you because this guy has just decided to not provide support. They know nothing about how he has his servers set up. The Planet isn't directly a "web host."

Can you provide an example or two of another dedicated server provider or colocation provider who has strict requirements for how their customers provide service to the customer's customers? Or who will get involved in the legal disputes between their customers and their customer's customers?

I did a quick Google and found a reseller agreement by the web hosting company QualiSpace. The second clause of the agreement reads as follows:

"II. Reseller must be responsible for providing technical support to all resold accounts. Reseller is also responsible for registering new and transferring existing virtual domains for resold clients."

In the search I found numerous versions of this provision. Since the web hosting company does not provide support directly to the clients and do not want to have their own reputation damaged by their resellers, many actually stipulate that the reseller have adequate knowledge to provide such support IN ADDITION TO PROVIDING TIMELY SUPPORT.

My case is a perfect example of what happens when a reseller agreement is not carefully crafted. The only way I can fix my certificate is to gain access directory levels that I am restricted from. When I contact the people who Tim Fulmer bought his certificate from and resold to me, they tried to help me. They said they doubted I could fix the certificate from my Cpanel, that I would need to contact the web hosting company to fix the problem. I worked with them for over an hour and a half, trying different things. Failing to fix I contacted Tim Fulmer.

Five Months after I contacted him, the certificate is still broken. While he "moves" his stuff off the server, he has no time to fix the certificate. He does not care if my company fails or is financially damaged, he just does not have the time.

I have the technical ability but not the access to fix a problem which affects the life or death of my company.

Just to make things clear, I am listed as a technical contact on the server. However, that means nothing, I cannot get access.

I would think that The Planet might stipulate to their resellers that they need to provide timely support.

As you can see by the example of the other fellow who started this thread, my horror story is not so uncommon with The Planet hosting. The FCC has strict regulations about any hosting providers obligations to its customers. The Planet cannot pretend that the end user is not their customer too!

Any questions about legal obligations will need to be sent to legal@theplanet.com. I won't be able to discuss that stuff here.

This is an interesting idea -- I just haven't heard of it before with any other US datacenter.

To go further I suppose the hosting provider would have to be responsible for the end customer's customer satisfaction to their customers, so for example if I leased servers from the planet and hosted your site, I'd have to be ready to respond to your customers if they had a complaint with your end-use?? Would I respond to them by going through your business files and providing direct interaction with your customers? This seems quite dangerous to me, in that each tier up has to have the complete understanding of the tier below or risk being "tricked" by the customer's customer into compromising the direct customer's business.

I can see where this level of oversight would provide a faster resolution than going through traditional legal channels, but it seems to carry a very heavy liability to me and it also seems that this type of situation is exactly what the legal system is in place for and equipped to deal with.

If that clause were included in our reseller agreement, a customer's failure to adhere to that policy wouldn't mean "The Planet is going to take over your business and provide your support for your end customer" ... it would mean "Your account is now terminated." In this case, would a termination of the server be helpful to you? It seems like that would just make your situation worse.

Why do you need to mirror the entire server if your site is controlled by a cPanel account? Five months of frustration and potential loss of business seems like a pretty high price to pay for a hosting account that you're clearly unhappy with. Making a move to a new cPanel account on a different server should be a snap ... what information do you fear you would lose by migrating?

I wonder if they are actually implying that they will oversee the reseller's responsibility or simply that they are not responsible for the reseller's area of responsibility.

They even go on in the line below to specify that:

I managed to resolve my issues and take over the account from my reseller.
I do not manage my entire site through the CPAnal, I was restriced by the reseller from doing anything else.

Parts of my site are inaccessible to me through cpanel. I needed access to get to them.

I'm impressed by the new control panel for ThePlanet's hosting since I've managed to log in again.

I understand both sides of the issue better than I have before an understand your position. Perhaps you could institute a policy where if you receive a complaint, then you warn the reseller that someone is complaining about the service that they are providing.

If ThePlanet had warned my reseller, he would have moved a lot quicker to get things resolved.

I am not going to post anymore here now that I have the problem resolved.

I am glad to see that you were able to get your issue resolved. I don't know how often I get a chat or a phone call with the similar situation. I always feel bad about the person on the other end because if they are telling the truth it is a sad situation. The thing that bothers me is that the person in need of our assistance is usually not well informed about options to protect their business. Everyone should have off site backups of at least their mission critical data. I always compare the cost to car or home insurance it's a necessary requirement. We now offer cloud storage which could be the most inexpensive way to backup your data. There are no fee's to upload data and it's only 0.40 cents per GB of storage space used. The good thing about that is you don't have to be a customer to order the cloud storage.