Rackshack ripped me off- YOU are next
 

on the 28th of last month I signed up for one of these cheap boxes. By the 3rd of this month I had it set up after some dns problems that I THINK was their fault. Since the first day I started using the server, it has gone down after about an hour of VERY light usage. One of the first trouble tickets they responded to said that the hard drive needs to be replaced, but subsequent replies to the 5 or so trouble tickets a day I opened only said they rebooted again. I also expressed my desire for them to fix the server. After a week of this, I called them and told them to cancel which they did, but they REFUSED to refund my money, stating that ALL monies are non refundable.

Whatever their policy is I really don't care. Bottom line is that I paid for a product, but never recieved a working server , which is exactly what I paid for. This is fraud. Period. I paid for a product and recieved a defective product. I was ripped off. They had 7 days to fix it but never did.

Not only will I dispute this with my cc company, I want to report them for the fraud that occured. So if anyone has the contact info for their processor, please post it here. Thanks

they charged me after i cancelled my first raq (i moved up to a whitebox) and they refunded me. actually refunded me 2x the amount i was expecting. heh.

i have two boxes with them now and i'm happy. they do state clearly no refunds.. but if you aren't getting anything usable that is bullshit.

to get my refund i had to jump through a couple hoops too. they're very strict on that, i had to email them proof i cancelled and all this other shit.. and even then i wasn't cancelled but i did have a cancellation # that time. so it got taken care of.

They can state that all they want. Point I am making is that I was defrauded. I paid for a product and recieved a defective product. And they were given ample opportunity to correct it. They did not. This is credit card fraud. Period. this is criminal, not just civil. I will not jump thru any hoops for them. I will not be ripped off. Their policies do NOT supercede Federal and state laws regarding fraud, nor their credit card proceesors.

report them to the bbb

i'm not disagreeing with you but i'm sure somewhere in their 10 pages of terms of service it says they're not responsible for downtime for hardware failures, acts of god, abuse, yadda yadda yadda yadda.. all that shit to cover their ass.

we live in a world today of 30 page agreements basically telling you "we aren't liable to deliver you shit, but we will charge you.."

it sucks and it's pathetic but it's business now, and since people sue for any reason, everyone is covering their own asses.

http://www.cologroup.com

for cheap BW, and killer service, mention my name and he'll hook you up killer...

i reported a local company. the BBB asked them for a statement. they never replied.

"while companies listed with the BBB are required to reply to our inquries, we have no authority to do anything to those who do not comply"

what the fuck does that mean? it means "you're required" but "you're not gonna get in trouble if you don't reply"

talk about a load of shit. my next option is to forward it on to my state attorney general.

bah.

go to www.five-elements.com 24/7 support..the fly uses them..I do they are alot better

wonder if Choker will "call" the Fbi again

Thanks for the replies, but I am not looking for hosting. I already have the BEST prices there are at http://chickenhost.com

I only got the box to run a few galleries on at Rackshack. I figured $100 is not much to risk. I just did not expect to be ripped off. As for as if they have in their agreement about not guaranteeing anything, that really does not matter. Their agreement has to abide by Federal laws. I paid for a product and recieved a broken product. This is fraud. I did not get what I paid for. PERIOD. This is criminal on their part. Does anyone have the contact for their cc proceessor please. Thanks

Nice 404
:321GFY

well if you're going to claim that paying for something that didn't get delivered "as expected" i'm sure half the members of this board are guilty of the same crime :winkwink:

porn doesn't have the best reputation for delivering what's promised.. :2 cents:

haha i can just imagine how much the credit card company will care, cause some whiner crying about losing 100 dollars, if traffic sales are tough I can loan you some money :)

What are you talking about dude??

Pipecrew, your sorry ass is not even worth a reply.

Bingo, not to mention the fact they they themselves admitted in writing that it had a defective hard drive, yet still refused to do anything about it. THEY KNEW they were selling me a defective product. This in of itself is grounds for fraud charges.

Oh, the irony. :1orglaugh

i can't decide whether to risk it with rackshack or not, it seems like half of the people are satisfied, and the other half are totally _fucked_ with no recourse because they don't offer any support.

not fixing a hardware failure is inexcusible, but they put these boxes together out of $300 worth of spare parts so i guess massive failures shouldn't really be a surprize. i wonder if they bother to rma bad hard drives, ram, etc to manufacturers, or if they just throw them in the box and reuse them later and hope for the best.

choker, i had the same exact probelm with them. the hardware was defective and they refused to give me a refund (back when setup fee was 300 bucks) so i just keep asking for supervisors till i got to some fucker that could actually issue a refund. i just said what you said, that i never got the product i ordered, and they gave me my cash back. but bottom line, rackshack sucks ass.

assneck

http://cologroup.com

is fucking taking care of me better and better everyday. Every dumb little thing I hit Jason with on icq, he addresses in minutes, go with Colo.

West Coast Beyotch!

\X/

:winkwink:

Well if the server is broken and you paid for it -- then ask them to ship it to you! But I don't see how the hell you purchased your own server for $100???!

it's a dedicated, they own the server. normally you have to pay $350 up front, which covers the cost of the server, even though they still own it and keep it, but theyve been running specials lately for $1-99.

my experience with rackshack is brutal... tons of downtime and no reparations for those downtimes.. it sucks... i dont recommend that business

Well.. for once I'm not going to plug my hosting. You'll figure out what's best in a new host after this experience. Here's what I think:

1) the BBB is useless, don't fucking bother

2) write a precise and verbose letter about your experience, sign it, and fax it in to the attention of someone in charge. tell them they have like 24 hours to respond with a proper solution or you will charge back with your credit card.

3) if they don't fix it, charge it back. provide your letter to the CC company. fuck them. I wouldn't call it fraud, it's just horrible business. It sounds like they aren't managing anything properly - not that they're intentionally screwing you.

Best of luck!

Brad

if they won't refund, chargeback. you didn't get what you payed for so there's nothing they can do.

Rackshack blows period. I am with them now and my servers constantly go down. They refuse to do anything to fix it. Ever since I got the server it has always had problems. When I used to colocate my own server at a different facility i was up for over 300 days straight. Finally I ended that and moved to rackshack for a temporary period because they are so cheap. Since then my traffic has decreased by over 50% and I am constantly having downtime. Check this out, I was down 7 hours the other day:

http://www.rackshack.net/bandwidth/w...0.248_120.html

You can see I am always down. Finally the other day I wrote a script to now monitor my server as it seemed to always conviently go down when I was sleeping in bed. When I would wake up it would always be down. Anyway my script monitors my server and will email my cell phone if anything goes down on the server. That little script is the only thing keeping me alive here with Rackshack, as now I can get them to get it up immediately. Overall I would say Rackshack is the worst host on the planet and I would never recommend them to anybody. Half their servers are crap and the ones who like rackshack just got lucky that they got a server that wasnt a defect. I know many many people who have had problems with Rackshack. Their support sucks, I think they pay them all 8 bucks an hour and got hired off the street. When I first signed up I had problems immediately. Server refused to work. Couldn't even log in. So I called up and got some guy, I think his name was Jerome. Anyway as he was talking to me we got to chatting about servers and websites and the next thing I know I hear this lady in the background who soundedl his mom saying "Jeromeeeeeeeeee...." like he got in trouble or something. I couldnt believe it. I wanted to slap the lady, very unfriendly service. He was actually trying to give me good support being friendly and all, and their management all down there are against that I think. Everyone I have dealt with down there knows crap. They couldnt help you if their life depending on it. Anyway I think Jerome was new because he asked me if I would like them to setup the DNS for my server. I am like no. He then goes we need to get into Network Solutions to change your DNS settings to point to ours. I am like no you don't, I will do it myself. The next day I see a charge to my account for domain setup of 20 bucks. I was so furious. It took me two months to finally get that money back.

If you do go with Rackshack you better know how to fix your own shit on your server cuz when you get it there are alot of fucked up things immediately. Okay I said my word :BangBang: :ak47: :321GFY

i wonder what thier sysadmins think about the way things are run there, they gotta realize its a total joke.

lol... and to think I get shit when I write an article about how cheap hosting is sometimes a BAD decision. Just ask yourself one question, was it all worth it?

I only got this box so I could learn how to admin a server. I have a box at Datahosters and am having to pay someone to run it for me. I figured if I fucked up something on a 100$ a month box, no big deal. Problem is I never even got to do anything on the box at Rackshack other than ftp as it was always down on me.

So you had a bad experience... So fucking what? RackShack like any other host, is ran and operated by humans. So you had a bad drive, they will replace it. You didnt give them a chance, they are the best I've seen yet. I was down for 4 hours, and they gave me half of a month off when I called. Because I stick with them. Getting pissed off and calling to cancel will definetaly not get you your money back.

Sponsor sites go down all the time. Do you call them and tell them to cancel your account? Have some patience man.

Anyways, from what I hear cologroup is a great host, try them, and then sign up for some anger management program so you dont piss them off too.

I got a rackshack server a few days ago. Guess what? bad harddrive and RAM. Anyways, they tested it and replaced all within about 2 hours. (It was at 2am) One thing they refused was to give me credit for the 2 days that the bad harddrive and RAM were installed. Other than that, the server now seems to work fine. I see people come to their channel from time to time saying there are routing problems and they can't reach the server. It always works for me though, but I guess some traffic really can't get in.

You do get what you pay for!

No, they did not replace the hard drive. They knew about it as it was even in the trouble ticket response from them. Yet they never replaced it. They had SEVEN days to replace it. Yet they did not. How long am I supposed to continue pay for something I did not get??? duhhhhh

I bitched and bitched, they refuse to do anything for me. Their answer is usually just to reboot and if it works, then in their books there is no problem. Anyway I am only with them temporarily as I stopped colocating from my old host, who was great (expensive though). I am shipping my server up here so I can administer it easier. Anyway if you deal with Rackshack more you will realize how much they truly suck.... but yes you get what you pay for. I originally wanted to put my box in their facility as I know my box is stable, but at the time they refuse to colocate. Not sure if that is still their policy. I don't care though, because I know how many people they have screwed, and their refund policy blows. They should refund clients who they do not provide the service to that they advertised. If the server doesn't work and it never worked to begin with then the customer should be obligated to a refund. When I signed up setup fees were like $450.00 for the same packages that are now 100 bucks, so it was even a bigger issue then. The only way to do things is to either pay more money or do it yourself.

I have dealt with many hosts in my time. So far Rackshack is the worst by a landslide. With every other host they have had descent customer service and they treat you like a person. They try to help you and understand how important being up is. With Rackshack their policy is that their workers cannot communicate with management, or other departments. The poor communcation I think is what really makes them have the disadvantage. Also I was able to get money back for a guy by talking 3 hours with a manager there. I was upset, but I did convince the manager to give a refund... anyway way more work then was needed.

i've barely had any downtime yet.. and the little i did have (read: very little) is expected for the price i am paying..

i wonder how some people can have such large amounts of downtime. maybe it's user errors?

My server seems to operate fine now. I dont know why people are having problems. And they replaced my corrupted hardware pretty quickly after all.

yup.

i've had three servers with them.

first box was a cobalt raq. it ran fine but i hate raqs. when they got whiteboxes in i cancelled that one and upgraded to a whitebox. i tried upgrading my kernel first thing and my server didn't come back.

turns out the power supply died on the box. i had a new one within a day or two. i wasn't in a hurry.

it's been fine ever since. that's with their 400 gig program.

now i have one of their 10mbit unmetered boxes running off the compaqs. no one should complain about faulty hardware if they get the compaqs. while they're a generation or two old, they're still solid boxes. that box has been running great too.

as far as any network downtime i get a network burp here and there. but i've received those anywhere.. probably a combination of all the networking peering points between my oddball dsl and my box.

if you know what you're doing with a server, rackshack should be fine. sure their techs are varied with their skill levels, but for the most part a dumb tech can service/entertain dumb customers all day long and those customers feel serviced.

i never have to ask them for help, so as long as power is running and the network cable is plugged in to my server, everything is peechy-keen.

You just did :winkwink:

DynaMite

Well, I just think that every company out there has happy and pissed off clients. Sometimes your happy, and sometimes you're not. In this case, if the server had a bad drive, they would replace it. What went wrong is the dude asked to cancel his account and THEN asked for a refund. If you would have asked for a refund, and stayed, you might have just forgotten about this downtime shit and moved on with a server that works fine.

Personally, I think that all the people that bitch about rackshack have no sys/admin experience what so ever. Your server is no way different than mine. And I ran into rackshack just like anyone else did. Besides, it's true, you do get what you pay for. You walk up to tip a stripper and you drop 3 quarters... what do you expect?

That being said... I still get phenominal results from my servers, and I went from 1 to 9 servers all with them. I admin myself and I have no issues.

It must just be one of those things. I have had a server with them up for 4 months now. I have a remote network monitoring thing and I haven't got one notice of downtime.

They did double bill me cause of a signup error but credited me within a week.

Every communication I have had with customer service has been answered within 24 hours. Luckily I haven't had server hardware problems or who knows.

But I like their system and their forums are nice to browse for help.

I've heard some bad shit about rackshack - like people's servers being down for half the day, and they don't do shit until you ask them to. So, if you don't notice, then your fucked. And then the same thing happens again the following week...

:1orglaugh ...jedi mind trick... :1orglaugh

...you're feeling very sleepy...

Rackshack is a piece of shit.
Report to FTC & charge back the amount.
What they did was sold you a defective piece of equipment and refuse a refund which is illegal.

:BangBang:

read: rackshack NOT RECOMMENDED!!!!

That's a crock of shit.

Amazes me how people speak of legalities and probably never spoke to an attorney. You really think a big company like that is gonna risk going to court over 99 bucks? Don't make lame posts please.

What they did was illegal.
Does it only matter if you lose $10,000?
Try stealing 2 bucks from a homeless fellow and see if he minds or not.
The point isn't about the value of the box, it is about paying money for something and it didn't work, and company doesn't refund the money.

Rackshack might use that same broken equipment on the next guy who lays down 100 bucks.
I can't believe someone can justify a crime because only a small amount of money was involved.

BTW I didn't mention an attorney, or say anything about taking them to court.
Read my post if you bother to quote it.
I said report to FTC and charge back the funds. You can do this without hiring an attorney.

A. Oh yes there is a major difference between $100 and $10,000. Stealing $2 from a bum vs robbing a liquor store vs robbing a bank are completely different legally.

B. I don't think the FTC is going to get into a major investigation over a few minor fuckups with harddisks. It's not a scam, just a bad drive.

C. It makes more sense for Rackshack to pull the warranty on the drives than just put them in another box. In terms of customer satisfaction, employee time spent, reputation and chargebacks.

D. If there is a problem you should 1. complain/openticket, 2. contact them over the phone, 3. escalate, 4. escalate, and on until you're at the top. If your isp doesn't have an escalation matrix you should consider how important this is to you.

E. If nothing works or you're not satisfied with providers you should switch asap and get on with business.

F. If you'd like to file a complaint with the FTC go here: https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

Nancy... mind if I call you Nancy?

My point of bringing up the attorney wasnt that YOU didnt talk to one about this case. My point was that you dont have any legal experience and shouldnt be handing advice. The terms are that if something is defective... they will replace it. Not give you cash or credit. That is RackShacks solution for a bad or defective product; to fix it. And that is perfectly legal. I am not saying you he doesnt have a right to be pissed off, but there are other ways to handle a situation like this. Anger only makes things worse.

Did they fix the problem?
From Chokers post it sounds like they didn't.

not bullshit at all...i know, cuz I experience this on average of 2
time a week. In fact, I've been down 3 times, for a total of 17hrs
THIS WEEK alone!

And if you can admin you're own server like mike can, i agree,
rackshack is great.

My situation is a bit more complicated then yours, and too long
to explain here....but i'd be very careful about recommending
them to anyone.

You figure I'm a guy so you decide to make up a girls name for me - cute.
Your defending rackshack a little too much if you ask me.
Do you work for the company or just play "pictch & catch" with the owner?