(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.)

Hostingplex Are a Shower of Dunces

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

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

Last update: 15/1/2007 | The Weekly was off for: ROUGHLY THREE MONTHS

IN SHORT
Inept negligence or bald, cynical extortion? You decide. Hostingplex, our Internet Hosting company for the last 1.5 years, closed us down -- completely without warning. Our site went offline and all our files and logs were locked so we couldn't access them. They have no cause whatsoever to do this. Requests for access and for them to show us justification of what they've done, plus reminders of their obligations under their own T&Cs (ie to show justification and provide access), have met with nothing except, to paraphrase very slightly indeed, "Pay us USD150 if you want to get at your files ever again, bignose."

IN BRIEF
Hostingplex shut us down, then accuse us of spamming. We're surprised, because we don't. (We do send out a confirmed opt-in Mailing List that's tiringly difficult to join because we're that fretful about bothering people who aren't interested.) We ask Hostingplex repeatedly to explain and corroborate their claims. They ignore us except to demand USD150. With a lot of detective work and the invaluable help of ace anti-spam sentinels Spamcop we compile a dossier of evidence which completely exonerates us. (The culprits are excitingly revealed to be Hostingplex's wilful ignorance and some other customers of theirs who actually are spammers. Spoiler! Oh.) We present this dossier to Hostingplex. They ignore us except to demand USD150. We repeatedly point out the facts. They ignore us except to demand USD150. We CC everything to the head of the company. He ignores us altogether.

If you're with Hostingplex, or thinking of signing up, this could be you. We -- really; and clearly to anyone who looks -- did nothing wrong. You, if they're your hosting company, could suddenly find Hostingplex shutting you down without warning, refusing to provide any evidence for it, preventing you retrieving your data and demanding a huge fine for something you didn't do. That, in brief, is the worrying situation.

IN DETAIL
The full, punishingly complete string of events featuring FACTS and SCIENCE, including quite a good bit where Hostingplex's accusations are destroyed, utterly, by their own words and the inconvenient fact that time doesn't run backwards. (There's a link to that section if you don't fancy reading the lot.)