Jatol.com totally down [MERGED]

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Posted by valeriestw, 08-31-2007, 01:50 PM
I have several websites hosted by Jatol.com. I've been with them for several years with no major problems. Today all of my websites are down, and even the Jatol.com site seems to be down. I tried calling and got an "out of service" message. I found another number in various places and tried that, and the message machine sounds like an old lady. I left a message. I can't find any announcements or news regarding Jatol going out of business or anybody else reporting outages. And I have run across a few other sites that say they are hosted by Jatol that come up fine for me. Does anybody have any information re: Jatol being down or gone? I'm hoping this is just a couple of servers down, but it's really freaking me out that I can't get a hold of them either. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!
Posted by seva, 08-31-2007, 02:15 PM
I'm a current customer of Jatol. Is it just me, or is their entire system completely down? No help, no main jatol.com page -- all dead. All of my sites are down, including cpanel access. Anyone have a phone number to call these guys? Getting no response from any emails sent to support.
Posted by SLH-Ken, 08-31-2007, 02:16 PM
Yep, down over here too...
Posted by seva, 08-31-2007, 02:20 PM
Any clue as to what to do? I'm at a total loss here.
Posted by Biju, 08-31-2007, 02:29 PM
http://whois.domaintools.com/jatol.com you can make a call to their number given there.
Posted by seva, 08-31-2007, 02:36 PM
None of those numbers work. They are all either disconnected or wrong.
Posted by 3Essentials, 08-31-2007, 02:45 PM
I'm not able to find any information either. Their main site seems down, searching in google only yields subpages which are also down. Does anyone have any other information on this?
Posted by valeriestw, 08-31-2007, 02:45 PM
I'm having the same problem. This is the first thing I've seen from anybody else. I searched for news to see if they had gone out of business or something, but can't find anything. I did, however, find several sites that claim to be hosted by Jatol that came right up. So, I'm hoping against hope that it's just a couple of servers majorly down, including the one that hosts their own site. If not, I am so screwed.
Posted by glace, 08-31-2007, 02:47 PM
I had a look at some of the sites that claim to be hosted by jatol and that seems to be true... Those sites are really resolving to servers that have jatol in the hostname and they are using their nameservers. This appears to be a partial outage. I.e. they may have servers in different datacenters and servers in one datacenters can not be reached for whatever reason. It could just be one of their servers breaking down or the datacenter may have suspended access to the server for an AUP violation etc. etc. That are just assumptions though.
Posted by valeriestw, 08-31-2007, 03:06 PM
Thanks. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's just an outage and not armageddon.
Posted by markjut, 08-31-2007, 03:47 PM
Down for me as well. How long have they been down for?
Posted by bellgamin, 08-31-2007, 03:47 PM
My site at Jatol on Aethelwulf is running now, after a few hours down. However, neither jatol.com nor its forum are online. The sky is falling???? Sheesh, I hope not.
Posted by valeriestw, 08-31-2007, 04:44 PM
Well, their site was down last night, but mine wasn't. All of them have been down since I got to work at 8:00 am this morning (it's 3:44 pm here now).
Posted by valeriestw, 08-31-2007, 05:29 PM
Sure would be nice if they'd find a way to drop us a note to let us know they are working on it and hadn't just left the country or something. Surely there must be a way!
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 08-31-2007, 06:55 PM
Jatol's always been this way lol.. If I can find my friend (Who knows the people in Scottsbluff nebraska that run the joint) I'll tell him to give them a ring and see whats up Cheers Tyler - Your friendly Ex-Jatol customer..(They still haven't refunded my money yet..)
Posted by boonchuan, 09-01-2007, 04:01 AM
This would be better at the Network Outages forum. Moved.
Posted by seva, 09-01-2007, 08:26 AM
I thought it might be helpful to some others to provide a little background on my experience with this particular situation. I host about 7 sites on Jatol.com, on their "vespasian" server. Just prior to the downtime, I reported to Jatol.com that several of our sites, which are a mixture of Drupal-based and static web sites, had had pages modified with hacker-style code and spam HTML. The sites are mainly the static HTML ones, with no scripts in their directories. Some of the site files that were modified were in places that no casual web user would have known they even existed (deeply buried template files in Drupal, for example). What's more, the only connection between these sites is they run on the same server -- i.e., same IP address because Jatol uses the domain name to determine which site to serve up. Their domains are entirely different, their content is entirely different, and there are no links between them. I am a reseller for Jatol so even the user accounts are different, and filesystem permissions different for each account. This led me to believe that these hacks were occuring on the filesystem via root access rather than simple web site hacking through script vulnerabilities. One site was completely static pages, so that rules out script hacking. I reported these problems, and Jatol tech support asked me for which user accounts needed to be restored and blamed us for probably putting insecure scripts in the webs. About 3 hours later (evening before last), the Jatol site went down. The next morning (yesterday), our sites all went down at once. Sounds to me like Jatol wasn't paying attention and got royally hacked. What's infurating is the lack of comms about all this.
Posted by bellgamin, 09-01-2007, 03:57 PM
Jatol is still down. Dead. Kaput. I have moved my schtuff to knownhost. I can forgive Jatol for having server failures. However, Jatol folks know that many of their clients hang out here at WHT -- they should have at least given us some sort of status report. It's sad to see yet another used-to-be-great host go down the tube (evidently).
Posted by Futami, 09-01-2007, 04:19 PM
Stapler, any luck finding your friend that can get in touch with Jatol?
Posted by Futami, 09-01-2007, 04:45 PM
Just called their corporate registered agent... J.H. Calvert (270) 295-4829 No one was available but at least I was able to leave a message.. If I get a call back with any information about Jatol whether they are having server problems or have gone out of business I'll make sure to post them on this forum.
Posted by cevamal, 09-01-2007, 06:22 PM
Down here too on vesp2. I have a friend using jatol (don't know which server) whose site is still up. My site & jatol.com have been down since at least 11am EDT, 8/31. I can't believe it's been this long with no resolution and no update. Jatol's been plenty flaky in the past, but this is the worst I've experienced. I've been willing to overlook the brief outages for the otherwise excellent service, but this may make me reconsider.
Posted by tthost, 09-02-2007, 01:50 AM
Another day has passed... Anybody have any news on this? I have sites on 3 of jatols servers. Two servers are up and running, but the third has been down for 2 days (vespasian2). I have tried everything to contact jatol, including trying to contact fastservers, where their servers are located, but (not unexpectedly) they could not tell me anything. Anybody out there have better luck? Im getting really worried.
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-02-2007, 01:56 AM
I've had no luck, but I won't give up
Posted by AlbaG, 09-02-2007, 03:38 AM
Well, my sites are all down (vespasian2), client sites on Bridget (I think) are up. OK
Posted by dearcrissy, 09-02-2007, 10:36 AM
I can't BELIEVE that jatol has been down this long, with no attempt to contact its customers with some kind of a status update. I am losing money by the minute that my Web sites are down, and during a holiday weekend even. I have been more and more disappointed with Jatol's service, which has been on a steady decline over the past year or so, but this is unbelievable. I'm so frustrated that I could scream!!!
Posted by EvilleRyan, 09-02-2007, 11:36 AM
Hello all... new member, signed up because I went looking for answers around the net after my Jatol site went down, and I've received zero communication from the company regarding it. Basically, my site's been out since sometime late Thursday/early Friday. I've sent repeated e-mails to Jatol and have heard nothing. This comes two weeks after my site was locked up (with no notification) for failure to pay a bill. The problem? I *had* paid my bill. It took Jatol several hours to return my communication on that problem, and then another two hours to turn the site access back on. And now, I can't get a response from anyone as to why the site's down. Anyway, I signed up for a new hosting service yesterday. I'll move my domain over from Jatol when (and if) they emerge from the virtual abyss. Nice customer service, guys...
Posted by valeriestw, 09-02-2007, 11:59 AM
Yeah, it's really a shame. I've been with them for a long time, and they used to really be awesome, but I have also noticed a decline in service in the last year or so, and more outages, too. Guess this is an object lesson in why we should all back up our sites very, very often.
Posted by Shikhir A, 09-02-2007, 12:16 PM
It must be a server outage of some sort... maybe a bad network?
Posted by EvilleRyan, 09-02-2007, 12:40 PM
Whatever it is doesn't excuse a complete absence of communication from the company letting its paying customers know what's going on. If this was a 20-minute outage, I could understand not getting an e-mail. But 3-4 days? Nope...
Posted by Fender963, 09-02-2007, 01:27 PM
I am on a dedicated hosted with Jatol. It is up however like everyone has said their main site is down, I have tried contacting Faldran with no luck via email. I have been a steady client for 2-3 years now with great service up until now. I'm really hesitant to move my stuff to a new host to avoid my site going down but if this continues, and their is a lack of communication, I might be forced too.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-02-2007, 03:12 PM
Hi, I even tried those various ICQ and IM accounts, no one responds. 3 days is really a tad steep, and I'm with Jatol now for more than 4 years too. Always highly satisfied, but now it's begun to be on a downhill route. Greetings OK
Posted by tthost, 09-02-2007, 03:43 PM
I too have been with jatol for over 4 years, and currently have sites on 3 of thier servers. This lack of communication is very unprofessional. It seems a shame they would build up such a good business, and then let this happen. I would be much more understanding if they would communicate something, so I at least have something to tell my (understandably) irate customers! A search of the Kentucky Business Services website (where they are incorporated) found very little (I tried to post the link, but it wouldnt let me) Their most recent annual report lists a Timothy Tooley as the president, and gives a physical address in Tenessee, but no phone number. I also found the following contact information, but have been unable to get ahold of anybody. Address: Billing: Jatol Internet Services c/o J.H. Calvert Accounting PO Box 425 Lewisport, KY 42351 USA Physical: Jatol Internet Services c/o J.H. Calvert Accounting 8153 U.S. 60 W. Lewisport, KY 42351 USA Anybody else have better luck?
Posted by Lunan, 09-02-2007, 08:44 PM
Hi Everyone, I'm new also to this site. I signed up to give my comments on Jatol. 1. All 9 of my sites hosted on Jatol went down Friday morning EST. 2. I also lost access to my major company email accounts. 3. I'm still out and like all of you cannot access my sites, my email nor the main Jatol site. 4. I tried calling them at the company phone number (given to me by their nameserver registrar company OnlineNic.com) and got a personal answering machine. Obviously this is a one person unreliable operation. 5. Our sites went out on the last day of the month...this looks to me like he skipped town! 6. By the end of the day Friday I registered with a new host. 7. I'm attempting to now re-point my nameservers to the new host but OnlineNic.com is stalling me...they may know something we don't. 8. The fact Jatol didn't contact any of their customers either before the shutdown or after probably borders on criminal. If they knowingly shutdown without giving warning this is certainly open for civil suit if not criminal action. 9. Fortunately I was on monthly payments and on Friday stopped automatic payments with their CC procesor. 10. Whether or not Jatol planned this shutdown (which after 3 days I'm guessing is permanent) they have caused a total disruption of our corporate email. We will never use them again if they resurface. What they have done and not done is unconscionable. I wish all the rest of you all the best in finding a suitable host to replace Jatol. Kind regards, Rob Lunan
Posted by tthost, 09-02-2007, 08:59 PM
I would be really suprised if this was intentional, although I do agree that the lack of communication is unforgivable. Not all of their servers are down. At least 2 of their shared servers are still operating, along with some of their dedicated servers. My guess is that they got hacked, and are either unaware (scary, but possible, since their main site is down, so all jatol.com email is down, and it is a holiday weekend) or trying to fix it. We had the same experience as another poster, who mentioned that many of their sites had been hacked, and spam placed on some pages, a day or 2 before the server went down. The fact that this happened on many sites on the same server does suggest that they may have been rooted. At this point, all I would like, would be access to backups, or a little bit of time in whm/cpanel to recover some stuff. I would also be interested in your progress with online nic. We have about 50 or so domains registered with them through Jatol, and now I worry about getting access to them to move them to a different registrar. What a weekend! Last edited by tthost; 09-02-2007 at 09:04 PM.
Posted by dearcrissy, 09-02-2007, 09:19 PM
I emailed Logan from Jatol, and go this reply. Sorry to say we've been had, folks. I have lost everything... I have been crying all evening. Crissy, I am sorry, but I am no longer working with Jatol Internet Services. I was forced to resign when the owner was gone ill for too long. As far as I know the company is dead and all the servers are slowing being shutdown, but beyond that I can not say. I have no reason to believe that this is not the truth. I believe Tim Tooley from Jatol (Faldran) has taken the host offline for good. I hope not, but it sure looks that way. I am in the process of moving my domain...
Posted by Lunan, 09-02-2007, 09:33 PM
Thanks Crissy! This confims the suspicion. It was just too much of a coincindence to have everything fail at the end of the month. The other servers must be coming due on another date. Make your backups folks! Logan was doing all my tech support, if he is gone then it's done! Good luck to all the rest of you. Onlinenic.com will have their hands full with re-pointing requests. Best of luck to all. This is a great site. Last edited by Lunan; 09-02-2007 at 09:39 PM.
Posted by tthost, 09-02-2007, 09:43 PM
Wow! I guess I was wrong. The fact that they did this with no warning is criminal! Just a few minutes in cpanel, and I could have grabbed everything I needed. Any chance the company that had their servers could put them back online long enough for people to grab backups? I called fastservers yesterday, and they wouldnt talk to me, but perhaps if enough people called... This is going to be very damaging to my business, and the business of my customers, and just a little warning would have aleviated all these problems! Anybody else call fastservers?
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-02-2007, 09:45 PM
Crissy is correct. I have resigned from Jatol for personal reasons and to the best of my knowledge the main jatol.com server is offline, but this I do not even know for sure. I have noticed that several other Jatol servers seem to be offline, but now not being with them I can not say anything much for sure except for what we all can see and obviously have seen (from the looks of this thread). Sorry to put the topper on this thread, but beyond this I can not say much. I just felt that I should say what little I could. Since my resignation I have been contract for work by a larger and much older company in this industry. You may all run into me in the future or maybe not, only time will tell! I wish the best of luck to everyone and hope that Tim Tooley (Faldran) will be able to assist you in the end! Logan Rogers-Follis
Posted by pehching, 09-02-2007, 09:48 PM
i am another of the deleted clients. I had several sites/domains hosted with jatol and this brings me to my knees. I admit i am to blame for not making regular backups, but i really never expected anythign like this to happen. Faldran and Logan were always great with all my requests and support. One other problem will be the hosting fee, what will happen with that? I had my hosting paid until next year, what now? Any more of you in the same situation? Really a shame. Some warning to us poor bastards would have been invaluable so we could backup everything and be less hit somehow. Shame.
Posted by Lunan, 09-02-2007, 10:07 PM
I just had to send another email to onlinenic.com to request a repoint on my nameservers. And their response was to copy my request to a Jatol email address. However as we have all known for 3 days none of the Jatol email addresses work anymore. They don't seem to believe me so maybe if the rest of you start contacting them for requests then they will start to see the light. In the meantime my corporate email is not working and onlinenic.com is aiding and abetting in the outage. If any of you need to contact onlinenic.com to have your domain repointed to a new nameserver their email address is: cs-us@onlinenic.com
Posted by lgarea, 09-02-2007, 10:35 PM
Hi everyone, Yes, contact ONline NIC about this. The more of us they hear from, the more likely they are to get on this.
Posted by Lunan, 09-02-2007, 10:44 PM
Welcome to onlinenic Cecilia will be right with you Cecilia Hi Cecilia May i help u? Rob Hi you just sent my email to Jatol? Rob Jatol is closed Rob Please see this link: I GAVE THE ADDRESS FOR THIS BOARD Rob They shutdown without warning Rob So please repoint my domain to the nameservers listed in my email Rob It is important as I said in my email...our corporate email depends on it. Cecilia We have sent to you the mail Cecilia Please kindly wait with more patience, if there is still no response from their side within next 24 hours, then we will help you do the needed changes Rob I'm sorry we cannot wait any longer. We have been without email for 3 days. We are a business and we own the lunan.org domain. We have a right to ask you to immediately repoint the domain to the new nameservers listed in our email to you. If it is not done we will be in a position to lose money and then be forced to invoice onlinenic.com for the loss. Cecilia Not only you who wants to change the DNS for their domains, please wait within 24 hours, hope you could understand. We are only the registrar, not your directly domain provider Rob Do you have a supervisor I can chat with? If so please put him or her on. Cecilia No Cecilia Please wait with more patience, and we have send them mail to you! Rob Who is the domain provider please? Cecilia jotal.com Rob Jatol is out of business Cecilia Please wait with more patience. If there is still no response from their side within next 24 hours, you could contact us again, and then we will help you with the changes directly here. Thanks for your kind patience! Cecilia Thanks for your cooperation! Bye THEN SHE HUNG UP!
Posted by pakcyr, 09-02-2007, 11:03 PM
I found this site today because I am a current Jatol client who was trying to figure out what the he!! was going on with my sites. Thankfully the bulk of them are still up and I was still able to access my control panel to get my files downloaded. I did loose one of the sites though - server is gone. Jatol.com has hosted my 9 sites for nearly 4 years with no problems. I had noticed in the past few months that things were sliding down hill. It seemed I was always getting locked out of my email account and getting blocked by the server. It's a shame really - they were good in the beginning. Any recommendations on where to head with my sites now? LOL And Lunan - everyone has a supervisor. I'm in customer service and Cecilia was flat out lying to you. And she can't spell or speak English very well either. Sad, sad, sad....and bad, bad Jatol for simply up and going away!
Posted by tthost, 09-02-2007, 11:15 PM
We had basically the same line from Online nic. Wait 24 hours. Sheesh! It is irresponsible, and exceedingly negligent that Jatol did this without warning. I am sure there would have been any number of people willing to take over the business, or at least some of the servers. I for one would have been more than happy to help.
Posted by home2spec, 09-02-2007, 11:19 PM
I just canceled my worldpay account for auto pays to jatol. Fortunately I saved all my pages on my hard drive. My site is still up and my e-mail is still being re-directed, but, for how long? I believe I'm on dakota server. anyone have any suggestions on a good host for a small site my pages total under 10mb. This was the only site with any jatol info.... thanks guys..........
Posted by pakcyr, 09-02-2007, 11:22 PM
I've decided to go with godaddy.com - at least I know they are stable!
Posted by TSlavin, 09-03-2007, 12:04 AM
First, Logan if that is you thanks for all the help over the years. I'm at a new hosting service and, at least on a long holiday weekend, they take over 2 hours to do email support. Nor can I find competent CPanel hosting where they don't jam hundreds/thousands of sites on one box. For me, Jatol support was always quick and efficient. I'm out 13 or 14 sites although my main business site currently works. I really would love to know what happened and what our options are in this situation. I have client sites where I need image files and MySQL dumps yesterday. I also finally started to run banner ads for a new business Friday morning just in time to have this caca happen. If this is true, and we can't get our data in a timely fashion, I do hope someone sues the pants off those responsible. Tim
Posted by lgarea, 09-03-2007, 01:43 AM
Hi Logan, Is there any chance that you could go in just for a couple of days to get it going for us so we can all get a backup? I for one would be happy to chip in a good chunk of money to you personally if you would be willing to do that, and I'm sure that others would also be willing to donate to your time and effort. You could really clean up for two days work....just to get the servers going long enough for us to make backups. We're desperate. Or maybe Fal would sell to you for a song and a dance so he doesn't get sued for leaving us in the lurch. What do you think? Lisa
Posted by AlbaG, 09-03-2007, 02:07 AM
Hi, I am pretty angry, to say the least. My thanks to Logan for letting us know and for forgetting to strike my former reseller account from the first server I was on. It's 8 weeks old data, but at least I can rescue some of it, google has parts of the most important blog saved and all I can do is pray that I can re-install those SQL-dumps I'm just making... Does anyone have the base URL/IP for Aethelwulf? Is it working still? Greetings OK
Posted by Fender963, 09-03-2007, 02:42 AM
Could anyone be so kind as to walk me through the steps needed to transfer the domains I had through jatol to say GoDaddy? I'd really appreciate it. Thank you, Kyle
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 02:54 AM
Transfering domains is fairly straightforward, but may be difficult with jatol out of the picture. Go to godaddy.com, and in the domain menu (left side) choose transfer in bulk. Enter one domain per line in the box, and then follow the instructions to checkout. You will receive an email from godaddy with some security codes. Follow the instructions in the email. The unfortunate part, is that you will need to enter an auth code for each domain, from the current registrar. Normally you would get this code from Jatol. You may have to contact Online nic directly to get them. Enter these auth codes on godaddy. Thats it. Good luck! Tom
Posted by Lunan, 09-03-2007, 08:41 AM
Does anyone want to set up a service to take over the Jatol accounts? This would save having to transfer them to a new domain service. Just a thought... Right now I'm just asking onlinenic to repoint the nameservers. I'm not doing an actual transfer, but at some point I have to face that too because as far as I know onlinenic is only a wholesale service. Does anyone have any light to shed on this?
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 09:28 AM
I too am a Jatol customer who has lost all his data. I has a reseller account with Jatol, and over a dozen sites of mine are now gone. Please, if anyone from Jatol is reading this thread, please just put the servers back on just for long enough to get our data. I was moved from vitellius to vespasian very recently after having a few problems, and I asked then if I needed to take backups. I was told that I did not need to. If this was in the pipeline, why not at least give me a clue then? I have tried ringing the Mayor of Lewisport to see if he can help me, but of course the time difference here in the uK means that the city hall is not yet open.
Posted by Lunan, 09-03-2007, 09:34 AM
Does anyone know who Jatol was leasing server space from? They might be able to help many of you. I have all mine backed up but many of the rest of you have lost valuable data.
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 09:34 AM
To the person claiming to be Logan, is there any way you could let us know the name of the firm that Jatol bought their servers from? If they are rented, then maybe the firm renting them out could be of help to us. If they're owned by Jatol, then I bet the physical machines are gone.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-03-2007, 11:01 AM
http://whois.domaintools.com/jatol.com shows an Everyones Internet IP, which has merged with www.ThePlanet.com. Jatol was probably hosting (some of) their customer's sites there too. Try a similar search on your own domain(s) though, and see what you can find. Good luck!
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-03-2007, 11:36 AM
I am very sorry, but there is nothing I can do with the Jatol company at all anymore. Since I have resigned I have no legal right to access any Jatol accounts or servers and doing so would constitute hacking. I wish I could have helped everyone more, but I resigned when I had to and that has left me with nothing more than words for everyone. As to questions of what datacenter or company Jatol went through that information can be found out by anyone that knows a Jatol server name or account hosted on a Jatol server and knows what web site to search it up on. Below is something anyone can use to lookup things like this: A quick A Record lookup of a server name or domain name: http://private.dnsstuff.com/tools/lo...ack.com&type=A Resolves to: 147.202.45.67 Then you run an IPWHOIS Lookup: http://private.dnsstuff.com/tools/wh...=147.202.45.67 Answer: FastServers, Inc. FASTSERVERS-MIDWEST-DC All of that done with the use of a Free account on DNSStuff.com. Also if you want to confirm if your server was hosted within the same datacenter just do the same thing I did. NOTE: Jatol.com site will resolve to a different IPWHOIS Lookup, though.
Posted by pehching, 09-03-2007, 12:03 PM
Well, quite honestly i already passed by all the stages of a very unsatisfied client. First cautious on what was going on, then worried, then p*ssed, panicked, angry, and now resigned to my fate (well, still angry, but have to deal with it). What is left for me is to point my domains some place else and put up with some very irate clients. So the next question is, where to host? Logan, although jatol went down, and you being in the business, can you at least point us (or me, in case no one else cares), to a stable server? With a nice price plan would be nice too... Just some opinions on what is out there, hosting companies wise, since i have been off the loop because i was very pleased with jatol (and look where that took me). opinions are very welcome from everyone. I need a spacious, fast, nicely priced reseller server/account. I know, probably want the impossible. Thanks.
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 12:10 PM
I've set up a "miniserver" with memset.com now, I would recommend them, and their prices aren't MUCH more expensive than Jatol's were. I just hope that someone is able to arrange for backups to be made available, even it they cost money to get. People's data isn't to be messed with, and this is a tragic end to a good relationship.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-03-2007, 12:12 PM
Hi pehching, absolutely in the same boat with you. And my largest hosted domains is unreachable too and will have to be rebuilt from scratch. Pretty awful. Thank God I at least always do my own domain DNS, for myself and clients, so switching won't be the hassle it is for others here. Yes, I'd too would appreciate some help towards some more reliable hosting company. I am currently looking at Knownhost eVerity Cartikahosting jodohost Greetings OK
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 12:16 PM
Hi, I posted in a previous post yesterday, that I had tried to contact fastservers.net, who hosts jatols servers. Yesterday, they refused to tell me anything, other than they would pass my concerns on to Jatol. We all know that is useless now. Perhaps if enough of us call them, they would be willing to do something to help us.
Posted by TSlavin, 09-03-2007, 12:49 PM
I looked at Fastserver's web page, their Contact Us page, what number should we call? We should all use the same number and pretty much the same pitch to get maximum effect, don't you think? Logan, your URL generates a 403. I guess I'm still not believing you're somebody spoofing.
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-03-2007, 01:12 PM
I called them using the local access number listed for the country I live. And talked with a guy from tech support. He told me he could only pass on a message to jatol with the info that they have on file. He said he could not give me access to my files. Use the same steps that techie_g33k showed and you'll see the reason why it gives a 403... OR did he make a fast move and didn't have time to update the pages?
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-03-2007, 01:38 PM
lol, what are you guys talkin about? Yes, his website resolves to a 403 error, but that could just be a coding issue. @Eddie - What you said really doesn't relate..."Use the same steps that techie_g33k showed and you'll see the reason why it gives a 403... OR did he make a fast move and didn't have time to update the pages?" What are you talking about there?? The pages he linked to are dnsstuff.com pages and the page that TSlavin is talking about is the page in his signature...make sure you know what you're posting before you hit the post button... Anyways, halfway back on topic here, I do believe that it's Logan, for the fact that he says he lives in Scottsbluff (Which I know is true) and his name is spelled properly With the Jatol site being down, it would be hard to exactly pinpoint the spelling of his entire name with the -Follis at the end of it. (Logan, do you know anyone with the last name of Schwaderer by chance?)
Posted by dragunu, 09-03-2007, 02:28 PM
i was a very happy customer of jatol. I have currently 2 sites hosted with them, and i was planning to host even more, but after this issue, I am moving to other hosts. Technical issues happen to everyone, but leaving your clients with no news whatsoever, is NOT acceptable. thanks another ex-jatol customer
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 02:38 PM
vespasian2's IP address was 64.38.59.97 according to my old notes. It still responds to a ping, but you cannot ssh, ftp, or http to the server. Do you think it's still alive after all? Perhaps the web server is simply shutdown? jpt
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 03:02 PM
I had a slightly different IP in my notes 64.38.59.98. Not suprising. I am sure there were a ton of IPs pointing to that server. The strange thing is that .98 does not respond to a ping, but your IP of .97 does. As for fastservers, I got the same response. They refused to give me access to any files. Any chance of somebody just aquiring the company, Jatol, at least long enough to disband it properly?
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 03:07 PM
That would require someone to actually be able to get in contact with Jatol, let alone execute a contract with them.
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 03:16 PM
Ya, I know. Im just depserate, and grasping at straws. If it wasnt soooo far, and I thought it would do any good, I would be tempted to fly to Tenessee and knock on some doors!
Posted by home2spec, 09-03-2007, 03:18 PM
It's Logan From past communications with him, I noticed a "slight accent" in the way he writes. It was there (the accent) on the messages he posted here.
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 03:19 PM
Drat. I misread my notes. It was .98 for us also. No joy.
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 03:26 PM
I'm not sure if Logan is still watching this thread, but if he were able to get in touch with the people who were running Jatol through some backchannel, I currently own a company that is equipped to handle something like this. We'd be willing to step up and acquire the accounts and the current Jatol owner could save an enormous amount of goodwill if they allowed this. Logan, if you're out there and capable of it, please get a message to Jatol somehow for me that this is on the table. They can contact me at jamestillman [at] sevatechnologies [dot] com
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 03:36 PM
I've just spoken to fastservers.net; they've told me that they are aware of the predicament in which we find ourselves. They tell me that they are considering what they can do to help. I urged the man I spoke to to reinstate the servers just long enough for us to take what we need. Of course, a tech support chap can't make that policy but I would URGE anyone that has been affected to call them. Visit the site for a local contact number. We need power in numbers here to ensure that we get back our data. Also if anyone knows the IP address of any server perhaps we can list them in this thread. I've started moving my domains to my new host, so many of us will need to use the IPs to connect to cPanel. Ones I've spotted so far include: augustus: 147.202.45.67 - cPanel responding on this IP! vespasian2: 64.38.59.98 I will edit this post as more are added to save others searching. Last edited by mattfletcher; 09-03-2007 at 03:50 PM. Reason: cPanel responding on augustus
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 04:11 PM
I just spoke to fastservers as well, and yes, they are finally acknowledging the problem. Far different from yesterday, and they day before when I called them, and they would not even talk to me. Thanks to everyone who called! Lets keep up the pressure, and hope for a resolution. Even if the servers were up for a few hours, I could grab backups of the few sites I needed. They have all already been moved, but I still need some databases, images, and ssl certs. I own a hosting company myself, and would be happy to help any way I could.
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 04:48 PM
Ah, seems I can't edit the post more than once. Vitellius seems to be up now on 64.62.196.10
Posted by lgarea, 09-03-2007, 06:21 PM
does anyone have any idea how many sites have been affected by Jatol going belly up? Lisa
Posted by prydelandsnet, 09-03-2007, 06:27 PM
Logan Im sorry we won't be working together any longer. In fact your the reason I stayed with Jatol.com. You will be missed and I am glad you are safe and found greener pastures. Its really bad business the way Jatol handled this whole event wrong (if they plan to stay in business) Your business goes down the first of the month its usually they moved out and left the clients hanging. They could have posted something on their main website about experiencing technical difficulties or even one with just the logo and mass emailed the clients a note about the outage. I think it is really strange that jatol.com is completely dead along with some of my sites while others I host with them are still up online. We all know we cannot do that to our clients. Hope all of you can minimize this damage and not suffer too many losses. Like many of you the monies paid to Jatol for services no longer offered are going to require legal action. Has anyone checked into a class action suit against the company of their billing company. Honestly if most of this is prepaid or automatically paid there is quite a deal of refunds due before we even look at damages. I can only imagine those about to get slammed coming back from a long weekend into a tuesday full of irrate clients and starting to go through all the searching for answers we have had to do over this long stressful weekend. Ed Smith Prydelands
Posted by lgarea, 09-03-2007, 06:28 PM
I just got off the phone with fastservers, and there does seem to be progress being made. The guy I spoke with said that they are working with Jatol to try to get this resolved. So I asked if this meant that they have been able to reach Tim Tooley, and he said yes (although he just sounded like a tech guy, who didn't necessarily know everything). I asked what the chances are of the server and coming up so that we can get our data, and he thought there was a good chance that was going to happen. He kept telling me he couldn't tell me more (it wasn't clear if it was because he wouldn't tell me more, or if it was because he didn't know more), but he did say that they were working with Jatol and he thought there was a good chance the servers would come up. But when I asked if he had any idea of timeline, he said "I couldn't say." I recommend other people call them. The tech support guy I spoke with heard about this for the first time for me. Fortunately he went and asked someone else, who did know what was going on. I think we need to bombard them with our concerns to get them to move on it rapidly and assertively. Thanks, Lisa
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 06:29 PM
Are vitellius and augustus servers which were previously down? The only server I need access to is vespasian2, but it would help to know if these 2 were gone and then came back. It might provide a bit of hope. Would also be good to know if they both came online within a few hours of each other. One wonders whether someone is working their way through the bunch, rebuilding each one, or whether they were simply turned back on temporarily.
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 06:31 PM
Just got this from FastServers:
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 06:38 PM
Vitillius, Augustus, and Nerva have been up and running through all of this. It looks like Bridget and Vespasian2 are the dead ones currently.
Posted by prydelandsnet, 09-03-2007, 06:38 PM
Hi all, I did some phone lookups for the accountant firm for Jatol. Here is more information that can be used for leverage Name : Calvert J H Accounting Address : 8153 USHighway 60 West Phone : (270)295-4829 Fax : (270)295-7937 I left a message sunday night..tried to fax but it kept disconnecting. I figure this may come in handy for all to have in case a class action suit is necessary if there is a problem getting refunds Ed
Posted by TSlavin, 09-03-2007, 06:39 PM
13-14 sites gone for me plus 1 site that happens to be on a still visible server. I need database dumps and images. Regards my comment about Logan's identity, I only meant that we're on the internets and you never can be certain. I suspect it is Logan for the reasons others pointed out (full name, location, tone). Certainly I do not mean to offend anyone, just caveat emptor and all that. Tim
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 06:44 PM
Careful about faxing. There's a federal law about unsolicited faxes that has a hefty fine attached to it. Someone with the right legal knowlege and an axe to grind could potentially work that against you. Although in this case it's probably acceptable use.
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 06:46 PM
Somewhere in the range of 12 for us. Several are sites for our use only, but we have at least 6 client sites that I know of. Although our policy says they are responsible for their own backups, I know most of them don't have them, or even bother to know how to get them. It's not in my nature to just leave them in the lurch. Plus, I need our data, too!
Posted by EvilleRyan, 09-03-2007, 06:49 PM
I'm actually only about 45 miles from Lewisport, Ky. It's a hole in the wall out past Owensboro. Just not sure what driving over there would do -- after all, the ownership's in Tennessee, right?
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 06:49 PM
Just got a successful ping from vespasian2 at old IP address!
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 06:53 PM
Im in too!! Grabbing backups from cpanel right now!
Posted by pehching, 09-03-2007, 06:54 PM
So far i have refrained from changing my nameservers to a different host always in the hope that the servers would come back up, even if just for a few hours. Its probably helpless, but i am fearing i might not be able to log on using just the ip. Which i admit is a long shot, to assume that the nameservers will be up. ah well, just hanging to a thread, hoping to salvage some databases and files. Anyway, the question is, many of you guys have already changed the nameservers to point to a different host? Cant helping feeling a bit hopefull that fastservers will put the servers up just for us to get what we need. Never saw this coming, cant believe something like this happened. The next step in the apocalypse would be the death of my local hard. Then i could safely shoot myself, instead of just whipping. (no, i dont have backups, but i am getting some external storage this week) Still looking for a replacement hoster. Saw memset.com and the miniservers look tempting, although a bit steep. EDIT: just saw someone got through to vespasian2, can you please post the ip(s)? and any others you might have, i dont know the ips of my servers.
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-03-2007, 06:57 PM
I am going to start with a few answers to questions I read while skimming over the recent posts, until I have more time online later: 1) I am still watching this thread and probably will until it slows down on posts. 2) No I sure don't know anyone with the last name of Schwaderer, at least I don't think I do. 3) My domain 403's currently because I had to move it to new hosting (actually hosting it on my free emloyee web space at my daytime job which is at a local ISP) quickly and I do not have the account completely setup yet (just the e-mail and FTP work right now). It should have content online within the week. 4) Right now I haven't worked with any "only" web hosting companies lately, so I can't suggest any new web hosts. I did move my domain registration to Godaddy.com though as I have always liked there prices and control panel, but I have never worked with there hosting options. I have few back channels anymore, but I did what I could for you guys. I called FastServers.net and talked to them (they of course know who I am) and let them know I had resigned and told them all I knew about the status of the company and offered input as to where they could find backups of everyones files sites. Though what they can and will do with this information I do not know as they have to ensure they don't walk into a lawsuit themselves, which I can understand. I still wish the best and will be around here to offer input, advise, and any insite that I can for some time still! P.S. If I had bad spelling and grammar, sorry I am not on my PC with spell check built into the browser and am typing in a hurry.
Posted by mattfletcher, 09-03-2007, 07:00 PM
vespasian2 is responding on 64.38.59.98 now! Guys on this server, get your data down quickly! To whoever has managed to get the server on, thank you.
Posted by pehching, 09-03-2007, 07:10 PM
Thank you! Getting some stuff out as i speak, well, type. Still cant reach all my sites, probably on different servers, but will keep trying. To whoever got this thing running, a big thank you! Logan: Thank you for your kindness, its nice to know someone cares and tries to help.
Posted by TSlavin, 09-03-2007, 07:13 PM
I can't get CPanel access through IP. What's the correct URL? Thanks! Tim
Posted by pehching, 09-03-2007, 07:16 PM
Some nameservers are working, i can access some of my sites through the usual domain. Try it out guys. And miracles happen..
Posted by Fender963, 09-03-2007, 07:18 PM
Logan, This is Fender. I hope you remember working with me, i Have a dedicated with Jatol. You were managing everything for me before and I therefore only have reseller access. In order to migrate everything over I need root access to the server. If you could please contact me via email: Fender963 at plantedtank . net I would really appreciate it! Thank you!
Posted by seva, 09-03-2007, 07:28 PM
Cpanel is working, too. I'm downloading everything I can get my hands on.
Posted by elance, 09-03-2007, 07:39 PM
Hello! I just wanted to let everyone now I am now able to access one of my accounts on the vespian2 server! I do not know how long it will be up, so be quick an grab your backups!
Posted by home2spec, 09-03-2007, 07:52 PM
Mine is still down.... I usually log into c-panel using https://dakota.jatolasp.com:8443/login.php3 Fortunately I already jumped ship to GoDaddy.com .....Lower price more space.... The bad part is that I now have to redirect all the urls on my pages... rolling up my sleeves Last edited by home2spec; 09-03-2007 at 07:53 PM. Reason: spelling and grammar
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 08:00 PM
Whew! I got everything off of vesp, and nerva, so I am happy! Logan, Thanks for pulling some strings at fastserver. That was likely very helpful. I also wanted to thank you for your help over the years, and dealing with my frustrations (probably the same ones that forced you to resign ). Glad I moved all those sites a couple months ago, or this would have been the end of my business! Hope to see you 'round the industry. Thanks. Tom
Posted by cevamal, 09-03-2007, 08:11 PM
I'm up on vesp2, too. Grabbing fresh backups now! Logan - Huge props to you, you've really come through on this. You were a huge part of the reason I stayed with, and recommended, Jatol over the last four years. Too bad you're not at a hosting company now, you'd sure have a lot of devoted customers coming along with you!
Posted by elance, 09-03-2007, 08:35 PM
Hello again everyone... if you are downloading the archive files through the control panel, make sure to unzip them and check the files! Some of my archives are corrupt and I had to re-download them.
Posted by axonite, 09-03-2007, 09:40 PM
Could be worse - they told me to wait 48 hours! Fortunately, the server I'm on hasn't gone down. Unfortunately, one of my domain names was up for renewal! Hopefully OnlineNic will be able/willing to help me.
Posted by cevamal, 09-03-2007, 09:52 PM
Interesting...in running a full site backup it pushed me well over my allotted space, with no problem. I wonder if they suspended site limits in light of "the crisis" or if it's a bug. Funny that there's still no official response.
Posted by tthost, 09-03-2007, 10:09 PM
Actually after calling again, and impressing on them the severity of the situation, they did repoint a domain, so there is hope yet. When is it up for renewal? You could ask them about transfering the domain elsewhere, and would they be willing to give you the auth codes for the domain. They may email them to you, if your email address is the administrative contact of the domain. If they are willing to do that, you can usually get a domain transfer wrapped up in a day or two.
Posted by mjjatol, 09-03-2007, 11:15 PM
Logan has brought this thread to my attention and suggested I chime in. Some of you may remember me, Matt from Jatol. You may also have noticed me disappear a little over a year ago. I was the co-owner of Jatol along with Tim and left the company after I had some disagreements over the way things were being done and what I perceived then to be bad management calls on the part of my then partner. I exited the company and as of Jan 1 2007 I no longer had any official capacity with the company. This last nine months Logan did an amazing job holding everything together during this time. The Logan mentioned here in this thread is indeed the Logan from Jatol, and you all have him to thank for the regained access to your data. I highly suggest you get what you can as fast as you can get it. In so far as I know, the servers were all from Fastservers.net, a great company and I hope they can help you all retrieve your data. Domains were all with OnlineNIC, I suggest you get with them on your domain names. As I am no longer a part of Jatol, nor Logan, we are unable to force them to free up domains or turn servers back on to get data. We both have emailed them asking for them to help the Jatol clients. Tim is the only person that can do anything official within the company. We both have been attempting to get in contact with Tim for over 3 weeks, thus far we have had zero contact with him. J.H. Calvert Accounting, the accounting firm that was in charge of accounting for Jatol has resigned due to lack of contact with the owner (Tim), so please do not contact them as they have no legal grounds, nor the ability to contact Tim for any information. I suggest everyone direct all Jatol related traffic, please mail any correspondence, calls and or inquiries to the sole person still part of Jatol, the owner/president Tim Tooley: Timothy M. Tooley President, Jatol Internet Services, Inc. 209 Raindrop Lane Hendersonville, TN 37075 615-838-2743 edit: You may notice that I had to re-register for an account here, I used to use Matt@jatol here (I think that was the id), but I could not remember the password, and the email was linked to my old jatol email address). Last edited by mjjatol; 09-03-2007 at 11:19 PM. Reason: wanted to add bit about re-registering
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-03-2007, 11:21 PM
I hope what little I did when i called FastServers.net did help you as that is what I was hoping for. Anyone on a Windows/Plesk server the Control Panel login is https://www.your-domain.com:8443/ and anyone on Linux/cPanel is http://www.your-domain.com:2082/. I am very glad to see so many good comments about myself, I always did all I could and then some more for everyone. Not a single customer was the reason for my resigning, people were a highlight in the day for me! Though now I can work with other people (as I already am) and focus on providing information, links, and maybe even a small forum on my web site in the near future.
Posted by Fender963, 09-03-2007, 11:48 PM
Matt & Logan, I really appreciate you two chiming in to help even when you are no longer affiliated with the company. That service is exactly why I stood with Jatol for such a long time. It is unfortunate that things had to end in such a way. I tried contacting Tim but all I get is a message stating that the wireless customer is unreachable. Have you tried contacting his family to make sure there is not a medical emergency or worse to blame for the lack of communication? - Kyle
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-04-2007, 12:06 AM
I have attempted to contact him as best I could and every way I know how - even had a letter mailed via USPS. Last him and I spoke he was ill, but getting better.
Posted by lgarea, 09-04-2007, 12:33 AM
Logan, Thanks for all you did for us while with Jatol, AND in helping get the servers back up so we could get our backups. I hope you get a job where you make the big bucks and are appreciated. See you in cyberspace. Lisa G
Posted by TSlavin, 09-04-2007, 12:41 AM
Thanks Logan and Matt for the updates and context. I got all my 13-14 site files, dbs, and images. Took hours and I know without your help this weekend it would've been impossible. So thanks on behalf of my clients, as well! Good luck both of you. And thanks to Lisa, Fender, and others for the information posted this weekend. It really helped me. There is one mystery I'd love to know: how does a guy with a name like Tim Tooley get a moniker like Faldran? Or did I miss something? Tim
Posted by eclouds, 09-04-2007, 12:42 AM
I really feel bad for everyone in this situation right now. Logan seems to have done a more than wonderful job helping his old clients although he had no obligation to. I really wish you guys the best and hope you will be able to get back on your feet without too much trouble.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-04-2007, 12:58 AM
Hi, being on the other side of the planet I just begun downloading and hope it will all go well until I grabbed it all. HUGE THANKS TO LOGAN AND MATT!!! I have to say it too, the last 3-4 months it was Logan who kept me with Jatol, so thankfull for both your help. I couldn't backup my sites before, being on a modem line (thankfully now on broadband finally), so this hit me very, very hard. Great work and all the best to you! OK
Posted by dragunu, 09-04-2007, 01:26 AM
well, jatol is currently the registrar of one of my domain names, however i cannot move it to another registrar since I need an authorization code from jatol themselves , and they havent sent me that code when i registered my domain with them. of course, they arent replying to any emails. Any ideas what can I do? thanks
Posted by story, 09-04-2007, 01:41 AM
Vitellius is still up and didn't experience any down time the past few days. (that I know of). I'm doing a backup of all my sites now..... sad to see this happen to Jatol. Matt, Logan and Tim have provided me with excellent customer support - although this year, I knew something was up when I didn't hear from Tim anymore. And Logan must've had at least 5 clones - he really helped me out on a number of occasions -- and sounds like he gave the same personal attention to many more. Is Jatol just going completely under and all servers expected to shut down? Or .... Logan, any hints? What to do. What to do. Not good. (LOGAN: Would you be interested in some "extra" contract work - say, for the Windows streaming server we have running --- you have my email. Let me know if it's yes. I would be much relieved. THANKS for all your attentive service and good vibes.) joefrank.com still breathing.
Posted by pehching, 09-04-2007, 03:12 AM
While i was searching for info on the server i was using to see if i could reach it by ip, i came across several support tickets from Matt and wondered what happened to him, hehe, well, glad to see you are still around. Managed to get all my data out of the several accounts i had with jatol. Also glad i didnt have any domains registered with them, which i assume will be harder to get a clean transfer out. Thank you Logan for all your help, i am sure you gave fastservers the final push we all needed in getting our data back. Take care Logan and Matt and see you somewhere out there. For all that still are stuggling to get the files, dbs and domains back, thank you for all the info in this predicament and i wish you all the luck and hope everything turns out ok. pagongski
Posted by axonite, 09-04-2007, 07:31 AM
It expired on the first. I never got the second notice from Jatol like I did last year, and by the time I remembered I needed to renew, Jatol was already down. Now OnlineNic has a parked domain search/advertising page at the site.
Posted by cevamal, 09-04-2007, 02:45 PM
I just set up an account with hostgator and initiated a transfer. Hopefully this will go smoothly! Unfortunately I paid for the year with Jatol in April. Now that we've (hopefully) got the data situation squared away, what are everyone's thoughts on the financials? For me it's not a large amount, more the principle of the thing.
Posted by hollylisle, 09-04-2007, 03:52 PM
Thanks for all the info. Just paid for the year in full last month, so I'm guessing I can say goodbye to that money. However, because of your info, I backed up everything (was lucky to have access to my C-Panel, got all my stuff backed up, and because my domain name is hosted with GoDaddy, I'll be okay there, too. I stayed with Jatol for all the years I was there because the two of you were great---friendly, reliable, and endlessly helpful. I'm sorry to see the demise of Jatol, but hope that if you two ever start a hosting service of your own, you'll let me know. I'm searching for a new host right now, but I'll be happy to switch. Holly
Posted by qqqq9, 09-04-2007, 04:25 PM
My sites were up for just a little bit... yesterday and now they are all down still.. called fastservers which is the hosting company for jatol and they are not being helpful. I guess we need to get a class action lawsuit and fastservers I think is now equally responsible for all the lost business and data. I think we should call them and persist that they allow us access for a day to access our data so we can transfer it. fastservers.net our data is now in their hands and they are the only contact we have now. Fastservers.net 1866 753 3278 x 3 ask to speak to Neil or anyone in management. Anyone else has any other ideas please let me know. I have no backups and no files, business is totally DOWN!!!
Posted by tthost, 09-04-2007, 04:45 PM
Which server are you on? Did you grab any backups when your sites were up yesterday? It was suggested by several folks here to grab backups as quick as possible if sites came back up, since they were not likely to stay up. I don't see how fastservers would be responsible your lost business because Jatol shut down. I do agree though that Jatol should be responsible, and could likely be sued. I think it was very good of fastservers to turn the servers back on yesterday, but I don't think they were under any legal obligation to do so.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-04-2007, 04:55 PM
well fastservers.net can put it back on for a few hours so we can get our data ... If not then they are equally responsible for my lost business and the many others.. I was trying to get my data however my site was up for a few minutes and then DOWN!!!
Posted by Fender963, 09-04-2007, 05:09 PM
Has anyone had any luck getting their domain names transferred from OnlineNIC? I sent them an email, they say they didn't receive it. I try and talk using their online support, the operator doesn't get me anywhere just keeps saying to email my request. They refuse to give me a phone number to contact them. Any ideas?
Posted by cevamal, 09-04-2007, 05:23 PM
My site, on vesp2, is back down too. Right before my new host was going to do the transfer, too. Fortunately I was able to pull a backup yesterday, but it's still a lot more hassle.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-04-2007, 05:33 PM
spoke to fastservers.net management at 1866 753 3278 x 3 .. they said that they would see what they could do.. I think if they hear from more people they may come thru to put servers back up so to let us backup our data..
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-04-2007, 05:36 PM
I have been able to grab the full backup. That was the 1st thing I did. Then I've been downloading my whole site. Don't ask me why, I just did. I was in the middle of the 2nd download when they shut it down. Personally I think one day is a little short, I had to check some stuff like security settings etc. (we're not all on Linux ) so I could use the same settings at my new host. And there are still people finding out now. You could argue what state their business is in if they haven't noticed it sooner, but people could have been on vacation etc. Anyway no news on the domain stuff...
Posted by qqqq9, 09-04-2007, 05:49 PM
people are away on vocation and just coming back.. some are still away in the next few days this is going to BOOM!
Posted by Hajas, 09-04-2007, 09:51 PM
OMG! On friday one of the tables of my system was simply erased! I tryed to reach the support but all was down, so I think was a small problem or a maintance and soon will be back... well, 2hs ago all my sites went down... then I tryed to find something about at google and found this thread... OMFG! I was the LAST ONE to know about that! everything is down to me, h ttp s://w ww.hajas.org: 8443/ (remove the spaces, this forum not allow me to post URLs until reach 5 posts... WTF!!!) is not working anymore... how did you get the files back? can anyone point me how to do that? Logan, I always knew that you are the man at Jatol, the only that can fix what was wrong... thanks for all the help accross the years... thanks!
Posted by -chris-82-, 09-04-2007, 09:59 PM
I can view my site, but can't log in via cPanel or ftp. Is there any other way to get a backup of my site.
Posted by axonite, 09-04-2007, 10:14 PM
I had some luck with OnlineNic today - I didn't transfer my domain (yet), but I did renew it with them today. I emailed them after they replaced my page with a parked domain search/ad page, and attached a copy of a bounce message from one of my attempts to email Jatol.
Posted by TSlavin, 09-04-2007, 11:50 PM
Try vespasian2.dnsback.com/cpanel where vespasian2 is your server name. That worked for me. Tim
Posted by -chris-82-, 09-05-2007, 12:11 AM
When I try that, I get a "Server Not Found" message.
Posted by mjjatol, 09-05-2007, 12:18 AM
I just wanted to give you all an update. I have contacted OnlineNIC for support, they replied (though doubting who I was, again, since I am no longer part of the company, they are only doing their job). I have asked them to assist anyone approaching them for help with their domains. I was also able to locate an old account and password for our account there and was able to log in, so I am in the process of going in and manually unlocking all the domains, this should enable you to transfer your domains to another company without to many problems. As there are well over 1300 domains (just counting com/net/org), it is taking me a considerable amount of time. When talking to them, please cite the following information as the person I am speaking with to try to help: Cecilia Customer Service Division, OnlineNIC, Inc. I hope this helps.
Posted by mjjatol, 09-05-2007, 12:43 AM
Well, good and bad news. I was able to go in and unlock nearly all the domains, about 1100+ of them, and then suddenly I was locked out and unable to access the account any longer. My guess is they realized I was in there unlocking all the domains, and they didn't like it, so they blocked my IP or something. Hopefully I was able to get most of the domains unlocked and they do not go in and undo what I just did.
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-05-2007, 01:47 AM
So here's news for everyone, TRANSFER YOUR DOMAINS WHILE YOU CAN
Posted by dragunu, 09-05-2007, 02:19 AM
yeah, but how can i transfer since i do not have the auth code! i checked my emails and i found nothing. except a code for email confirmation when i applied for the domain with jatol! any suggestions what i can do pls?
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 02:26 AM
Hi, as far as I know there's also the "hard way" to transfer a domain. They do have you as the owner contact, right? So prove to onlinenic that you are you and that you want the domain freed to point towards a different host or moved towards a different registrar. Usually they demand written, sometimes notary certified proof. Another registrar may help you through those procedures too. I would - in any whichever case - truly suggest that you do your own domain registration and maintainance. There are many registrars out there, many have very self-explaining, intuitive interfaces, it's not that difficult. I always - always - ALWAYS suggest to all my clients to do that. And myself I never ever bought a domain through a host. Precisely because of this now situation, but also when you want to quickly move, this is a wise thing to do. I just - without trouble - changed nameservers on some dozen own and client domains. And that said - vespasian2 appears to be down again. I really doubt now, as suggested elsewhere, that this is just a matter of a failing DNS server. Greetings OK Last edited by AlbaG; 09-05-2007 at 02:29 AM.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-05-2007, 02:51 AM
But don't assume because you've gone with a name registrar only instead of through your hosting company - even a big name company - that you're automatically safe. As a former customer of Registerfly, and that nightmare I can attest to that. Get your authorization codes right away just in case.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 03:06 AM
Hi, yes, of course they too can f*** up. But the occasion rises far less often than a problem with a host in my experience. I've had 5 hosts in roughly 14 years (and I know that for many this is laughably few), but only 2 registrars, the current one for more than 10 years and at the time I changed only due a much too high price per domain rather than dissatisfaction. The current dilemma which Jatol customers have, I have had to unravel for quite a few clients and friends in the past. It's especially troublesome in Germany, as hosts there can practically hold your domain hostage endlessly. Even in the best of cases a transfer of domain from one to another host often takes weeks. One reason why I also always direct clients towards top level domains rather than country ones. Regarding the financial aspect of this whole affair, I probably have only some 20+ USD due, but two clients just recently (1 and 2 months ago) paid up, I wonder what the chances are to get refunds? Greetings OK
Posted by imcmalta, 09-05-2007, 03:52 AM
I just got back yesterday from a few days holiday and I return to find my web sites hosted at Jatol down! I've been going through this forum after trying without success to contact Jatol support and have just realized what a whole mess there is. Apparently some of us managed to access cpanel to backup our data but now I can't get in to a couple of sites I have hosted with them! Any help would be appreciated.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 03:59 AM
Hi, one way I found - before the servers came back up for a day - was to check via google cache and the Internet Wayback Machine. There at least some data could be retrieved. Greetings OK
Posted by imcmalta, 09-05-2007, 04:52 AM
One of my sites hosted with jatol, attardbooks.com is still up and running. It's on their "bridget" server. I have completed and downloaded a full site and database backup, though I wonder how long the site will be there. Pretty pissed off at Jatol for just folding up like that without talking to any of us!
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 04:55 AM
Hi, Bridget and Aethelwulf seem to be among the very few still online, but I also grabbed already backups there from clients - just in case... And you're not the only one in that state ;-) Greetings OK
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 05:30 AM
I'm getting pretty fed up with OnlineNIC.com They're stalling like crazy, asking for identity proof such as a passport scan, trying to sell their services to them. Finally they wrote me that the domains are unlocked now. But when I asked for authorization codes I received another attempt to sell their services. I'm getting my lawyers ready, because I've had it with this nonsense!
Posted by djk104, 09-05-2007, 06:56 AM
One of my domain registrations expires in two days. OnlineNIC ("Cecillia") says I can renew directly through them. First they wanted $21, but now they are saying I can do it for $10, since I was a Jatol customer. Some questions for other posters (I'm new at this!): it sounds like it's not an issue to have the domain registration at one place (OnlineNIC, for example) and the web hosting somewhere else (GoDaddy for example). Is that right? Would the right procedure be to get a DNS number from my new host, then to tell OnlineNIC to point my domain to DNS #123.456... (or whatever the new DNS numer is)? If in the future, when my registration is running out, if I want to change from OnlineNIC to a different registrar, is that pretty seamless in terms of the web hosting? Thanks! Dan
Posted by ldcdc, 09-05-2007, 07:28 AM
That is correct. Your host will give you a set of nameservers that you will then set via the domain admin panel of your registrar (or you can the registrar to do it for you, if you don't have access to such a panel). Yes, you can transfer the domain to another registrar, and the process won't affect your hosting.
Posted by home2spec, 09-05-2007, 07:48 AM
I changed from Jatol to GoDaddy. My domain was parked at Enom It was a simple matter of accessing my Enom panel and pointing my domain to a different DNS. Even though my site was up and running at Jatol, I could not access c-panel. I was lucky in that I had "most" of my files saved on my personal comp. I canceled my auto pay account to Jatol from WorldPay. so... for all purposes I am through with Jatol. Funny thing, I'm still getting e-mails with my domain logs from Jatol.
Posted by djk104, 09-05-2007, 10:22 AM
I was using Jatol for email, and haven't been able to access it since yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, 3PM EST). Has anyone been able to access their email, or have a sugestion for how to get it? Or should I just try and register with a new host as quick as I can, and consider any emails that arrived since yesterday afternoon as lost? Also, is there any way at this point to know which server I was on? Thanks.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 10:42 AM
spoke to fastservers.net management at 1866 753 3278 x 3 again.. and again same answer... they said that they would see what they could do.. more people should tell them to put servers back up so to let us backup our data.. LOGAN.. can you have the servers back up just for a few hours so we can get our data PLEASE!! My BUSINESS DEPENDS ON IT! Thanks
Posted by valeriestw, 09-05-2007, 11:03 AM
Everyone, please realize that Logan no longer works for Jatol and has already spoken to FastServers on our behalf purely out of the goodness of his heart. Unfortunately, we really can't expect him to keep going back over and over to help all the various clients. It's a truly awful situation and a lot of people are and will be hurt by this. But please remember this is not Logan's fault, nor his responsibility. Please don't heap this all on his shoulders. I think everyone should continue to contact Fastservers directly, whether or not Logan talks to them again. If Logan is able to, or chooses to, give them another push, that would be amazing, but I don't think it's something anyone should count on. He's already gone way out of his way for a bunch of strangers.
Posted by pakcyr, 09-05-2007, 11:09 AM
Everyone - I understand your frustration and panic. I lost tons of data for client sites as well. But Logan and Matt don't work for Jatol any more and they have done more than can be expected. They've been fantastic! Logan and Matt - thanks for all your help with this situation. It's not something you needed to do but you did it. And that's why I was with Jatol to begin with - your amazing support and service.
Posted by mgitran, 09-05-2007, 11:41 AM
I just sent my request to: cs-us@OnlineNic.com and gave them the particulars, IE: jatol.com customer, domain name, etc. Michael
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 11:50 AM
Hello everyone, I am in desperate need and I'm totally upset and my day is pretty crappy right now. I'm in the same boat as everyone else here, I host with Jatol.com and although I have as much compassion as everyone else with whatever the reason Jatol is no longer up, I am LOSING money and my clients are flippin out by telephone since my emails are not going through and my website is no longer up.... My computer with my website template has crashed since two days ago, hence I can not access my website that way, otherwise all I'd have to do is upload to another host and problem solved....problem is I CAN"T DO THAT!! I want to just be able to get onto Jatol and get my website and upload to another host, that's all. I'm not upset with Jatol because they've always been very good with me and my needs and quick too, which is why I'm worried now since I've had no communication.... Does anyone have any email addys or telephone numbers to contact anyone who can get these files?? Or any other advice....I'm very worried right now with my clients and my loss of income, this is how I pay my bills....thank you in advance... SacredCo - who is having a panic attack for the first time in life right now.......
Posted by djk104, 09-05-2007, 12:24 PM
For people you have switched to new hosts, and had gotten their domain registration through Jatol: how quickly is OnlineNIC processing your requests to change the DNS information (nameservers)??? Are they being responsive and quick? Or not?
Posted by lilnomad, 09-05-2007, 12:47 PM
I am a Jatol customer, and though I have read some, I have not read this entire thread. I have two sites with Jatol, one is up and one is not. From the panic I see in threads it sounds as if Jatol is going under. It has lost two of the three owners. I have just a few questions, and if anyone could answer, that would be lovely. First is, if Jatol is dead (the company is no longer) how come some servers are up and some are not? Second, do we know the status of the servers? Has Jatol been keeping up on monthly, or annual fees? Are some serves just being turned off due to lack of payment? Those are my questions. Thanks.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 12:48 PM
Well I just looked up fastservers.net to try and talk to someone there, etc...well they are no longer up either!! What the **** is going on!! Is there no where to turn, no one to turn to???? What am I suppose to do....
Posted by makba, 09-05-2007, 12:54 PM
Can anyone breakdown the steps/options to try to get my email (which I am mainly concerned about) off of the Jatol servers. I have just started the process of moving my emails and domains but would love to be able to retreive all my contacts and previous correspondences! Any help is appreciated.
Posted by wamwcg, 09-05-2007, 12:57 PM
Hi All, It's hard to believe that this is happening in the USA but at least we have recourse: a class action law suit. Is there a lawyer on this board or anyone close to a lawyer who will take this on? I was having problems with getting e-mails, etc. when I moved into my new house and figured that it was simply because of the move. Then Logan, who seems like a nice enough guy, told me that I had to upgrade my account to the next level or dump some files. So I upgraded and paid $100 on August 20, 2007 via 2Checkout.com as per the recommended way to pay on Jatol. So now this. Certainly there is an element of fraud to all of this and irresponsible, even criminal behavior-- time to hold Jatol accountable for this. Let's take action. I can be reached at my cell: 760-587-6009.
Posted by lilnomad, 09-05-2007, 12:58 PM
I am no tech guy by any means but Makba you probably would need the server to be accessible, which at the present time, it doesn't appear to be.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 12:58 PM
Ok, so now it's up again, I just don't know what's going on...lol...
Posted by Hajas, 09-05-2007, 01:01 PM
Any news about to turn on the servers for for few more days? what do you think about this host? sounds good... ww w.apollohosting.c om thanks
Posted by valeriestw, 09-05-2007, 01:02 PM
If it's up, quick download your data. Don't take the chance! I was with Jatol for a long time, close to 10 years. But if he's going out of business, he should have said something. If he's down, he should have found a way to contact us. Heck, it's been long enough now, he could have SENT LETTERS to notify us about this downtime. This is completely unprofessional behavior no matter how you look at it. Don't risk your data. Download it NOW and move to another host.
Posted by makba, 09-05-2007, 01:04 PM
How are you getting on to the server when it is up for a short period of time??
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 01:05 PM
Wow, I was just alerted to this situation this morning. I was one of the early Jatol customers, and used to be semi-active on the support forums. In those early days, customer service was impeccable and the value for the money was very good. Faldaran (Tim) treated us so well that one time I had my wife mail him a pan of brownies. Over time, though, service started to slip. One time I had issues with my wife's mailbox, and he insisted it was due to my wife using mail2web.com. In the end it was due to a corruped mailbox file, but Fal was so insistant that it was mail2web's fault (nevermind that thousands of people, including me on my account, used it successfully) that he actually blocked access for mail2web to Jatol's mail servers. Since my wife couldn't access Jatol's normal webmail from work, this locked her totally out... This, and the fact that many other web providers started having a much greater value (the amount of bandwidth for the money was going up elsewhere, while Jatol's pricing was going up) caused me to jump ship about a year ago. I still felt bad, since Jatol had treated me well early on, even giving me some free overages during the busy month of December for our Christmas website. I have referred countless people to Jatol over the years, and most of them are still with them. I'm a bit sick about how I indirectly caused them the hassles that they will now face in trying to get their data and domains back... Anyway, good luck to all. Matt, Logan, thanks for your continued support over the years -- I wish you well. And Tim (Faldaran), if you read this, I hope there's a good, explanable reason that you're leaving all your customers high and dry. I won't pass judgement until I know the facts -- assuming we ever will... God bless all, -Tim
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 01:14 PM
I don't expect anyone here really knows. Jatol didn't host their own servers -- they leased them from other companies. Even if Jatol as a company goes under, those servers will likely stay up until the payment runs out, or someone takes them down. I should also add that when I left Jatol, I went to 1 & 1 (www dot 1and1 dot com) and have nothing but good things to say about them. Their value for the money might seem "too good to be true" but so far, it does seem to be "true". I have a referral link that I get paid for recommending them, but just to show that I'm sincere and not just trying to make money, I won't post it here, but I still recommend them. -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 01:31 PM
I had contacted fastservers.net and I asked them what I can do. First they went through the blah, blah about not being able to give information about their client...whatever, I said I don't care about your clients information all I wanted to know is if I can get my files, I would even host with them if I could. They put me on hold after getting my information from me to locate my files, they then came back and said I'd need to contact Jatol.com because this dude at Jatol has blocked all information so they can't even get access to it......OMfreakingG....what is the problem....
Posted by makba, 09-05-2007, 01:48 PM
I also contacted them about retreiving information. They said they could not help me unless I bought a hosting plan from them.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 01:56 PM
I have contacted this Tim person who is the owner I think and president of Jatol.com I called the number that I have located and of course it's turned off, I don't care if I have to stay up for 48hrs or longer, I will get through somehow, someway!! unless they change their number. I also have a mailing address and I'll mail stuff too if I have to....
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 01:59 PM
Heck makba, I offered to purchase from them, I'll purchase from whoever will guarantee that they'll be able to get my files. Fastserver at least looked up my files to see if they can access them but said that Jatol has blocked it. I have no idea why or what's going on....I just want my files, they're mine, I bought my plan for another year, paid money into Jatol, etc. If they're having problems with money or whatever, I don't care, that's fine, I just want my files and I'll purchase elsewhere...but why go to the trouble of blocking files from even Fastserver to access it....
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-05-2007, 01:59 PM
So hey all, thanks for posting these threads, it gave us a bit of insight. We are Jatol's LARGEST customer and have been for some years. Faldran, one of the owners of Jatol usually is fairly good about emailing us back with direct tech support. It seems that their phone numbers are not working. And no emails. As well, Fastservers.net blew me off and hung up on me twice. Hey GREG, I will NEVER use FASTSERVERS.NET because of your rude attitude and hanging up on me! Just because I asked to speak with your manager? Your an idiot dude but your probably just another mouse cutting cheese. Any word from anybody would be great. I pay over $200 a month for a dedicated server and have more than 20 websites, 30 databases and more than 420,000 pages of content AND I WANT IT BACK! FALDRAN if you are reading this, YOU HAVE MY NUMBER! Call me and stop hiding from your customers. J. R. ~
Posted by rmavis, 09-05-2007, 02:02 PM
Hi all, I just finished reading the thread. And vomiting. And destroying my kitchen... Anyway, is contacting fastservers doing any good? I paid for a year with Jatol, so dropping a bunch of money just to get my data isn't something I'm really enthusiastic about doing. But I've got nothing but time, now, and I'll call anyone. My sites were all on aethelwulf2. Does anyone know anything about that one? IP, maybe? Last edited by rmavis; 09-05-2007 at 02:13 PM. Reason: mis-typed
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-05-2007, 02:14 PM
This is a load of crap. Tim and Logan are the forerunners for Jatol and Tim (Fal) is the owner. OF COURSE IT IS THEIR FAULT. You friggin passive liberals always want to give someone a break. Screw that, ?LOGAN it is YOUR FAULT, now give me my friggin data! Or maybe I need to visit Lexington KY and pick up my friggin server! How
Posted by EvilleRyan, 09-05-2007, 02:16 PM
OnlineNIC moved my domains over to my new hosting company, and it was a rather painless process -- their response to my e-mail was: I'm fortunate that these were personal, non-business sites, unlike what a lot of you have experienced. The domain name switch was the last thing I needed to close the book on this, since I had been paying monthly to Jatol. Good luck to all of you.
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 02:25 PM
Logan was an employee (not a "forerunner"), and he no longer works there. Expecting anything from Logan at this point is unwarranted, any more than people should expect things from you regarding issues with any company that you have formerly worked at but no longer do (McDonald's complaints, anyone??) Matt and Tim were the original partners. Matt is no longer with the company either, although since he lent his name to the company and was a founder, might have more stake in helping people get their data back. Your real beef is with Tim, not Matt or Logan. I understand you're frustrated, but don't take it out on people who are trying to help, but have no legal way of doing so... -Tim
Posted by tthost, 09-05-2007, 02:25 PM
How in the world is this Logan's fault? He was an employee (albeit, a long standing one) of Jatol, who finally had to quit because he was unable to contact Tim. Probably not a good idea to flame the one person on this forum who has been the most helpful. Since you had a dedicated server, I would guess you were making daily offsite backups. That is pretty standard procedure. Logan, I for one understand what you went through and are going through. Thanks for your help over the years, and now. Tom
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 02:31 PM
Very true, not to add insult to injury, but this does underscore why people need to make REGULAR backups of their stuff and keep them offsite the server. Things happen-- companies disappear, datacenters burn down, communication cables get severed... Do you really want to trust your vital business data to a third party that has no stake in the welfare of your company? If so, then things happen... Lesson learned here -- BACKUP YOUR DATA PEOPLE!! -Tim
Posted by rmavis, 09-05-2007, 02:31 PM
The domain issue sucks, but it looks like that can be resolved relatively easily. That's a matter of convenience. The issue of lost data is, at least to me, the major one. As there are months and months of time in my files. Any ideas on who to call, where to ssh, what more to do than view source from Google's cache? For anyone else that was on aethelwulf2, I found this site: www . robtex . com / cnet/ 74. 200. 221. html. It just lists some numbers which aren't helping me.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 02:32 PM
I dont understand! SOMEONE put it back up yesterday for a little bit! WHOEVER it was... It WAS either FASTSERVERS.net OR LOGAN. SO THEY CAN DO IT AGAIN!!! JUST FOR A FEW HOURS SO WE CAN GET OUR DATA!!! FASTSERVERS.NET 1866 753 3278 x 3 THEY ARE HOLDING OUR DATA HOSTAGE!!!! EVERYONE SHOULD DEMAND THEY ALLOW US ACCESS!! NOW!!! WE CAN WIN THIS IF WE UNITE IN NUMBERS!!! LETS DO THIS NOW!!!
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 02:42 PM
Ok yes i understand the main issue is to back up data, ok lesson learned....but I have a bigger problem. My hard drive crashed two days ago...HELLOOOOO....with all my data on it, so ok try to get it fixed, what's this, it's fried...well crap that's too bad, no worries though I still have my site up and running and can then back it up again on the new hard drive I just FREAKIN bought. Only to find out, *gasp* that Jatol.com is down, my calls go unanswered, emails are unanswered, phone calls get me no where, can't get my data, or my website, or my files.... what the heck.....there doesn't seem to be no where I can turn or anyone to help me
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 02:44 PM
Fast Servers basically said that Jatol.com is still the owner of the data....WTF...whatever, and that they can not legally go in and get my files because this Tim person still is owner of Jatol...holy heck
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-05-2007, 02:50 PM
Notice I said its THEIR fault and yes it is! Although I make periodic backups there are cron and other items that do not get backed up. I though am fortunate because I keep my domains through enom and Jatol has not hijacked them. I will move my domains for now and start over if I have to but would like to see some progress on this matter as others would. I also called fastservers again, they are totally unwilling to assist any of Jatol's customers, period! Even if you set up an account with them. Does anyone have a way of contacting Fal?
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 02:52 PM
Well it's Tim Tooley who is the president and owner of Jatol.com and this person should be accountable but not answering emails or anything of course...or answering the telephone. I have a contact telephone number as well as a mailing address....but a lot that's going to do for me....I'm losing money as I type!!
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 03:14 PM
May I add OnlineNIC?
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 03:29 PM
I've been trying to contact OnlineNIC as well, sooooooooo...if they can help then I'll be back to let everyone know. I haven't been able to get anything from OnlineNIC either...
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 03:42 PM
Actually you said: Which is what we were saying was unreasonable, as Logan is no longer with the company, yet you hold him personally responsible... I understand your aggrivation, I really do. But let's point the blame where it belongs, not at innocent people who are trying their best to help you. -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 03:59 PM
It is my understanding that Logan was able to get the data up again for a short period of time yesterday, I think that was only because he had spoken to fastservers, I could be wrong though. So thank you Logan, I just wished I was around to be able to get my files. Now fastservers are not agreeing to help at all, maybe they can't, I don't know. I know they can access the files, but they say they can't legally access it now...hmmmmmmm Looks like I'm going to be up all night trying to get a new website up and running before tomorrow morning!! I'm at a loss all and I've pretty much given up all hope.
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-05-2007, 04:03 PM
As far as I am concerned EVERYONE AT JATOL is at fault! Period! Though probably not deserved. My employees are a DIRECT reflection on me and I accept their actions as my own! Same goes for Jatol! And I have yet to see Logan help me out! if so , he can call me and figure how to grant me access to my data which I have programmed myself over the past 10 years. I don't mean for us (the customers) to start throwing crap at each other, but understand please... Logan, Fal, and all of them helped me over the years, but to leave me blindsided and loosing thousands of dollars with no word automatically places the blame on everyone who had or has access to controlling my server which I pay for. As a matter of fact I have a current payment due but could not make it because their server was down. So hey, give me a friggin break. Please Tim, contact Fast Servers and reqest them to release our data! Please, FastServers has told me that they cannot do this without your permission. If your filing bankruptcy, please understand you have taken our money but don't take us down with your ship. Last edited by WebNewsroom; 09-05-2007 at 04:10 PM. Reason: Pleading
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 04:07 PM
Ohhhh Great, well this doesn't surprise me. The phone number for Tim Tooley is now disconnected...surprise, surprise. Why is this person doing this? All they would have to do is contact FastServers either by telephone or email to give them permission for Jatol clients to be able to access their files...THAT'S IT. Why is that so difficult to do, please Mr.Tim Tooley, contact fastservers and give them permission for us to get our files back...please.
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 04:08 PM
This is true. Logan is not with Jatol. Matt is not with Jatol. Your beef is with Tim, who appears to be the sole remaining Jatol employee. The fact that Logan tried to help, as a "past employee" does not obligate him to future help, nor does it obligate him to take your abuse just because you're frustrated with his former employer. Have you ever worked for a company, and then left? Would you feel comfortable breaking in to said employer to help out one of their customers tomorrow, if necessary? Logan and matt are NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED to break into the data of employers they no longer work for. I say this again PLEASE don't take it out on them. -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 04:09 PM
I know what you're saying Web, I am losing money as well. I just know that the other people such as Logan use to work for Jatol but no longer does....so perhaps you know more about all this than I do. I just want my website up again because I'm losing my reputation and also money that keeps me, my children fed, clothed and housed....and now I am not sure what I'm going to do...plus I had to shell out money to buy a new hard drive!! Does anyone know how to get files off a hard drive that's totally fried. I wouldn't be so upset about this if I had my hard drive working because my website and all my files and information is there....
Posted by tthost, 09-05-2007, 04:23 PM
Anybody in Tenessee? You could try knocking on his door... According to Jatol's most recent annual report (found by doing a kentucky corporation search) lists the address for Tim Tooley as 209 Raindrop Ln Hendersonville, TN 37075 Although Its a bit hard to make out, because its handwritten. The link to it is here http :// apps.sos.ky.gov /business/obdb/OBDBDisplayImage.aspx?id=2693682 (remove spaces. for some reason I still cannot post links, even though I have made way more than 5 posts here it still says I have made zero posts)
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 04:28 PM
Hmmm, I always thought it was "Matt Jatol". Now I see it was "Matt Jackson". JAckson/TOoLey = Jatol, I guess... 209 Raindrop Ln, Hendersonville, TN is definitely a house, according to Google Maps. A little more googling might turn up a home phone #? -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 04:31 PM
That is the correct address, I got that from a very good source. I do know that's the address....although I'm from Canada...anyone in Tn?
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 04:39 PM
If it's worth $8 to someone, Intellius claims to have the info for a Timothy M and Kelly J Tooley (names match the app above): AARGH board won't let me use links. Says I need "5 posts" even though I now have more than that, my counter says 0 posts. replace "dot" with "." below. www dot intelius dot com/people-search.html (search for Tim Tooley, Tennessee) -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 04:42 PM
I had the telephone contact number for Tim Tooley, the problem was he wasn't answering the phone, couldn't leave a message either. Then the line has been disconnected....
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-05-2007, 04:55 PM
What a joke this is turning out to be... Is his calendar stuck on April 1st?
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 05:07 PM
The more I think about it, the more ticked off I get. Fastservers can bring this site back up for a little bit, but they won't. I know this Tim person owes money because of what fastservers said to me about the owner doing what they have to do in order to get things straight, etc. Why won't fastserver do what they need to do????
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-05-2007, 05:10 PM
Here's a recent chat that I had with FastServers.net Anyways, I searched for Tim Tooley in the entire US and the only KY number that showed up was (270) 534-4083
Posted by rmavis, 09-05-2007, 05:21 PM
Seriously, what difference is it going to make if anyone here gets in contact with Tim? On the phone or in person? Demand he allow Fastservers to give us access to our data? If he can't even pay his bill, prompting this kind of backlash both on him and on them, then what kind of leverage is he going to have with them? I think we need to plea with Fastservers. Forget Tim. He's a joke and a criminal. But we're not vigilantes. Even if we were to get our pissed-off hands on his corpus, I doubt we'd be anywhere closer to the goal, which is getting our data. We need to plea with Fastservers. It seems inhumane that, considering the circumstances, they won't even try to work out some arrangement. Even something like turning one server on at a time for a span of two hours. It's clear enough that Tim's incommunicado. It is a hostage situation. But the guy who took the hostages offed himself and his hired swords are still awaiting orders. So... what do we do?
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 05:23 PM
Matt, Logan and also Tim have been very helpful since I joined them in early 2004. Since the beginning of this year service started slipping - don't know if that has anything to do with Matt leaving, but it seems like it. Since Friday August 31st (what I will remember as "Black Friday") everything went down. As far as I understand Logan had been working remote, so how could he be responsible for this all? He couldn't unplugged the power while leaving the building... (ok, he could have installed a virus, but that just doesn't make sense as I think that the customers were/are one of his primary concerns). So who powered everything down? Fastservers? I don't think so, as some have stated that they were locked out by Tim after they turned it back up. So Tim is the man in charge. What about the domain names? Why is OnlineNIC making such a big deal and stalling the transfer of domains? Do they know something or has Tim locked them out too? As Matt wrote he got locked out. The big question is why? Why does someone (Tim?) do all these things? If it's a bankruptcy shouldn't there be more info available? If it's a bankruptcy then Fastservers should have gotten control back over their machines? And if Fastservers only had just a little feeling for marketing and customer relationships they could have offered the site owners a new deal or suggested one of their partners... Unless Jatol had ownership of the machines, then everything falls within the bankruptcy. How to continue? Anyone familiar about any legal actions that we might take?
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 05:41 PM
Please don't call this number, as I'm all but certain it's the wrong Tim Tooley. That person's wife's name (according to Google) is Aimee, which is different from the Kelly on the application listed earlier in this thread. As for the comments on "bankruptcy", my guess is it isn't bankrupcy in a strict sence (where Tim filed a legal bankruptcy) but rather, he just quit paying bills. If you don't pay your utility bill, your lights might shut off, but that doesn't mean you've declared bankruptcy... Yes, and also if they are not paid on time, just like if you didn't pay Jatol, your account would lapse. But that doesn't mean they can turn the data over to just anyone. It sucks, but the chat with Fastservers posted above is accurate -- Jatol had a contract with them, and if the contract lapses, legallly all they can do (short of getting permission from someone at Jatol) is delete the drives. Don't blame them, blame Jatol, once again. Folks have mentioned health issues here too. My guess is that the facts will be presented eventually, and we'll see that Tim isn't being mallicious. That's of little consolation to those (fortunately not me) waiting for their data to quit being held hostage, though... -Tim
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 05:57 PM
I don't get it... so Tim doesn't pay his bills. Fastservers powers it down. Jatol customers are f*cked. Fastservers powers the servers back up so some people could grab a backup. Tim starts making a fuzz? Because of a contract while he knows the only people who can get access are his customers. If I couldn't pay my bills then I'm the one LEAST concerned with the fact that my customers get THEIR data. If it's health issues, than they must be mental... I just doesn't make sense...at all. THIS SITUATION SUCKS MORE THAN PARIS HILTON ON A SATURDAY NIGHT! Ok, that was the ranting part, back to: what can we do?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:01 PM
Hey guys. I am going to go out on a limb here and remind you of a few facts. If your data is important, back it up. Thats simple. I can't believe how many of you are crying over this when you screwed up. Secondly, Fastservers has contracts with their customers that they cannot break without opening themselves to a lawsuit. Part of these contract (and laws, that back them up) is that the only person that can request access to servers are the contract-holder, and authorized contacts. Since none of you are the authorized contracts, your calling does nothing but convince them (and anyone reading this thread) that you don't understand the basics of hosting. gggg9, do you have some sort of palsy? Get a grip man. If you really are losing money, and enough money to matter, enact your disaster recovery plan. You do have one, right? I mean, anyone that has significant income from a website is smart enough to have a backup, right? simply fire up a browser, get a new host to point your DNS at, and upload the prior nights backup. Oh wait... YOU forgot to backup? why are we supposed to feel bad for you again? I do feel bad for some of you, as you are getting a bad deal, but blaming FastServers will get you nowhere. Working in the business, I understand what they are limited by, and personally knowing many of the FastServers employees, they are upset and wish they can do more for you.... but they are getting fed up with the harassing calls, and rude people that are not even their customers -- they are their customer's customer. Anyway, I have always been happy with FastServers, and am very glad to see that they are sticking to their contracts in the face of this. Please back off of Fast Servers. And no, I am not an employee, I just happen to have business relations with those guys, and have always been happy with them.
Posted by slypete, 09-05-2007, 06:07 PM
This is, unfortunately, a lesson learned the hard way. How can you afford not backing up data that your business requires for its successful operation? I hope, for you folks' sake, that this has a happy ending. However, I find it hard to show sympathy for such careless behavior.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:09 PM
I would like to buy you a beer.
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 06:16 PM
Hey, what about me? I mentioned the "you should have backed up" thing about 2 pages ago . Seriously, I understand that people sometimes don't backup. I don't backup enough... But when my personal hard drive crashed 2 years ago and lost a ton of data, including irreplacable pictures of my newborn son, I didn't blame anyone but myself, AND I came up with an automated backup strategy. -Tim
Posted by pakcyr, 09-05-2007, 06:17 PM
Automated back up? Please do share. I lost a lot of data - my own fault for not doing back ups. What is your suggestion for automated back ups Tim? -Tina
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:21 PM
I am currently trying to track you down to mail pizza and beer to. Grain of wisdom all along. Backing up a personal machine is LESS important than a money making venture, though, but I see your point. If I had a website that paid for more than my bandwidth, you would be damn sure I would back it up.... Oh wait, I do... even though I make not a dime.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:23 PM
Windows: use the built in backup tool, to a seperate drive. Linux, scp+cron will do wonders. Failing that, keep a copy of the files manually with ftp/cpanel if you have to....
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 06:25 PM
to oozymyballs2 you do work for fastservers.net.. so admit it.. besides they just hang up the phones on us.. they can rectify this NOW! I have a backup from a while back and the data can not be accessed on that backup server.. it seems corrupt just like you and tim and the gang.. TIM FOOLEY = Totally Incompetent Management FOOL Everyone & You Fastservers.net if you need someone to pull a fast one on you choose us. OnlineNIC = Online Nikompoops Incapacitated & Crappy
Posted by pakcyr, 09-05-2007, 06:27 PM
Guess I'm headed out for an external drive. Ahhhh my aching pocketbook!
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 06:32 PM
That's no true, that TIM person can do something. Fastservers told me and that the Migel person said that if Tim contacted them by email/fax/telephone that Tim could give them permission for us to transfer or get access to our files etc. All he'd have to do is email, fax or telephone, simple as that.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:35 PM
Nope, not currently employeed at FastServers... However I can see their office from my window. Besides, all the FastServers employees would be contractually bound by NDA to not reply to any of these proceedings. Judging from the fact that you don't seem to be very polite, nor seem to understand that they are legally AND contractually bound to not give you the data off of Jatol's servers, and judging from the fact that you take pride in posting that you repeatedly call them with the same requests they can't fulfill, I really don't see what options they have. Oh really? Do explain how. I have seen you tout over and over the same impossible, ILLEGAL "solution", but have yet to provide a feasible alternative. While I don't hold your technical abilities in high regard, I am sure if you were clever enough to have a solution, FastServers would be more than happy to oblige you. Of really? Cry some more. Use the prior backup. I really don't feel bad for you if you don't backup often enough, nor test the backups for usability. You are using a terrible business strategy, and want us to feel bad when it bites you, and your result to rude harrassment to make up for it? Only if YOU are foolish enough to let him. I would have backups and be online at a new host already, but thats just me. I would be out what ever money was left on my contract with Jatol, and thats it. Please show one example of FastServers doing anything wrong or even attempting to trick anyone. I'll put $100 cash on the table saying that you can't. No comment, never worked with them.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 06:37 PM
EXCUSE me, I did not forget to back up....my freakin hard drive crashed two days ago and I lost all data, everything and now I can't even get my files migrated.....HELLOOOOOOOOOO
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 06:40 PM
I'm also getting an external hard drive thingy too once I get this settled!! I am paying for someone to go into my hard drive to see if they can access any information including my website, so fingers crossed!! I'll find out in a few days..
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 06:41 PM
to oozymyballies2 now you really proved you work for them the way you stick up for them... they are not legally binded to someone who doesnt answer or reply for 5 days and leaves countless of customers hanging and is has done a criminal act..
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:43 PM
So restore from your backup. You DO have a real backup, right? At least you tried. A real backup policy though, would have a second, slightly less updated version burned to CD/DVD, etc. I wish you the best of luck in getting this resolved.
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 06:45 PM
Talking about backups is diverting the attention where this is all about, isn't it?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:45 PM
A decent external for this sort of thing would be less than 100 -- considering the size you would need....
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:49 PM
Hey buddy, 5 days is not that long. A typical hosting agreement involves clauses on what they will do in the case of non-payment, etc. FastServers will wait the specified length of time and then wipe the drives, and return them to the unsold servers pool. That is industry practice, since they can be sued if they give someone the old server with data on it. The bank lock box example is a very astute, and accurate one.
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-05-2007, 06:52 PM
But why did they turn them off in the first place? Why had no one the decency to inform customers?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:54 PM
As a third party (neither Jatol, nor a customer) I find it very amusing that people are trying to blame others for their own stupidity. They are trying to find other people to blame for their own bad business sense, and lack of technological common sense. Business wise, if you make money off of something, you protect it from damage (make photocopies, remote backups, etc). Technological sense, is even simpler -- if a computer file/application/service/etc is important RETAIN COPIES. This sure beats reconfiguring servers for the last hour at work.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 06:55 PM
They probably turned off the servers because of lack of payment of the owner of Jatol I'm assuming....and they don't need to contact us because we are not their customers, we're Jatol customers.......
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:56 PM
Have a beer. If I was a client of someone who caved into random, non-client demands, and I found out about it, I would be moving to a new host. Suppose I shut your site off due to non-payment, and you called MY host and got your site without my permission... I would be out whatever money you owed me, as well as any leverage I would have over you.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 06:58 PM
That's pretty much what it looks like to me. They would ahve the same trouble getting in touch with Jatol as anyone else to collect payment.
Posted by slypete, 09-05-2007, 06:59 PM
Thanks, but I'm not much of a drinker. It makes you look like this: Hahaha!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 07:02 PM
I actually am not a huge drinker either, I have found it to be a great reward/incentive though.
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 07:17 PM
People, you're embarassing yourselves. I understand that people don't always backup. I don't always backup. But when the crash happens, you can't point fingers... I'm not saying you shouldn't try to recover your data. I **AM** saying that you're making a fool of yourselves for blaming FastServers. They're probably no more happy with this situation than you are -- at the very least, they lost the Jatol revenue stream, and perhaps even lost money from Jatol's non-payment, depending on how strict they were on shutting the servers down when the non-payment happened... And now they're dealing with irate "customers" who aren't their customers at all... It's sort of like if you had an agreement with your buddy that you could drive his car to work every evening if you paid $50 of his lease payment to him every month. If he suddenly has the car locks changed and drops off the face of the earth, are you going to bitch at the dealer (leasholder) for not allowing you to drive his car, and get your stuff out of the trunk? Is the dealer the bad guy, or is your buddy just an a**? You are NOT FastServer's customer. They don't know you from Adam. They have a contract with Jatol, not you, and as far as they're concerned, it's Jatol's data. Why is that so hard to understand?? They're not the bad guys. As for Tim, he might be lying in a hospital bed, or even dead. Or he might have escaped to Tahiti with everyone's cash. We don't know yet. That's the hazards of hosting from a company that seems to now have only ONE employee. Of course, not many people knew that. Customer service was struggling when I jumped ship over a year ago, and that's when Matt and Logan were helping as well (I rarely dealt with Matt, and Logan was always helpful, if overworked. Tim just seemed frazzled toward the end and was no doubt overworked, and his attitude showed it and that's a major reason I left. My guess is a lot of people would have left if they knew that only one man was running the store, and didn't have any contingency plans if he was unable to keep it up... I hope Tim's ok, and does the right thing and releases everyone's data. -Tim Last edited by tfischer; 09-05-2007 at 07:21 PM.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 07:21 PM
Tim, I agree 100%.
Posted by TeleSouthNet, 09-05-2007, 07:21 PM
I am curious about something. How much was this company charging for a basic hosting account????
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 07:28 PM
I would venture to say that without my data i might as well be totally nogablast and thats without any improvising to the contrary.. i mean if fastservers is slow to get our data back why are they called FASTservers and if tim is a one man show how come he is a no show NOW when we need him? all this leads to some undomesticated questionnaire for the one in charge of all this unscrupulous complexities of true emotionless individuals with no educability towards mankind. clicking into abyss thats what this feels like.. If you have a fearless reasoning of all this then let it show for the people who need this right now... as for now there wont be any remorseless action or group destructibility without a dear constructionist view on all of this..
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 07:30 PM
Hey, I guess you are missing the point that FastServers cannot give you Jatol's data without the permission of Jatol. Please see Tim's post. Or any of my posts.
Posted by tthost, 09-05-2007, 07:30 PM
Pretty inexpensive. I think individual accts were $30 a year, and reseller accts starting at $10/month (albeit for a pretty small chunk of space) Tom
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 07:32 PM
To quote a caveman... "um... what?" To quote a friend that finds your antics amusing..." i know those words ...but they don't make any sense together"
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 07:33 PM
Dude, you're seriously starting to sound disturbed. Are we going to hear your manifesto on NBC pretty soon?? Please carefully reread the posts above and understand that FASTSERVERS is not going to give you your data, as you're not their customer. JATOL *may* eventually allow access to your data, but if not, you'll have to rely on any backups you have and/or reconstruct the data. That's life, unfortunately. You can find that information in google's cache. Unfortunately I can't post a link because I have "less than five posts" according to the screwed-up counter on this site (I'm surely up to about a dozen now...) -Tim
Posted by slypete, 09-05-2007, 07:50 PM
I decided against this post... A little too harsh. I think I'm done with this thread. I'll end up getting myself in trouble. Good Day! Last edited by slypete; 09-05-2007 at 07:53 PM.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 08:25 PM
is this all a ploy maybe to get us simple people with great benevolence towards the ultimate goal of fleeing this mess and to eradicate all the worthwhile scavengers within the hosting outages community as if it was a fretting of some sort or other.. I do need someone to employ all logistics and technobiology to start the end to this hypocritical dreadiness to keep up with the joneses, if there were ever any, for sites that need the backup done congruently or else all the data warehouses within the atmospheric microcosm of these business conglomerates will all know the truth of the people in this untimely mess. If you are still wondering whether we will overcome the realization of the involvement of the decomposability of all involved let this be proof.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 08:28 PM
Can I buy some of those drugs?
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 08:42 PM
make no mistake about this I will get to the bottom of this, even if it means to go to the bottom of the ocean... I will hold all of those responsible for this sheepishly ingrown actions whether they have stalled with their framework or just subcategorizing all the possibilities of loquaciousness for their better self let no one be mistaken we will overpower all these vaporizing balladeers to have them come for truancy and merciless associative jugulars for the hosting public. so let us unite and stay on this bandwagon until all our veins prostrations are shown for the world to see our indicatively source of our despondency. I need the data to be fed within my current system it is currently encapsulated within fastservers with no recourse or remose, but this shall not last.
Posted by rmavis, 09-05-2007, 08:46 PM
Well, ozymandias2, thanks for the insider's insight. It's appreciated. Though I think what many of us were hoping for in this case was not a bit of business' integrity on FastServers' part, but a bit of sympathy, irrespective of the law. As the sole employee of Jatol is unreachable and possibly dead, I don't think it'd be unreasonable of them, under whatever reason they might contrive, to turn on the servers and let them sit for a while before they get wiped. However, if Tim (recently?) explicitly blocked all access to "his" data until future notice, and if he's unreachable, sick or dead, then I guess we're just screwed.
Posted by Aftrike, 09-05-2007, 09:04 PM
Please forward your complaints to Tim Tooley's hometown newspaper at my(dot)tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=micro101 Sorry as a new user of this board I can not directly post links?!?!? Anyway I am also a frustrated Jatol hostage and originally from Tooley's hometown of Hendersonville. I sent the links to this page and others to the newspaper and I encourage others to do the same. I am not sure but I think this falls under Wirefraud statutes. The Hendersonville Police Chief is Terry Frizzel and his number is 615-264-5304 if anyone wants to call them to complain also.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 09:05 PM
Tim might be dead?? I say we all say a prayer to resurrect him from the dead... as our data goes down with him.. we need solutions not some blabber mouthful of incandescences for pure transcendence of your senses. we need to improvise how we can get our data NOW before we evaporate into nothingness..
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 09:08 PM
Im thinkin he must be running and where else but to an airport to fly bye bye.. I say someone post a pic of him ... and everyone run to your nearest airport to look for him..
Posted by qqqq9, 09-05-2007, 09:17 PM
i did a search on wikipedia on this tim folley ,well guess what, he is into football, I dont know why he got into hosting if he is into football, and it says clearly he retired now were really screwed.. from wikipedia.. Thomas David "Tim" Foley (born 1948 in illinois) is a retired American Football player.
Posted by DaKine, 09-05-2007, 09:17 PM
If this had happened to me I think I would be spending every waking moment trying to re-create my business sites instead of posting threats of legal action and calling people (and companys) names on a forum. Seems to me your lost data can't be that big of a loss if you have all this time on your hands to do all of this posting, calling and name/address/phone number research. JMHO
Posted by anon-e-mouse, 09-05-2007, 09:18 PM
* subscribes to thread.
Posted by Aftrike, 09-05-2007, 09:25 PM
Wow, is that your business strategy? Piss off a bunch of potential customers? I for one can recreate my site in a matter of seconds but my domain name which I have owned for 4 years is being held hostage. Now seeing how you are obviously not affected and many of us are, take a hike unless you can offer some assistance. No? Then shut up!
Posted by rmavis, 09-05-2007, 09:26 PM
...but that's not really on topic. Usually I enjoy thinking about getting screwed. But this case is quite an exception. Do you think contacting Tim's hometown newspaper would really do any good? Couldn't hurt, I guess? Meanwhile, does anyone have any recommendations on where else to get a comparable hosting deal? I found 3ix.org. Maybe a link to a thread on this site, from someone familiar with it?
Posted by tfischer, 09-05-2007, 09:28 PM
Hi ATF (and I know who you really are!) OnlineNIC should be able to get your domain back. Email me with a working email address, or give me a call, and I can help you out (more info was posted on PC). I tried PM-ing you on CC but your PM-box said it was full. The comments like the ones you responded to are being directed at the few whiners here who are going nuts about their "lost business data" not the average hobby person like you who is just caught in a rough spot. Read the last few pages of the thread and you can agree that a few people have gone beyond being productive... -Tim
Posted by makba, 09-05-2007, 09:30 PM
I did request from fastservers that I would pay them to retrieve my data off their servers because I have lost my emails and contact lists... Thank you for your recent request. Unfortunately we can not provide access to specific accounts to third parties. Because the solution in question is not a server that is directly contracted to you by us (FastServers.Net), we can not disclose any data or information within its contents. To do so will not only be a breach in policy but also not legal. We are sorry if this causes any frustration for you, but we are unable to assist you in the services that are directly contracted out by others. It is no longer in terms of a form release. We would personally like/have to speak with the owner. If you can locate the owner then please feel free to have him call us directly here at FastServers.Net so we can proceed with handling this issue and talking with him directly. We are very sorry once more for any inconvenience this might be to you but at the time we will need to speak directly with the client in regards to this issue.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-05-2007, 09:56 PM
Thankfully I have backups of 2 of my 3 Jatol sites, and a 3rd backup that should be 98% accurate. My real question is how many of you have had success transferring your domains? I had whois privacy on mine, and so they are all registered with Jatol's contact information. I wonder how hard it's going to be to transfer those....
Posted by prydelandsnet, 09-05-2007, 09:59 PM
Logan I need to ask you something about one of my websites you might be familiar with since you had helped me so much in the past. If you have a moment I would greatly appreciate the input. Ed Smith edsmith@prydelands.net
Posted by newgirlchicago, 09-05-2007, 10:07 PM
I had good luck with OnlineNIC earlier today. First I IM'd from their site. Then the guy asked me to send him an email and he sent me back my authorization codes. I had the same privacy settings as you on my site. The key for getting such quick service was 1) I was very polite and didn't demand anything - just asked how to get my auth codes and 2) I am lucky that I only needed one code. I think if you have only three sites you should be able to get your codes to make a transfer pretty quickly. Of course your mileage may vary. Here's the email they told me to send my request to - with the names of my domains. cs-us@onlinenic.com Hope that helps.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-05-2007, 10:12 PM
Ty newgirl! That helps a bunch! Of course I'll be polite . They really have nothing to do with this fiasco, I'm just looking to keep my sites up/minimize the time they are down. I did eMail them tonight asking what I should do for a transfer, but not specifically for the auth codes. Hopefully I'll get that from them in the AM and start the process.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 10:19 PM
Hi, well, you may say I can say that comfily - given the fact that I did manage to pull out my data in the end - but it's still a wagonload of work, as practically no two servers are the same and most of my sites lived off scripts and dbases. So no, even having the data isn't necessarily meaning instant solution. To those who hold the missing personal backups against people: I couldn't make a backup for ages, after I arrived at the 50 MB data barrier. I used to be (until very shortly ago) on a modem dial up line for which I paid per minute and had to pay dearly for. The line also was fickle, it might be interrupted, plus while I was online no one could phone me nor I anyone else. Yup, there are places on this planet where it's still like that. So once past 50 MB no general backups anymore. As quite a few here, I depended on the backups Jatol did. And as a few others pointed out, their backups turned out to be corrupted. Whatever, such things happen. Let's however look at legal matters: I dunno how things are in the USA but here the data belong to those who place them where they are, not to the host. Given that there's a common notice in many host TOS/AUP saying that they get access to the copyright of these data so that they can publish them through their service, I used to think that this is the same in the US as here. Many here seem to think so anyway, though I must say that I dislike the aggressive way of some here. From what I could tell when backing up a short while ago, Faldran has some general "no fiddle/meddle prevention" set on the servers, as my new host couldn't pull the backups himself. This I consider some basic preventive measure for anyone not sure whether he can see to things soon. I wouldn't even say that it's intended to injure anyone. And I also wouldn't follow Fastservers assumption that he declines his clients access to their data. BECAUSE - I could (and for other servers still can) access my data myself quite normally, I log into cpanel and can ftp backups or download them, no problem. Did so last night for all my clients on servers running still and told a few I knew to be on Jatol to do as well. I also would say that anyone whose account isn't suspended has obviously paid up and is current with their bills, so it's no question of denying someone access because his dues are up. Now, I am sure there are solutions to this, maybe a bit wishy-washy, but certainly solutions: If Fastservers are taking those servers down, because they're not paid for currently, I doubt there is any law which forbids them to put them online again, if these bills are settled while the contracts are still running. It should not at all matter WHO settles those bills, it's common practice everywhere on this world, that third parties pay for someone in a tight fit and no company I know of, including a couple of really big ones, ever found themselves in a legal bind because they accepted payment for a running contract from a third party. If anything, it's the one who pays who has a problem, as he sure can't demand his money back, as he did it freely and without having a loan contract. Now, as the servers - if they are back online - are accessible only to the clients, it's not as if the data were turned over to just anyone, they are being accessed by their owners only, and only by such owners who have paid their bills. So once more, even if there was some bankruptcy involved, no legal action can be taken here, it's not as if these clients take money out of the firm or jump ship without having paid. Thus, if they did want to show some humane action, Fastservers could tell those here who are most in need of their data, how much it would cost them to pay the bill of that server they are hosted on until either end of contract with Faldran or at least the next 2-3 days. I do not think that this pretty straightforward way would get them into any legal trouble. I'd probably make sure that these people understand that they enter in no contract with Fastservers by doing so and have no rights to anything, just to the fact that these payments will set the servers running again until the sum is up again. The other alternative I see is some quick action before the lawcourts. Again, over here the chances - due copyright - would be quite good. Greetings OK
Posted by newgirlchicago, 09-05-2007, 10:19 PM
Well of course you'll be polite - I just figured I would pass along exactly what worked for me - because based on the reaction I received from the guy who answered my IM and email - some people have been less than polite. Tim from Jatol is the bad guy here. While the responses received from OnlineNIC and Fastserver may have been less than some would prefer - ultimately it's not their fault that Jatol imploded.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 10:33 PM
Chortaj, you raise some good points. Make an offer to FastServers and see what they say. Maybe raise a collection. As to the backup issue, I am merely saying that if YOU CHOOSE to not make a backup, no-one feels bad for you when you lose the data. You make the choice on if you feel the cost of the backup is worth the rsecurity of having the data if something happens. If you decide your data is not valuable enough to backup, don't cry about losing your valuable data.
Posted by maksbs, 09-05-2007, 10:56 PM
Thank you for calling SunRocket - oops - Jatol Internet Services. Sorry but we are no longer accepting new customers. We are in Tahiti with the owners of SunRocket living it up !! Thanks for your support and most of all - Your Money !!!!!
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 10:57 PM
Hi ozymandias2, well, it's those who haven't got their data who should try that route ;-) I managed to download the day Logan had the servers up for some hours. However, being a host myself, albeit a small reseller mainly concentrating on design and catering to a special audience, I beg to differ. I know it has become the industry rule and say-so that the fault always lies with the customer and that basically he pays for a puff of warm air which can vanish at a split-second's notice and often without notice at all. To say it harshly - the only other business which I know of where it is exactly the same is prostitution. I guess this stance comes from the very beginning days of the internet and hosting business, when customers were at the full mercy of people, often enough teenagers not yet even legally able, halfway across the planet without any real handle on them. That doesn't however make it "right". Not right in the way that many here offhandedly say so. Firstly, in any other - more material - kind of business behaviour and opinions like that would break the back of offerers immediately. I'm sure that many serious-minded and seriously budgeted businesses/clients these days prefer to run their own servers and won't touch a host with a ten-foot-pole precisely because of this biz attitude. Secondly, I think it's more than high time that some basic legal security is tied into that whole thing as e.g. has been done in many countries regarding rent of living space. Any one paying for a hosting plan (of whatsoever type) doesn't just pay for server space and uptime, he pays for expertise, he pays for guardianship of his data and he of course also pays - even tho many hosts deny the claim - for responsibility and decent business manners. Data may be ephemeral digital bits and bytes without substance, that doesn't mean that they or the people owning them need to be treated as shittily and offhandedly as quite a few hosts do. And the analogy with landlords stands - they too can't trash or keep the belongings of an inhabitant having paid up his rent, just because they sell or wish to cease doing business. So no, I do not really agree with you. I think that things like this here happening to Jatol customers should see customers asking their rights back where it concerns the way they are treated by hosts. Legal and personal stance in this area is some 100 years behind customer rights in other areas. Unfortunately. Greetings OK Last edited by AlbaG; 09-05-2007 at 11:02 PM.
Posted by urbanstudio, 09-05-2007, 10:59 PM
Hi, I've just become familiarized with the collapse in sifting through the postings. I understand that jatol may or likely will not be coming back. I don't have time to wait to find out. I don't have a system particular website with scripts, etc, etc...so fheww! Might State before the bottom was that I had A simple hand coded website, no problem, we are an Architecture and Planning Firm, but email is critical. The problem is my mx records were being redirected to a third party for MS Exchange hosting. Summary Domain Registered with - Register.com (DNS servers directed to Jatol through Register.com's system) Webhosting with - Jatol (Mx Record is Set to companyx's mail.mx... Exchange hosting servers) If I redirect the DNS addresses to a new hosting company will that allow me to point my mx record to companyx's exchange servers? or does jatol have the locked down? Any one had exchange hosting(mx record) experience.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 11:24 PM
Congrats. Not sure what you expect for a $2.50 a month bargain host... Any way, if you don't want to personally be responsible for your backups, get a host with a good SLA. Not are you no longer paying for a puff of air, but you get a legally binding contract to leverage in cases like this. [quote] I guess this stance comes from the very beginning days of the internet and hosting business, when customers were at the full mercy of people, often enough teenagers not yet even legally able, halfway across the planet without any real handle on them. That doesn't however make it "right". Not right in the way that many here offhandedly say so. Firstly, in any other - more material - kind of business behaviour and opinions like that would break the back of offerers immediately. I'm sure that many serious-minded and seriously budgeted businesses/clients these days prefer to run their own servers and won't touch a host with a ten-foot-pole precisely because of this biz attitude. [quote] Speaking from experience, the opposite is true, if you have a decent host. Many of our customers where I work are large businesses that HAVE a hosting environment already, and are willing to outsource the hosting, in order to share costs (staff salaries, if nothing else) and have the safety net of an SLA -- effectively a guarantee that the server will be up and functional, or they will get repaid/compensated. They don't have to staff 24 hours a day, run a monitoring server, nor have advanced support on call constantly. Of course, I am not talking pennies a day hosting, either. It's called a Service Level Agreement, and they are very common. Again, you get what you pay for... You pay for an audited hosting provider they don't just close shop like this. You pay for a fly-by-night operation like jatol (take a look at the way-back machine at there website for Zeus' sake) you get a host that can disapear some day. Just because the internet and the hosting world is not a nanny state is not a bad thing. There is such a thing as personal discretion when spending your money. You actually have quite a few legal rights (which, ironically, is why FastServers can't give you data -- their client, jatol, is legally protected from they giving out that info) and have the option to pay for more. Nice post, though.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-05-2007, 11:25 PM
1 step backward. Cecilia emailed me back and let me know she couldn't do anything because the records have Jatol's name on them. I really have to prove they are mine before they can help me. I understand why they are a bit reluctant to do anything with a simple eMail. Of course I threw myself on her mercy and forwarded my 'Welcome to Jatol' eMails for all 3 domains, and the 2CO receipts for each. Hopefully that will get the ball rolling.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 11:27 PM
Simple, get a new DNS host (zonedit, your new webhost, etc), and setup DNS there. Point mx where ever you want (any host worth hosting with will not only allow that, but will assist with that for free) and then make the nameserver change at register.com. Ought to be simple.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 11:33 PM
Not being familiar with jatol's system, but um... why don't you have YOUR name on the DNS somewhere? There are 3 (minimum) fields for whois info. Your name ought to be SOMEWHERE on that... Or did you people REALLY not plan ahead? No backups, no control of your own domains? CLASSIC!
Posted by newgirlchicago, 09-05-2007, 11:37 PM
Cecilia is not who I spoke with. Email me at this screenname at yahoo and I will forward the email of the guy I emailed with.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-05-2007, 11:40 PM
Hi ozymandias2, nice try ;-) I still don't agree. But then I guess we're from different cultural backgrounds. You rent a cheap flat here, your landlord still can't trash your stuff when he sells/gives up the house. You buy food cheaply at the local discounter, it still has to meet set standards. Etc.. And e.g. the corner hamburger take away shop has to follow the same food quality laws as the 3-star noble restaurant with gold-plated forks and hand-woven custom linen spreads who sells a menu for an average monthly salary of many. Just because you rent a small fraction of server space instead of maintaining a 20-blade rack doesn't mean you should be treated differently. That's what I was saying, that there is a need for a legally instituted - by law - basic customer rights bill for all hosting customers, regardless of price. And that to me would at the very least include a right to secure one's data at the end of contract, if the customer has a completely paid bill. Because right now that's the main problem as I see it, the failure of one or several people of recognizing the rights of the Jatol customer to their data. If such a basic right existed as per law we wouldn't have any trouble here right now. And for me this would only be a fair's fair kind of ruling. A payment is a payment, however low it is. Greetings OK
Posted by oldcqr, 09-05-2007, 11:46 PM
1 - I have backups, thank you 2 - I had Whois privacy on all 3 domains, and that's not 'Jatol's system', that's a net thing.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-05-2007, 11:49 PM
Ok, but regardless....it was down for a couple of days and then all of a sudden, they put it back up again but only for a couple of hours!!!! They CAN do it but won't now.....WHY? WHY? WHY? Sure we can blame this one and that one, but whatever, the fact is it is our information and we were handed a very raw deal...it was wrong regardless of how you look at it, or how much you paid! Another thing is, yes they can put it back up again, so YES, there is something they can do, they did it before, just yesterday....once I found out I tried to access my cPanel but it must have shut down just as I was trying to get on, because then it was down yet again....so close!!!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 11:54 PM
I am missing your point. Food that is unsanitary is a health hazard, and one that can be hidden from the customer -- there is no way that you can inspect the restaurant before dining, and to try to do so would actually lower the sanitation of the place. Hosting, on the other hand, you can look at your contract before you host somewhere. They allow this so that the $2.50 a month hosts can exist. Actually, it does. It only makes financial sense to pander to the customers that pay you the most. Thats how to maximize profits. Actually, I believe that Jatol is breaking their contract, whatever they are, by refusing you that access. Go ahead and sue, its your only recourse, same as if a landlord violated the lease/implied lease. As far as I know, the only one refusing these customers access to their data would be Jatol, and this thread has come to the conclusion that it was a one man company. Since that's the boat you are already in (effectivly) yes you would. Since Jatol has cut off email and all known phones, their is no way to contact them to get your data.... oh, wait, you mean that FastServers should just take your word that you are who you say you are and GIVE you the data? They have no way to verify you are Jatol's customers. The only two tools they have at this point to getting their money is locking those servers until the pressure on Jatol forces him to pay or sign a new contract, and lawsuits. They stand a much better chance of winning a lawsuit if they attempt all other routes to collect. I agree, however you are missing out on the contract/get what you pay for factor. Should I be able to go by a POS car for $100 and have a 100,000 mile, 6 year bumper-to-bumper warrenty? I am sure the 60-bajillion dollar, solid diamond hummers come with one. If you forced a minimum standard above and beyond contract law, then you would force the low end hosts out of the market, and then people would not be able to buy cheap personal hosting that can stand downtime and shoddy service. You want 6 nines of uptime (99.9999%) PAY FOR IT. Simple as that.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-05-2007, 11:57 PM
A -- this is exactly why thats a bad thing. B -- if you insist on using net privacy things, contact the registrar of your domain to get this stuff done. Jatol being gone should have no effect on masking your personal information -- unless you masked it with Jatol's information instead, at which point, the point remains that you would not have control of your own domain.
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-05-2007, 11:59 PM
The following I am posting as requested by the former accounting firm of Jatol: "J.H. Calvert Accounting is no longer receiving any information regarding Jatol Internet Services, Inc. Please mail any correspondence and or inquiries to: Timothy M. Tooley President, Jatol Internet Services, Inc. 209 Raindrop Lane Hendersonville, TN 37075" None of us (J.H. Calvert, Matt, nor myself) have had any contact (e-mail, fax, phone call, mailed letters) with Tim for at least a month now. Best of luck and I will keep responding to anyone that personally asks me to contact them, I can not promise anything but I will respond and see what if anything I can do. I can not enter any Jatol property or accounts though and I do not have any passwords on record as all those records were wiped when I resigned.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:02 AM
It is possible that it was online at the request of Jatol, or that an employee made a mistake and turned it on for a bit. I agree. Grab your contracts and band together and class-action suit Jatol over breach of contract. You are quite correct. The amount you paid is meaningless, it's the contract you paid for that matters. You would be best off assuming that it was at Jatol's request, since that is the only reason to hook it back up.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 12:05 AM
But what about those people who can prove they are Jatol customers and can prove they are who they say they are! I have everything, I just want my website back up and running. Heck I'll sign with them to host my site, I don't mind, I'd be forever grateful!! I just want what's mine. I can't afford to have it down this long....it's just all very discouraging. To know that they put it back online for only a fraction of time and I wasn't able to get what I needed....
Posted by urbanstudio, 09-06-2007, 12:06 AM
I tried to redirect my dns at Register.com to the dns of my mx hosting company's dns server. It didn't take. I don't know. I just reset the DNS pointers at register.com to their default, pointing to register.com's DNS servers and there was no problem & no delay. Then that allowed me to use Register.com and not Jatol to redirect the mx records to my current exchange hosting servers. Thanks for the input. PS. How much money are people losing per day. if jatol is 3 month's behind) x 100 cusomers x $60/year/12months -> $1500 if jatol is 3 month's behind) x 1000 cusomers x $60/year/12months -> $15000 $1500/5 customers = $300 $15000/5 customers = $3000 If I was making even $100 a day I guess I'd pay $1000 to have it back and running tommorow instead of what ever potential alternatives and consequnces. Maybe there weren't to many product websites hosted by Jatol. But shoot, a 7 day outage of email could cost me a lawsuit with, client, construction manager, consultants, etc.... My lesson stick to the larger and reputable when liability is at stake. Good Luck
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:10 AM
How would you do that? FastServers has no record of your account, they have none of Jatols records, they know nothing of it's business practices, and have nothing to do with Jatol other than renting him physical servers. FastServers rents full servers, and management contracts. Not hosting accounts. If it is that important, go contract a new host and restore the latest backup. That could have been done as soon as you realized that Jatol went belly up. If you don't have a backup, why was the site not important to you a week ago, but is important to you now?
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 12:12 AM
Hi ozymandias2, as I said, different cultural backgrounds. Point is, these customers' rights apply over here to practically everything, not just the hamburger for a buck, also for e.g. cheap merchandise or service. And to the lawcourts it really doesn't matter whether you sue because a 10-buck contract wasn't fulfilled or a 10.000-buck contract. Basic standards are basic standards. Inspite of this, there are still loads of low end offers in all those fields where such laws hold firm. I'm not saying that you shouldn't get much better service and much better hardware to use if you pay more, don't misunderstand me there please. I say that ethically, morally and factually the data on the servers are owned by the clients and that they should get access to retrieve them if they had paid up their bills up to date. I also say that current hosting practice and opinion, as displayed by you and yep I know it's industrial standard, is a left-over of the early days of the net and hosting, and ought to be remedied and changed. Would that cut off many of the lowest of the lowest hosts? Probably, probably many, but not all and it wouldn't be a bad thing either. Any which way, I think that there is a legally acceptable way for Fastservers to do this even now, if it's for payment-due that Jatol servers are offline. And - here I go again - it would be an adult, a morally correct and an ethically clean action to give former Jatol clients the option. Greetings OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:15 AM
More free tech advice -- DNS changes take time to propogate. Up to 4 days is common. Use w w w .d n s s t u f f . c o m to verify that your changes were made but not yet propogated. A bit confused as to why the prior DNS changes did not take effect, but you think these did. Good lesson. The best option I can see here would be to offer to pay Jatol's bill for the month. I doubt that FastServers will accept, but it might be worth a try.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 12:16 AM
Yet again, I had backup on my hard drive...which decided to crash a few days ago! I am now paying someone to try and fix my hard drive in order for me to get access to my back up. If I had my backup I wouldn't have to be posting to this darn thread to try and get some help.....I don't care about how much I paid Jatol unless it was tons of money, I don't mind about that, I really don't. What I care about is getting my website back up and running, simple as that. Perhaps there are people who didn't think they needed to have a back up, perhaps some do not know how to back up...there are reasons I'm sure. The point is we need HELP
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:21 AM
I understand what you are saying, but it just doesn't make much sense to me. Even if the laws existed exactly as you state, you would be in the exact same boat. The person that you would sue/take to court would still be Jatol. They would still be the company accountable, and the only company in any position to give you access. I am making the assumption that one of two things happened: 1) jatol asked their servers to be shutdown. FastServers did the only legal alternative -- complied with Jatol's wishes. 2) Jatol did not pay or otherwise violated the contract. FastServers again, responded with the contractually specified option -- shut down the server until compliance is acheived. Jatol is the only one able to fix this, in either case.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:25 AM
I do feel the most for you.. However, you still didn't have adequate backups. If you didn't value your data enough to back it up, don't cry when you lose it. If you don't know how to backup, learn, or pay for assistance. The only help that matters is LEGAL help, and assistance finding Jatol. Unless you can pay Jatol's deficiency (if thats the reason for the shutdown) and FastServers chooses to accept payment on his behalf. Otherwise they are pretty much legally bound.
Posted by tfischer, 09-06-2007, 12:38 AM
I have to beg to differ with you here, oxyman. If people choose to use whois privacy, they have to put some level of trust in the proxy service they use. Oldcqr put his trust in Jatol to act as his proxy for the domain. Of course in hindsight, that turned out to be a bad idea, but how would one know that ANY proxy service they might use (e.g. domainsbyproxy.com) wouldn't have the same issues? Nothing's 100%. And I'm sure oldcqr will get his domains back -- it's just another hoop to jump through... I think we need to stop arguing the "coulda/shoulda/woulda"s, as well as the "they should be legally bound to"s, and concentrate on how to help people get their data and domains back. -Tim
Posted by urbanstudio, 09-06-2007, 12:43 AM
Right!!! and fine, hold somebody responsible in court(jatol) but see nothing for a year or more. Maybe a settlement or compromise is on the horizon but contact has to be established, otherwise what ever mandated legal device to set things in motion will still take weeks/months. Damnnnn, everone must and will become a legal vessel in either a specialized setting or generic context or Die. That's modern capitalism, even at a personal level. Last edited by urbanstudio; 09-06-2007 at 12:45 AM. Reason: missing word
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 12:45 AM
Hi ozymandias2, err, no, you wouldn't be in the same boat. Here it is absolutely common practice if a firm goes bankrupt or defrauds people in any whichever way, that clients of said firm holding rights of items in the care of the firm, items being anything from real, touchable things up to services rendered but not delivered yet and including copyrighted (by clients) knowledge or material of other type, can demand these items belonging to them out of the general conglomerate of items held at the firm's various offices. This includes contracted third parties. All it needs is proof of ownership and proof of no dues upon these items. So no, people wouldn't be in the same boat, they'd prove ownership and dues paid to Fastservers and they would have to send them those backups even. And of course it also would be entirely out of question to destroy items belonging to someone else but Jatol or them as in "shutting off and wiping servers". Huge difference. Greetings OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:46 AM
I agree whole heartedly on this post. If you put a gun to my head and told me I would have to get a whois proxy, I would choose the one at the registrar. Why? They are less likely to go down, and they are also much more likely to have a migrate plan if they do go down.... and if they don't I would be boned anyway, since they would be my registrar. The best way to get your data back is to get ahold of Jatol and get them to man up and give it to you, or possibly pay out his contract IF FastServers would let you. Has anyone even asked?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 12:51 AM
So in other words, FastServers would be legally required to buy new harddrives everytime a customer defaults on a contract? And pay someone to label, sort and store the old drives? And pay someone to verify ownership of all the domains hosted by a reseller? How would you even do that? I can print up real looking documents stating I own any arbitrary domain and demand access to it. And pay someone to pull data off the old servers when a customer wants data that they were responsible to backup? Sounds like a well meant, but not thought out law.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 12:53 AM
Hi ozymandias2, someone offered, I think, but they held that they couldn't answer that question (funny when compared to some hosts who suspend websites saying "suspended because unpaid"). I think that answering a question like, "if I paid 500 $$ in the name of Jatol on your account, would the servers be online again for a while?" truly isn't beyond being answered. As I said - humane, adult and morally/ethically sound... Greetings OK
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 01:00 AM
Hi ozymandias2, actually a backup physically or digitally delivered would be all which is needed. I know of one case (advertisment company went broke) where a client had loads of owned by him artwork on their premises and the whole campaign, completely paid for as well, already was sitting partly on their computers, partly as taped TV spots on their shelves including all the business data needed to start it. They needed that stuff in timely manner and all it took them to unfreeze it was placing their claim with the state attorney (for stuff in the firm) and third parties (stuff sitting there). They got the physical items and they got copies of all the other data and tapes. Of course they didn't get the very harddrives. I doubt that those would be needed, streaming the server drives onto some tape or burning (onto CD) backups of single accounts can't be that hard. As to proof, proof is always available, payments are being made and documented, people have ID cards and these can be verified, if need be by the local notary. And I wasn't saying that this shouldn't be calculated into business plans. Just as soundly working merchants will calculate delivery, stolen or broken stuff or S+H into their prices, companies certainly would need to calculate such occasional mishaps into their pricing. It's not as if Fastservers has 20 such cases within a day. I'd even say that for most such cases there is a much longer forewarning so people don't even need such backups from the server company. It's a matter of common business practice if you legally have to meet this. Greetings OK Last edited by AlbaG; 09-06-2007 at 01:12 AM.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 01:10 AM
Hard, no... Expensive? very. Impractical? Moreso. The machinery to run the tapes, the tapes themselves, someone to operate the system, a documentation system to document what domains from which resellers go where.... How long must they retain this data? 3 days? 3 months? 3 years? indefinably? You are also forgetting that in your example, their were essentially 2 parties -- the advertisement firm and the client. There existed (in theory) some sort of contract or agreement between the two. There is no such agreement between you and FastServers. If you wanted that sort of thing, then sign on a host that includes in the SLA. They are not that uncommon.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 01:26 AM
It boils down to if you want the reliability of a business webhost, pay for it. If I used shared hosting, I would not want to be forced to pay for the overhead of you putting a business website on a non-business class host. Anyway, its been an amazing conversation so far.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 01:39 AM
Hi ozymandias2, no, you read too fast - the tapes were sitting with a movie company. And no, I do not think that this would be too difficult. As we have just seen, it's possible to fire those servers up again, it should be no trouble for a company providing hundreds of servers for a huge variety of customers to set apart a few redundant ones (which anyone in their right mind in this business does anyway) and ftp/copy backups there on such occasions. Then they can get on with the servers for hire and raze them. It's not happening every few minutes. Such an obnoxious situation as this one here can't happen averagely more often than maybe once a month or once every 3-4 months. If it did, then I'd wonder about the business sense of a company taking on clients so heavily wheezing financially. The basic thing this comes down to is, that someone has something which rightfully belongs to someone else. And that there are societies which have decided to ensure that the person owning those things has a method to get them back. It may be a pain in the posterior to have to cater to this, but if everyone has to do it, then it's no problem competitionwise. As to how long, with physical items here it's usually a year, for something like this I'd say 4-8 weeks is entirely enough. Look at the time frame people dropped in here. And we're talking past each other. I was suggesting that clients of hosting companies should claim their customer rights and motion for some such law. It's about time. I'm not actually discussing status quo. For me the status quo is that Fastservers appear to choose the easy way out of this. I outlined potential solutions which would be not too hard on them if they were willing. Basically, if anything they lose a couple of bucks for turning those servers back online for a few hours after emailing those who contacted them. Which by the way would be the absolutely easiest way to comply with the demand of owners of data to get it back. An extra day online time for a few servers can't break the back of a company and certainly can't constitute a breach of contract either. Greetings OK
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 03:28 AM
Hey oxymoron, you're starting to troll this thread. Move over to some other thread about the importance of backups. We got your point. Thanks.
Posted by Ghoest, 09-06-2007, 04:12 AM
Ayiie. Thank god I didn't have anything important stored on site and have backups. The stupid thing is they answered helpdesk questions about my purchase of 1 site and several domains about a week ago. 60 bucks down the drain plus what was paid for the existing site, but I know others lost more. Very questionable on Faldrans part. As of today the 6th, Rogue A.I. is down. Time to buy local and go with a Canadian host. Del Esau Rogueai A.I. Interactive. *insert useless URL here* edit: No, actually, I think it's quite criminal on Faldrans part
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 08:45 AM
chortaj, I guess I am much more of a free market person than you. I don't think it is fair for Joe Schmoe, who only wants a basic hosting account, and doesn't care or is barely effected if the site host goes belly up has to pay an additional cost so that people trying to host a business site on a bargain host can have assurances. I think it is even less fair that people not even paying for a website would have to pay taxes to support additional government employees to handle the additional responsibility and tasks of the new legal paperwork. All a law such as the one you propose would do is raise the costs for hosts in whatever country the law is, and encourage companies to move out of the USA. I dont think that you realize the scope of FastServers business. They have, roughly estimating based on the amount of space they use in the DAtacenter, atleast a couple thousand servers. My guess is that they have atleast 10 server shutdowns a month, from non-payment, to cancelled contracts. This is just a guess, and may be way off, but its for the sake of the argument. How do you decide what needs to be archived? Jatol could call fastservers today and cancell the server in order to avoid accruing new fees and fines, or they could have a week ago... Does that mean that every cancelled server needs to be archived? Now lets look at the worst case. Say they have to archive every server decommissioned. 10 servers a month x 12 months a year is 120 servers in a year they would need to archive. Looking at the servers page at FastServers, the cheapest Linux host has a 160 gig hard drive. Lets guess that roughly 60% of each drive is data that would need archived, and that they are not just storing the drives for a year -- Crunching the numbers, that would be 11520 gigs a year of archived data -- uncompressed... Even compressed that is a crazy amount of storage that they would have to provide. Even only storing it 1 month, you are talking 960 gigs they would have to dedicate to archiving data for people that are no longer a customer. You also need to keep in mind that FastServers doesn't really know, or care (as long as it's legal) what you do with your server. As to FastServers only losing a few bucks if they turn the servers on, I think you need to investigate the situation a bit more. FastServers would lose the major bargaining chip they have in getting Jatol to pay bills. They will lose the money owed to them. They will open themselves up to lawsuit from Jatol for breach of contract. They would be getting involved on an issue that has nothing to do with them, namely a legal dispute between Jatol and clients. I fully see the point you are trying to make, and I must not be able to explain clearly what I am trying to say. I'm not a huge fan of government involvement in every aspect of every business. I think you are overlooking the fact that this law would only effect servers located in the USA. This would be a huge competitive disadvantage to USA customers. You are also overlooking the fact that if people did due diligence, they would have backups and copies of their data. This is a case of webhosting, nothing more. Jatol was not transforming the data in anyway, or anything, unlike the example you cited earlier. Why enact a law to allow access to "your" data when you ought to have a copy already? You are also overlooking the fact that this was a bargain host -- minimal features, minimal gaurentees, and minimal prices in response. This is not a suitable host for a business. It is geared towards hobbyists and personal sites. Most businesses want an uptime gaurentee and are smart enough to pay for one. Anyone wishing to host a critical site on a bargain host ought to be smart enough to realize that $2.50 a month doesn't buy them much. Moving on... Curious, anyone call Tim's hometown paper and ask if Tim had an obituary run anytime recently? Might find out if he died at least. Might also be worth calling the authorities down there and let them know you are looking for Tim in response to a contract breach.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 09:17 AM
Hi again, apart from saying that this kind of thing actually is already law in a couple of countries other than the USA, not specifically regarding host space, but instead regarding ownership of data, I make this very short: Very sorry, but you just disqualified your argumentation and stance completely. Unlike you I don't make and never made (while discussing this) any distinction between "hobbyist amateur" and "business" sites. None whatsoever. In fact, to the dedicated amateur the loss of a 6-years-spanning blog containing thousands of highly personal notes and pictures may be much more of a disaster, than the loss of a business with a webmaster standing attention to rebuild it at short notice. Greetings OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 09:43 AM
Wow... *bangs head on table* If the six year blogger is so attached to his data - - BACK IT UP! The 2.50 a month host goes down for a bit, he is out a few days worth of posts. If the business site goes down, they are potentially out a few days worth of sales. Big difference. The only distinction I am making between the two is that. I can't believe you don't see the difference, or why it matters. My point is that the blogger might be willing to have a few days downtime in exchange for a cheaper host, while the business might not. The blogger might not want to have to pay extra for the extra features and overhead onthis proposed law. Why should he be forced to pay for it if he doesn't want it? why should a grandma that never used the internet pay taxes to support this system? Why not simply charge the people that want these features for them? We could use a novel approach like listing out the features you are paying for on a sheet of paper, and include penalties for breaches on this paper. We could then have both parties sign and date the paper stating that they read and agree to it. Sigh. All along, I have been stating 1) if you value it, back it up. 2) you get what you pay for and 3) you should only pay for the features you want. How have I disqualified any of that?
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 10:07 AM
Ok, but that answer isn't helping anyone...Hellooooooooo, as you can read not everyone backed up their information! There are a lot of different reasons why, but the point is we are out a host and our information is GONE. We paid for something and never got what we were told we'd get. I don't care about the loss of the money I paid in for the host, that's fine, whatever...but I need my information. I don't want to know why Jatol.com is down, I don't care! I don't want to know the situation or any personal information. All I want is to be able to get a good, reliable host and for them to just migrate my website over, no questions asked! Simple as that and I'll drop off the face of the earth, pay my monthly host fees or whatever and live happily ever after!! How is one going to sue, what would one get...NOTHING! Since this person wasn't able to pay their actual fees anyways, so it seems. Each day my site is down is not a good thing. I'm taking my hard drive into someone today in order to try and retrieve information off of it....if they can get it that is. It's my one last hope, although it's going to cost me lots of money. Money that is floating out the window right now since my site is down and not generating business for me and causing my reputation to float out as well....sigh. I hope I can make the end of the month. I don't want to say that you get what you pay for, that's a cop out. There are really good, ethical hosting out there who do what they say. Just wish I could find one...LOL If anyone finds out more information about all this, please do email me at sixthcharmed @ yahoo.com I need to concentrate now on getting my website back up and running and getting my backup on my hard drive out of my fried computer...
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 10:17 AM
I have created several sites all using Jatol for web hosting. Some sites are down, some are still showing. No doubt, the ones still live are on "working" servers. Last year, I believe, they did a server upgrade with a PHP3 upgrade to PHP5 without notifying customers. That was a hectic couple of days. I sincerely hope they are not out of business, but I'd guess it is time to look for a better web hosting company. Any suggestions for a new web hosting service? I need it to have PHP (any version) and a MySql db. Perl would also be nice, but can live without it.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 10:41 AM
I would think that if it's just a matter of the servers are down then telephone numbers would be still in workind condition. FastServers would not be saying if the owner of the host would do what they need to do to rectify their account the sites would be still up and running. And I'm sure that somewhere, somehow the owner would put up something for clients to know that something is up and we're working on it....however, nothing is happening. Also the owners accounting firm is saying they have not heard anything in regards to this person, so I'm sure they would know that the owner had passed away!
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 11:32 AM
Assuming the worst that jatol is effectively out of business... How do we get the entries in the DNS entries changed to a new web server once we get a new hosting service set up? I'm assuming that we cannot access the DNS for our jatol accounts if they are on the servers that are down. Thanks for any tips.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 11:37 AM
Hi John, that depends on how you registered your domains. If they were registered by you yourself, you ought to have access to your registrar's panel. Your new host will give you the nameserver data and with these your change the nameservers. If Jatol registered them for you, you may ask one of the guys further back in the thread on how they got theirs changed. Greetings OK
Posted by bigdoggy59, 09-06-2007, 11:42 AM
1) Insulting each other solves nothing. 2) I live in TN. Nobody home at the Rainbow Lane address yesterday. Will continue to check in order to ask NICELY that OnlineNIC and Fastservers be contacted. I will not be going to jail for any of you by being violent or threatening. 3) Folks who bought domains through Jatol - how long is OnlineNIC taking to respond? Registered owner of one domain sent a letter yesterday offering to keep OnlineNIC as registrar but requesting immediate transfer of DNS control. We'd like to know when to expect response. Thanks.
Posted by rmavis, 09-06-2007, 12:05 PM
Hey bigdoggy, I... 1. wrote OnlineNIC yesterday afternoon, just to making contact and to ask if they'd be able to help me, and got a prompt and positive response 2. bought some space with 1&1 last night around 21:30 3. contacted OnlineNIC shortly after that with the necessary information, and received a response from them around 22:45 4. received an email from 1&1 around 4 this morning saying it's a go And it is. Albeit my site is simply a notice of malfunction without my data, but the DNS registration problem -- at least if done with OnlineNIC -- could be quick and easy. And any other registrar, I'm sure, would be understanding and cooperative if you point them to this thread. Unless, of course, they have bad restrictive contracts, as Fastservers does. Many thanks for swinging by Tim's house.
Posted by tfischer, 09-06-2007, 12:16 PM
Your domains are your domains. With any other registrar (assuming they're still in business) you simply contact them, or more likely, go to their online control panel, and change the DNS servers to point to your new webhost. It usually takes between 12-36 hours for your changes to propogate across the interenet. -Tim
Posted by oldcqr, 09-06-2007, 12:25 PM
I emailed OnlineNic yesterday and explained my situation. Within an hour they asked for supporting documentation which I forwarded to them. They then replied that they are swamped with the Jatol mess and thanked me for my understanding. They also said they would be happy to re-point my name servers when I got new hosting. About 10 minutes ago I emailed them to change the name servers on my first domain, I'll let you know when that happens. The secret is to gently explain your situation, let them know it's a Jatol thing, be prepared to send them documentation, and above all BE NICE Once I have my 3 domains up at my new hosts, I'll worry about transferring them.
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 12:34 PM
Thanks, chortaj I had most of my customers create their accounts at Jatol so they'd own the names and accounts. They send me the account info... For the websites on the downed servers, the control panel for the account is also gone. I have no way of accessing the DNS to change the server ip once I have a new hosting account. Reads like OnlineNic may be able to help. I've urged my clients to go with a new hosting service - regardless of how this turns out - and it's not looking good. Thanks --
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 12:45 PM
As long as you don't transfer the domains then OnlineNIC can be helpful. If as soon as you mention the word transfer it takes ages!
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 12:55 PM
Confusion on my part, sorry... EddieDutch, are you saying "don't ask OnlineNIC to transfer the name?" If I can't get to the DNS at jatol, how do I get the server ip switched to the new web server the site will be on? Or am I missing the obvious, here? Sorry JC
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 01:03 PM
First ask them to change the name servers to the ones at your new host. Once that is done, you're website can be reached. Then ask them for transfer. Ask them "what do i do to get my domains transfered quickly and easily?" Then do every step that they'll tell you. And be prepared that it can take a long time...
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 01:05 PM
I have my domain...I can redirect anywhere at any time. I did go with another hosting place just to put something up on a page for my clients to know I didn't just disappear...but it's crappy. I want my website and information. I know that Fast Servers does not have to get my information, why would they...yea, yea legal crap...whatever, what am I going to say??? sue them, is this Tim person going to sue them? What for, for getting information that is mine to begin with because he didn't pay them or whatever???? give me a break! How is that in Jatol's contract with them? Gee, if you go belly up, I can not go in and take your information???tsk, that doesn't make sense at all. It also won't do any harm with putting Jatol back up for at least one day for all to be able to get their crap off!!! It was already done once, please do it again....
Posted by qqqq9, 09-06-2007, 01:20 PM
scaredcro I agree all the way.. its been put back up for a little while.. then let fastservers put it back up again just for a day.. its a bunch of hogwash what they are saying about legalities etc.. they just want to get paid by jatol.. get their money.. we are not asking them to give us data.. we will retrieve our data by ourselves, which we have a right to, it belongs to us, thru the login and password that we have.. all we want is for the servers to be on as it was for all these years. I say we put the pressure on them to put it on, they can be reached at 866 753 3278 x 3 I say they should be also named in the class action lawsuit for all the loss!
Posted by qqqq9, 09-06-2007, 01:22 PM
Also oxymandias has proven that he works for fastservers.net the way he spends countless messages trying to show they are not guilty. But they are GUILTY!! and their name and reputaion is going down with JATOL!
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 01:23 PM
I think that FastServers is just ticked off with everyone who has been calling them. It's not the actual people who work in support who have the authority to put it back up...being harrassed I don't think will do much good except get them all pissed off and not wanting to help at all. I agree though, I do wish they'd put it back up for a little bit for some to access their information if we have our passwords and everything. They won't have to do a thing or worry about giving someone information that isn't theirs...etc. Oh well, I guess time will tell....but I can't wait around to find out. I am trying to get my hard drive reconstructed to see if I can get my backup..
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 01:32 PM
Well true, but I don't want anyone to lose their jobs over putting up Jatol for a day or whatever, because I'm sure that could be looked into to see which employee did it and then it's bye bye for them....I don't want that on my head! But gosh, isn't there a manager/owner of FastServers that one could speak to that has a heart who would do this? There is only so much an employee of FastServers can do, they have to follow rules otherwise risk being fired or worse. I've spoken to a person named Miguel at FastServers and I can understand what he was saying, but still....I mean come ooooon. I know they can put Jatol back up. I don't know Tim personally, nor can I contact him to put pressure on him to pay what is owed....so basically buyers of Jatol can't do a darn thing to pressue Tim, he doesn't care, nothing he lost at all...we're the ones who are paying the price not Tim...who cares about his credit! He still goes on, just won't/can't pay or whatever the reason....If it were a matter of being ill, then something should or could have been put into place to let customers know what is going on. This Jatol mess is creating bad press for everyone really and why should my reputation be put on the platter because I paid for a service that didn't provide?? Why should I or my family be punished because of the money and clients I'm losing? I worked years to get to where I am and now I see it going down the drain only to start again....that to me is not fair. I have bills, obligations and things I have to do too and can't because of this mess. But I'm still trying to move forward, looking for someone to help. Trying to get my computer fixed to get my backup information. Then I have a plan to not let this happen again...I just hope my business doesn't suffer too much in the meantime....
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 01:36 PM
LOL, I think I'm beginning to have a compulsion problem. I keep checking Jatol.com every half hour to see if there are any changes to get my information....lol....oh boy, I need to go read or something. I can't move away from the computer in case I miss something.... msn contact: bstlouis@shaw.ca yahoo: same as above I think
Posted by lilnomad, 09-06-2007, 01:54 PM
I agree with what has already been said. If your company depends on your data and files, then why wouldn't you keep a backup? Independence is a wonderful thing. You really should not put your company in another company's hands. That is what a lot of people did, you put your company in the hands of Jatol. That is really the first mistake. Protect yourselves. Also, I would quit waiting for Jatol and begin working on damage control. It could be awhile before you get your data, thats to say if you ever get it back at all. Jatol could be down for the count, so begin working on a new plan of action instead of waiting, because waiting is as good as worrying, nothing will get done.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 02:03 PM
omg...first ummm, I do think that most are working on damage control...secondly I do not live in the past, therefore I'm not going on about what I shoulda, coulda done. What's done is done, not going to do it again, lesson learned...yes MOM won't do it again, ok...I understand, sure may not have known before, but little late with the information ok. I'm not going to be a paranoid freak who goes around backing up everything plus my toilet just in case there's a flood....and what about those tornado's..heard that it could happen in these parts... come on, some are missing the point here....it's OUR INFORMATION!!! plan and simple. Does that mean I can go open up someplace and offer a service and go belly up and keep everyone's money and it's ok, cause my reputation is burned, I can handle that, my credit is wrecked...I can handle that...give me a break!! Darn right people are upset and acting angry and perhaps harrassing if that's what you want to call it...we should be angry, have a right to be.. ooopsss, someone came by and crapped on me...guess I shoulda be wearing a raincoat or something, I'll do that in the future.
Posted by lilnomad, 09-06-2007, 02:13 PM
Sure it's called bankruptcy. See this as a lesson for those who threw caution to the wind and depended on Jatol, don't depend on anybody. If you had a backup, you could be online as we speak. Since you didn't make a backup, you are now at the mercy of Jatol. How does it feel? Once you find a new host, make sure you keep a backup because this could happen again.
Posted by home2spec, 09-06-2007, 02:21 PM
Here's a thought, going forward.... Everyone that built sites for clients, and put them on a hosting site, should have wording in their contracts covering this kind of mess. Learn from history..........
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 02:29 PM
Most hosting contracts include a clause as to how they will dispose of your data when the contract is terminated. FastServers has to abide by that contract. Simple as that.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 02:32 PM
I have stated quite clearly I am not an employee of FastServers, nor do I have any vested interest in helping them, other than you are trying to drag them down and smear them in this thread for no reason other than petty anger.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-06-2007, 02:33 PM
Hi, as an answer to lilnomad and ozymandias2 sermons: Sacredco actually made backups - they happened to be on a fried harddrive at the time of Jatol's demise. Backup done - no backup. Until a week ago I happened to be on a paid-per-minute modem line. Paid for at 4 cents per minute, a 56k modem. 10 MB take an hour to download. If not interrupted and hence file also corrupted. 50 MB take 5 hours. If not interrupted. Ah, I forgot to say - modem online, phone offline. Daily backup of some 500 MB? Oops, that's then only one backup every three days which takes three days... Think that funny? Well, I'm not the only one who lived in places where it is just so and no different. These places btw exist also still in the US of A. So for me, with some 2 GB of own and webmastered sites, backing up was out of question. I kept the texts and files on the comp, but no backups. And then there are those, lots of those, who think that the backup policy of a host is just that, a trustworthy and dependable method for when **** happens. I've met with quite many clients who are thinking just that. They can write a blog or post pictures, but anything more is beyond them. Loads of those people around. Trusting their hosts. In your world, ozymandias2, they are just stupid cows ready for the slaughterbank. The funny thing however is, that it's actually these stupid people you think so offhandedly about, who actually pay your fare, my fare, Jatol's fare, and most, ah, absolutely most definitely Fastservers' fare. Without those trusting people who are the broad, broad base on which all hosts rest and feed themselves with and pay their next trip to the Bermudas with, there'd be none of us. No, I'm still not with you regarding that. I'm all for a modicum of decency instead. Greetings OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 02:34 PM
Hello fellow voice of reason!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 02:36 PM
Most hosting contracts actually include that. It's when you choose to cut corners and pay as little as you can that these things get dropped out of the contract.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 02:38 PM
I have not been about to get to my site hosted with them, or to their main site. the last order I got was at 10:45 yesterday, and now nothing through them at all. mab
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 02:41 PM
If people are stupid enough to not have a real backup strategy, I don't feel bad for them. I feel mildly bad for SacredCo, as they atleast made an effort to backup. I still don't see what being on dialup has to do with not backing up. Looking around, I found multiple cheap archival space online. I found 5 gigs for free at one place. This was with a 30 second google. Put all your eggs in one basket, and don't be suprized when other people don't feel bad when they all get broken.
Posted by UH-Bobby, 09-06-2007, 02:42 PM
I did some research for it, and I found their domain which is www.jatol.net, and I'm getting no response from the domain. So either they are having a massive server issue or they've shut down. I also went and pinged the domain, and it couldn't find the host, so it doesn't even give an IP. I did a dnsstuff.com report on it, and the nameservers failed to respond, so they're not even responding either. Good luck!
Posted by oldcqr, 09-06-2007, 02:45 PM
OnlineNic Update: The name servers have been changed for my first domain. Just waiting now for the propagation (or whatever the heck it's called) to happen properly. Should be a few hours. As soon as that happens, this domain is 100% back up. The request took less than a couple of hours. THANKS!!! I also requested that my second domain's name servers be moved. For this one, my backup is from June, so a little work needed there. Maybe a few hours at best. I'm working on transferring data/dbs for my last and largest domain domain right now. With only a 10/1 connection to the net, the upload is taking a little bit of time Once everything is there, I'll update the configs, put the Jatol site in 'Offline-Maintenance' mode, and ask OnlineNic for my final NS transfer. As soon as that happens, I'll be back in business. FWIW: You need to remember that the people who CAN help you are not the people who MUST help you. The only entity that owes you anything is Jatol. FS/ON know that we got the 'high hard one' from Jatol, but being combative with them will get you no where.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 02:47 PM
I am in the same boat. I can't get to my website or the jatol.com wet site. I am freeking out... I got the same old phone number you did with the old lady.... I bet she is freeking out too! Gosh, would they just "go away" without telling us, and then what do we do if they did? Any suggestions taken. I never had a phone number for them. They did not have phone ssupport, just email "tickets". I tried to send emails to several of the names on the tickets, to "support@jatol.com and to "info@jatol.com" and they won't go through. It says: 405 [TEMPFAIL ] destination not valid within DNS
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 02:51 PM
Can anyone recomend a hosting service that is reliable and a bit in-expensive? I saw a couple in these posts, but now can't find them. Thanks, JC
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 02:55 PM
Thank you Chortaj, yes I did make a backup but my hard drive is fried. I am taking it today to someone that may be able to help fix it. I don't know yet but will probably cost me around $300 bucks and hopefully data will still be on it somewhere, they're going to go in and see what they can find and what the problem is. I do know that if it's there, that I'm going to get it backed up on an external hard drive or CD. If it's not there, then I guess I'll be buying a new template and transfering some data from cache and memory, etc. I'm going to buy a very good business hosting as well and perhaps come out on top and better than before....who knows. It's just sad that it's come to this and I don't think us here need to be punished for this Jatol thing... Wow queen, you're a bit behind..lol..Jatol is no more, gone bye bye, who knows what happened...just know all our information is gone with it. No one can get in, well some can but I guess that's to do with legal crap.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-06-2007, 02:57 PM
Ozy, what you don't seem to understand is that all the contract language in the world is meaningless if the company just disappears. Your SLA isn't worth the paper it's written on if Big Host Co. pulls the same thing. RegisterFly was one of the biggest name registrars around and that didn't stop them from hijacking hundreds of thousands of domain names. And railing on and on about backup does nothing to help anyone at this point. You made your point, and it was a good bit of advice going forward. But the repetition turned into noise quite a ways back. And it doesn't help any one after the fact. Your initial post on the importance of backing up & protecting critical data & not blaming Fastservers was right on - you should have quit then because you've added nothing but agitation since. And since it's clear you have no dog in this hunt, why not just move along, please.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 03:05 PM
Any suggestions of where to go if they did bail out? Can I still use my domain name on anothe server. I have been with Jatol since 2000 and never had a problem, but never very techie on domain stuff. mab
Posted by imountain, 09-06-2007, 03:09 PM
If a company like Jatol has been around since 2000, I find it hard to believe they would just pack up and run without notifying anybody. I am thinking it must be something else and you will probably hear from them soon.
Posted by ReliableSite, 09-06-2007, 03:11 PM
Agreed, it's most likely a network outtage.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-06-2007, 03:12 PM
There are two separate issues here and really they should have separate threads:People looking for help finding information on what happened, and help getting back up and running.Discussion on how to prevent this from happen again.The people in the first group, really don't need to hear "you need to backup" over and over. It's really not any more help to them than an ER doctor telling a patient who had some sort of accident, "You know, you really should be more careful." I think the background info and help has been covered just about as well as possible. I was burned by another company before and learned my lesson - well sort of. I had everything critical backed up, but ironically I actually chose Jatol because they seemed more stable because they actually had a longer history than a lot of hosts. Guess I blew that one. One other thing I want to add - people are assuming that Logan or FastServers did something so people could get back into their sites. I'd recommend not jumping to that conclusion and the "if you did it once, you can do it again" argument that follows. Logan clearly said he didn't actually do anything beyond talk to people at FastServers. (And that's in no way a criticism of him, that was all he could do). It may well be it was all just a fluke thing or the server had crashed and automatically rebooted, we just really don't know.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 03:19 PM
Wow concept, the one sane things I've heard for the last few days...you are totally correct and I couldn't have said it better myself!! Very awesome advice..... Just wish there was something that can be done, but looks like not. I'm just moving ahead with my own stuff and working away at gathering what information I still have left and hoping my hard drive can be fixed....we'll see what happens.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 03:20 PM
I sure hope so, because I am already taking Xanax! lol... but loosing money by the minute...
Posted by qqqq9, 09-06-2007, 03:21 PM
Conceptwing Finally the VOICE OF REASON!! Ozymandias2 needs to understand not everyone is tech savvy or has all recent backups on all their data but again that is off topic we need to access what is rightfully ours NOW!
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 03:38 PM
A question about OnlineNIC. I went to onlinenic dot com and it looks like I have to pay to join. Am I on the right site? How to I get their help without paying? What am I paying for?
Posted by Biju, 09-06-2007, 03:43 PM
Yes wait for some more time. I have not heard of their service until now but if they had been for many yrs, then they are not lame cheaters
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-06-2007, 03:47 PM
I understand you don't have a backup. Thats why I don't feel bad for you at all. It doesn't take a lot of technical ability to realize "hey i have this website I make money off of, maybe I want to have a backup of it if something happens"
Posted by UH-Bobby, 09-06-2007, 03:48 PM
Also, my dnsstuff report showed that the nameservers didn't respond, it's possible that just the nameservers are out, would you know the IP or something else about your hosting? In your welcome e-mail they may have given you an IP, try accessing your hosting that way, this would bypass the nameserver issue that may be happening.
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 03:48 PM
That's a trick to keep you bound to them. Remember they make money from the fact that you registered with them (through Jatol). Godaddy is cheaper and quicker. If you want to move to another registrar FIRST let OnlineNIC change the nameservers, THEN start the transfer. They'll do everything to stall the process of you moving to another registrar.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 03:48 PM
No John, you don't have to pay unless you want their hosting service. Go to the support page, then go to contact page. That's all, but I don't think they're going to be able to help that much or quickly, they're doing all they can for domain names and such....
Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 09-06-2007, 03:50 PM
But I think the site has been down for more than 2 or 3 days? Do you think it is acceptable? There was a thread started for this. http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=632124 Seems weird.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 03:50 PM
Hey I already told them I'd buy hosting plan from onlineNIC, I'd buy from anyone who can tell me they'll get my information for me...doesn't work though, cause I don't think there's a way to get the information back....I have no idea, not going to worry about it anymore.....sigh.
Posted by Commit1 Anthony, 09-06-2007, 03:51 PM
Not sure if this would clarify things: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=632124
Posted by UH-Bobby, 09-06-2007, 03:56 PM
Actually it looks like this has been going on since 8-31-07, for a week! Even if they had network outages or something major, they would have probably gotten a dedicated server somewhere and got their main site up in a hurry to explain what was going on. Being in business for 7 years, I don't think they closed up and ran, but I do think they must have gotten totally suspended or something.
Posted by Annex, 09-06-2007, 03:59 PM
I heard the owner got very ill and his staff took their leave after he couldn't pay the bill. Better to have partners or leave instructions somewhere in which case if something like this is to happen, the whole company doesn't go under.
Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 09-06-2007, 04:08 PM
Ohh that is really sad to hear. Everything they made in 7 years got messed up in few days. But I wonder there is not a single one to take care of things until the owner is back?
Posted by UH-Bobby, 09-06-2007, 04:09 PM
Wow, well I guess if they are going to go under, they'll go under right. I still would have thought though that the owner would have purchased a small shared account or something to get his main site online to explain to his customers. I'd suggest to all of his customers to just go ahead and find other hosting, as I don't see them coming back. Side note, I did more research. This IP belongs to The Planet, and so I believe that we can conclude that Jatol is gone now, and it's not network. The Planet is usually reliable, someone might can get in touch with The Planet and maybe find out some information. I'll research this further and see what I can dig up.
Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 09-06-2007, 04:14 PM
It was really a sad ending after 7 years of service.
Posted by SQNWK, 09-06-2007, 04:19 PM
They could of at least try selling the business but that makes sense also that if the owner was sick not as much attention was paid to the business as it should of been.
Posted by Jedito, 09-06-2007, 04:29 PM
Some servers are still alive, we got some "refugees" from Jatol and many sites were still able to be accesible, some others not.
Posted by Annex, 09-06-2007, 04:33 PM
No Sick as in, bed ridden ASAP without coming out.
Posted by musicfiend, 09-06-2007, 04:46 PM
Hello fellow Jatol 'ex' customers. Like many of you, I have had a long and fruitful time with Jatol, their techy guys have always been helpful, although having read the posts here my experience of late (6 months) does suggest that the writing may have been on the wall for sometime now. Have they been biting off more than they can chew? As a customer from the UK, the hosting charges have seemed reasonable and I have no complaints here, just wish I hadn't "put all my eggs in one basket". There are a lot of posts and time has been getting on and the light failing, but is the general impression Jatol as a company and therefore as my and our host, gone belly up for want of a better expression (and I can think of many)? Fortunately my sites are there for mainly information and artistic impression (although industry contacts and users won't be so happy) and I do keep a backup of the entire sites on my hard drive. But email of the last year has been stored on the main server, so this is a bit of a bugger. How are other people planing to cope with this? I'm not a great techy, can anyone offer any advice, although I will be calling in a few favours to get this sorted out, I just wish people would keep their mobile phones switched on! I'll look forward to any responses others may have and will look forward to reading them. 'Shafted by Jatol' - I just wish I hadn't paid them my hosting fees recently.
Posted by David, 09-06-2007, 04:49 PM
Well, it certainly makes sense to have a contingency plan in the event of the worst. Whether it be a bus, a virus or anything -- having a plan is key. It's no different than our personal lives, if you were to suddenly go into a coma after an accident, for the next 6 months you'd wake up in a whole different world if you didn't properly ensure people knew what to do upon it occurring. Whether it be a close family member, a partner in business or a friend: There has to be a plan in place even just to ensure your mortgage, bills & e-mail are taken care of! Anywhom, hoepfully we'll hear from them soon before it's too late.
Posted by kooshtie, 09-06-2007, 05:01 PM
Find a new host, upload your site/sites and transfer your domain/domains dns My reseller account went down today, a few days after the single hosted sites it seems. They took a payment from me a couple of days ago. SHAFTED A good excuse to clean up some of the sites i had.
Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 09-06-2007, 05:33 PM
Thats right David. When we are doing a business we need a complete plan. We cannot predict what will happen tomorrow and there should be a plan for backup. There should be some one to take care of things atleast for a short period if the founder goes down.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 05:52 PM
Okay, yes, I may be behind, but I got an order yesterday so I did NOT know Jatol was gone. I have a backup. I keep all my webpages on my computer. What I NEED now instead of who is to blame, is suggestions for new web servers. I went to Jatol through a suggestion, and don't know where to go now. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I have a very small internet business and don't need much, just SPACE TO PUT MY WEBSITE ON. MAB
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 06:02 PM
Anyone remember how to access the dns server at jatol. I have a site or two still up, but I can't find an icon link to the dns server from the control panel. Seems I did it from their jatol - dot - com / user / site. But that is down as is jatol dot com
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 06:08 PM
You can't, you've to contact OnlineNIC.com and tell them what to change (just like you asked JAtol.com when you wanted something changed).
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 06:12 PM
For reseller I suggest Hostnine.com they are AMAZING! Good service, very professional, many options (a/o pick server locations and change nameservers). Or (for single 'simple' sites): bluehost.com, also very friendly and helpful setting stuff up. They have SSH, MySQL5 and PostgreSQL! Both H9 and BH respond quick to help requests.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 06:24 PM
Thank you! I was just overwhelmed at all the places available. Someone mentioned "go daddy"... how is that? mab
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-06-2007, 06:39 PM
I use godaddy as domain registrar: quick and cheap. You can change nameservers yourself, no need to request other people, nor to pay an entrance fee or crap like that.
Posted by nettiapina, 09-06-2007, 07:15 PM
That's when you take a service like Amazon S3 and configure your backups to go there. Actually someone calculated that it's probably cheaper than running your own backup server - for < 100GB anyways. I was thinking the very same thing (maybe 5 pages ago). Perhaps it's just not possible, or this Tim character indeed locked the servers somehow. (Also: subscribing to this thread.)
Posted by tfischer, 09-06-2007, 07:35 PM
I use Godaddy for my registrar. I use 1&1 for my hosting. Good experiences with both. I prefer to keep my registrar separate from my hosting, just in case of situations just like this Jatol thing, and I pay GoDaddy even though my 1&1 plan includes enough free registrations that I wouldn't need to... -Tim
Posted by tambo, 09-06-2007, 08:24 PM
My site's still up and running - for the moment at least - and I didn't have any trouble logging into Jatol's Control Panel and doing a fresh backup. It's at http : // www DOT YOUR_SITE_NAME DOT com : 2082 I hope this helps someone save their data.
Posted by queenkahuna, 09-06-2007, 08:43 PM
I tried that this morning and just now and I didn't get anything. Is that an : (colon) or a / (backslash). I have it in my files as a /2082 Why can some get in and others can't? I am trying to get my domain name moved over but have not decided on a new web server company yet... I need more Xanan and maybe some wine at this point. Now I am getting tons of emails telling me my site is down....aughhhhhhhhhh mab
Posted by pakcyr, 09-06-2007, 08:46 PM
Mab, Some of the servers are down and some of them are not. I suspect that the server your site is hosted on is down - that's why you can't access. And to access its :2082 and not /2082. Tina
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 09:23 PM
Very interesting idea about the locking of the servers. I was speaking a day ago to a very nice person from FastServers who said she would take a 'look' at my information and see if she could go in and look at it. She took all my info...dns, ip, etc and came back online in about 3 min or so....she said she tried to go in and said it was blocked and she could not access it.... At the time I thought hmmmmm....and wondered if that was even possible. I would not think she would lie or anything...I just thought why would this Tim person block the information? What would the motive be? I don't get it...
Posted by jimmartens, 09-06-2007, 09:50 PM
Greetings, First off thanks to those that have been posting useful and helpful information on this thread. Also many thanks to Matt and Logan I have worked with both of them in the past and they have always been very helpful and responsive over the years and that really shows here where they are throwing in even when they need not do so. I have a few sites that I had hosted through jatol over the years and always had reliable service. None of my sites were in any way critical, in that way I am very lucky. One of my sites had some value in a sentimental capacity only and it had been a while since I ran a backup, so I am still interested in trying to salvage some data. I have actually read through every page of this thread, as painful as that was at times and now have only these questions, that I know can probably only be answered by fastservers.net. One, is there any chance that access to the machines will be made available? Two, how long may those machines that were hosting jatol related sites be left in tact before they are wiped clean? So all that being said I will be sending these questions on to fastservers and if I get a response I will post it here and if anyone else gets useful information along these lines please post it.
Posted by tucsonme, 09-06-2007, 09:56 PM
if you're ok with your data and are trying to get backonline as quickly as possible i have found cecilia and tom zhang helpful at the help desk for onlinenic.com. cs-us@onlinenic.com = customer service, usa. i received two authorization codes to transfer two domain names in about 2 hours and they changed dns servernames on my 3rd website in about 5 minutes, literally. i signed up to transfer one website to hostmonster.com and sent onlinenic.com the dns servernames and they changed their records. hitting refresh in my browser window after getting their email had my website (already uploaded) change from the temporary screen to the proper one. i'm not saying everyone's website (provided you had all of your data local) will rollover just as fast, i'm just saying i have had positive help from onlinenic.com the last two days - i did not find out about the problem at jatol until yesterday morning as my more important sites are still working.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 10:06 PM
I am needing help ASAP on how to migrate files (backup website) from one hosting server to another. Please message me to walk me through this please: email for MSN: bstlouis@shaw.ca or yahoo: sixthcharmed Thank you
Posted by qqqq9, 09-06-2007, 10:24 PM
I am starting to wonder about this fellow Tim if his ever bubalicious desire to unleash a untimely fakakte unerproof for the hosting clients was his foretelling of our doomsday ubershlaff or maybe he was just into thinking that our repelled regrettingly would go unnoticed.. I really dont know all I can say for certain now is that as I type I am getting this ungrouchy feeling in my kishkes that we are not psychics or freedom fighters for the hosting enterprise for if we were we would be having our data long way back irregardless of naiveness or nationality or divisiveness even undecided .. you get the point..
Posted by MonroeHornet, 09-06-2007, 10:39 PM
I have three sites with Jatol. One is still up and running, but two are dead. I edit all my pages off line and upload when they're ready, so I have back-ups for everything except for the SQL databases which isn't a big deal for me. I decided to go with GoDaddy for the three sites presently/formerly hosted with Jatol. They offer the basic services close to what Jatol offered for about the same price and have a fee for just about everything else you might want. I host one other site through GoDaddy already and am happy with their customer service. About the only bad thing with them is their site is hard to navigate once you log in, but I haven't really given them much time. One of my two sites that's down is registered through Tucows, a Canadian company. They have a login which allows you to have total control over your domain. I've been with them for about 11 years and am very happy with them. The other two sites are registered with OnlineNic. Even though I'm happy with Tucows, I decided to go with the GoDaddy registrar (domainsbyproxy) since I'm using them to host the sites. After following the links to transfer a domain at GoDaddy, I had to contact OnlineNIC to get an authorization code. OnlineNIC is in China, so I decided not to call them, but to go to their web page and chatted with someone online. They said all I needed to do was send an email to cs-us @ onlinenic dot com and request an authorization code. They sent the code to the email address I had registered with them on whois.sc, which was fortunately my ISP. If your email address goes to your dead Jatol site, you'll need to ask OnlineNIC to change it before you can get the code to move the domain. icann dot org gave me the OnlineNIC phone number in China as 86-5925-395061, but like I said, I didn't call them. OnlineNIC sent me the authorization code to change registrars within an hour after I sent them an email. GoDaddy/domainsbyproxy said it will now take up to 5 to 7 days for OnlineNIC to actually transfer the domain to them. As far as I can tell, OnlineNIC is a good registrar, and it might be better to stick with them at least for a few months if you can and just have them change the DNS from Jatol to whoever you go to for your new host. You can always change your registrar later. Last edited by MonroeHornet; 09-06-2007 at 10:45 PM.
Posted by JohnCowan, 09-06-2007, 10:40 PM
FYI: This has been covered already - I'm sure, but for what it is worth. I have several sites that are down thanks to Jatol's problems. Here's how I got the first one up and running again. I purchased a new site at cyberland-usa dot com Cheap and quick for what I need for my site. I had all my sites' code (directories/scripts) backed up locally. I ftp'd them to my new site and was ready to go. I contacted onlineNIC to get my DNS entries reset. (thanks to all of you in this thread for this info - whew!!). I spoke to a TOMY. He ofcourse knew about Jatol being out. I asked him if he could reset the dns for my domain name for me since I could no longer access it my self. He said I'd need to fomally email them from my domain registrant account = a johndcowan dot com. I explained I couldn't because my domain was dead in the water. So, he suggested I email them with the info I could (my new dns entry ips) AND a jpg image of my drivers' license for proof I was really johndcowan. I did send them an email as requested. The address is (interpret) cs-us @ onlinenic dot com About an hour later, my site is back up on a new server. Now I'm resetting some files and code on the new server I need, but all seems well. I am very gratefull to everyone in this thread who has provided much needed and extremely valuable info. Like many I was lost. I am an experienced programmer, but not in the ways of fleshing out downed server info and who to contact in these cases. Thanks again. I hope you all get up and running soon.
Posted by tfischer, 09-06-2007, 10:52 PM
First you need to get your files. This is very easy to do via FTP. Then, if you use MySQL, you need to backup/restore the databases. You do this with phpMyAdmin, which can be accessed via your CPanel account on the Jatol side (assuming you can access it, of course), and whatever control panel your new host uses (might also be CPanel, or something similar). phpMyAdmin has a Backup tab where you can take a backup and save it locally, and take a local backup file and overwrite your databases (restore). -Tim
Posted by SacredCo, 09-06-2007, 11:35 PM
I was able to get back into my old Cpanel and access my files, I have no idea how...but I did. I backed them up and trying to migrate or upload the files to this new host I have purchased. I now can't seem to get into my old Cpanel, perhaps it was just up for a min or two, I don't know. Anyways, for whatever reason my website isn't showing properly and giving an error. Can you take a peek here: www (dot) barb - powell (dot) com/ index (dot) php and offer some insight into whatever may be going on and how to fix it. I'm pretty sure I have all my files from Jatol. Once I was able to get in I backed up and took everything I could quickly. Thanks a bunch. It must have been a fluke that I was able to access my information and log in at Jatol. I just tried it and I was in...now I can't get in but was able to get a back up of my files, now I'm trying to transfer everything but it's not going up properly. Last edited by SacredCo; 09-06-2007 at 11:43 PM.
Posted by ReliableSite, 09-07-2007, 12:01 AM
If you guys are having trouble getting your files you can also try the timemachine, but this will provide you only with static files. Basically you can grab images, etc.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-07-2007, 12:14 AM
Never mind about the help I've got it all, thank GOD and perhaps a few Angels. I would suggest everyone to randomly try to access their Cpanels and see what happens, that's what I did and was able to get in but only for a few minutes. Enough time to get my backups. I don't know why it was up, or why I was able to access it. Jatol.com was still down, but I was able to access my info. After about 5 minutes I wasn't able to. I have no idea what's going on or why, but I'm just glad that I was able to get in...
Posted by AlbaG, 09-07-2007, 01:26 AM
Hi Kapina, I can't pay for such services, as I carry an e-cash bank card, no credit card and a quick look at their TOS is sobering as well, I'd say. Plus, I sure as hell don't like placing backups on third parties' servers, with unknown security enacted, backups which carry everything - from mail passwords up to server/site passwords and including servers with root access to boot. Very funny things have happened in the past already. I formerly used rented server space elsewhere for such backups, but funnily that host went belly up much sooner than Jatol, though he had the decency to tell his clients first, so everyone could wipe accounts themselves. And afterwards the daily bandwidth just became too much to keep that up elsewhere. The problem is that many of the "you ought to have had..." fold tend to forget that technical and practical situations are not the same everywhere, things aren't just black and white. Thus behaving in an unsavory manner to customers isn't the harmless thing many have come to believe it is. Sacredco: Congrats :-) Greetings OK
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-07-2007, 02:35 AM
Logan said something about Tim being ill... MENTALLY ILL is the only logical conclusion...
Posted by Grzldvt, 09-07-2007, 02:51 AM
Just to add my 2 cents to the thread. I was also a long time customer of Jatol and recommended many people because of their superior customer service. So I give a big THANK YOU to Matt and Logan for their incredible assistance and customer service with a smile. You should be very proud of what you did for all of us during your tenure there. I put in a case about three weeks ago because my SSL Certificate was not renewed. I got a response two weeks ago, telling me that they were having trouble with the SSL Provider and if I purchased a certificate from someone they would install it for me. What amazes me is there was absolutely no indication of my site getting shutdown. Absolutely amazing, you would think Tim would have had the decency to at least say, we can no longer service your e-commerce store and you should consider moving your site. Instead he led me on. Pretty pathetic, no wonder, Matt and Logan left. Backup, smackups.... I run a business off of the Email system, and I am royally screwed. I can reproduce both sites as fast as I can upload the pages, but the Email cannot be retrieved. I have no idea how much $$$$ I have lost due to my site being shutdown.
Posted by musicfiend, 09-07-2007, 08:03 AM
Having read the thread given by Grzldvt, I am now considering that it may all be over and that clinging onto my thoughts that 'Chinese' whispers may be doing more damage than good are actually unfounded and I'll have to face up to the worst case scenario. What has actually happened to Jatol? Will we ever know? My experiences with them as a provider have been very good, they always seemed to get any niggles sorted out presto. But the fact that I have 2 sites with them, one of which still works, mail and all. Whilst the other appears more than a little wonky. Although accessing both my site, content & mail on the working site is showing no problems; < musicfiend (dot) co (dot) uk >, even the control panel is operational, on the other although I can no longer 'surf' the site, I do get my navigation margin up and whilst accessing the site is a no-no, I can use my search facility (provided by freefind), I think this is only accessing what it already knows, as the links provided are dead. < atomicduster (dot) com > I'll confess, I'm no web wizard and this is really teaching me something, although our site has been online for 7 years+. I'd like not to have to do it, but what can you do? My site content is kept local before uploading and I'll never rely on online email again, going back to downloading, that seems to be the only conclusion I'll draw from this experience. I would like to know however where has all my (and our) mail/content gone? A big online skip maybe? And should we be considering that this will ever get resolved? I thank all those who have posted here, it has certainly made me feel less isolated and shall be taking down what advice I can, but in the meantime I hope I'm back online without too much fuss.
Posted by cdwwhip, 09-07-2007, 08:04 AM
No joy... tried accessing both panels (2082 and 2086), nada. This sucks. Painful as it is, I can rebuild my sites. BUT... I *SO* need my databases... I have bits and pieces of it, but no current back up as up until yesterday morning, my server was whirring along like a well-oiled machine. Hadn't gone down, didn't have any issues. I'm a long-time Jatol customer, too, and have been saddened to see their service go down the tubes. And now, like everyone else posting... I'm pissed. Thanks for the tip on accessing the c-panels; not that it worked but it was worth a shot at least. My partners and I have been steadily moving our clients over to hostgator.com since mid July. So far... GREAT! And their customer service has been top-notch. Will be interested in seeing how all this plays out. I don't supposed we could file a class-action law suit could we?
Posted by jatolisbad, 09-07-2007, 09:15 AM
Just called them an the same old line "Sorry can't do anything. legal reasons" 1-866-753-3278 (x 3) If we all call maybe, just maybe they will let us in!
Posted by Patrick, 09-07-2007, 09:33 AM
Yeah... it doesn't work like that. Here's a better idea, stop harassing FastServers as they are not going to help you out. You are NOT their clients and they have absolutely no obligation to help you out. It's very unfortunate in regards to Jatol, but people need to stop bringing FastServers into this mess. They simply are not willing to get involved for obvious legal reasons, and calling them non-stop isn't going to change that.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-07-2007, 09:33 AM
The scary thing in this story is that we're not talking about a new kid on the block, this was an experienced provider. If this happens with providers that have been in business for 7 years, what can we expect from a newcomer? And how can we even start to judge them? Customers must be on their toes, continually, always preparing for the worst.
Posted by UH-Bobby, 09-07-2007, 09:43 AM
Even customers should have contingency plans or disaster recovery. Even the customers for personal sites, should have a backup schedule. Cpanel allows you to make full entire backups, make one every so often on a certain schedule. Nightly would be great, but for personal sites, every three days could work. Or if it's a site that doesn't change, then make a backup only when information changes. Also, I had a chat with a Planet representative, and he couldn't give me any information on anything, which is private and shouldn't be told to me.
Posted by jatolisbad, 09-07-2007, 09:56 AM
Hummm, I have Data that belongs to me and on there servers.. Seems like they do owe me that! I never said I hassled them, just called to see if they "could" do anything.. Maybe, and thats a maybe.. If they get more calls, they may say we need to step up and do the right thing here.. How about this: Jatol is a bad customer.. Not Paying them, what ever the problem is.. Fastservers goes to another one of there server lease customers and says "hey we have this opportunity for you, to step up and help these people" Yes, we all know whats coming next... You should of backed up. well, I didn't! Yes my fault but that does me no good.. We need to figure out whats really going on here.. We really dont know, do we? And I ask this, How do we know our Data is a Fastservers? Last edited by jatolisbad; 09-07-2007 at 09:57 AM. Reason: Added Info
Posted by iHubNet-Matt, 09-07-2007, 10:02 AM
Backups will be always advised. As ldcdc said, expect for the worse and be prepared for that. However good and reliable is your host, it is always safe to have your backup with you. In that case all you will lose is some money.
Posted by Patrick, 09-07-2007, 10:10 AM
No, they don't know you or have any connection to you, therefor they owe you nothing. If they were to allow Jatol customers access to their data, they could be opening themselves up to a lawsuit from Jatol (unlikely - but always a possibility). Not only is there the legal aspect of this, but by giving everyone their data, they lose the "bargaining chip" they could use against Jatol to try and get them to pay the bills. That's assuming they haven't been able to pay the bills... FastServers has more than a few employees and they are also actively involved in 2+ unrelated lawsuits. I'm pretty sure their legal department has advised management on this issue who has also advised all of the representatives to NOT get involved. Yes, it would be nice if they helped you out... but they have already stated they cannot due to legal reasons. It's my understanding that is the network provider Jatol primarily used.
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-07-2007, 10:18 AM
You don't have a contract with Fastservers, you have a contract with Jatol. It's different with the domain registrar where Jatol acted as an agent. Fastservers has no business with you. So the information is yours, to them it's data, but it could also be empty space. They are legally bound to the contract with Jatol. It's Jatol who needs to provide you with access to your information/data. Either doing it themselves or by providing Fastservers the agreement that they can open up the server for you. The biggie is: how do you get Jatol to give you access to your data? Has anybody here the terms under which you agreed with them to host? Chances are big that you don't have any legal right to get access to your data. BUT you do have an agreement that you should get access to some sort of hosting. As far as I know Jatol is not in a state of bankruptcy, so we still have a contract with Jatol. The thing is to figure out if Jatol is violating the contract or not. And then to get a court order to get your data.
Posted by jatolisbad, 09-07-2007, 10:31 AM
I missed this chance, but there is still hope, no? Now how can we get them to do it once more, now that people know whats going on?!? ============================================== The pity was felt! Journal Entry: Mon Sep 3, 2007, 9:13 PM Well... good news! After a lot of yelling, crying and tantrum throwing by Jatol's customers, FastServers put the servers back online for everyone to be able to get to their backup files. I can just imagine how many frantic people were madly downloading files tonight. I am sure their was a lot of heartburn medicine being consumed. I know I obliged in some myself! I feel ever so sorry for those who are hosted with Jatol and have no idea what is going on, or for those who have already moved and do not know they can access their files now. Well, time to get some sleep to prepare for a very busy day tomorrow! I hope all is well for everyone out there!
Posted by Patrick, 09-07-2007, 10:40 AM
I've been following this thread, but I don't believe anyone has stated for sure if FastServers was responsible for putting that server or two online. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, but it would seem very strange for FastServers to continue to deny any help then put a server online without issuing some notice here to the Jatol clients. It could have just been a mix-up and the server was put online in error... unless someone knows for a fact that it was intentional?
Posted by tfischer, 09-07-2007, 10:49 AM
You (and many others here) keep ignoring the fact that as far as FastServers is concerned, THE DATA BELONGS TO JATOL. The fact that you say it's "your" data doesn't mean anything to FastServers, as they don't have a contract with you. Please see my earlier post in this thread about the example of leasing a car, and if you can poke holes in my analogy, I'll be impressed. I do feel for people who are trying to get your data back. Jatol did a very bad thing. But your gripe is NOT with FastServers. You need to get your data back from Jatol, not FastServers. Just because you can actually speak with FastServers and not Jatol doesn't mean it's their problem or fault. If it was really that important to people, you could hire a private investigator to track down Tim... -Tim
Posted by tfischer, 09-07-2007, 10:53 AM
It could also be that some employee brought it up "to be helpful", without first consulting the legal department, who has since issued a "you can't do that again" decree. -Tim
Posted by ElfNori, 09-07-2007, 11:12 AM
I have the Jatol TOS. I also have the Auth User Pol if anyone needs that. Let me know if you need the Auth User Pol. ElfN
Posted by jljacobs, 09-07-2007, 12:01 PM
I haven't read this whole post (heck i'd need a day or two...LOL), but I am just going to put in my 2 cents about the whole situation. I am a long time Jatol customer, for almost 5 years now, and have always had good customer service and help from them, so this whole situation came as a huge shock to me. I was on vacation over the holiday weekend and when I got back...BAM....all my sites were gone. I have been upset about this over the last few days, but I come to realize that if I had kept up better with how Jatol was handling my domain registrar information, I would have not had such an issue with transferring and having the nameserver information changed. I have that all taken care of now, with some help and patience from myself and onlinenic. Through all this I am going to make it a point to keep my new host and registrar separate and control the domains myself. This will make my problems a great deal less if things like this happen in the future. I am not saying that onlinenic has not been helpful, but they have been swamped, so things are slow coming. I understand some of those who are very frustrated with this whole thing, but life it too short to get so upset about this. I am not dealing with the same kind of data loss as most since most of my websites are strictly informational and not database driven, so I can't know what each of you is going through, but you can't let something you have no control over get you so frustrated. I wish all of you the best in recovering your data and hopefully all of you get back up and running shortly. Thats my 2 cents, thanks for hearing me out! Jeff Jacobs
Posted by ElfNori, 09-07-2007, 12:29 PM
I live in hope that Jatol servers will come back up, but being realistic, I'm not holding my breath, nor am I waiting any longer to rebuild the sites that are down. I had already moved the majority of my clients before the first crash. I had a few clients who didn't get back to me when I sent out the "hey y'all". The ones who got back to me got moved, the ones who ignored me or didn't reply to my e are mostly missing in action. I will rebuild those clients I can, work with those clients I can't rebuild to get a site up for them, and we'll get through this, though it totally sucks. Hopefully Tim (Faldran) will be able to get the servers back up so we can retrieve our lost data. Hopefully he can find a tech to monitor support and manage things. I'm trying to stay positive here . . . ElfN
Posted by neilel, 09-07-2007, 01:18 PM
I just received this email from OnlineNIC: "Dear Valued Customer, We noticed that due to some unsure reasons, your registration service provider Jatol.com could not manage the domains for you temporarily. As Jatol.com are valuable customers, we may help them get over this difficult and help you manage your domains instead. You needn't worry about your domain will be lost at OnlineNIC. We always bear in mind the customer's profitibility. Contact us at cs_us@onlinenic.com any time if you want to renew your domain, modify the DNS and whois for your domain. We will be very pleased to help you. And we will provide the excellent support and price. Regards, OnlineNIC Support Team
Posted by cevamal, 09-07-2007, 01:42 PM
Do you have a full site backup? If so your new web host may be able to do the restore for you. I moved to hostgator and all I had to do was FTP my site backup to my root directory and they restored everything from there. I had a blog, gallery, phpbb, as well as a dozen email addresses, 60 aliases, and a half dozen mailing lists. They had everything restored and operational in a few minutes!
Posted by qqqq9, 09-07-2007, 02:15 PM
This is getting to be a noncompliance arbitrary domain indispensability directly due to the empowerment of onlinenic... even if jatol were to be indivisible to the incompleteness of the greediness for all involved it would still be incomprehensible as this is! I say we should unite for the good of the people into the machinated scroungiest of the hosting from our own sites unto the reservednesses of others for now.. this just a thought..
Posted by isildur, 09-07-2007, 03:02 PM
Dude. You've conjured more words in a single phrase or two than I have in my entire life, very probably my previous life, and my next seven reincarnations. I'll pass on well-deserved kudos for that, though unfortunately, my hands are thoroughly bound by the already discussed (about a hundred times) legality aspects of this giant debacle. We wish you the best. We certainly wish this enormous impasse could have been avoided. Hopefully that is obvious. It's not as though this isn't an immense time drain for all involved. We simply cannot overstep certain boundaries. Period.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-07-2007, 04:09 PM
I just encourage everyone to try to rebuild. I have somehow gotten into my old Jatol Cpanel...don't know how or why or whatever, perhaps someone took mercy on me, but I doubt it. But I kept trying every few minutes for the last couple of days to get into my Cpanel and by just a fluke I got in. It only lasted about 2 minutes but was enough for me to make a backup of my files, etc. Then it was done, I couldn't get back in. If it's worth that much to you, you'll try, it was worth it to me since I don't know if my hard drive is even fixable to get my files off of that. I do wish everyone luck and will keep checking back here to see if there have been any changes...I'm still curious as to what may have happened....geeeez PS: onlinenic wasn't able to even help me at all, or looks like even tried to. although they weren't rude, but still. even when I had my backup they wouldn't try to help....oh well
Posted by sunbox, 09-07-2007, 04:17 PM
For what it's worth I will continue to try accessing the cPanel today. I am another one of Jatol's clients that hasn't backed up my sites for a couple of years (end of '05).
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-07-2007, 04:32 PM
Jatol Class Action Lawsuit This is a formal post to help notify all affected clients of the company known as "Jatol" and/or "Timothy Tooley". A Class Action suit is being perused within the State of Kentucky to be led and initiated by an Arizona Limited Liability Corporation. Further details will not be posted on this website. For more information and to initiate contact with the respective legal parties please send your full contact information including: URL's (Affected or hosted) Hosting Accounts Billing Name and Address (Do not send credit card information) Representing Party Current Daytime and Evening Telephone Numbers Email Address (This information is held in strict confidence) To: JatolClassAction at GMAIL.com with Subject Line "Class Action Participant" A formal notification of participation will be emailed and/or mailed via USPS via certified first class mail to notify affected parties of their rights and options for participating in this class action suit. Best regards to all,
Posted by imountain, 09-07-2007, 04:59 PM
Not sure what you are saying but It's very rare that a long-standing company such as Jatol goes down like this and I am sure they never meant to harm their customers. Webhosting is a business and as such can fail as any other. I am sure Fastservers would like to assist but as they have stated it truly would not be legal for them to allow you third party access to their Jatol servers. What a series of unfortunate events for Jatol customers. I hope most of you have backups and we certainly wish you the best in getting the data back if you don't have it.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-07-2007, 06:07 PM
You are kidding, right? "... an Arizona Limited Liability Corporation" WHICH? "JatolClassAction at GMAIL.com" Right... A lawyer without his own domain using a free email service? I think I'll give my SS and bank account #'s to that nice guy from nigeria that just eMailed me. Let me know when you are ready to identify who YOU are.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-07-2007, 06:11 PM
On a happier note, all my sites are now up on a new host. I couldn't have done it without the help of the nice folks over at OnlineNic. Thanks!!!!!!!
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-07-2007, 06:24 PM
As stated, "No further information" will be posted via this website. Additional information will be provided accordingly. PS I am not a lawyer and a member of a company affected by this issue who happens to have been Jatol's largest client. As for my email address? I cannot use my domains now can I Bubba? Being that they are locked into this Jatol Issue. Which LLC? Mine! Sir! Additionally, a motion will be filed with the Kentucky Court of Justice. Wether or not it is a class action suit will be based upon how many others petition the court. And reference to legal parties will be appropriately named. We did not request payment there bubba! Please... do not send your credit card number... Further flame messages to this will be ignored. Yes, we are hoping that a resolve will be met by Jatol, however, items such as this need to be discussed among relevant parties and those involved. You sir, seem like you have nothing better to do than to make sensless postings. Are you the internet predator?. I sir, on the contrary, am loosing a documented sum per day. Last edited by WebNewsroom; 09-07-2007 at 06:29 PM.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-07-2007, 06:37 PM
Um... restore your backups. Your backups should include your email. It's your backups, smackups attitude that you can blame here.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-07-2007, 06:43 PM
As stated repeatedly, the only data on that server is Jatol's, at least concerning the law, the contract, and how FastServers must look at the issue. FastServers is required by law and contract to wipe all data off the server, unless Jatol signs the server over to a new owner. Get Jatol to agree to that, then they can talk. Some people know because they tracked the IP of their site to a FastServers IP. Or atleast one they think is a FastServers IP.
Posted by WebNewsroom, 09-07-2007, 07:01 PM
I am rather concerned as to how many of you folks had security certificates with customer credit dard data left on their server? I for one did not even leave my encrypted information on the server ever. And deleted it after every order. Just curious To the previous comment, I can gurantee a deputy lives nearby to serve him a summons. Last edited by WebNewsroom; 09-07-2007 at 07:01 PM. Reason: duuh
Posted by oldcqr, 09-07-2007, 07:55 PM
When you identify yourself completely with all the data you are requesting, then perhaps you'll have a little credibility. Until then, I (and everyone else) don't know you from Adam and would be insane to send you ANY personal info.
Posted by tfischer, 09-07-2007, 09:26 PM
WebNewsRoom, I'm not a Jatol customer anymore, so I wouldn't be part of your class either way. But I do understand oldcqr's concerns. These days with all the internet/identity theft, people are pretty concerned about who they give their personal info to. Now I realize that you aren't asking for anything overly personal that you couldn't get from most people's whois lookup anyway, but is it possible you can give a little bit more info about who you (and your company) are so they can decide if this is worth the risk? I think you might get more participation that way. Just trying to help your cause... -Tim
Posted by tfischer, 09-07-2007, 09:30 PM
(Sorry, off topic warning...) I know a lot of people (like me) are new to WHT, due to this Jatol issue, and might be wondering why their post count is zero... I just looked it up... It's because WHT doesn't count posts in the "Advertising Forums" section as "countable" posts. I coudn't give a rip about post counts, except it's annoing that I can't use any type of BBCode or links because I've only posted to this thread... Why is this thread considered "advertising" anyway??? Sorry again for the OT... -Tim
Posted by neilel, 09-07-2007, 11:09 PM
It only took a few hours after I sent them an email requesting my name servers be redirected until my site was back online. I had two sites at Jatol and one was still online earlier today. The other went down two days ago. I had backup on my hard drive for both. One domain was with Jatol and the other with Yahoo. I'm thankful that OnlineNIC was so helpful, but I was wondering if this was because they were contractually obligated to be the registrar for the domains Jatol sold. They mentioned in their email that Jatol was a client. The lesson I take from this is to keep the domain at a different place from the web site.
Posted by cevamal, 09-07-2007, 11:18 PM
Why? I would be interested in participating in a lawsuit, but not on so little information.
Posted by a302b, 09-08-2007, 12:53 AM
Hi everyone, I too am an ex-Jatol customer, and was unfortunately unable to get my data back when it crashed. Sigh. There have been a lot of people on this forum saying "well, tough luck. you should have backed your data up properly". I well, learned this the hard way. I just didn't expect a reputable company like Jatol to fall apart like that. Now I want to ask people if they can offer any solutions to backing things up effectively, especially with my situation. I travel extensively around the world, often for long periods of time in remote third-world countries without access to computers or the internet. When I do have access to the internet, it is usually from a different computer every time, and I don't have a single computer that I can use and store things there. I am transferring to a different server, but I really need to store things online, as I don't have a place I can store things for myself. Static webpages are easily retrieved via various caches. I believe it is possible to automatically forward a copy of every email received to another server or address. Does anyone know if this is possible and/or how to do it? Also, I have a bunch of scripts and server-side data in order to automate and simplify things while I am gone. Is there a way to automatically back these up online to a server in a different location? Part of me is thinking of signing up with two hosting companies, having nameserver information for both (in case one goes down), and automatically updating between the two somehow. Does anyone with more knowledge of the matter know if this is at all possible? Thanks for al your help!
Posted by AlbaG, 09-08-2007, 02:44 AM
Hi a302b, yep, similar (not same) problems that I had for years. The probably best idea, if you have family or friends whom you can really depend on, fully trust and who have a broadband line, would be to ask them to do a daily backup. Two hosting/server spaces also are a feasible practice. That depends largely on allowed bandwidth and size of your site. If you choose a host for your live site which allows nightly cronjobs (and I'd ask for that in writing first), then it ought to be no problem installing an automated backup every night via cron to your second hostspace. Careful - this taxes bandwidth on both sides, what is sent from the live server counts onto that account, what arrives on the other will be added to the other. I seem to have read somewhere, can't find it again, but cronjob savvy people should be able to give you the right pointers, a method for keeping 3 daily backups of consecutive three days, always refreshing to the current date, as a backup. This then also is an insurance against hacking/defacing and not just loss of data through hosts shutting off servers. Greetings OK
Posted by valeriestw, 09-08-2007, 12:24 PM
If you have cpanel, it's a pretty quick and easy job to do a full site backup - only takes about 30 seconds and you can download it and email it to yourself, if you are not at your own computer. It won't help you restore piecemeal, but it will save your entire site should, say, your host skip town. Here are step by step instructions: www.digigirl.us A quick Google of "web site backup" brought up several remote backup services that will store your info and allow you to access it from various places. I didn't look closely, but there may be one that will do auto backups for you. You might look into something like that.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-08-2007, 01:16 PM
Tim is quite correct. The car lease company has no idea who you are. By giving you the suitcases, they are opening themselves to a lawsuit from the company that leased the car, unless they first contacted them and got the OK to release the suitcases.
Posted by SoftWareRevue, 09-08-2007, 02:35 PM
It's nice that you all have a place to discuss this frustrating issue. But, if you can't be nice to each other, we'll have no choice but to close this thread. Address the issue at hand, not each other.
Posted by neilel, 09-08-2007, 04:43 PM
A ways back in this thread someone brought up the information that Mr. Tooley had been taken ill. Is there anything more known about this? Does anyone know for sure? Has anyone contacted his family or has his house been checked to see if he has, in fact, died? The abrupt cessation of service with some sites going down on the 31st and others still up would suggest that the servers that are still up had their bills paid through a certain date and the others didn't. Sounds like a passive process with no one at the controls. If he has indeed died, or if he is disabled perhaps he has a living will which would name someone who could make decisions for him. Possible contacting local law enforcement in Henderson, TN would be advisable if it hasn't already been done.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-08-2007, 05:10 PM
Thanks for the forum - there has been a ton of helpful information (to go along with some speculation and definitely a fair amount of plain old venting. I've been meaning to register for this site for awhile - unfortunately being a now former Jatol customer and going through this was what finally got me to sign up. I look forward to the being involved in other discussions here at Web Hosting Talk. That said, it's really only one poster who seems be the problem - it would really be a shame to penalize everyone instead of just the bad apple. I know, I know, don't feed the trolls. But since you stepped in to actually try & get things in order, why not just boot the bad guy instead? (And here I have gone completely off topic to comment on this - my apologies).
Posted by tfischer, 09-08-2007, 10:26 PM
I think this is a reasonable train of thought. I know at least one person in this thread has claimed to have knocked on his door (with no answer). But the common thread among everything here (former employees, former accountant, FastServers, etc) is "We can't reach Tim". That, and the talk about him being "ill" makes me worried that something bad might have happened... Matt and/or Logan, do you have any mutual, non-business contacts with Tim that can verify his existence/status? -Tim
Posted by qqqq9, 09-08-2007, 11:50 PM
This clangorously educatedness of this problem is starting to become a dormant thesis for all the diffractometers of the hosting companies involvement into the inauspiciousness of our demiseability, regardless of incompetence or hydrogenations of our systems. The entire hydraulicity of our data existence has been unchivalrously perturbed by our own valiance to retrieve our idiomatic dichotomy, and we risk of losing everything thanks to the mediocrities syndrome of one individual ! has anyone any solutions..?!?!
Posted by cevamal, 09-09-2007, 12:21 AM
NOW I know who's composing my spam!
Posted by jatolisbad, 09-09-2007, 01:59 AM
I sent this to the Media in Detroit (Where I live) and Nashville, FOX NEWS PROBLEM SOLVERS, I too am in the media but Entertainment for CBS RADIO so I can't do much but maybe my friends can! VERY LARGE INTERNET WEBSITE HOST COMPANY SKIPS TOWN WITH MONEY, AND THOUSANDS OF BUSINESS WEBSITES AND EMAIL SYSTEMS GO DOWN WITHOUT NOTICE! AND NO ONE IS ANSWERING PHONES OF TALKING! First Off, My Name is Shane Hamelin.. I am an On-Air personality at Live 97.1 Free FM Detroit and Co-Host a show on the weekends with Bill Doyle from Deminski and Doyle. The same station Jay Towers is at. I also own a private Internet Technologies company (Small, Just me) that I did websites before I went into radio. Now I still help my customers here in Detroit but it's not my source of income anymore, radio is BUT... There is a company near Nashville TN, Called Jatol. They are a pretty large website host company that leases they're company websites and company email systems business servers from FASTSERVERS Businesses pay Jatol Inc. to host they're websites and email servers. Then Jatol pays FASTSERVERS for leasing them the server space. Well, starting this past Friday Sept 7th 2007 THOUSANDS of companies websites and email systems have be shut down with out notice!! Jatol Inc. Phones are disconnected, there website is down and no one is taking the blame. This may not sound big but let me tell you. THOUSANDS of Jatol customers are out services they have paid for in a year advance, in most cases. These companies that make there living using email and websites and have NOTHING now! You may ask what does this have to do with MICHIGAN. Well I take care of two pretty good size companies here in Michigan that have been put out because of this! One Large Auto Insurance company (TAKE INSURANCE QUOTES VIA THERE WEBSITE AND EMAIL SYSTEM) and a appraisal Company that does ALL theyre business via email. These companies I represent are right here in Michigan, and these are just the ones I know. We are talking thousand in the country. I have also sent this email to the Nashville FOX Station in hopes of a joint effort. Here is a link to just some of the companies that are effected buy this major scandal. The rumors is, the owner of the company just took off with all this money and didn't pay FASTSERVERS and they intern shut them down! or the president of Jatol is sitting dead in his house. MANY have called FASTSERVERS and asked them if they could please just turn the servers back on so ALL THE COMPANIES and download there websites, data and emails. They say there is nothing they can do, contact Jatol. THATS A DEAD END. FASTSERVERS knows whats going on but they refuse to help. See if they help then Jatol has no reason to pay them what Jatol owes them. BECUASE EVERYONE thinks the president of Jatol ran with all our money! There are many peoples jobs and livelihoods on the line here and something needs to HAPPEN NOW! When I say this is a huge scandal, trust me it is! I have done some research and here are the players involved. (POSSIBLE THIS MAN RAN WITH MONEY or IS DEAD) Timothy M. Tooley (PERSONAL RESIDENCE) President, Jatol Internet Services, Inc. 209 Raindrop Lane Hendersonville, TN 37075 Billing Address: Jatol Internet Services c/o J.H. Calvert Accounting PO Box 425 Lewisport, KY 42351 USA Physical: Jatol Internet Services c/o J.H. Calvert Accounting 8153 U.S. 60 W. Lewisport, KY 42351 USA (COMPANY THAT JATOL LEASES SERVERS FROM THAT HAS ALL OUR DATA) FASTSERVERS Geoffrey Crump FastServers.net Director, Customer Service/Billing 866-753-3278 x111 PLEASE HELP ALL THESE PEOPLE!! SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE NOW! FASTSERVERS MUST let use get our website data backup and moved! WE NEED OUR SERVERS TURNED BACK ON SOE WE CAN MOVE OUR DATA, THE FASTSERVERS.NET can deal with Jatol on there own time and money! Shane Hamelin LIVE 97.1 Free FM (586) 489-3373
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-09-2007, 02:21 AM
<> Any way, other than a few factual errors, and other points, I'm just curious where you get that a one man company is a large hosting company, or that he had thousands of customers. I am not even going to address the other fallacies in your post, or any of the many times repeated facts you seem to love ignoring, like the fact that FastServers.net could not legally help, even if they wanted to. Last edited by Justin; 09-09-2007 at 05:59 PM. Reason: snipped somewhat rude comment
Posted by EddieDutch, 09-09-2007, 05:17 AM
Well I checked your posts for this thread and you made one suggestion: backup. Ok, point taken! You're starting to sound like a broken record. NOW YOU BACK UP!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-09-2007, 06:08 AM
I've actually made at least 2 other very solid and very constructive comments, in which no-one has yet reported back on, that had nothing to do with backups. I have also had MANY posts on why FastServers cannot simply give you access to the servers, in which backing up was not mentioned (unless it was in reference to somebody using the term "backup" to refer to "migrate my site") I do, however, seem to be getting some flack due to my understanding the predicament that FastServers is in, and not feeling bad for people who only feel that their site is valuable when it is too late to do anything about it. In fact, looking over my own posts, the only "broken record" posts I have been making are repeatedly pointing out that harassing FastServers, or blaming your problem on FastServers is both not helpful, and erroneous. I am more than a little curious why I am being called a broken record, when in the last few posts you can see chortaj and jatolisbad repeatedly claiming that FastServers is at fault and "Owes them their data". In fact, each time I post something it is directly related to a comment made by someone else... And for a while their chotaj and I had a few posts about why his data retention plan(where he felt that when a server was decommissioned all the data on it needed to be archived and made available to the leasee's leasee for a YEAR, on the dedicated host provider's dime) was a costly and poorly thought out plan.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-09-2007, 06:34 AM
Hi Ozymandias, contrary to what you are saying, people here have indeed named the individual servers, up (Bridget, Aethelwulf, vitellius) and down (vespasian/vespasian2). You prefer to twist legal aspects as they please you. I by now truly would love to hear your language, if your legal forthcomings here were applied to say a nicely expensive Rolex you own (easy to prove ownership by the way) or your wallet (also usually darn easy to prove, most even contain some ID). I'd just love to play a fly on the wall, if someone were to tell you, you have to wait for an impounded car or closed due loan unpaid hotel to be paid up for by the lessee/owner before you get your possessions back. And too bad if he doesn't pay, then your Rolex or wallet will simply be destroyed or kept forever. Tell you what, I'd bet anything that I'd still be able to dryblow my hair with your ramblings across another continent, because right then you'd know precisely as well that property rights are property rights and don't change simply because someone else happens to have - without any sort of legitimation (and most certainly no, having a contract with a third party on the physical place the item is in doesn't constitute a legitimation) - hold of the actual item. Oh, and whether or not you like customers' rights, I'll place another bet that it won't be that long before there are countries applying normal physical item laws to digital items. Very funny in this is that the USA are actually forerunners in this respect with their pushing for extensive copyright and digital ownership laws. So whether you consider it impractical or not, it's going to happen. When you have a close look at recent legislative efforts and legislation regarding digital matters, you see the direction things are taking and it's the one I suggest, not yours. There will be some span of time when end users will vote with their feet and host in countries where their ownership of data will be guaranteed, but in the end laws like that will be universal. Greetings OK Last edited by AlbaG; 09-09-2007 at 06:38 AM.
Posted by joeuser98, 09-09-2007, 09:44 AM
This is my first post because up till now, I didn't really have much to add to the conversation. I was a client of Jatol, but only had a couple hobby sites hosted, so while I lost some data (I had file backups, but not database backups) it wasn't that great of a loss for me. Has anyone thought of hiring a private investigator to find Tim Tooley? I would guess that a local PI would be able to track him down pretty quickly and at least determine if he's ill, deceased, or fled the country or something. It's not worth it for me, as I said I only lost data for some hobby sites. But if anyone does hire a PI I'm sure several ex jatol clients would probably chip in some money. A quick search on Yahoo yellow pages, shows that there is a PI firm in his home town: Hager Investigations. (615) 824-7996 If Tim is ill or deceased, the private investigator can probably turn up his next of kin as well. Just a suggestion for those of you who have important data that you want back in a fairly timely manner.
Posted by Dougy, 09-09-2007, 10:36 AM
Wow.
Posted by ElfNori, 09-09-2007, 01:53 PM
Ranting is very important. It's an outlet which supports good health. Just don't hit submit. Rant, type it all up, read it and nod and smile at your wit and daring, then erase it and respond in a professional, adult, relatively sane manner. It's what we call "self-restraint". I had a friend look over my shoulder during the composition of a rant to a community member, and she was agast. I then erased it all and composed a polite and respectful email that still got the point across in a friendly and polite way. Works for me. ElfN
Posted by tfischer, 09-09-2007, 02:33 PM
As has been stated several times in this thread, J H Calvert is no longer involved with Jatol, and has not been able to contact Tim Tooley for some time (my speculation is he didn't get paid either, and therefore resigned). There's really no reason to drag him into this, unless you suspect he is lying/covering things up, which I really don't think follows from the dialog... -Tim
Posted by tfischer, 09-09-2007, 02:35 PM
I mentioned this a bit earlier in the thread, but like you, I have no personal incentive to do this (I haven't been a Jatol customer for over a year). I think it's probably a good idea, though. No idea of the expenses, but if they could be divided up among a few clients who claim they're losing "thousands per day", probably not that much per person... -Tim
Posted by emosissy, 09-09-2007, 03:11 PM
As I check my e-mail more often than I review this discussion thread, I was hoping we would set up a mailing list to alert each other if the servers come back up. I've taken the liberty of creating a yahoo group for this purpose: tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ex-jatolusers/ Once you join the group, you will get any message sent to ex-jatoluser at yahoogroups.com. I ask that we use the group for ALERTS ONLY and not for discussion. If you all know of a better way to do this, please share (I'm certainly not an expert).
Posted by Justin, 09-09-2007, 05:54 PM
Ladies and Gents, we need to be keeping this thread On Topic. At this point it'd be appreciated keeping any side comments to just that side comments. Thank you for respecting the WHT community guidelines.
Posted by VersaliftEast, 09-09-2007, 06:47 PM
I don't know if i have the time to read all the rants on this subject - but we too are a jatol user and was happy to at least find some information on what the heck was going on! Can anyone just a step by step on what one has to do right now to get their site(s) back up?! I have the main code for most of my pages - but anything that was running ona mysql app i do not - and would hate to think all that data is lost.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-09-2007, 06:52 PM
I think the barefacedness of this rudimentary colloquial issue is due to the fact that our imposing and referable data has been severed from us in a unmitigated upthrusting and disdaining way, with no severance or global exponents to ventilate our anger, or retrievable foaming from this information superhighway, whatever route is taken! If only our slanderously seditious unscrupulous factitious Tim would show his unbecoming hazardously face it would demure our entire existence into finality of deepening involvement towards his collying charade! And then we can serenade and rest assured that we can finally excrement into the totality dismembering of our servers by fastservers to their final impressionability and resting place!
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-09-2007, 07:19 PM
No I myself do not, and I do not think Matt does. The former accountant does, but has had no luck himself.
Posted by seva, 09-09-2007, 10:31 PM
I'm one of the lucky ones who managed to get his data off the servers while they were momentarily back online, but I've been following the thread. Has anyone thought of asking FastServers whether the reason the servers are offline may be because the bill hasn't been paid. If that were so, perhaps one of you could pay Tooley's bill? FastServers might not care who writes the check, and they might just turn the servers back on for a while. This presumes that Tooley hasn't specifically told FastServers to shut down the machines, and it sounds odd that he would do that. The only reason I can imagine that would have happened would be due to the fact that the servers got hacked.
Posted by seva, 09-09-2007, 10:36 PM
NOTICE: I just realized that I should report this. My company's credit card number was recently used in some fraudulent internet charges, and I strongly suspect it was due to Jatol getting hacked. While I have no confirmation of this, it was the same card number that was used in Jatol's automatic billing. I would strongly recommend that you be on the alert for fraud, and you may wish to call your credit card company and have them be on alert as well. As well, I think VISA may be a potential ally for some of you in pursuit of Tooley. In any case, he'll be facing some significant liability if VISA does trace the fraud to his system getting hacked. As for me, I've already disputed the most recent CC charge, and I plan to dispute them as far back as I'm allowed. If Tooley responds to the dispute, it'll prove he's still active.
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-10-2007, 05:26 AM
I just discovered this site and discussion and am so glad I did. I've been a Jatol customer for 7 years and had no idea why I wasn't able to use Jatol's invoicing tool to pay for an upcoming URL renewal and why my e-mails to support were bouncing back. Apparently I'm one of the lucky ones (for now, anyway) whose small business site is on the Bridget server. I have all my website html and jpg files locally so that's not a problem, but before the server goes down, I need to somehow capture all the e-mail (inbox and in created personal folders) I have in all my e-mail accounts. I'm not a techie at all, so please forgive these very basic questions. Is it possible for me to acquire my e-mail files and somehow download them to my PC? If yes, can someone please provide me step-by-step instructions for that process? I found a link in an earlier post for how to download a site backup. I tried doing that since I was able to login to Control Panel. It appears that a backup was generated, but I was not able to download it to my PC (disconnected from server during process). I'll try again in a couple of hours, but can someone tell me if whatever is generated from that backup process only creates backup files for the site (just html, jpg, etc) or are e-mail files (those in inbox as well as personal folders created) included in that backup as well? If e-mail files are not included, is there another way to get them and verify they aren't incomplete or corrupt? Any assistance/info would be very helpful. Thank you very much.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-10-2007, 05:30 AM
Hi, the backup should also create the email files. But the easiest way would be to use an off-line email client like Thunderbird or Outlook and simply download all your email. Greetings OK
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-10-2007, 12:14 PM
Okay, this next question is going to show you all just how "green" and "non-techie" I am. How do I use Thunderbird (steps) or what do I need to do in Outlook to download the e-mail files? I currently have 10 separate e-mail accounts associated with my URLs on my Jatol (or is it, ex-Jatol?) account that I need to obtain files for. When I log into Control Panel, it gives me the option of using either Horde or SquirrelMail to see my e-mail. I don't have anything patching me over into Outlook. Is that easy to do? Can someone provide me steps? Thank you all for any help you can provide. This whole situation is very frustrating (and a bit frightening) for me because I now have to find a new provider and transfer everything, and I don't know the lingo or the steps. Logan, Matt, and Tim were kind enough to assist me over the years after I ran across Jatol purely by chance when contemplating taking my business online. Now I'm learning again (thanks to this unfortunate situation) from what I've read in all the posts in this thread. Thanks to everyone here who has posted good, basic, detailed info. It's very helpful for people like me who don't possess much technical experience or background.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-10-2007, 12:22 PM
Hi, which system do you use on your computer? Windows? Linux? Outlook and Outlook Express are built-in email clients of a Windows computer. You can configure each of your email accounts there, just google for instructions. Thunderbird is a free local email client and needs also be installed on your computer, there too you will have to install each of your accounts singly. Either of this email clients then connects to your server when you're online and pulls the messages from the server. Just curious, as you're the second saying he/she only reads webmail - is it so uncommon these days in the USA to download one's email? I never use webmail unless I'm abroad and have no access to my computer. Greetings OK
Posted by sirrens, 09-10-2007, 01:36 PM
Ok, Im in the process of moving my domains.. But I have this question. Once I move them and say for some reason jatol Servers come back online.. Will I be able to grab my data?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-10-2007, 01:42 PM
Sure, Just connect to the old machine by IP rather than domain name.
Posted by cevamal, 09-10-2007, 01:46 PM
I was surprised by that, too. I only use webmail if I'm at a computer other than my own. (and I'm in the U.S.)
Posted by cevamal, 09-10-2007, 02:02 PM
Here's a walkthrough of downloading, installing, and setting up Thunderbird: opensourcearticles.com/introduction_to_thunderbird When you get to the "server information" screen select "POP" and enter "mail.yourdomain.net/com/org/etc." in the "Incoming Server" field. i.e. if your domain were "filmdiva.com" you would enter "mail.filmdiva.com" On the next screen enter your full email address, i.e. "betty@filmdiva.com". And that should do it! When it checks mail the first time it will ask for your password. Good luck, and feel free to ask if you need more help. Emails are included and I would highly recommend trying again to download that backup file since it will enable to completely restore your site in one fell swoop, rather than setting everything back up individually.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-10-2007, 06:37 PM
I called fastservers and said I was willing to pay the bill owed to them by Tim, they said legally they cant disclose the amount he owes..!?!?! I said you know what I'll pay even more then he owes just name a number and let me know.. their reply cant help you.. They seem to hellbent on not helping us!!! Regarding Tim.. why cant Matt or Logan tell us about the situation with him, I am sure they know whats up.. I think we should try to call some people in nearby area and states with Toolley last name.. maybe its some relatives and they can tell us whats up with Tim..
Posted by sirrens, 09-10-2007, 06:42 PM
I tell you want this is the best ide yet! Thanks Man!
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-10-2007, 07:06 PM
qqqq9 - The reason that fastservers cannot give you control of the servers, no matter how much you pay, is because they are in a legally binding contract with Jatol Inc. When Jatol Inc. doesn't pay their bills, the servers get pulled and reformatted to be reallocated to other clients. They aren't hellbent on not helping you guys, their hands are tied by the system. Their contract with Jatol means that they legally have no control over the servers, except in the situation in which the bills aren't paid, at which time all client data has to be wiped from the HDD.
Posted by Dougy, 09-10-2007, 07:12 PM
Nothing can be done.
Posted by lilnomad, 09-10-2007, 07:43 PM
John Lennon wrote a song, and I think everyone in this thread would benefit from hearing it. It's called Let It Be.
Posted by sirrens, 09-10-2007, 08:12 PM
lilnomad... Do you get ripped off by Jatol? Maybe you feel differant if you did.. This the same Tim you guys think? Last edited by anon-e-mouse; 09-11-2007 at 07:59 AM.
Posted by home2spec, 09-10-2007, 08:18 PM
Anyone here know an attorney that is willing to go into court and obtain an injunction against fastservers in order to keep them from erasing the data on the servers formerly rented by jatol? In the mean time another lawsuit could be instituted against fastservers as they are illegally holding intelectual property that does not belong to them. ie: If I own a rental property (fastservers) and I lease it to you (jatol) then jatol in turn sub leases all the rooms in that home (to us), then years later jatol stops paying rent as per the lease or just vacates leaving no forwarding address. I sublet a room from you and am now locked out of the house because you skipped town. Whatever's in the room that I sublet from you (jatol) still belongs to me. And... If you (fastservers) destroy my property in the process of reclaiming your leased house from (jatol) You are in violation of several articles in the lease which allows for sub-leases. I believe that the property owner has to allow me to retrieve my possessions. He can't just keep the doors locked and throw all my belongings in a dumpster. Does this make any sense? I know jack about law but I stayed at a holiday inn express one night.
Posted by sirrens, 09-10-2007, 08:23 PM
Just talk to the Hendersonville, TN Police Chief... Money has been taken, this is internet fraud and a crime! He said to contact "YOUR" local police dept, internet fraud detective. They will contact the Hendersonville Police and at least we can get some info on this guy and what happen! Everyone that has lost money and data call and file your reports and ask them to contact Hendersonville, TN Police : 615-822-1111 During my call to TN police dept.. I can tell they have received calls! Below is his current address.. NOTE- All the HOST and NEGITIVE replies telling us to "Get over it" Please no need to reply. If you can't help, why harass Timothy M. Tooley (PERSONAL RESIDENCE) President, Jatol Internet Services, Inc. 209 Raindrop Lane Hendersonville, TN 37075 Last edited by sirrens; 09-10-2007 at 08:26 PM. Reason: DONT WANT HARASSMENT
Posted by lilnomad, 09-10-2007, 08:42 PM
In response to the question posed by sirrens, the answer is yes. Were my sites bringing in $1k a month, nope. None the less, I did lose my personal blog (which I hadn't bothered making backups of). Also I developed a few sites for businesses, and they were hosted by Jatol. Those sites were mainly static sites, so it was easy to switch to a new host with little loss of data. None the less, I recommended this company to my clients, so I shed some embarrassment there. But what could I do? It was beyond my control. I explained the situation, and I immediately worked on getting them back online. Which by the way, most of the sites I created I was no longer in charge of. It was a one time deal for the most part. Though I kept a backup of the files, something that wasn't required in the contract. The companies who hired me, they got lucky that I had backups of the work. As already mentioned, if your site was bringing in a ton of money, why wouldn't you backup? As a CEO you have an important job, and you shouldn't hire other people to do a job without looking over their shoulder. As a CEO "you" should have taken precautions in protecting your company.
Posted by lilnomad, 09-10-2007, 08:47 PM
Let me also say, I understand and feel the same anger you all feel towards Jatol. However I don't agree in getting upset at another company. In life there is one thing you should always do, and that is protect yourself, which is what fastservers is doing. Due to this, I can't be upset at them. I would not take action for somebody else that could bring me into a lawsuit, so I would not ask that from someone else.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-10-2007, 09:44 PM
home2spec great anology... Yes that is my property on fastservers.. and again they are not providing any hidden data all that data will be as it was online for all the years and cpanel is accessed only by our login password... if they erase my data I tell you this I will get a lawyer to erase their entire business.. as they have done to me.. now I urge everyone also to get visa to reverse all charges all the way back for all this loss and fraud.. and I had enough of all the people defending fastservers, Logan & Matt.. I dont care for any defense counsel for this guys.. I want these people to step up and help in the solution... you want to defend them.. then defend the captain of your cruise ship when it goes down and he tells you all the legalities etc.. why he cant save the ship, and when you are drowning you can say with your last breath.. I think he's right...
Posted by isildur, 09-10-2007, 10:02 PM
You've made our point for me (us) by simply speaking, sir. Though, as I've come to expect it's impossible to divine what you're attempting to convey, at the very least one can obviously detect how completely vulnerable we would become legally if we were to make an ill-informed, though exceedingly helpful to many, decision of short-sighted proportions. Regardless (against our better judgement), we're looking into it, we've *been* looking into it, alongside the endless bombardment that continues to threaten overall productivity here at FS. Rest assured, we would have already done anything and everything if it were possible to neutralize our required, everyday contributions here (sigh)... though alas, such avenues are hazardous if not immensely dangerous to entertain. You'll need to quell your rhetoric against FastServers and those that you've decreed as your linguistic adversaries. Realize what the core of the issue is, apply common sense, and understand we certainly would have acted, in extreme haste, if it were possible. As futile as our continued investigations are, as I eluded to above, we will keep attempting to unearth a viable, all-encompassing, protected go-forward for our company... and/or, someone could send our accounting department a blank check on behalf of the entity in question. I'll regret that. In all seriousness, please, attempt to grasp the anti-pleasing corner we're painted into currently. We're doing our best. I understand that's not good enough. This impasse will very, very likely remain, and there isn't anything more to say. If/when that changes (0.0009237% likelihood at this junction in time)... well, the general populace will be aware of such developments long before I/we will be able to alert said populace. Not that I have any legal right to do so, mind you. Thank you for listening. Last edited by isildur; 09-10-2007 at 10:07 PM.
Posted by qqqq9, 09-10-2007, 10:19 PM
Fastservers you may as well keep all your nonsense decimal points possibilities (.0000923) to yourself, when you will allow us our right to our data we would like to hear from you... we have been too patient and you will soon learn that patience has its ending!
Posted by isildur, 09-10-2007, 10:26 PM
You forgot the seven. As the recently-crowned Praetor of Intelligibility in these hallowed halls, it would be wise for you to understand I was making a point, and a very, very important one: our hands, as mentioned, are thoroughly bound here. There is a microscopic chance of an option materializing for our position that could assist those affected. Nonetheless, we shall proceed in attempting to decipher one. Now... We'll be dealing (that is to say, simply digesting upcoming contributions) with sane individuals only going forward. This is the last time I will address you directly as I will not aid you in transforming this juggernaut of a thread into a full-on circus. Last edited by isildur; 09-10-2007 at 10:30 PM.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-10-2007, 11:01 PM
isildur - while I appreciate humor and your non-legalese language, I'd recommend you be very careful in choosing your words. You're dealing with some very upset people, looking to blame someone and if you're going to post as a FastServers employee, anything you say, even if it's in a humorous tone, could be used against you as evidence of company policy. I think those of us who are rational individuals have long ago realized there's very little you could do because of privacy laws as well as the terms of your contract with Jatol. Those who don't get it at this point, won't get it. A lot of analogies have been thrown out there, most of them just not accurate - except for the safety deposit box one. I find it hard to believe this is the first time FastServers has been through this situation. While a hosting company pulling a disappearing act puts you in a bad position, through no fault of your own, you can't be surprised at the frustrations people have when it happens. And as unfair as it is, it is the nature of the business that some will blame you. I understand there is almost nothing you can do to resolve the current situation with Jatol - and I'd guess Tooley will be even harder for you guys to find than anyone else since he owes you money. But what plans to you have going forward to try and better deal with these situations? Can you work language into your contracts with your customers, the hosting companies, to address what happens in situations similar to this? I could envision a clause along the lines of if their account goes unpaid for XX days, you have the right to return the data to their customers for a fee if they provide proof of account ownership. Also, given presumably Tooley owes you a substantial amount of money, it would seem you guys have a vested interest in tracking him down. Heck you probably have a valid claim on his assets.
Posted by sgrayban, 09-10-2007, 11:04 PM
A reverse search for the address at whitepages.com is interesting. There is a church right on that street and I'll bet Tim goes there. A neighbour.. Harris, Jerrell R & Patricia L 210 Raindrop Ln Hendersonville, TN 37075-2402 (615) 822-5014 Church.... Northeast Church 310 Raindrop Ln Hendersonville, TN 37075-2424 (615) 822-5550 Bet the preacher knows Tim. -- Scott
Posted by isildur, 09-10-2007, 11:10 PM
Point well taken, although, making an honest point about precisely how minute the chance(s) are (of direct, FS-intervention) was my aim, as opposed to making light of the situation in the slightest. To the rest, I cannot answer as verbosely as I'd like to, and as such, will have to avoid the bulk of your comments. Rest assured, it's likely the entire ball of contractual wax will be re-analyzed from start to finish, and certain portions quite probably revamped, though it depends on pending research and guidance from certain legal eagles, to be sure. We certainly would be overjoyed to have the power to diffuse or sidestep this type of a catastrophe in the future. It's not exactly a probable advancement... but, it's one we desperately *are* looking into.
Posted by doodles80, 09-10-2007, 11:17 PM
Greetings, I too have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express but thankfully my knowledge of the law was derived from other sources. The ironic part about your post is that you have helped make FastServers case for them. In an actual commercial landlord / lessee relationship, should rental payments not be made for a signed lease the landlord in fact has the ability to take ownership of the contents of the space. Obviously intellectual property would not be covered under these same statutes but if a breach of contract exists between FastServers and their client it would seem they are going down the only path legally open to them. If you are able to get your legal defense fund together it would be suggestible that your first move would be to clarify the law. Will probably save you much time money as well as further embarrassment.
Posted by inbox99, 09-10-2007, 11:18 PM
Quoting isildur: Was this typed by an actual person? It sounds like something that Babelfish spit out. And for all of those complaining: you have backups of your site, right? Just move to a new host. End of problem.
Posted by isildur, 09-10-2007, 11:27 PM
/waves around Iowa Driver's License frantically... /directs you to the shrine of awesome hair days... /reaches into skull, sprays compressed air...
Posted by mike240se, 09-10-2007, 11:45 PM
How does tim tooley, making plenty of money on a fixed income of people paying for sites every week, not have enough money to pay his bills? He probably developed a crack habit and that was his "medical issues", blew all our money and then disappeared into the ghettos of wherever, probably in some rehab, and they are saying "tim, you should let your old life go, dont contact anyone" or he got busted buying crack and is in jail. Couldnt someone get a court order getting fast servers to allow them at their data? I would say a good lawyer could get a judge to sign such an order. Personally, I had backups, but one site i do need some data from. I also think the reason some of the smaller servers like bridget is still up is that the company who hosts them, has a more flexible policy aka you get 30 days past due before the servers go off, where fast servers gives no 30 days grace period.
Posted by moosh28, 09-10-2007, 11:55 PM
strange...but true
Posted by utropicmedia-karl, 09-11-2007, 12:09 AM
That is what we call a logical fallacy. FastServers is not liable for promises made by another entity. It really is silly if you stop and think about it. It would be like me saying you owe me money because you owe a mutual friend money, and he owes me money. Regards,
Posted by Cyberbite, 09-11-2007, 12:20 AM
Since this possibly borders on either criminal or that he's possibly dead or missing. Why doesn't someone contact the local authorities?
Posted by utropicmedia-karl, 09-11-2007, 12:24 AM
It sounds like they were using cPanel. Just look under the "backups" section in your control panel and "generate a full backup". With that single file you can go to another cPanel host and get everything back up quickly. Kind Regards,
Posted by utropicmedia-karl, 09-11-2007, 12:25 AM
Yes. It sounds like they used cPanel. Just be sure to use the backup function to generate a full backup and you will be all set. Kind Regards,
Posted by aww, 09-11-2007, 12:59 AM
Ruh Roh, this thread is linked on Slashdot front page.
Posted by rileez, 09-11-2007, 01:04 AM
And I'm just now reading this thread. wow...I dont know what to say.
Posted by aww, 09-11-2007, 01:07 AM
This reminds me of a thread around here where a certain other one-man host went on vacation for a week (or two) a couple years back and everyone freaked out when the server(s) went down. My business is tiny compared to these hosts and even I have two other people authorised on my accounts "just in case". It's the responsible thing to do.
Posted by pgrote, 09-11-2007, 01:53 AM
It's how I found out about what was going on. This is very reminiscent of what happened with cyberwings. Luckily, the server provider (Rack Shack) was able to open up the servers.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-11-2007, 02:14 AM
Hi, Not really. Firstly, the landlord has the right to sell the properties left behind of the lessee to cover part or all the due rent. If the properties value more than the due rent, he can only sell that which covers the sum and has to keep the rest on hold for the lessee to claim back. He can of course again charge money for having to stow that stuff. And if all had to be sold and part of the money is left over, he has to keep that also on hold for the lessee to claim. So that particular part you have nearly right. Secondly, if in those rooms are properties of third persons who owe the landlord no money, these properties most definitely will stay property of their owners. The landlord also can't just throw them away or destroy them, they are valid and legal property of someone. He has to store them (usually a reasonable time) until the owners reclaim them. What he has is the right to again charge money to the lessee for having caused the storage situation by not paying and disappearing, cause that's the person he has a contract with. And by the way, in most law works the fact that the landlord re-appropriates the leased rooms infers the legal duty to deal properly with whatever they contain, as he also takes legal responsibility for those rooms by re-appropriation. Again, let's not think T-shirts and worn socks, but Rolexes or expensive notebooks and even the most backpaddling among you will see the light. What's not yours nor that of someone who owes you money does not belong to you and never becomes your property. Period. Greetings OK Last edited by AlbaG; 09-11-2007 at 02:25 AM.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 02:23 AM
As of 2:23am, BRIDGET is now DOWN. The last reminants of jatol are fading away.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-11-2007, 02:33 AM
Hi, err, for my clients still on Bridget it is up. Greetings OK
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-11-2007, 02:41 AM
Bridget is indeed up and running smoothly
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 02:55 AM
well i dont know why, but my site which i just checked my registrar is on ns16.jatol.com and ns17.jatol.com is down. it was working up till 2am or so.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-11-2007, 03:01 AM
Those would be your DNS servers. The IP that your actual domain name specifies what host your files are actually on. Typically, especially, on bargain hosts, you site is only hosted on one server.
Posted by solokron, 09-11-2007, 03:10 AM
It bears repeating. Backup, backup, backup. Always have a local backup.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 03:41 AM
can someone please list all the jatol ips for all the servers so i can check them all?
Posted by aww, 09-11-2007, 04:27 AM
LOL, good luck with that. jatol has 1500 domains using their nameservers, and since most hosts use their own nameservers for their own clients I would guess one third to half that number are paying customers.
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-11-2007, 04:34 AM
Mike, if you wish, I could login to your account and make a backup for you, if you provide me with your login details.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-11-2007, 04:56 AM
assuming your 1500 is true, I'll take the rest of your statement as given, atleast for the average webhosting client. These numbers atleast hold roughly true in my experience. However I disagree that jatol's customers hold true to that. It seems that an above average number of his customers tended to let jatol just handle it, including backups, DNS, domain registration, and even DNS contact information. However, the question they were asking was slightly different, atleast how I read it. He wanted to know the IPs of the servers themselves. Since jatol appears to have been a bargain host and over sold his servers, and since the wayback machine and the thread seems to only show jatol having a handful of hosts, the answer is much more simple. Anyway, just a few comments.
Posted by tinkertim, 09-11-2007, 07:06 AM
Umm, yeah, and they seem ready to lynch the editor who ran it. I don't think people realize how much $15 a month for hosting can be a hardship and 'last ditch effort' for some folks. Time to go bitch on slashdot, look for me there as (you guessed it) tinkertim. Those insensitive clods should realize that not _everyone_ makes 80 grand a year for processing oxygen
Posted by redime, 09-11-2007, 07:10 AM
Pretty sure that even though your property is technically stored within FastServers, they have no legal responsibility to return any contents back to you, being a third party. They also by law should not be allowed to discuss any due bills by Tim. So please do not be mad at FastServers because of this. Also, I dont know much about Jatol.com, however if hes running some 1500 domains, 500 paying customers (roughly) -- you wont be calling up FastServers to pay the bill - because im sure he wasn't running a single server. And hopefully this doesn't come off as rude, but to anyone claiming to be "losing thousands" per day because of being down. This is your own fault for not having an emergency plan. If you didnt have a recent website backup, or weren't even monitoring your websites uptime to know the site was down to begin with; and you are being hosted through a low level hosting company and not a big name or on your own box... well, nows the time to look at your website strategy and iron out all your wrinkles. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS have a disaster plan.
Posted by tinkertim, 09-11-2007, 07:29 AM
My comment on /. : http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=293555&cid=20551065 I don't think there is a 'trackback' feature on WHT?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-11-2007, 08:56 AM
I love how I was attacked for pointing out that these people should have backed up, and as soon as it hits slashdot, a bunch of people post the exact same sentiments here, and on /....
Posted by tinkertim, 09-11-2007, 10:01 AM
Unless you can setup replication to a SQL server at your home, you stand the chance of missing: * Posts * Customer Orders * Support Requests * Affiliate data (which pays said affiliates) * Banner tracking data ... when a host goes down. This happens. When a host vanishes, you not only missed those things, you lost them for no good reason. I have not even touched on e-mail What happens when said host also controls your domain? Sure you get it back, but how many of your customers/visitors have gone elsewhere by the time that you do? Backups are a good idea, there are some things that you just _can_not_ backup unless you want to sit at your desk 24/7 and pull a backup every time something changes. Sure, if you really know your way around GNU/Linux, you could set something up. Most customers rely on the host for that. I don't disagree, however even religious backups can't cure a plug being pulled unless you have something highly available. Folks who buy shared hosting do _not_ have something highly available No matter how diligent you were, if you were their customer, this displaced you and cost you money and possibly loyal visitors/customers. That sucks.
Posted by SacredCo, 09-11-2007, 10:38 AM
It's easy for some to say here, that you should have backed up...well hind sight is 20/20...and I'm sorry but I don't agree with the statement of it's like you owing a friend money. There are those out there that can get the files people are begging for, however, all this crap about legal stuff and all doesn't make any sense to me. I can understand the contract, whatever, but heck not to put the server thingy back up just long enough for those to go in and get the info themselves??? And if this Tim person were on vacation, then I'm sure he wouldn't have changed all his contact numbers and disconnected everything. Plus is he were dead, then I'm sure his Accountant would be informed of this...HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO
Posted by PrezKennedy, 09-11-2007, 11:16 AM
You know what does help? Planning the infrastructure of your website so it's redundant, or at the very least... there isn't one point of failure that takes everything down. Example: I have e-mail, 2 dedicated servers, and domains. The e-mail is all routed through Google Apps. Should my servers die, no problem. Should the company who I rent the domain from go crazy, I still have my e-mail. Should I lose e-mail, my websites are still online. Three separate points instead of one. This is something I never understood; people registering their domain name at the same place they get their hosting. Big mistake! They can lock you in and hold your site hostage that way. However, if you have a domain registered at one site, and your website hosted at another... should the webhost you're with fail, or attempt to cut you off... you can easily move elsewhere. I mean really, this isn't that complicated. It's my "separation of church and state" rule for web hosting. NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOW ALL THREE COMPONENTS OF YOUR WEBSITE BE UNDER THE CONTROL OF ONE ENTITY!
Posted by tinkertim, 09-11-2007, 11:22 AM
Due to budget constraints, some people have no choice .. especially those without technical expertise. Web hosts are (supposed) to solve part of that problem for you. Hosts go down, all the time but within a day or so come back (usually). One completely vanishing is the real issue. Forget the site, how about your domains? It goes a little bit deeper Either your domain registrar, or host still remains a single point of failure. A lot of people don't realize that there is a free version to Google apps, I'm not yet _quite_ comfy with it enough to recommend it, but it does really beat what happened here. Google still has some bugs to squash. The problem remains, DNS needs to be somewhere else, which brings us back to the domain registrar. Think 'registerfly'. If Google would offer DNS in its free package, it would kick serious butt Last edited by tinkertim; 09-11-2007 at 11:30 AM.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 11:39 AM
yes, thats correct, i am looking for the ips of the shared servers cause i cant remember which servers they were all on, some may still be up but the nsx.jatol.com my godaddy links to is dead so its not getting through. If there is any issue with people doing dos or whatever you can pm them to me or e-mail them to me at mike under score 71 aaaaattt the yahhhhhooooo mega site dotttt commmmer ALSO why has this thread become a backup thread? a i told you so thread? and the like? MOST people monitoring this thread are interested in pertinent news regarding this host and tim tooley, etc, and had backups and are sick of hearing it. BUT i do agree with the poster a few up, never put domain and hosting with the same company. e-mail is best to seperate too if possible, there are some cheap online exchange companies if you arent big enough to warrant your own server. Last edited by mike240se; 09-11-2007 at 11:45 AM.
Posted by musicfiend, 09-11-2007, 12:03 PM
I'd like to thank the member who set up the yahoo user group: [tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ex-jatolusers/] ...for keeping one another up to date on this subject. As I've read previously in this thread, it's important that we all stick together. Like many of Jatol's users, I had been happy with the service offered, but this whole situation has left a sour taste. As yet I've been unable to log back into my control panel, and seem to have pretty much lost the mail I had saved on the servers for the main of my accounts. The smaller of my domains is still running and have taken steps to save all I can from this. I'm lucky, I do keep my site data local, and from now will also do the same with my email, but do implore users to keep in touch via the yahoo link set up for this purpose. I'll keep scanning the WHT threads and have certainly learnt from this experience. ad_mf Last edited by musicfiend; 09-11-2007 at 12:10 PM. Reason: change of appearance
Posted by utropicmedia-karl, 09-11-2007, 05:14 PM
Whether you agree or not is irrelevant - that is the law. FastServers is not legally obligated to any of Jatol's clients. I am sorry for your loss, but these are the rules everyone must play by in the US. It beats having any coup-inspired government walk in and take your servers on a whim to use for target practice.
Posted by btdome, 09-11-2007, 05:15 PM
Just so you know. I am quite sad about this, I've been on Jatol for years and just finished building a new site on their servers, and hadn't backed it up yet...lost a good deal of work. Geri Pettis: Hello btdome! Btdome: Hi there Geri Geri Pettis: What can we help you with today? Btdome: I hope you can help me, but probably not... Btdome: I'm a Jatol customer - have you heard about us? Geri Pettis: yes. Btdome: haha! Btdome: Can you help me? Geri Pettis: Depends. Btdome: I am really distraught about this...I've lost a good deal of stuff... Geri Pettis: I can set up a new server for you. Geri Pettis: I understand Btdome: okay...any hope of getting what was on the old ones? Geri Pettis: : I do apologize but I am unable to assist you if youre not a direct customer of FastServers. If your service is with another organization regardless of the circumstances we cannot discuss another parties account without authorization from our own them to do so. Btdome: I had two hosted deals through them... Btdome: okay... Geri Pettis: I again apologize but Ive provided you with all the information I can in regards to this situation. Btdome: Well, I'd be happy to set something up with you guys if it would mean I can get back what I had hosted on Jatol. Btdome: But it doesn't seem like that would happen, would it? Just speaking theoretically, of course? Geri Pettis: Sorry but there is legally nothing else I am able to do or say in regards to this matter. I am now going to terminate this chat.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 05:23 PM
something tells me this will never change. And what really pisses me off is all tim tooley dirt bag jerk has to do is call them and say to release the data to his customers. the guy even said he could help if he had authorization from tooley. thanks for snorting all our hosting money tooley aka faldran and leaving us out to dry. His first server was "Bridget" so it makes sense that he has a daughter or relative or wife named bridget, that may help in our search. You dont name your first server after some random girl and not have your wife kill you unless its her name or a relatives or your daughter.
Posted by musicfiend, 09-11-2007, 05:54 PM
Ok, so now I'm really pissed! I've read with interest threads from dis-satisfied clients of the so called professionalism of the company known as Jtol, who "they", well from what I have read it would appear to be one individual Tim Tooley who is practicing his cyber-terrorism on unsuspecting persons who have been paying his 'food and lodgings' and god knows what else for some time now. I suppose I only have karma to hope that this fellow comes to some unsavory end, or at the very least crops up as a cockroach in some future life and is swashed by my DM, only to repeat the same passage, again and again. Now I realise that's no solution to the situation we now find ourselves in, but mental breakdown or not, I suspect this character is still playing god and even reading these threads and user groups, as it seems strange that my one remaining site with Jtol has tonight bitten the dirt. Sod you Mr Tooley and all of you who intend to blight our day with your tinkering. Go back to the playground, play with your conkers, marbles and insects and leave the rest of us to get on with our day. Last edited by musicfiend; 09-11-2007 at 05:58 PM. Reason: yeah.
Posted by estrategist, 09-11-2007, 06:03 PM
Jatol ! sure they dont know how to keep customers
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 06:29 PM
tim tooley is probably snorting my website dues off his keyboard right now, in 10 minutes he will do my dedicated server dues. the only way he is getting out of this without jail time and a lawsuit is if he was dead all along. we need to call his relatives, they hate that crap, they will get on his *** if he is hiding out. the idea to call his neighbors was smart too. just dont do anything illegal, its him we want in prison, not one of us. and yes, i would consider this cyber terrorism, we should contact the fbi. i can only imagine what amex is going to do to him after all our dues are chargedbacked to an accont with no money.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-11-2007, 07:00 PM
Obviously you don't understand the contract. That's one of the things the contract likely states they can't do. It is not uncommon for hosting contracts of a serious nature to include data disposal and control clauses.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 07:55 PM
I more think its that if fastservers lets us get our data they no longer have leverage to get tim tooley (faldran) to pay his bills.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-11-2007, 08:05 PM
That is part of it, yes. That would be why the clause is in the contract. It specifies how long FastServers must retain the data, and what they can and cannot do with it, and how long they must do anything with it.
Posted by mike240se, 09-11-2007, 08:44 PM
makes sense.... i guess our only hope is for tim tooley to show up or be arrested an be forced to sell his house to pay the bill. or as i mentioned previously, if someone needs their data enough and have the money and/or resources i would like a descent lawyer could get a writ making fast severs release their data, i guess it would be finding the right judge and hoping you get the data before its appealed or an injunction is granted. of course this would only help 1 person, the person with the lawyer, but it would be a good precedent.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-11-2007, 08:57 PM
I'm not surprised if the data is gone already, it's been 12 days of non-payment and data isn't kept so long without payment.
Posted by sirrens, 09-11-2007, 09:41 PM
Only been since Friday for myself without data or access
Posted by KermMartian, 09-11-2007, 10:32 PM
I only started experiencing non-connectivity this morning, although members of my site have been reporting occasional problems since yesterday. It's my own fault for not having up-to-date data backups, but what news on convincing FastServers to give up their data?
Posted by dashizna, 09-11-2007, 11:13 PM
Someone needs to buy out Jatol and get this back up and running
Posted by xriva, 09-11-2007, 11:40 PM
The landlord does not deal with the sub-lessors, just the lease-holder. That's the legal issue. You can yell at the landlord all you want, but he doesn't have any contractual obligations to you because you don't have a lease with him. You don't have any business relationship with him at all. That's a point that's been missed in all of this mainly because it's drowned out by the backup lectures. I would never deal with someone who doesn't directly control the servers. If you're dealing with a reseller, you're implicitly trusting him to choose a good hosting service and you're trusting him to pay the bills. It just adds another layer of complication that you really don't need.
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-12-2007, 12:54 AM
Here's some news that I heard from my friend. Tim has/had cancer, so that COULD very well have something to do with it
Posted by CameronH, 09-12-2007, 01:11 AM
A few stories say that he is dead, But I suppose we will get an outcome soon.
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 01:14 AM
If thats true, its pretty messed up logan and the other owner ditched him in his time of need. i remember logans reason for quiting was that tim was out too much cause he was sick, so that means he ditched his partner when he needed him most. not to stick up for tim, i dont even know if i believe he had cancer and didnt just blow all our money in coke. And if he is dead, is it possible that could help our cause? meaning whoever he left the business to in the will may decide to reopen the company which would require us getting our money and data back. i doubt they would want the head ache, but it could also give us someone to sue, we could go after the person getting his assets in his will to make sure we get reimbursed from those assets.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-12-2007, 05:13 AM
Firstly, his partner left him in Jan, because of business disagreements. Secondly, Logan is an employee, not related to him in anyway. Will you work without payment for months for an employer who disappear, possibly dead or on the run? Let me tell you, if he's dead it's even messier. You'll have to figure out the will, and if his company is donated to charity then you must get authorization, then finally get your data back. This is, of course, following legal procedure. And for the housing analogy, it is not really the same as data is not really treated the same way as physical objects in certain aspects.
Posted by CameronH, 09-12-2007, 05:21 AM
Yes, It could get messier, But if a death certificate was sent to fastservers, You think they could pull up the servers for a while and then get all the data back.
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 06:14 AM
I dont remmber which owner, and i am not going to read 35 pages again, but somewhere in the thread one of the owners said he left because tim tooley was sick and that caused disagreements. so thats where i got that from. yes i agree i would quit if i was an employee and didnt get paid, of course. i was refering to the 2 ex partners referenced earlier in the thread.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-12-2007, 07:42 AM
I only remember : 1.) Logan : Employee, left because tim tooley was sick and then he stopped responding. 2.) Matt : Partner, left in Early Jan due to disagreements.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 08:08 AM
I would guess you are not on a FastServers host then. FastServers and a bunch of the posts, made it sound like Jatol had a single contract for many servers, and they all got killed as a group, and the servers that remained up where in a different DataCenter. I could be wrong on that.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 08:11 AM
That would mean contacting Tim Tooley somehow. It would also mean that someone would be willing to buy the debt that Jatol has accrued, which seems to be quite a bit, with not many remaining customers that will stick around, to recoup expenses from.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 08:15 AM
I almost hesitate to say it, but thats because unlike physical goods, data is easy to replicate and retain a copy. I am not just talking backups, but copies of source, etc. It's not quite so easy to do with your physical goods. The law is this way to simplify.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 08:18 AM
I am not a contract lawyer, but I would assume that the contract stating that they CANNOT do that would remain in force, even after his death. I was under the impression that contracts don't go void due to death like that.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-12-2007, 08:26 AM
oxymandias2 : I agree about your different datacenter opinion (highly possible), but usually it might be easier to buy at the same datacenter as buying in bulk is cheaper and will give you more "weight". Secondly, it is not as easy to manage. My suggestion is that the billing date of each server is different, hence the different shutdown times. Or that they were turning on for a moment out of kindness or by mistake. With the buying over part, many are "all talk and no action". Remember to take over the company (in order to be the authorized party of the contract), you will buy over debts like employment fees, etc. as well. With regard to the data part, I fully agree. Lastly, on the part about contract after death, it's most probably that the contract requires that a person is appointed to take over on death (by will), and if no such person exists the contract will terminate. However, even on termination, they cannot give back the data, because termination clauses will likely state that data remnants are to be destroyed for obvious reasons.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 08:36 AM
Way back in the thread people were looking at the IPs of the servers and while a large group of servers had FastServers IPs, a few did not. This would provide for 2 physical locations and all the benifits associated. I could be wrong, and I am going off of what others, with unknown (to me) technical ability. Thats feasible, too. The different shutdown times, that is. I believe that FastServers would love to be kind and turn them on, but is still sorting the legal options on that. Thats good to know. I was pretty sure that even on death the the contract's stipulations did not just vaporize.
Posted by ldcdc, 09-12-2007, 09:06 AM
It happened before that a datacenter understood the end users' predicament and kept servers up for a while to let them get their data. The legal and the right thing don't always coincide. I for one put a lot of weight on the right thing, but companies are more impersonal, and few dare take the responsibility when hierarchies are involved. Taking the servers offline for a few days and then putting them back up for a couple of days would get the attention of the customers that really care about their data, and allow them to get it back as well. Technically, the datacenter is not obligated to keep the servers offline once taken down. They may put them back online temporarily if they're want to. There's no need to deal with the end users directly and breach a contract, to help them out. But, I'm not a lawyer. What do I know? Whatever the cause of this mess, it had to be something serious and at least to some degree, sudden. The company had a value, it could have been sold, if time permitted and other personal things didn't take unquestionable precedence. It could have been given for free to a worthy provider. Anything but this.
Posted by djbase16, 09-12-2007, 09:34 AM
hi i have my sites with jatol, is there any way i can recover the data? also i would like to change my nameservers, is there any way of doing this without having to sign up with another company? thanks
Posted by KermMartian, 09-12-2007, 09:37 AM
As has been stated in the other 36 pages of this thread, all Jatol servers are currently offline. The community is waiting for word from Jatol's hosts on the data.
Posted by djbase16, 09-12-2007, 09:52 AM
what about changing the nameservers? is there any way to do this at the moment?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 11:15 AM
Sure, get some new nameservers up, and contact your registrar to get pointed at them. If Jatol was your registrar, it appears that OnlineNIC.com is assisting. Ozy
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 11:40 AM
I am flaming there company because of the way that they are handleing this situation and hanging up on people is not the answer it only makes matters worse. Like i told them all they have to do is run these servers for 24 Hours and it will save them alot of problems
Posted by isildur, 09-12-2007, 11:41 AM
Take a step back. Consider the likely reality. What *possible* motivation could we have for stringently following the letter of the law as opposed to exposing ourselves to a legal apocalypse of biblical proportions? Do we enjoy answering a thousand of calls daily related to this saga? Do we enjoy shelling out the necessary coin for such communication mediums? Do we enjoy the impact it has on the overall productivity of each department of our business? Would we, if able, do anything and everything possible to circumvent the abovementioned drain? This is a lose/lose for everyone involved here. We've been as flexible as possible (and then some, and then some)... why on earth *wouldn't* we have been, considering what's at stake. Let's hope the responsible entity makes its presence known. And soon.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 11:55 AM
jatol is gone contact them at this number and leave a message 270-534-4083 Fastservers needs to take legal action apon them and release our information to the rightful owners. Not just be sitting around waiting on jatol because what do they care about the business's that have anything on these servers and holding out data hostage isn't going to make jatol do anything so all they are doing is pissing people off by doing this
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 11:58 AM
But on the other hand fastservers is now getting hammered over jatols mess and fastservers is going to end up with a bad name over all of this
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 11:59 AM
We had a dedicated server through Jatol with FastServers that was shut down yesterday around 1pm. After waiting a couple hours thinking it may be something temporary, I began searching and found this....what great news. We understand the legalities of this situation ( some of it at least ) and all we want is a chance to get OUR information. Can't this server ( server2.webfitter.com ) be turned on for a couple hours so we can salvage some of our client's information. We currently have over 100 clients and around 40 have information that will be lost because of this. We currently have an order in with FastServers for a new server directly through them. We are very happy with FastServers and just hope we can get some sort of cooperation from them. Regardless of what happens, this is going to be very painful for a smaller web development company such as us, but with a little help from FastServers, this situation could be helped greatly.
Posted by moosh28, 09-12-2007, 12:03 PM
Dashizna - Maybe they have looked at the legal issues. Maybe they haven't. Point is, you don't know and im sure they won't share that information with you, because you are not their client. That's kinda the point here. Last edited by moosh28; 09-12-2007 at 12:06 PM. Reason: clarification
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:08 PM
I'm sorry, I fail to see how a company doing everything in it's legal power to assist the clients of one of it's clients will get them a bad name.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:10 PM
I'm sure the contract specifies who they can legally release that information to, and as soon as Jatol steps up, I'm sure FastServers will release in. And avoiding legal troubles. And abiding by the contract. And showing people that they will stick to the guns and behave legally.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:11 PM
I fail to see how you are even coming close to doing anything in your power. All you have to do is start the servers for a few hours so company's can get there infomation. You have a dipute with Jatol not the company's on the servers
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:12 PM
This contract is Voided they didn't make payments so therefore there is not contract anymore it is Null & Void
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:14 PM
Also think about something here if jatol.com can't pay for there servers how in the world will they pay to take any legal action if fastservers puts there servers up for 24 hours
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:14 PM
I'm a bit confused. Why would FastServers call you 5 times just to hang up on you? I mean, you seem to be such a polite, and reasonable person, judging from your attitude and sensible posts here on this forum. Seeing as you have such a great grasp of the situation, and obviously were polite and understanding that FastServers is legally constrained in what they can and cannot do. Oh wait... I must be thinking of someone else. So far you have ignored the obvious, oft repeated facts about the legal entanglements, you have been bull headed and rude, and evidently called back 5 times after being told everything that FastServers can legally tell you.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:17 PM
Are you retarded?? did you read what you just wrote and think about it and read what i stated.. Where did i put any thing about them calling me???????
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:20 PM
To clarify, I am not a FastServers employee. Laws and contracts specify what FastServers, or any decent host, can do with customer's data. These laws and contracts specify what to do and how to dispose of the data on the servers.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:20 PM
The only leagal things that fastservers does is as soon as i state jatol they say i can't take about that and hang up they have told me nothing. I haven't been bull headed about this i told them that i will transfer everything to them lets do it while i am on the phone.. He said as long as he can get permission from jatol they can do it. So i said you have contact with them so you should be able to get the permisson to transfer it
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:22 PM
What there not aloud to start the servers up that they own and so company's can login to there accounts and download there own data
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:22 PM
Actually, no. Jatol would be in violation of the contract (assuming they did not request the servers to be shutdown) and thus FastServers could sue them for violating the contract. If FastServers also violated the contract, they lose that option, from what I understand of contract law.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:24 PM
jatol wouldn't request the servers to be shut down.. Why would they ever do such a thing. They were shut down for other reasons which would void any contracts between Jatol and Fastservers
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:25 PM
You are assuming Jatol didn't pay, and didn't request the server shutdown. You are also assuming that Jatol didn't pay the bills due to insufficient funds, and not due to say his death, or some other obstacle. Please, also look at the fact that FastServers would have a tougher time suing over non-payment if they violate the contract as well.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:28 PM
I was being sarcastic and pretending that I didn't realize that you were obviously being rude and harrasasing the poor fellows that answer the incoming calls, but cannot make any policy changes in this situation. They did what makes the best business sense -- stopped paying an employee to sit on a phone line they paid for and listen to a non-customer be rude and demanding and harass them.
Posted by rileez, 09-12-2007, 12:29 PM
dashizna, I think you need to read the posts a little more better.
Posted by dashizna, 09-12-2007, 12:31 PM
I read the post correctly and i was stating my opinion
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:31 PM
I would call being told that they cannot discuss this issue 6 times, while you continue to call them pretty bull-headed. Most people get teh point after oh, say, one time. Sounds like FastServers is doing what they can, with a rude sounding caller. Why are you assuming that FastServers can communicate with Jatol any better than you can? I'm sure they would love to, and get the calls and harassment stopped, and possibly get Jatol's bills paid off in the process.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:33 PM
Say FastServers is getting paid $1000 a month per server and Jatol is currently broke. He can either cancel the servers, and no longer accrue $1000x(number of servers) a month, or leave the servers online and rack up additional debt. Seems pretty reasonable to me. ITs a terrible choice, and I may have handled it differently, but it is a possibility.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:36 PM
I'm not terribly supprised you got hung up on, especially if you were even half as difficult on the phone. You are deliberately ignoring possible situations that do not fit into what you want done. We have stated many facts and cases, yet you continue to ignore what we are saying and insist that you are correct and everyone else is wrong.
Posted by rileez, 09-12-2007, 12:39 PM
I think Jatols Girlfriend ran off with the servers
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 12:44 PM
OH NEAT! HAWT SWAP! (http://www.uncov.com/2007/7/6/pownce...3-for-a-reason) Anyway, who knows, maybe she traded him a great night in the sack to shut down the servers with no warning.
Posted by xriva, 09-12-2007, 01:05 PM
They don't. If Jatol is a corporation (and I assume it is) then it is the entity that holds the contracts, not Tim personally. Corporations survive their founder's resignations, deaths or whatever. They are a separate legal entity. So, if Tim has left (literally or physically), you would need to find his successor at the corporation.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-12-2007, 01:44 PM
Also, a contract cannot be nulled unless by court order, or when a clause under the contract is met. In most cases, the contract should be terminated, and upon termination the provider has to act according to the termination clause, which in most cases is delete off all data.
Posted by cevamal, 09-12-2007, 02:21 PM
*clap clap clap* dashizna, there's a lot of good information in this thread. Please read it.
Posted by webmarksllc, 09-12-2007, 03:11 PM
Has anyone set up a central place for Jatol customers to sign up for official updates to this story, and to hopefully be notified when (if) this is resolved and we regain access to our data?
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 03:12 PM
not to join this nut, but one can argue that they already did violate the contact when one of their employees turned the servers back on for a day or so last week. we all know thats what happened, dont even say we dont. no way tooley got them back on for a day. and if it was matt or logan or whoever, it doesnt matter, fastservers still broke their contract.
Posted by ayksolutions, 09-12-2007, 03:27 PM
And that was the only time you had to get your data off. You snooze you lose. You also have no idea what happened there. Maybe this tooley character did turn them back on for a day, can you prove otherwise? Until you and dazhizna and everyone else who's pointing fingers at FS (wrongfully) can come up with some solid evidence that FS did turn on the servers without any consent from the owner, then be quiet and stop second guessing. Just because someone missed that chance to backup (which should have been done prior to this whole thing on regular basis anyway) does not mean that FS or anyone else should just jump and "turn these servers on for an hour or two". Perhaps you are forgetting that FS has other customers who actually pay for the support they are receiving and I'd say they trump Jatol's situation as far as Fastservers is concerned. Quit your complaining and move on.
Posted by story, 09-12-2007, 03:30 PM
The likelihood of that happening are pretty slim. But someone did set up a yahoo groups for this purpose: http: // tech.groups . yahoo.com / group/ ex-jatolusers/ (added spaces since we cannot post URLs)
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 03:48 PM
That may or may not have been an accident, or an underling breaking the rules, which would both go better in court than simply and officially turning them back on.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 03:50 PM
Fixed it for you ;-)
Posted by xriva, 09-12-2007, 04:29 PM
FastServersare doing everything in their power. They are waiting to hear from their customer, who apparently did not pay his bills. You are not their customer. They don't know who you are and they don't owe you anything, because you don't have a contract with them. You are the customer of a company that vanished. Oops. Next time, don't purchase services from a reseller unless you're absolutely sure they're going to be around and the service provider they use is going to be around.
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 04:50 PM
You are so pro fast servers that you didnt even bother to read what i wrote. First of all i never said i wanted data, i have backups, all my sites have been back online without issue. I am monitoring this thread to find out what happens with my money, yes i would like access to my account even though i dont need a backup, i just want to get in there, i paid for it. Second, I said i didnt want to join that nut, but was responding to what you said, you mentioned that if they turned the servers back on that would hurt them in court, i simply pointed out that the servers had already been turned back on so that ship has sailed. accident or not, stupid peon or not, they broke their contract. To even say that tooley got them turned back on for a fraction of a day is ridiculous and goes against all common accepted knowledge on this thread, we all agree tooley would have to pay his bill to get them back on, so are you saying he paid 1/145 of his bill and they gave him that much uptime? yeah right. Its also quite clear they havent heard from tooley, they were even admitting that for a while. And regardless, my post started with "One could argue", its clear someone is play devils advocate and not neccisairly taking that position. it was a debate on what you said. And to top it off, i agree that fast servers shouldnt and cant do anything. even if tooley is dead, whoever gets jatol in the will could get some shiester lawyer who sues fastservers just to get her out of debt. Doesnt mean i cant argue with a point.
Posted by TWallace, 09-12-2007, 05:05 PM
I just got an invoice due notice from support@jatol.com and apparently jatol.com is once again up and running. My two websites hosted through them are still down, as is access to my SQL DB. Think I'll hold off on paying that invoice . I tried visiting the support forums at Jatol, and got a message saying the forums are down due to hackers getting into the system.
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 05:12 PM
Yes, it does look like Jatol.com is back up. If we've already pointed our domains to another host, how do we access the server to pull down backups?
Posted by sirrens, 09-12-2007, 05:20 PM
JATOL IS BACK UP! Now here is the problem.. I have moved the DNS to new host, so how can I log on and grab my data? Shane
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 05:24 PM
I suspect many people will be asking the same thing before the hour is through... I believe we were given an IP in our original welcome email, but that's lost in my files...
Posted by Jedito, 09-12-2007, 05:35 PM
What's your domain? I may try to find which was your old IP
Posted by TannerNet, 09-12-2007, 05:41 PM
Well it was up for a few minutes, now it's all error pages. At least the site goes somewhere now instead of "cannot be found"
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 05:43 PM
At least the "500" error pages are Jatol's - which suggests that FastServers has re-activated Jatol's servers. That would be nice. Last edited by dehory; 09-12-2007 at 05:47 PM.
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 05:45 PM
Traceroute has started ... traceroute to jatol.com (216.127.71.177), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 2.461 ms 1.514 ms 1.458 ms 2 adsl-75-59-135-254.dsl.applwi.sbcglobal.net (75.59.135.254) 9.090 ms 8.527 ms 9.429 ms 3 dist1-vlan50.applwi.sbcglobal.net (67.38.56.226) 9.056 ms 9.371 ms 9.076 ms 4 bb2-g8-0.applwi.sbcglobal.net (67.38.56.116) 8.919 ms 9.117 ms 9.130 ms 5 151.164.93.49 (151.164.93.49) 14.832 ms 15.230 ms 14.655 ms 6 as4323-twtelecom.eqchil.sbcglobal.net (151.164.248.138) 19.527 ms 14.548 ms 27.108 ms 7 hagg-02-ge-0-3-0-505.hsto.twtelecom.net (66.192.246.123) 50.741 ms 95.826 ms 81.051 ms 8 216-54-253-2.ev1.net.demarc (216.54.253.2) 52.151 ms 51.113 ms 50.703 ms 9 ivhou-207-218-245-28.ev1servers.net (207.218.245.28) 51.867 ms 51.292 ms 51.696 ms 10 ivhou-207-218-223-103.ev1servers.net(207.218.223.103) 50.036 ms 50.817 ms 50.061 ms 11 jatol.com (216.127.71.177) 51.022 ms 51.058 ms 51.171 ms
Posted by TannerNet, 09-12-2007, 05:47 PM
I made it to the account information page and was writing my support ticket when they went to error pages, but I did notice a new invoice for the 12 month subscription I had. But I have just paid an invoice like this within the last 3 months. Did anyone else get a new invoice by mistake as well? maybe something to do with their system coming back online? I really don't know =/
Posted by doli, 09-12-2007, 05:49 PM
Doesn't look like FastServers to me. Last edited by doli; 09-12-2007 at 05:53 PM.
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 05:51 PM
wasn't logan or one of them in the military in TX?
Posted by doli, 09-12-2007, 05:52 PM
To clarify, jatol.com currently points to a server hosted by theplanet.com.
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 05:53 PM
That might be a bit of a stretch? This is mysterious!
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 05:53 PM
http: //www .bizjournals.com /houston /stories /2006 /05 /08/ daily2.html? from_rss=
Posted by sirrens, 09-12-2007, 06:03 PM
www(dot)advasurepro(dot)Com Thanks
Posted by sirrens, 09-12-2007, 06:08 PM
I think we crashed them!
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 06:14 PM
It doesn't really make sense that Jatol is suddenly popping up on a new server, does it? That would mean that someone has just uploaded the data to theplanet.com (even if it's just the 500 error page - although the entire site appeared to be up an hour or so ago). Maybe rumors of Tim's demise have been premature?
Posted by Dougy, 09-12-2007, 06:16 PM
http://oldip:2082
Posted by Patrick, 09-12-2007, 06:24 PM
It's not a new server... that is the same IP address Jatol has been using for almost 2 years. Link: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_rep.../www.jatol.com Anyway, a lot or providers host their own site on a different network to prevent total loss of communication in the event of a network outage.
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 06:26 PM
But then why was Jatol's own site also down for such a long time - along with everyone else's?
Posted by Patrick, 09-12-2007, 06:46 PM
Unless Timothy replies here, there's no way for us to know why it was down and why it came back...
Posted by KermMartian, 09-12-2007, 06:56 PM
I remember the DNS being dns26.??.?? and dns27.??.??, but I can't remember the ??.?? to point my domain back to my jatol site. I want to at least grab a backup in case this is temporary uptime; does anyone have that data handy? Edit: or better yet, the IPs of their servers so I can get into CPanel before my DNS repropagates. Last edited by KermMartian; 09-12-2007 at 07:00 PM.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 07:07 PM
substitute the IP of the server for the domain name.
Posted by KermMartian, 09-12-2007, 07:08 PM
Yes, but what if we don't remember the IP? Got an IP or IP range to try?
Posted by xriva, 09-12-2007, 07:10 PM
From the jatol.net website: Why use Jatol's web site hosting? Reliability and stability are the foundation upon which any company web site is built, without these we would not be in business. Our web site hosting systems are state of the art and our security team is constantly tracking down the latest in security features to ensure your data is safe with us Bwaaaa hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 07:12 PM
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=XXXXXX where XXXX is your URL might give you the IP history.
Posted by dehory, 09-12-2007, 07:17 PM
Any other suggestions if we don't have the IP on file anywhere?
Posted by KermMartian, 09-12-2007, 07:17 PM
Nope, it only caught my last DNS change that I put in this morning so that visitors wouldn't be met with a 404. :/
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 07:26 PM
You may be able to use dig or nslookup if you recall the names or IPs of the old nameservers.
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 07:32 PM
Is anyone's site or server back up and running?
Posted by abrahamchaffin, 09-12-2007, 07:44 PM
My server Vitellius just went totally down yesterday - didn't even realize there was a problem until yesterday =o Had like 20 websites hosted there with tons of stuff in mysql not backed up. Logan was always cool and helpful - thanks bro
Posted by tthost, 09-12-2007, 07:55 PM
While it does look like jatols main site (which is hosted at the planet) is back up, and not working too well, none of the servers I had sites hosted on are up. Their servers main IP addresses were all set to resolve to subdomains like nerva.dnsback.com vitellius.dnsback.com vespasian2.dnsback.com But all those now take you back to dnsback.com, which is a domain owned by jatol, but now has expired as of 6 days ago. The main IP addresses for some of their linux servers are still not responding 64.62.196.10 (vitellius) 64.38.21.74 (nerva) 64.38.59.98 (vespasian2) So, who knows what is actually going on, but it still doesnt look like Jatol is back. Tom Last edited by tthost; 09-12-2007 at 08:07 PM.
Posted by webfitter, 09-12-2007, 08:40 PM
I have a dedicated server gone with 40 databases that are gone. Tim was cool to me for a lot of years and help me with a lot of issues before all of this. To bad it had to end this way. I do not believe they intented for all of this to happen. Something must have gotten out of control. my 2 cents
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 10:44 PM
yeah his heroin habbit. go to jatols website and add forward slash forums and it says its been hacked and is down. ( i cant type the url cause i have 0 post count) Last edited by mike240se; 09-12-2007 at 10:48 PM.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-12-2007, 11:25 PM
http://www.jatol.com/forums/
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 11:32 PM
jatol dot com forward slash contact dot html works and its their old site format. logan is on there too. so is snikey whoever that is
Posted by drwhit73, 09-12-2007, 11:34 PM
Not that it makes a difference but their contact us page is actually working. http://www.jatol.com/contact.htm
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 11:35 PM
www dot hostingassured dot findmyhosting dot com/ says jatol is in good status LOL
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 11:37 PM
jatol dot com forward slash about dot html it works and says they have operated in the green since 2002 with NO COMPANY DEBT!!! LOL yeah right. and it says they have over 5000 sites. so there are hundreds of people who have no service but havent found this forum thread yet. and there goes his claimed 98.5% uptime since 2002
Posted by mike240se, 09-12-2007, 11:44 PM
bridget.jatol.com is down, can someone confirm?
Posted by drwhit73, 09-12-2007, 11:53 PM
http://www.jatol.net actually appears quite functional although a few of their links actually take you to the jatol.com page which is of course not functioning.
Posted by CameronH, 09-13-2007, 01:33 AM
Yep, Server bridget is down.
Posted by mike240se, 09-13-2007, 01:47 AM
your netxhosting site seems down btw.
Posted by CameronH, 09-13-2007, 01:50 AM
Thanks, I took down that site, Because somebody was sending spam under it. I am putting it back up soon.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-13-2007, 03:02 AM
Heroin habbit - don't be affirmative, that's slander. And before you say how it's he who is in more fault, remember others doing the wrong thing doesn't mean you should blindly follow.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-13-2007, 03:04 AM
If those sites actually worked WHT would have less users ranting about bankrupt/disappearing hosts.
Posted by mike240se, 09-13-2007, 04:25 AM
if you are going to be annoying atleast be correct, it would be libel cause its in print. and regardless, there is no case law that would give him grounds to sue based on a website forum post. and even if there was it would not even come close to meeting the criteria of libel.
Posted by CameronH, 09-13-2007, 04:51 AM
Hey, Come on guys, We are not here to argue!
Posted by NoelMG, 09-13-2007, 06:59 AM
I found this forum last night after my hosting suddenly died! My wife rang me to say "The emails aren't coming through!" It seems that the server we were on suddenly died last night, dns26.dnsback.com and dns27.dnsback.com were no longer handling my domain. I had no idea until last night that there was a problem. Fortunately for me, I only use Jatol for my personal website and emails. I have lost the website totally, but emails are hosted using Google's mail application, so they are all safe. I have to start my website from scratch again :-( I only have 3 months remaining on my 12 months so it was only a financial loss of about $8, not really going to break the bank. I have had excellent support from Jatol all along, particularly Logan who I have dealt with many times. I am very surprised and very disappointed in the owner of Jatol to just do a runner and leave everybody in the lurch, without so much as an email. I have just signed up with Godaddy and will be moving my site there. I certainly feel for those of you running companies off of Jatol, who have lost all their data. It is bang out of order that it has all been lost with no opportunity to get it back. The most annoying thing is that I am still on my original economy package with Jatol getting full support since they upgraded me, and at the same price I paid several years ago, so it is going to cost me a lot more to get hosting somewhere else! Logan - thanks for your help over the last couple of years mate, good luck for the future!
Posted by tsj5j, 09-13-2007, 08:04 AM
I didn't say you will get sued for it, but it makes you a downright illogical guy. Don't make affirmative statements you don't know about. For all we know, he may be dead, or under ICU, or warded in hospital, or unconscious, etc.
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-13-2007, 01:53 PM
I can not tell you about the situation because I haven't spoken with Tim in well over a 2 months and as far as I know know Matt hasn't spoken with Tim in over 6 months. When I did last speak with him all he said was he had been sick was better, not what he was sick with or when he became sick or anything else. I am just as in the dark as you are.
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-13-2007, 02:07 PM
That other person was Matt. Him nor I even had access for over 6 months to change anything on the Jatol.com server so everything you find on there with out names on it is out dated.
Posted by mike240se, 09-13-2007, 02:16 PM
yeah sorry i wasnt trying to say anything, i was kinda showing that it was outdated.
Posted by sirrens, 09-13-2007, 03:14 PM
Ok.. I just want my data now... If anyone gets they're data, let us know..
Posted by abrahamchaffin, 09-13-2007, 03:15 PM
Now that I've pulled off all my domains off of Jatol if Vitellius ever reboots how can I retrieve my data - I've got tons of mysql stuff that I never backed up =\
Posted by tthost, 09-13-2007, 03:50 PM
Just log in to your cpanel using the IP address. (remove the spaces in the links below. I still cannot post links) If you were a reseller, it would be http :// 64.62.196.10:2086 Then from there, click the cpanel icon of each individual site you need to get and if you just had individual accounts, it would be http :// 64.62.196.10:2082 and log into each one using its particular username/password combo. Then in cpanel go to backups and choose full site backup. Either choose an offsite ftp acct to back it up to (thats what I usually do), of just back it up to the home directory, and ftp in and get it. (that can take a while, if you have large sites, even if you are on broadband) HTH Tom
Posted by tthost, 09-13-2007, 04:02 PM
It now appears that both nerva (64.38.21.74) and augustus (147.202.45.67) are down now as well. These two machines were hosted as well at fastservers, but have been up until very recently. So likely we will be hearing from more jatol refugees here soon. Tom
Posted by Velo222, 09-13-2007, 05:05 PM
I was shocked to find out jatol had just abruptly stopped service! I just found out today from doing a google search that jatol has apparently just gone missing or awol! I think I'm out the $35 I paid for 6 months service already.....but who knows? This is just really surprising because if the owner has gone missing or is dead or skipped the country what can customers do? Will we be able to get our webcontent back off the servers? Can we get our money back? I feel really sorry for those who are losing way more than just $35 on this. Does anyone have any more information on what's happening? I'm pretty sure I'll just have to take the hit and move to another provider, but this is just really surprising as I have never had a problem with jatol in the past, and now they're just gone without any warning. But I also hope the owner is "ok", and if he skipped the country for some reason.....then I hope he's not "ok" lol.
Posted by ElfNori, 09-13-2007, 05:17 PM
When I signed up with Jatol many years ago there were three partners and they had servers in multiple datacenters. Slowly that changed. ElfN
Posted by sirrens, 09-13-2007, 05:25 PM
Ok let me ask, since Jatol has started to show it's face now.. Has anyone been able to get they're data? And if you did, HOW?
Posted by KermMartian, 09-13-2007, 05:52 PM
I second that. Logan, since you are (were?) part of Jatol, what power do you have to convince FastServers to get our servers back up for 24 hours or so so that people can pull their data off?
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-13-2007, 05:53 PM
There was only ever 2 partners (Tim & Matt). They were in 2 different data centers, but both under FastServerst.
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-13-2007, 05:55 PM
I have no power anymore. I resigned as of Sept 1st 2007 as that was when I was paid up to. I had in the past (you can read the posts in this thread and find out when if you want) called FastServers and explained what was going on, but as of now I have nothing I can do in relation to gaining access to the servers. Sorry, but only Tim Tooley can do this now.
Posted by abrahamchaffin, 09-13-2007, 06:02 PM
Seems like Tim is doing something or there is some movement as the jatol.com has come up again - any ideas what that's all about?
Posted by dashizna, 09-13-2007, 06:08 PM
What about matt?? These was a general partner ship there should be still some record threw fastservers that states him as part of jatol he should be able to call and get this information released to us. I mean it could be worth a call and if matt wants any money for getting this data to the rightfull owners i am sure glad to help him out..
Posted by sirrens, 09-13-2007, 06:33 PM
you know the Jatol page is coming up slowly but still seems fishy.. Why not post a page explaining whats going on and they are working on geeting data back for us..?
Posted by rmavis, 09-13-2007, 06:36 PM
Yeah, look at this: www . jatol . com/contact . html. It that Tim or Matt?
Posted by dehory, 09-13-2007, 06:54 PM
Note the date on the page. It's the old site that's mysteriously come back up. It doesn't look like anyone is able to access Cpanel, so I would still be assuming the worst...
Posted by techie_g33k, 09-13-2007, 07:15 PM
Matt is not a partner at all, he is only a stock holder with no more control than you or I have over a company when we own a few shares of it.
Posted by TheFaz, 09-13-2007, 07:24 PM
Any chance of getting the IPs of bridget (my old one) and any other servers just in case they come up we can be ready to grab the data and dash? Thanks By the way... Logan, when you were with Jatol and things were good, you guys were excellent! I only had a few minor problems but they were resolved so fast and so painlessly. I think it took a whole 4 minutes to fix my email once. Thanks and good luck. Faz
Posted by Ben_G, 09-13-2007, 07:53 PM
We're very sorry to hear about the issues everyone seems to be having related to Jatol being down. I put a call in to FastServers to inform them that we would be more than happy to help get the servers online if there was a possible way since we already have an account with them. They basically said if the current owner signs off on the servers they can be placed under our account and activated instantly. Unfortunately as you all already know no one has been able to get in touch with Tim. We just really hate to see this happen to everyone and really hope we can help get things back online. In the mean time I'll keep checking in with them and hopefully Tim will contact them and work something out either way.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-13-2007, 07:56 PM
Sure, just use the IP to connect to it rather than the domain.
Posted by dashizna, 09-13-2007, 08:20 PM
Please Do what you can that would be great i really like seeing someone that has helpful information chime in here and there What did they say about you getting the servers and putting them up??
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-13-2007, 09:24 PM
um... Reading comprehension is not your strong point, is it?
Posted by dashizna, 09-13-2007, 09:31 PM
all i have to say is i am glad we have the back up files for our website
Posted by warlockninja, 09-13-2007, 10:16 PM
Well My wife has here site at jatol and we just figured out it was down yesterday. I wonder if maybe this Tim character or whoever is in charge has met his demise or something of a fatality. If not, it sure is shameful that they won't give fastservers the ok to let people get their data.
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 01:58 AM
that would be smart for a host like yourself, you could pick up quite a bit of business, i have been quite surprised of the lack of hosting companies trying to capitalize on this situation.
Posted by dbthaw, 09-14-2007, 06:19 AM
Has anyone been successful in accessing vitellius in the past 24 hours?
Posted by Slick36, 09-14-2007, 09:33 AM
I actually got a payment reminder from JATOL the other day. Now that takes balls!
Posted by tfischer, 09-14-2007, 10:36 AM
Or at least an automated script... -Tim
Posted by conceptwing, 09-14-2007, 10:46 AM
Well, the more I've thought about this, my opinion on what FastServers could/should do has changed. While I'm quite certain they can't release the data to anyone other than Jatol according to the contract the two have, booting up the servers and putting them back online is a fundamentally and legally different thing from releasing the data to a third party. Unless Tim actually closed his accounts or asked them to be deleted - which no one seems to be claiming - there should be no harm and no violation of a contract for doing so. Based on what FastServers, Logan and Matt have told us, it seems pretty safe to say Tim hasn't paid the bills and has been unable to be contacted. Most likely due to FastServers internal policies, they took the sites down - that's the leverage they have to put the pressure of a company's own customers on them to get them to pay their bill. But at this point, whatever happened to Tim, it's pretty clear this approach isn't working and most likely won't work. For FastServers to put the machines back online would amount to them giving Jatol free service - something I'm sure they don't want to do, but I feel pretty safe in assuming there's nothing in the contract that says they can't do that. And whatever they'd lose financially in giving the free service, they'd easily gain back in goodwill and if nothing else, gained productivity in making the flood of phone calls & emails stop. And for pespective, this is not coming from someone who is upset & emotional trying to rationalize anything to get my data back - I restored my backups with another host & have had my sites up & running since immediately after I found this thread almost two weeks ago.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 10:58 AM
Hi, I've been following this thread for a few days, first time posting. I think at last count I had three Jatol-A accounts all on Bridget. It was mostly just personal stuff, as well as an amateur photographer friend of mine's photo album site, but I was also using a domain for email forwarding, and that loss is burning me the most right now. Like many of you, I didn't know anything had happened and only stumbled upon this thread through the Slashdot link. Luckily I have backups of my code and html for the most part, but I wasn't able to get to the databases in time. I kept my domain registrations at a different registrar (Dotster), so I am currently in the market for new hosting. I'm going to take a look at all the options recommended so far over the weekend. One question, do any of the companies mentioned offer cPanel or something equivalent for administration? I have worked with GoDaddy and Yahoo Business and the like for a couple of clients, and have found their admin panels sorely lacking in features compared to what I had with cPanel at Jatol. Any recommendations would be appreciated. In addition I would also like to hear if Bridget or any other servers come back online, and I will post here if I see anything come back up. Would really like to get at the DB if only to dump a copy of the schema. Thank you to everyone who has provided info so far during this whole mess. - Jeff Sand
Posted by ayksolutions, 09-14-2007, 11:19 AM
Jeff, There are quiet a few reputable hosts out there who can help you out and use Cpanel. I'd recommend you to check the Offers section and go from there.
Posted by Jedito, 09-14-2007, 11:31 AM
I don't know if this is possible, or if somebody suggested it before, so, forgive me if I'm repeating something. Probably Jatols servers were disconnected for lack of payment. I was wondering if X number of people hosted on the same server can join and pay the billing of THAT server in order of put it online at least for the time needed to pick up the files. Anybody contacted to FS about this possibility?
Posted by abrahamchaffin, 09-14-2007, 11:48 AM
I spoke with a couple FS techs and offered to buy the server - though they were just techs and probably had no clue they told me there was no way they would do that and that they would just wipe the drives. I just called again as I was typing this and they said legally this is where they stand and can't discuss it further.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-14-2007, 12:10 PM
I think a member raised a good point. Ask them if they would be willing to accept the full cost of the servers (those who want the data will have to chip in I guess), but instead of giving you any access to the servers, they just connect it and those already with authorization can retrieve their backups. Might be an alternative that goes into a grey-ish area of the contract.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-14-2007, 12:22 PM
It's clear no one - whether they have an account on a machine or not - can "buy the server." That's where the contract and privacy of information comes in, it's just crystal clear FastServers cannot give or sell the data to anyone other than Jatol. But paying Jatol's bill or giving FastServers money to put the machine back online or even them just doing it - that's not giving anyone the data any more than having them up & running three weeks ago was. I'm not arguing they have to - they own the machines and barring any commitments otherwise, they're well within their rights to wipe them clean & lease them to someone else. But as hard as I look, I don't see any legal reason they can't bring them online. Giving Jatol a free month of shouldn't be against any laws or contract language I'd imagine. Again that is unless Tim gave them orders to delete everything - but if that were the case, FastServers would say so and put an immediate end to the huge inconvenience to them.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-14-2007, 12:31 PM
Yes, I agree with you. I believe this is so much more productive than those who want to sue, find Tim, kill Tim or force FS into submission. Then again I don't know the specific terms of the contract, so no guarantees this will work.
Posted by perri29, 09-14-2007, 12:48 PM
I found a blog article at blogspot that has info in it on what's happened and how to get your web site back! I used the Wayback Machine link to recapture data from my customer's web site and it worked. I've got it almost in it's entirety. I can't post a link but if you go to morecruft.blogspot(dot)com you'll find the artcile with the link and info in it.
Posted by lalcan, 09-14-2007, 12:50 PM
Hi! been following this thread for a few days, and this is my first post, as others, i hosted with Jatol for a good 3 years and been transferring my hosted clients to new servers since Jatol went down, i also received a Jatol's invoice yesterday requesting for a payment, obviously i've made sure my credit card isn't charged. Now i've solved most of my client's problems and all my sites are up and running. BUT! i want to know the truth about Tim's whereabouts and why he didn't announce beforehand what was about to happen, as he must have know about this some time ago. I don't even know if a suit is in order, i can tell that i've been forced to make a good discount to most of my clients because of this, and of course i want someone to pay for it. I know Logan and the other early associate have been most helpful and i thank them for it, even while i believe Logan could have foretold us about the problems Jatol was facing, but then again, that would have been somehow unethical for his former employer, but considering the long-time relationship he had with most of the clients, it would have been nice, i don't blame him for anything of this anyway. If Tim ran away with the money, well, so be it, but of course i would like to know what really happened and if it was a fraud, i believe we have grounds for a class action suit. Regards L.A.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-14-2007, 12:50 PM
That will work for static sites that have enough visitors to attract WBM to cache it. It will not help DB sites.
Posted by isildur, 09-14-2007, 02:12 PM
Please consider the chance that you've experienced a... hal·lu·ci·na·tion (h-ls-nshn) n. 1. a. Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences without an external stimulus and with a compelling sense of their reality, usually resulting from a mental disorder or as a response to a drug. b. The objects or events so perceived. 2. A false or mistaken idea; a delusion. __________________________________________ Not a golfer, either. Though I do love the work. Billions? Not just yet. It's very true, as mentioned earlier, it's sickening that we're spending so much time talking about FS. Consider applying pressure at the appropriate points and perhaps we'll be much further along in this despicable process much sooner than you think. Let's keep our eye on the ball. Or, we can exchange useless gestures within this thread all weekend long. Hey, at least you proofread it this time. I'd much rather choose the first solution.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-14-2007, 02:27 PM
Since you're willing to post here as a representative of FastServers, I'd like to ask you to give more details on these legal entanglements you refer to. I'm not talking about giving data to anyone but putting the servers back online so people can have the same access they had a few weeks ago. You're saying you can't for legal reasons - what laws would this be in violation of? Or do you have some sort of clause in your contracts that says you cannot give free service? If you're going to post here and say that there are legal reasons, than don't be offended when we ask you to be more specific. Now if you've decided that your policy is to not do this - that you've determined that giving away your service for free (essentially bailing out a customer who hasn't paid) is bad practice. In your company's years in doing this you've determined that to give up that bargaining chip would be bad precedent and be a bad business decision that's entirely reasonable. If that's the case, have the guts to say so and stand your ground. Not only do you have every right to do so, I know I for one would accept that as a sound business decision - something you have to do to be in your business. But you're not making that argument, you're saying it's legal reasons - and we want to hear just what those are. I do really feel bad for FastServers. You guys are getting unfairly slimed by a bad customer. But you most certainly haven't handled the situation very well from day one in terms of the PR/communications. That Tim either pulled what he did or died without a business continuity plan or whatever, most definitely is not your fault. But that this type of situation caught you off guard & without your own plans in place to handle it certainly is. It sounds like you guys have a bunch of really smart technical people working for you - I think you would be well served to hire an experienced communications/public relations director.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 02:33 PM
I believe Travis from FS stated, since they are unable to disclose the amount owed, if anything, they can't tell you how much... but they were willing to accept blank checks -- not sure that that was serious, though.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 02:36 PM
@isildur >Or, we can exchange useless gestures within this thread all weekend long. I do not hide who I am, what my issue is, nor what my feelings are based on current information. No, I'll tell you what, Travis... instead of trading gestures all weekend long, why don't you give me a call? Maybe two reasonable men can find common means? Any of your staff will tell you that I have been nothing but absolutely 100% civil in my rather lengthy conversations with them. I'm interested in communication, not flame wars or conjecture. On the other hand, absence of communications tends to make me quite a bit more vocal and not so civil. Geoffrey has my number, Travis. It is a 24/7 cell phone. Please do call at your convenience. Or if you prefer the public forums, I can do that too. Either way, I'll follow suit. Regards, - Keith
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 02:47 PM
Actually, I think it might be um..... Santa's fault. Yeah, Santa looks like a good candidate for ensuring the security of your data. Seriously, if you don't value the data enough to back it up, why would anyone else? And as stated ad nauseum in this thread, they legally cannot do that. Depends on the extent of the cache, and the nature of the mysql data. I know at one point, for instance, phpbb2 data could be scraped out of static backups and inserted into a DB -- to some extent.
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 03:14 PM
has anyone tried calling fastservers from a payphone saying they are tim tooley or his next of kin and saying "you can release the data" or saying "tim died, release the data" i know there are 1000's of reasons it wouldnt work, but just curious if anyone has tried? hell all the security questions they have asked have practically been posted here along with his business tax id from that business paper scan.
Posted by abrahamchaffin, 09-14-2007, 03:17 PM
Somehow I think fastservers is in contact with Tim and since Fastservers is watching this thread and on high alert if the word Jatol is mentioned I don't think anything of the sort will work.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 03:25 PM
Well even if it would have worked before, somehow I don't think it will now. Seriously, if anyone reputable wants to investigate some kind of class action against Tim Tooley, I'd be interested. But telephone harassment, stalking, and wire fraud aren't going to do anybody any good. Regarding FastServers, I don't envy their position. With just the amount of people here who either can't understand of refuse to accept that they as Jatol customers don't have any sort of contractual agreement with FastServers, they must be up to their eyeballs in support calls. I'm sure they want this to go away as much as we do. Although Travis, if you're reading this, I would humbly recommend not posting in this thread anymore, it's just not going to do you any good and fan the flames even more. Let's get this thread back to sharing information and working to move forward.
Posted by Internal~Ops, 09-14-2007, 03:30 PM
I want to cry right now. not becuase jatol left me in the lurch. Not becuase of the loss of money. and not because of all the hassel this has created for me. but, becuase i just finish reading this entire thread! It took me 3 days! Ok, I am calm now. thank heavens I have all my websites backed up. I have read a whole lot of speculation, but the only thing we know for sure is. 1. Jatol is dead 2. All jatol customers are screwed. Ok, maybe some of us more than others, but we have all been hurt by this. I send my sympathies to all my fellow ex-jatol customers. Thank you, to all who have offered helpfull information here. All those who have been mocking those who had the misfortune of not having backups. Please stop, we don't need you rubbing their noses in it. I for one have learned a lot from this experience, and plan on using it to improve my own business. I just wish now I had listened to my instincts earlier, when it kept telling me I needed to get a new hosting service. Anyone with any solid information please post it. ( qqqq9, I think someone has canoodled your noodle. I suggest a long vacation, without any online access. )
Posted by conceptwing, 09-14-2007, 03:30 PM
There have been a lot of things that have been nauseating about this whole deal... A lot of times that gets thrown out there because people tend to just back away or think "Aw shucks it's a legal thing - I'm too dumb to understand any of legal stuff." I want to know more. What laws are involved? Is the argument that putting the servers (the ones they themselves shut down) back online somehow disclosing data to third party? In that case, the servers running any other time was as well. Is it that there's something in the Jatol-FastServers contract preventing it? I just find that hard to believe. Does your cell phone contract state that if you don't pay your bill, they have to cut you off - and cannot restore your connection even if they wanted to or they'll be sued? I seriously doubt it. Now it might be bad business for them to do so - it may cause them to have more and more customers who don't pay and I can see why they'd choose to not do so. But they're not saying they won't do it, they're saying they legally can't. And without a more detailed explanation of what legal issues there are, I have a hard time believing that. Last edited by conceptwing; 09-14-2007 at 03:32 PM. Reason: typo
Posted by Internal~Ops, 09-14-2007, 03:39 PM
I agree concept wing. I don't think we can take any company at their word. I would think that we would have figured this out from our recent experience with jatol. I have found for years now companies will often lie, rather than treat customers honestly. Why should fastserver be any different. I would really love some honest facts.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 03:55 PM
I think on this thread it's more like willfully ignoring what has been explained over and over again. IANAL, but once again here are the basics: Probably civil contract law. FastServers and Jatol signed an agreement, and both sides are bound to it. And before you go yelling "breach of contract", understand that a contract is neither breached nor voided until a court of law says so. That's what we have judges for. In all likelihood, yes. The contract probably states that if Jatol doesn't pay, they turn the server off. That's how these things work. If they turned the server on, they *may* be violating their own contact, but more importantly if a business decides to enforce contracts for some people and not for others, that could also get them into more trouble. I don't know, why don't you open your contract and read it? I'm pretty sure mine says something along the lines of they reserve the right to disconnect service if my bill isn't paid in a timely manner. In other words, they have the right to turn it off and they can decide for themselves when they want to do that. We aren't talking about a cell phone contract though, we're talking about a business-to-business dedicated server hosting agreement, and the two really have nothing to do with each other. Again I'm just speculating, but in FreeServers' contract, this is probably cut and dry and written without ambiguity for the purpose of avoiding arguments exactly like the one transpiring here. Again, the issues can and have been explained in this thread. And again, FreeServers doesn't have any obligation to answer to you. Now before anyone goes and flames me, I'd just like to ask, given that - A) Jatol isn't paying, B) It looks like Jatol isn't going to pay, and C) FreeServers is spending lots of time dealing with Jatol's angry customers, - what POSSIBLE motivation do you think FreeServers has for *not* putting the servers back online if they felt that was an option? Why do you think they would willingly choose to get hit with a barrage of complaints if they had any other choice? Once again, yelling at FreeServers isn't going to do you any good, and is going to waste your time and your money if you pursue them with lawyers. Pursue Jatol and Tooley if you want your money and your data back.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-14-2007, 04:15 PM
I understand where everyone is coming from with asking the web host to send an email. But speaking as a web hosting company myself. It is impossible to get an email to every client as 1. When the server goes down everyone starts calling. 2. Chances are the billing system is down as well. 3. We are working on the issue trying to get the server back up, making phone calls, sending off emails to techs. So I guess what is boils down to is would you rather have the host working on the issue or trying to figure out how to email you.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 04:22 PM
I don't think you do. The server didn't go down. The owner stopped paying his bills and folded the company Apparently not. Reference several different posters in the last few pages in this thread. And again they are not working on the issue, because their is no issue other than "they" have shut down the company without warning. "They" have disappeared. I would take either, but Jatol is doing neither.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-14-2007, 04:27 PM
Here is the way this works. The hosting company in questions rents or possibly owns the server just co-locates the server meaning they own then just use the fastserver datacenter. They are not part of the loop. You cannot sue fastserver for this issue with the web host, the web host is directly responsible for the issue not fastserver. Furthermore, while I understand that they can be nice about it turn it back on for a couple of days after letting you know. They are no obligated to. Just like as a web host I have resellers, if my reseller comes to me and says I want to close my account and I do his clients are not able to come after me. Think about that. The easiest way back up your information.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 04:29 PM
@conceptwing >A lot of times that gets thrown out there because people tend to just back >away or think "Aw shucks it's a legalthing - I'm too dumb to understand >any of legal stuff." Yep, it's called a smoke-screen. Leaves those who tend to not rattle cages feel like they better not ask anything further, and those who would ask further are just left with a blank stare. It's legal. /stare We can't say more. /stare The servers that Tim had in place for his shared hosting were dedicated servers for HIM or rather, his company. I had an exact same dedicated server for MY company, and I signed a contract with Jatol to start service. His contract to me would be realistically not much different than Fastservers contract to him. I have read my contract word for word, and there is NO such provision in it stating anything about my potential clients. If I were to stop paying Jatol and were terminated, there is absolutely NO VERBAGE in that contract preventing Tim from opening up my server to my old clients and allowing them to go in to get their property. It all boils down to whether he wanted to be a nice enough guy to do that for them (and my experience with Tim would suggest he would do that in a heartbeat). If he did that, there is nothing in my contract that says I would then have a legal issue with Jatol. If I terminated MY own client, and then Tim allowed them into the box, that would be a clear UNAUTHORIZED breach of my box, and I would have legal recourse. Since none of us were officially notified of suspension or termination from Jatol, then Fastservers has every right to allow those of us with valid logins and passwords to access our property and move it elsewhere. Now, for the people like me who don't mind asking more questions than we are receiving answers for, what could POSSIBLY be in the contract between Tim and Fastservers that would be so legally different? hmmm? Ask youself what could possibly be the reasoning or benefit to such extra legal verbage? I see none. Extra layers of unnecessary legal verbage tends to bloat a contract and increase the odds of a misunderstanding leading to litigation. Why won't Fastservers POST this verbage that LEGALLY PREVENTS them from allowing authorized access? Because it's most likely a smoke-screen and doesn't exist, period. These contracts are not confidential in the TOS or AUP sections. Amounts of money exchanged, length of contract, or personal information of the contractors might be confidential, but not the above service terms and conditions, which should be publically viewable. Bottom-line once again is, what Tim did to us cost us the time to secure new services and restore files. That has come and gone for the vast majority. What Fastservers continues to do continues to dog us each new day. They have made this 100 times more painful than it needs to be. We would have all been happy to call a few days downtime a loss and move on. Since we are basically starting to re-create all of our scripts and databases by hand, this will turn into weeks and/or months worth of restoration versus the MINUTES it would take us with authorized access. There is REAL liability there. You cannot get blood from a turnip. If Tim owes money he doesn't have, he cannot pay it. Therefore, Fastservers' refusal to allow us access to our intellectual property has become more of a problem for THEM and less of a problem for Jatol. A 'phone call' from Tim is NOT all this will take. Fastservers wants something from him. That something is quite obviously something Tim is unable to produce, so Fastservers will just continue to hold 3rd party intellectual property hostage. There's very REAL liability there. - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 04:37 PM
@puppet >Furthermore, while I understand that they can be nice about it turn >it back on for a couple of days after letting you know. They are no obligated to. That's the point at which you are not getting it... Fastservers are saying that "if they could, they would", but that they cannot. So even YOU, another supposed host in-the-know AGREES that there shouldn't be any legal terms preventing Fastservers from 'doing the right thing'. They simply refuse to. As stated by others, if they had said that (which would make them look very bad as a customer service-oriented company), then we would have accepted that. They are saying they WOULD do it if they could, but that they CANNOT, and will not explain IN ENGLISH, why they can't. Now I believe you are on page with us. - Keith
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 04:41 PM
Dont let all the pro fast servers zealots here chase you away, you have awesome points.
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 04:50 PM
he made an awesome point, fast servers has an employee on a web discussion forum called webhosting TALK. If they dont want to discuss the situation then they shouldnt have employees representing their company on a forum of discussion unless they are willing to discuss it. I think fast servers having this guy on defendingthem is unprofessional, if they are so sure they are in the right, then why do they need someone on here defending them? turning the jatol servers back on, which they already did 2 days into this mess, is not going to hurt anyone but fastservers ability to recoup tooleys debt. they dont care about customers they care about money, anyone who thinks otherwise is retarded. keep calling fastservers everyone when it becomes cheaper to turn the servers back on vs fielding support calls of those who have their itelectual property hostage, they will do it. they care about money, just like all other businesses do. them turning them back on is their option, of course they have the right to disconnect after non payment but no contract says they have to, i have never seen a contract that says that in a non payment situation.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 04:52 PM
But they have said just that over and over again, and you won't accept it. Why don't you state just what you think it is Fastservers wants from Tim Tooley? And what you think it is they're gaining from holding your data "hostage"? As for intellectual property theft, this is not. Let's assume for the moment that I break into your house and steal your entire Beatles album collection. Have I stolen Apple Records' intellectual property? I didn't think so. You and I, I assume, both wrote some code that we placed on server space rented from Jatol which was in turn rented from FastServers. FastServers has locked down that copy, and it seems may delete it. If they distribute it to some third party, then by all means unleash your lawyers. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-14-2007, 05:07 PM
I won't let anyone chase me away - there have been plenty of posts that I though were either idiotic or just plain untruthful - from pro-FastServer zealots, anti-FastServer zealots (as well as a few other assorted kooks). I had my backups restored, and since I was paying monthly (my invoice was due 9/1) I'm not out any money - my interest in this is trying to better understand how things work and the knowledge to prevent it from happening to myself & others in the future. I try to be reasonable & logical - I can be a pain in the @ss and I'm willing to admit there are a seemingly endless number of things I can be wrong about. I haven't seen any explanation of what the legal issues were to convince me that in fact there were any preventing FastServers from putting the machines online. And while FastServers doesn't owe me any answers, if someone representing them posts here, I'm sure as heck going ask him questions and to back up any statements he makes.
Posted by jsand42, 09-14-2007, 05:16 PM
The simplest I can say it is that there is probably a clause in Jatol's contract saying that if they do not pay their account, the server gets taken offline. And as a business, you cannot just pick and choose what parts of a contract you want to abide by on any particular day and which you don't. That's (probably) the legal issue in a nutshell.
Posted by CameronH, 09-14-2007, 05:24 PM
I said I would not post back here, But I couldn't resist. For a start I think that Travis from FreeServers is not a very nice person, And really is not making the situation better. Secondly, about once every page of this thread someone asks why FS doesn't just put the servers back online for a little while. Well the answer to that is that they don't want to. They can, But won't and it is really childish of FS. If they just put the servers online for a week, Then they could wipe them and onsell them. It really is a waste of time for the servers to be sitting there, Doing nothing.
Posted by sirrens, 09-14-2007, 05:26 PM
Here is an email I just sent off to the PR Manager at fastservers and Travis from fastservers. All you trawlers and grammar police, hold off the flames. Yes, I know my grammar sucks but I'm a talk show host for Video Gaming show, NOT teaching English at the local university, thank god! Travis and Fastservers Public Relations Staff, I am contacting you to request a media interview request with PWNED RADIO. PWNED RADIO is not some underground podcast but a real FM TALK show on CBS RADIO Live 97.1 FreeFM Detroit Michigan. We are a show about video gaming but this does fall into internet intellectual property laws or lack of. And our listeners may have something to say about this subject. So, I will be doing a show next week (That will be available coast to coast in the US) about this subject. I was personally affected by this Jatol problem and now feel the need to take it to the people. I have tried everything, from calling Fastservers to making a police report in Tim Tooley’s city of residence. The fastservers response has always been; “Sorry, we can’t talk about this or help you at this time” Well, it appears you can talk about this! Below are just some of your comments of this growing forum thread. I am offended by these statements and find them highly belittling. All we want is our data and fastservers comes off sounding arrogant and unapologetic, when we all know you can help. I’m not going to go into the possible solutions here because there are way too many. But I take it; this is somehow personal now between fastservers and Tim Tooley. We (Jatol Customers) are not going to be pawns in this little spat and I don’t feel we should be made to suffer like this. This could be all handled and completely go away with one well placed forum post and a flick of a switch. Done, Gone and out of the spot light. Trust me when I say this, this will only get bigger as time goes on. I am legitimate, main stream media and will report this story with our without your official comments. I am giving you the opportunity to come on our show and give us an Official Statement or will Travis’s posts be the official company line? TRAVIS POSTS ON FORUM Keith. Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith. Oh, Keith. You the man. Really. Left without a recourse in the world other than to anti-grammatically flame our company... and with a few thousand pounds of malice aforethought. Common sense long being cast to the wolves, you're wasting your time, and really, ranting incessantly isn't going to change a thing. It wouldn't on day one, and it certainly doesn't have a prayer on day seven or what have you. The solutions are so very simple, aren't they. All we have to do is expose ourselves outright to an armada of legal entanglements (the attached jousting of which will cost us a few thousand, minimum, to say nothing of then-impending judgments)... hey, just pull the trigger, young gentlemen. Help the webhosting community out. It's certainly worth the chance as far as we're concerned. Well, I hear your sentiments, sir. We hear them. And we reject them utterly, just as we reject your attempts to trash our reputation in a venue that has become a sounding board of regrettable inadequacies: FastServers has nothing to do with this massive impasse. We are not going to bend, break, and sacrifice our position just so we can ride in on our glorious white horses of salvation... horses that will then be paying through the nostrils to keep our legal eagles entrenched in various courtrooms. Your elaborate assessment on youth and management is, well, going up on my wall o' comedic relief. If you have any semblance of a clue of how a "wonderkid" can grow and change professionally between the ages of 15 and 26, or any human organism within that range of life for that matter, then you might consider retracting your ludicrous dissertation on the jockeying of hosting personalities. We've done all we can. We await a positive or simply, responsive action from the necessary party. It's that simple. It really is. TRAVIS POST ON FORUM Please consider the chance that you've experienced a... hallucination (h-ls-nshn) n. 1. a. Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences without an external stimulus and with a compelling sense of their reality, usually resulting from a mental disorder or as a response to a drug. b. The objects or events so perceived. 2. A false or mistaken idea; a delusion. Not a golfer, either. Though I do love the work. Billions? Not just yet. It's very true, as mentioned earlier, it's sickening that we're spending so much time talking about FS. Consider applying pressure at the appropriate points and perhaps we'll be much further along in this despicable process much sooner than you think. Let's keep our eye on the ball. Or, we can exchange useless gestures within this thread all weekend long. Hey, at least you proofread it this time. I'd much rather choose the first solution. Shane Hamelin PWNED RADIO w/ Bill and Shane CBS RADIO - Live 97 . 1 FreeFM Sunday's 7-9PM
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 05:39 PM
@jsand42 I have no comment to your post, as it does not apply. I never once said Fastservers could be liable for THEFT of the intellectual property. The maliscious or reckless damage or destruction of the intellectual property does not fall under the definition 'theft'. Nonetheless, it IS a potential liability issue. If accidental, only replacement costs are usually awarded. If maliscious or reckless, usually replacement costs plus punitive damages are awarded. I can tell you what is legally sound at this point: the intellectual property on those hard drives are STILL OWNED by their respective owners, regardless of whatever smoke-screen Fastservers tosses out there. The property is still owned by these people because they were never formally notified that their accounts had been suspended or terminated. What would be cause for litigation and judgement: Since the servers are physically in Fastservers' possession, they are the current custodians of that property. They should give us notice to collect that property, and they are entitled to reasonable storage fees. After a defined period of time, all other claims to this property would be forfeited, and Fastservers would be cleared to wipe that property from those drives. Since we each have UNIQUE logins and passwords, Fastservers would be held harmless for any claims of fraudulant access, period. In terms of Internet Law, it is QUITE CLEAR that acceptable authorization to intellectual property is held by a login and password, which in turn grants ACCESS LEVEL. - Keith
Posted by CameronH, 09-14-2007, 05:47 PM
If they happen to accept, Please notify us. This would be good to hear P.S Do you have a PodCast?
Posted by sirrens, 09-14-2007, 05:59 PM
Yes, we podcast our shows right after the live show www dot live971freefm dot com Just click the PWNED RADIO link
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-14-2007, 06:00 PM
Quite a few posts back, someone wondered how many total clients Jatol had. I performed a WhoIs search on my primary site, which was hosted on Bridget, and it stated that there are (were) 858 other sites hosted on the same server. Those with sites on other servers could do the same search, and together, we could probably come up with a pretty good estimate of the number of total sites Jatol hosted. My husband is an attorney who specializes in contracts, but he refuses to look through nearly 50 pages of posts whereby much of the content is venting and arguing with one another. I guess I cannot blame him as when I look through the posts, there does appear to be a lot of disagreements amongst one another. Anyway, he said if I can get him a copy of all of Jatol's contracts and terms of service, he will lookover and provide info regarding possible options. Anyone have all of that paperwork? On another note, I haven't had any luck with any of the pages on the primary Jatol site. Nothing displays for me. I'd like to go back into my site and create a secondary backup in the event that my initial one is corrupt. Since I cannot use my url (plus 2082) to get into CPanel, what's the proper format for using the IP address? Do I simply enter the IP address with a colon and 2082 at the end? Sorry for the basic question -- remember, I'm not a technology expert. My field is completely different. Thanks all!
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-14-2007, 06:06 PM
Just thought of one more question. I contacted a couple of other hosting providers today. Both told me that they had never heard about e-mail accounts (and e-mail) being restored from a backup file. A few pages back in the postings, a couple of folks here told me that all my e-mail would be captured in the full site backup I made. Are the other hosting providers handing me a line because it's a lot more work to restore those files?? Is there something special a new hosting provider would have to do to recover all my e-mail accounts and files? I was accessing my e-mail from webmail (SquirrelMail and Horde) so I assume all my e-mail files were on the server. Thanks for your help.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 06:07 PM
Speaking from experience, as a dedicated and a shared hosting provider, all of our contracts explicitly state that we will only allow access to the server and data residing on the server to our direct client. It is their responsibility to either provide html access or what have you to their customers -- OR put in service requests for us to do so. Our contracts also specify exactly what will happen to all data on the drives at the end of the contract, or in case of non-payment. Why? We host professional (business) and financial (banking) sites. The banking sites have auditing requirements that require these things to be stated, in company policy in a written, explicit form, and audited. We found that including this information int he contract, which is provided to the auditors at the start of a customer audit will answer many of the questions the auditor will ask when they come around to audit the portion of their business we manage. This means that the auditor comes in happy, since most of his work is done, and it means that we spend less time with them, meaning we can spend our time on other projects. Then again, our customers are not paying $2.50 a month for rinky-dink (no offense) hosting, they are paying substantially more -- and they get what they pay for. For us to violate our contract and turn the servers on would violate portions of the contract, as well as several federal laws if we were asked to disconnect them. Our list of names authorizing changes to the server, including reconnections is very very short, and requires the following of our change proposal process. I believe the only exception to the customer being required to initiate the process directly would be disconnects due to contract violations on the customer side -- which would be indirect authorization to shut down -- and is specified in the contract. To re-iterate -- while our contracts include shutoff and data disposal automatically, to STOP this process requires client intervention. You need to understand that the contracts that FastServers and any industry grade host or hosting provider is a lot more thought out, and a lot more detailed than bargain hosts.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 06:11 PM
Read what others are saying here. You are flat-out overlooking and ignoring facts and details that are contrary to the reality you are wishing so very hard to get.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 06:13 PM
Call a real hosting provider. Any one worth hosting from should at least understand how the CPanel backup function works, even if they don't provide CPanel servers. If you have a CPanel backup, and it's not defective, a restore can be made. Whats the point of backing up an account if you can't restore off it?
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 06:16 PM
Important things first: Replace the www.domainname.com with the IP in the URL. Secondly, you would need the Jatol-FastServers contract as well for your husband to really have inciteful information here. The Jatol-You contracts are not legally binding to FastServers. FastServers MAY release a generic contract, but definatly will not release the Jatol specific one as that would be releasing private details that they are not allowed to release.
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-14-2007, 06:38 PM
Who is a "real hosting provider"? Please suggest some names. And please don't say to check the sales/hosting threads on this site. If you know of reliable providers, list their names here. I have a business site so I've been contacting several large providers of primarily business hosting the past couple of days. I would think all of the large, brand name, providers of primarily dedicated, eCommerce hosting would know something about this email situation, but apparently not. I even tried some of the budget places that I thought would at least give me a good sales schpiel on their "high-end" packages, but their service was terrible. For the record, so far BlueHost and HostMonster's (sister companies) sales team was the worst. I spoke with the same rep twice (although I called both numbers), and the guy was like a robot who wasn't interested in talking with me. Okay, I may not be techical at all, but I'm willing to spend some bucks on a reliable hosting service for my business sites. Out of curiosity (and based on a post a few spots up from this one), who on this thread was paying only $2 or $3 a month for hosting? Not me. I signed on with Jatol 6-7 years ago, and I was happy to do so and pay whatever price because the service was excellent. I had few trouble tickets (most were for my lack of technical knowledge and to have someone walk me through a process), and never did a trouble ticket go longer than an hour without a response. Tim, Logan, and Matt did a fantastic job, and all treated me patiently and with respect regardless of my lack of technical background. This whole situation is very sad. I've called no less than 9 WHPs so far and not a single hosting service has provided me with enough courtesy and/or confidence in their knowledge or service to move my sites there. Therefore, if anyone can recommend a "real hosting provider" as one of our posters has referred to it, please do so. I would appreciate the recommendations.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-14-2007, 06:46 PM
I'm not sure that I am allowed to post recommendations in this thread -- I am fairly new here and it appears frowned upon. Second of all, according to Jatol's website, there were $30 a year hosting plans, which would be $2.50 a month. Third, I understand your frustration, but CPanel is very common software in the hosting world, and most hosts should have some inkling about it. I do not mean to offend here, but it may be possible that you are not communicating effectivly with them, or with us on this issue. If they have a CPanel box, the restoration of the backup automatically includes the restoration of the email. Make sure that they are clear that it is a CPanel backup file, and not just a copy of the site. I will take a chance to look over the rules a bit more closely when i get a second, adn post some recommendations if I can.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 06:48 PM
It appears that Fastservers' dedicated contract and terms are publically available on their website: www dot fastservers dot net /support-billing/server-contract dot html Regardless of when Tooley signed up for his servers, this posted contract would supercede and therefore ammend any previous working contract. Have fun... - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 06:54 PM
@filmdiva I would be happy to forward you my old dedicated server contract from Jatol. In addition to the link I posted above to Fastservers' contract, your hubby might get all of the insight available. It appears maybe there is no private messaging here..? Or is it that we are just new accounts at WHT... hmm... if you can figure out how to post an email discreetly (like I posted the FS link above), I'll be in touch. - Keith
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-14-2007, 06:56 PM
ozymandias2, no problem. I was just curious who was paying $2-3. I guess I never realized Jatol had plans that cheap. And sorry, I'm new here too and didn't realize people may not be able to mention specific providers. If that's the case, oops, I mentioned my bad experience with a provider I called yesterday that I thought would be able to give me some good info since they have what appears to be an upgraded CPanel with lots of bangs and whistles. EzCom Mgmt, thanks for that info. I'll go to that site and print the server contract to take home for my spouse to lookover. I cannot guarantee anything as he is super busy, but he did tell me he would at least look everything over. He's a whiz with contracts and is known in the local legal community to be a contract expert. Last edited by FilmDiva; 09-14-2007 at 06:59 PM.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-14-2007, 07:06 PM
I was on the same page with you guys before, all I am saying is that fastservers is not responsible for the action of there clients to an extent. This is one of those extents. While I admit they are probably lying when they say there is nothing they can do, in the same token like I have stated before they are not obligated to do anything. Now that being said, if I was in there shoes I would bring the server back up for a week to let people get the stuff off of the server, also as a web host I would offer the bring them on to my service as so if they wanted to they wouldn't have to move. So again I agree with everything all I was trying to say was that everyone needs to understand that fastservers is not liable for it.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 07:19 PM
@puppet >all I was trying to say was that everyone needs to understand >that fastservers is not liable for it. No sir. You are stating that as if it were fact, when that is just your opinion. A lawyer would not even submit that as a stipulated fact. He would argue it, then support the argument with any previous cases that add clarity to the situation. The judge would ultimately decide where liability resides. It is our opinion that it is likely a judge would rule that since Fastservers took custody of the servers, they in turn became custodians of 3rd party intellectual property. Since it is clearly POSSIBLE for them to return that property, if they refuse to, they could be held liable for several different issues. That is not fact, just a reasonable outcome to one side's argument. Anything can, and does happen in courtrooms every day. Many courts are more than willing to apply 'good faith' ability and intentions into their decisions, unless there is extremely clear and concise guidance from another precedent. Courts also tend to frown on big business using bullying techniques to deny a 3rd party owner his property. Believe it. - Keith
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-14-2007, 07:43 PM
Has anyone had any luck accessing the Bridget server in the last day or so? I tried using the IPs I had record of and the techniques recommended here but no luck. Just a big ole' Gateway Timeout each time I tried. However, a few days back when others said they couldn't access Bridget, I could. It sounds like the servers are really inconsistent. If a service contract ended, wouldn't the server be totally unavailable for everyone all the time?
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-14-2007, 07:43 PM
@puppet Sorry, missed this - important point... >all I am saying is that fastservers is not responsible for the >action of there clients to an extent. Agreed! whew! = ) Fastservers would never be found responsible for our initial DOWNTIME. That is clearly the responsibility of Tooley. However, each event can and most likely will trigger differing responsibilities. Once Fastservers secured those servers, like I stated above, they became custodians of 3rd party intellectual property. Whether willingly or unwillingly is moot. They have publicly stated they are in fact in control of those machines now, they are the ONLY ones who can grant access to any individual, so therefore they have implicitly accepted the ROLE of custodian. If they work things out with Tooley, they can revert custodial responsibility back to him, or they have the ability to grant us each individual temporary custody based on our unique logins, passwords and access levels. If they destroy that property without proper notification and good faith effort to reunite owners with their property, it is our opinion that that would constitute a maliscious act. It certainly would be no accident. - Keith
Posted by dashizna, 09-14-2007, 08:41 PM
Not sure if anyone noticed but Jatols's website is now gone completely
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 11:03 PM
bridget is now down completely for a day or so. the reason some were not able to access it is because the jatol ns's stopped working. it stopped responding by ip yesterday along with ALL jatol servers.
Posted by mike240se, 09-14-2007, 11:05 PM
i signed up with hostgator.com and so far am quite happy with everything. they have been available at 2am, 5am, and all day long for live support. and yes. not everyone was paying $3 a month, i was paying alot more than that, $3 a month got you a cheap little account. people had reseller accounts, dedicated servers, etc going over $100 a month easy.
Posted by jaxxon, 09-15-2007, 01:09 AM
My web world has been quite stable for the last five years or so. My experience during that time has been limited to Jatol, IX Web Hosting, and Hurricane Electric. I never had an IX account, but maintained some sites for a client a year or two ago. I was quite pleased with IX in the past so when Jatol went dark I opened an IX account and moved all my Jatol sites there. No joy. The first thing I noticed was very slow response time. Then I found some recent comments from IX users and they weren't happy campers. Apparently the service is no longer as good as I experienced in the past. However, the negative comments are very recent and I am hoping that IX will get itself sorted out. If they do, its a good place to be. One popular plan is about $95/year for eight sites with essentially unlimited space and bandwidth. These are not true reseller accounts, but are adequate for my needs. YMMV If reliability is important, you can't do better than Hurricane. The tech support is great and, in over eight years, I have never seen any down time. The down side is absolutely no frills, not even a control panel. Hurricane is a very large, industrial strength host that caters to tech types who are comfortable with the command line. Shared hosting starts at $10/month for one site with 2 GB space and impeccable reliability - you get what you pay for. HostGator looks interesting, but I have heard that it has poor response time, which I find troubling. Any comments from HostGator users? Jack
Posted by tsj5j, 09-15-2007, 01:12 AM
They bear no responsibility, as that is the property of Jatol. Under the termination clause, they have full right to destroy the data in the case of Jatol defaulting on payment. Naturally, if the data is destroyed, you will have to sue Jatol for damages. FS is in no way custodians of your data, but the custodian of Jatol's data.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-15-2007, 02:47 AM
@tsj5j umm.. no. Are you an attorney? Can you please state what expertise you have in this area, and any case law that supports your assertion that it isn't our property? Because you can keep saying that all day long, but the experts in Internet Law we are consulting with so far say that there is NO DOUBT we are the rightful owners of the intellectual property. If people who practice this as lawyers day in and day out state this is a non-issue, but that the state of custody and current responsibility -IS- the issue, I would find it absurd that you continue to post such things. Surely you have legal proof of what you are saying, rather than just stating how you feel about it, so I'll be patient and await your proof of statement. - Keith
Posted by AlbaG, 09-15-2007, 03:17 AM
Hi, Keith and Conceptwing have made valid points and offered some truly insightful and in my book highly probable background info on why FS is being as obstinate as they are. For me it will work reversely to what is planned. Very shortly ago my father died, I sit here currently trying to deal with a plethora of people needing to be informed and unaware of what happened. Whatever is the case with Tim Tooley, I am already giving him lots of benefit of doubt, as I have a backstory with Jatol for more than 5 years in which Tim, Logan and Matt behaved impeccably and very often also generously. Given my recent experience with the aftermath of my father's death, and yes he also was very ill for a while before, I'm not too egotistical not to see that everything has two sides and so far we did not hear Tim's. Fastservers however is on another page altogether and in a completely different role in this game here. I very much agree with Keith and Conceptwing that it sure isn't the case that they will suffer major financial trouble for firing up those Jatol servers for a few days. I also happen to agree that unless Tim expressly asked the servers to be shut off for good, and the way all this has been happening clearly points against sth like that, also FS here openly admitted to non-payment being the background too, there is no normal legal contract deal which would bar them from a few days of free service. I saw my share of contracts, in webhosting/serverhosting, in my time, of various US and non-US companies, and there never was any clause forbidding free service after non-payment. So a smokescreen this is, in my book unless I get to see some hardcopy saying differently. This points clearly towards the likelihood of Keith's/Conceptwings background musings, of a kiddo getting his own back on someone he believes upped him. Apart from the fact, that I truly can't in any way whatsoever respect a person and a company stooping as incredibly low and as childishly as this (hell, a 7 y/o pulling such a one on fellow kids would hear some hard language from me!), this also very clearly means that FS is no company I ever want to depend on or buy services from, seeing how they behave during a minor problem. Mature, adult and customer-oriented is what I want, not childish, backstabbing and self-centered to a point where it harms and disregards third parties. From now on I will make sure that neither I nor my clients host on servers having anything to do with Fastservers and I now have a firm opinion of them, which is no good one. I made a copy of this thread for proof, and if asked I will explain my reasons for my poor opinion of Fastservers. I don't like to be manipulated, I'm sure many others will see it in a like manner. Fastservers actually could have come out of this whole trouble smelling of roses instead of stinking like weeks old fish and they certainly f****d up on that chance. Greetings OK
Posted by neilel, 09-15-2007, 04:15 AM
A ways back in this thread someone reported some fraudulent activity on the credit card that had been used to pay the Jatol account. The person who was paying our Jatol account, just reported to me some fraudulent activity this month as well. Of course we don't know if it was related.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-15-2007, 06:41 AM
If you have an attorney at hand, then why don't you get them to send FS a lawyer letter, plus any evidence you have on hand that is your intellectual property? Currently, they can rightly assume that it is Jatol's data unless someone proves them otherwise. I also believe it is within their contractual terms (any sane provider will) that all data will be deleted upon non-payment, and that if they are the custodian of any data they are solely responsible for distributing the data back.
Posted by moosh28, 09-15-2007, 07:54 AM
Wow..best idea I have heard in 700+ posts. People really need to stop speculating on who is right/wrong and bashing companies and each other. You think you've been wronged? Seek expert help. Hosting wise, this board can help. Beyond that, the community is not an expert in other matters.
Posted by respite, 09-15-2007, 08:44 AM
ok im not "attorney" or "lawyer" nor am i hosted with Jatol. Now regarding Loss of Data Jatol nor Fast Servers are Responsible! It is at The Customers Loss for Not Doing Data Backups on there Account! Jatol Incorporated is no longer in business and it is time to pack up your bags and move on. There are many reasons and Thoughts of why Jatol Incorporated Closed and did not tell customers some of what could have been Death, Bills could not be payed there are many more reasons. I hope all customers that lost out get back on there feet and work it out!
Posted by tsj5j, 09-15-2007, 09:08 AM
By the way, for those wanting to sue for damages, check this Google Cache : http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...lnk&cd=1&gl=sg Or simple search Jatol TOS and click Cached. This pretty much sums up what's important to this case :
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-15-2007, 09:17 AM
@tsj5j I most certainly will not discuss publicly what attorney strategies are at play, or whether any are at all. I will only publicly divulge that several attorneys who specialize in Internet Law, specifically intellectual property, have our side of it and have advised us on what they believe is factual, and what might possibly have to be heard by and decided by a judge. I am one individual who would be a possible plaintiff, because I ran the server, and because I used it for development and therefore have databases and files that are irreplaceable. I also, of course, rented space to clients, who as well have the same issue, and so they are also possible plaintiffs. One client, in particular, was hit rather hard. Since this might go the way of litigation, I won't say publicly what their business is, but their web presence consisted of a rather large chunk of their sales. Their website now sits with a temporary page placeholder, and they are unable to do ANY business from it until they finish restoring the website architecture (which consists of restoring what filesystem they had strewn over several in-house development machines, and then recreating by hand the missing files or files that were modified directly on the server), restoring the eStore software (which again, was a highly customized open source solution), and then recreating their databases from scratch. The databases contain all customer information, all product information (including individual parts, colors, pricing), all outside dealer information (this is a worldwide dealer network), and a variety of support/warranty information. We are talking a Herculean effort here to re-enter all of this information BY HAND (their parts database alone most likely exceeds 5k entries). Excuse me for a minute... Ok, I apologize... speaking about this as we go well over 72 hours into it causes me a GREAT deal of pain. I think I feel a rant coming on. I know how much Travis enjoys our pain and my rants. Anyone not interested in reading further into this rant can just move on to the next post.... I know what is coming next. It is surely a barrage of BACKUP comments, so let's just get that handled. Obviously, as the box owner and admin, I'm not responsible for backing up each individual domain to an offsite location. These guys, after 4 years of 99.9% uptime just sat and developed online. They had a direct connection through ODBC between their LAN and our MySQL server, so obviously the databases were dynamically updated on the fly, 24/7. I had a script that would do a full MySQL backup for them every night at midnight as CRON. It kept a total of a full month's worth of daily backups, and rotated them accordingly. Those backups are sitting RIGHT IN MY FRICKIN' SERVER in /backups. Excuse me again..... Sorry... Yes, that's right, there is a .sql backup file sitting in /backups/daily/[domain] that would take me less than 30 seconds to download, less than a minute or so to upload (my upload is nerfed), and probabaly less than another minute to restore. In 2.5 minutes, I could have their databases COMPLETELY restored. But no. Travis and Ian won't have that. They won't let me retrieve ONE BACKUP SQL that would save this company from spending the next 2 weeks rebuilding all the inventory by hand. This company could be back online right now, 100% operational, and steaming headlong into the Christmas shipping season BUT NO...! Fastservers won't have that. After being turned down multiple times for the ability to go in and get all of our respective property, I finally relegated myself to begging for ONE SQL FILE. I was turned down. Nope, you won't be getting even one SQL file. Excuse me again... /breathe /exhale So I might share a little bit about the people who run this particular company, because this is about people. Talk about cool cats... in our 4 year relationship, I have made many actual friends of the various employees. They are very laid back and easy-going about everything. Non-stress is the key phrase here. No arrogance, no demands, no tantrums, a dream client. But above all else, everyone from upper management to warehouse people are all full of life, good humor, and great business ethics. It makes me sick to my stomach that Fastservers continues to keep these great people pinched firmly between their haggle with Tooley. "Sorry, you don't have an account with us, we can't discuss this with you." /stare "Have Jatol contact us." /stare "umm... Jatol doesn't exist anywhere. There are already about 300 people looking for Tim. His last known address is over 2000 miles from us, all of his phone numbers are disconnected, we can't bring him to you. Meanwhile...?" /blink "Sorry, you don't have an account with us." /stare /click /callback "umm.. we got disconnected, or did you hang up on me..?" /blink "Sorry, you don't have an account with u.." /interrupt "Yes, I KNOW THAT, but we DO have a machine in your datacenter, so.." /re-interrupt "Sorry, we cannot discuss this." /stare /click There's SO much more to this. There has been so many different lines of communications with Fastservers in the last 72 hours, all the way up the chain, even an email that was sent, and responded to by CEO Andruskyn. Maybe I'll share more later, but I'll wrap this post... err.. rant up. So yes, while Ian and Travis are out this weekend enjoying their families, maybe a trip to the Country Club for a champagne brunch, or possibly going to have a look at that Cirrus SR-22 single engine airplane they intend to name "FS One", myself and my clients will continue working to get their web presence re-established. A file that would take me 30 seconds to retrieve would allow us to enjoy our weekend too, but no... Ian and Travis won't have that. That might just nerf THEIR weekend knowing that an ex-Tooley client got a file. Perish the thought. Sorry for the grammatical errors Travis. You're not only richer than me, you're smarter. Touche! FOR THE RECORD: Myself and my client(s) all agree. There is no desire on our part to pursue any actual damages if we can just get our blinkin' files. It's all cool. We only want to go back to doing business uninterrupted by childish bickering. We fade into the sunset, never to utter another zinger about your fabulously successful enterprise. Remember the days not too long ago when people were just COOL with each other? Remember when your company was young, and you reached out to HELP people so that your company would be known as customer-oriented? Remember when a person who didn't have an account number was still a person? Are you two really so far gone, success-wise, that you can't reach down inside and do the right thing? You can email Ian and Travis with your thoughts on this, whether you support Fastservers' cold hard stare, or think they should just blink and help out. travis AT fastservers DOTNET and ian AT fastservers DOTNET - Keith Last edited by EzCom_Mgmt; 09-15-2007 at 09:25 AM.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-15-2007, 09:26 AM
Firstly you can prove ownership by proving to them you have root access to the server. I remember it was once done and after verifying that the files within the server matched description, plus root login/pass matched the one the user provided, they concluded that the user was legitimate and the user then proceeded to buy directly under them. Authorization is a form of identity verification, proving you are indeed the owner.
Posted by AHFBWEB, 09-15-2007, 10:00 AM
Many people here would love to contact the lawyers that are "taking your side", how about spitting out some names of these legal eagles giving you this info.
Posted by isildur, 09-15-2007, 12:22 PM
/gulps down 1/2 bottle of aspirin... /digests the latest unabridged hilarity... /dons Hawkeye jersey... /checks w/ accounting to assess ongoing stalemate... /heads to bar /grabs ssh-capable telephizzle on the way out... <3.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-15-2007, 01:38 PM
Since everyone things they know the law and no one else does let me put this in english. I have enough knowledge in this area to get by. I have worked in lawyers offices, I have gone through paralegal school with lawyer's as the teachers and studied law not that much but have. My expertise is in writing TOS and I can understand contracts. Failure to Pay: The Company may deny service or terminate the Agreement upon the failure of the Client to pay charges when due. The Company provides the Client with a 5 day grace period for payment on most services. A service will be interrupted or deactivated on outstanding accounts that reach 5 days past the due date. The Company does reserve the right to deactivate or terminate a service prior to the end of the 5 day grace period.If a service is deactivated due to non-payment the service in question will only be reactivated once payment for the outstanding balance has been received in full. If all services on an active account are deactivated all outstanding invoices must be paid in full before any one service will be reactivated. The Company reserves the right to keep a service deactivated until funds paid via check including eCheck have cleared. Client acknowledges that the service provided is of such a nature that service can be interrupted for many reasons other than the negligence of The Company and that damages resulting from any interruption of service are difficult to ascertain. Therefore, Client agrees that The Company shall not be liable for any damages arising from such causes beyond the direct and exclusive control of The Company. Client further acknowledges that The Company�s liability for its own negligence may not in any event exceed an amount equivalent to charges payable by Client for services during the period damages occurred. In no event shall The Company be liable for any special or consequential damages, loss, or injury. "In no event shall The Company be liable for any special or consequential damages, loss, or injury." ^^^^^^ thats the first thing that applies here^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ They are no liable for the fact that you choose to put your intellectual property rights on the servers rented by the said hosting company. Second of all if you read the terms that you signed up for I am willing to bet there was a clause that said something along the following IN NO EVENT SHALL (said company) HAVE ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER FOR DAMAGE, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION, THEFT OR DESTRUCTION OF INFORMATION PROVIDED TO (said company), DISTRIBUTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR DISTRIBUTION VIA THE SERVICES. (said company) SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT OR OTHERWISE FOR CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES EVEN IF (said company) HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN ANY EVENT, THE LIABILITY OF (said company) TO YOU FOR ANY REASON AND UPON ANY CAUSE OF ACTION SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT ACTUALLY PAID TO (said company) BY YOU UNDER THIS AGREEMENT DURING THE THIRTY (30) DAYS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE DATE ON WHICH SUCH CLAIM ACCRUED. THIS LIMITATION APPLIES TO ALL CAUSES OF ACTION IN THE AGGREGATE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, TO BREACH OF CONTRACT, BREACH OF WARRANTY, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, MISREPRESENTATIONS, AND OTHER TORTS. THE FEES FOR THE SERVICES SET BY (said company) UNDER THIS AGREEMENT HAVE BEEN AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE BASED UPON THIS ALLOCATION OF RISK. ACCORDINGLY, YOU HEREBY RELEASE (said company) FROM ANY AND ALL OBLIGATIONS, LIABILITIES, AND CLAIM IN EXCESS OF THE LIMITATION STATED IN THIS SECTION 6.1. BECAUSE SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, IN SUCH STATES, OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. We can see that fastservers does with there "In no event shall The Company be liable for any special or consequential damages, loss, or injury." Second of all as per stated by another post they have publicly stated they have control of the server, its not there job to know whats on that server per say. That was the hosting companies job. They are the liable ones here as that is who you made your contract through. You made your contract with your hosting company not fastservers. Your hosting company made the contract with fastservers that will also go against anyone. Cause in order for a judge to even contemplate hearing your case your going to have to prove a number of things. 1. That just because they have your property rights you cannot do business. (Which case is negligence as you should have backed it up.) 2. That they are using it to benifit from it without your consent. 3. That you are a registered patent holder or copyright owner through the copyright office and that you held that copyright at the time that the server was taken down. 4. That fastservers owns the server there is a difference between control and own. (for example my data center control my servers but I own them.) 5. That because they have your property you have lost a great lump sum of money. 6. Kind of repeats 1. That because they have your property your business is out of business cannot get back in, or hat you have had to close your business, or otherwise 7. The said property cannot be a domain name as if there was no clause in the terms stating that the named hosting company owns the domain then you can easily change name servers and you have it back. There is more but for sake of keeping this post short I will not go into them. But In short fastservers is not liable and they never will be liable...... It would be a waste of money to try.
Posted by sirrens, 09-15-2007, 02:19 PM
They have my TM/Copyrighted material, YES THEY DO!
Posted by mike240se, 09-15-2007, 03:47 PM
people, i just got a good idea, assuming tooley is home all along, or atleast his wife is, but is ignoring calls coming from anywhere she doesnt know, someone could call him using a voip account and spoof their callerid to make it look like they are local OR maybe even find someone with the same last name and use their number in hopes it would look like a relative!
Posted by tday01, 09-15-2007, 05:54 PM
OK Guys, I've given up on getting my sites back. I just signed up with godaddy. Can someone more technically savvy than me (ie everone on this board) tell me how I go about getting my domains unlocked and an authorization code so that I can transfer them? Many thanks Tony PM at daytj AT earthlink DOT net
Posted by puppet87112, 09-15-2007, 08:31 PM
Ok there is still everything else, are they benifiting from it, are you now out of business cause they won't give it back to you. Is it a domain name, just cause it copyrighted doesn't mean they have to give it back to you per say. Do you think tomorrow if you when out a bought a $40.00 book and then holder of the copyright said never mind I want it back, but I am not giving your money back.... What would you do..... Also does fastservers now own the servers or control them like I said there is a big difference.... If you had a hosting company and you used a datacenter we will called it widget datacenter. You have your servers in there you own them.... but widget company controls them while in there datacenter. To put a long story short, fastservers is not liable, should they give said "property" back yes... will it happen probably not are they obligated to....no. Am I a lawyer no. Do i know the law.... enought to get by on this subject. Like stated before I have worked in law firms, went to school for paralegal, studied law... I have read a number of books on law both in and out of school. So like I said if you can prove all the stuff stated in my earlier post then you may have a chance to get something out of "the hosting company" nothing is going to happen to fastservers they are the back end provider. Just like you you used the Amp'd cell phone service if they shut your phone off for a false reason you sue Amp'd not Verizon there backbone. I realize cell phone service and whats being said here is two different things but same idea. (source that can confirm that the above statement is true Verizon back boning for Amp'd http://www.intomobile.com/2007/06/24...tay-alive.html) So what I would do, and this will help the guy that asked the question about the secret word. Whois your domain name see if it gives you the backend registrar email them from the email on file and see if they will give it to you. if you want help with it PM me. Last edited by puppet87112; 09-15-2007 at 08:35 PM. Reason: Forgot to cite a soruce for something said.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-15-2007, 10:24 PM
@Dave B I do not have any authorization to post contact information for any people we are talking with. As well, I am not saying they are "taking our side". Whoever you pay well enough -will- take your side, obviously... What I said is that they "have our side of it", which simply means they have heard our story and have all of the facts that we have so far. They have told us, (to repeat from above), what is very clear to them as far as the law is concerned, and what is not clear. What is not clear is what would then be decided by judges. That's where we are, and it will remain there over the weekend. If you are interested in seeking professional advice, I would encourage you to do so from your local area. If you wish to keep informed of where we are in our discovery process, or be in a position to add yourself as a plaintiff, you are free to contact me at keith AT ezcommunities DOT COM Be informed that our aim is simply the return of our property at this time. We have no interest in creating huge legal layers, so if you have bigger expectations in your legal recourse, it would be best to retain your own counsel. Regards, - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-15-2007, 10:38 PM
@isildur Travis, It is quite apparent, even to people who think you are within your rights to NOT return our property, that you SHOULD do so, even if it meant some sort of legal peril. We all know your company is strong enough to survive anything Jatol could do to you legally. None of us are interested in doing anything legally to you. There's no problem here, other than your stubborn attitude. >/digests the latest unabridged hilarity... And yet you find it HILARIOUS. You are the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Fastservers. Quite a bit above and beyond the general definition of a Fastserver 'representative', no? Yet you find it hilarious when someone posts the lengths they will need to go through to recreate the files and databases, even though they are sitting in backups that you could give them instantly. You probably laugh at someone stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire. "Shoulda had a jack in your trunk!!! hahaha" as you wiz by. You consider making a cell call to get someone to come help them. Nah, they don't have an account with you. - Keith
Posted by tsj5j, 09-15-2007, 10:49 PM
Frankly, no company will want to risk it. The consequences of a lawsuit won't just hit you in monetary terms, but might also blemish your reputation.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-15-2007, 10:52 PM
Keith, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this is not true. They are either giving you bad advice or don't quite understand the situation. The intellectual property we own as site owners, is the copyright on the data. There is a ton of confusion about what copyright is - it is simply the right to control copying of the data- the ideas, words, images arrangement of musical notes, etc. It does not mean that we own any given physical manifestation of the material. When you write a book, you own the copyright on the text of the book. No one else can duplicate it without your permission, but you don't own every copy of the book out there. Same thing with the data on the server - the IP you own is the copyright on the data, but not the 1's and 0's on the hard drive. Any money or effort legally pursuing FastServers on intellectual property grounds will be wasted effort.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-15-2007, 11:41 PM
Well that horse left the barn some time ago. That's just the truth of the world we live in. Your reputation can take a hit, even when you haven't done anything wrong, if you fumble the the PR. The fact that Jatol up & vanished - not FastServers' fault. That FastServers wouldn't make the servers available for people to recover data - an understandable business decision even if they might have been dishonest in saying they couldn't legally do it. But the fact that this all comes as a surprise...that they don't have very clear language in their contracts and a well prepared company policy to handle the situation...well I just can't help but wonder what other things they haven't considered or prepared for.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-16-2007, 12:24 AM
@conceptwing Your response leaves me rather confused... what exactly did I say that you contend is not true? There's nothing in what you quoted there to fit what you are saying...? I also do not know how copyright got brought into this. I've certainly never posted anything regarding copyrights. Your overview of what copyright is and how it works seems fair enough on a general basis, however as stated, we have no copyright issues (in as far as to this point, we do not have any information that our property has been compromised and therefore we have no issue there). Intellectual property experts were brought in, because early on many people were saying it's Jatol's property, and we might have no right to access Jatol's property. That was laid to rest rather quickly, as we are told that the intellectual property is in fact OURS. We were also told that our unique login and password is all that is required for that property to be released. Barring some sort of bizarre circumstance that is not aware of by any of us, it just appears that Fastservers does not WANT to give us our property. So... again, I don't know how copyrights entered into this, or what information I have posted that would make you say we're getting bad advice. All we have been told is that the property is OURS, and our logins are PROOF of that ownership or authorization to access it. If you are saying THAT is wrong, well then I wouldn't know what to say to you there... we are told different, by more than one who do this day in and day out. - Keith
Posted by conceptwing, 09-16-2007, 12:49 AM
When you make the argument about Intellectual Property there are only three forms of IP that might apply - patents, trademarks/tradenames and copyright. While software patents have been awarded, they're not common and I feel pretty safe in assuming you don't have patented IP on the server. You may have trademarks in the form of logos - but those would be easily recovered since you'd have other copies. So if you're talking about having Intellectual Property on the server, then it would have to be copyrighted materials. And as I said, copyright laws just don't apply here.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-16-2007, 02:18 AM
Hi conceptwing, Keith, by the way - about property rights I beg to differ. For one thing, original digital art (and I had some of that on various clients' accounts) if it sits in its only and first copy on these servers, most definitely is classic property, covered by intellectual property rights and misapprehended when withheld from the artist or owner. As to what a court might or might not do, no one knows. Rights may be viewed leniently by one and not so by other judges. As per the offensive of US lawyers and courts e.g. even data sitting simply in a copy on a computer or server and doing nothing at all, not even being distributed at all, can constitute grave breaches of various intellectual property and copyright rights. People in various parts of this planet have been heavily fined and even placed in prison for simply having non-distributed data sitting on their computers. The driving force behind most if not all of these lawsuits was the legal system of the USA. So, possibly anything goes - who knows? Given the new restrictively handled laws and cases, judges may come to unexpected sentences, especially where art is concerned, as well as any original intellectual work sitting only in one copy on a computer, e.g. in a MySQL database. As to Fastservers' reputation, as I already explained, in my book they could have helped many people out of dire straits and expressly didn't. That's in my eyes even worse than whatever happened with/through Tim. We still don't know what's up with him. Did anyone of you find anything detailing the servers can't be turned back on for free in the contract above? I didn't, I just read that they may be turned off. Two different things. And while the clients may be the "property" of Jatol, due Jatol's initial contracts with these clients, turning servers on for free doesn't mean you take over these contracts either. As there's expressly written into these contracts like into any other of same type I saw in the past, that there is the right to discontinue service if unpaid, there also is no way that turning servers on for free for a few days constitutes any will to do so forever. Thus I see no "legal hassle" FS would engage in if doing so and any low rep they earn themselves for their behaviour, they do all by themselves. Greetings OK
Posted by tsj5j, 09-16-2007, 02:34 AM
In the TOS signed with Jatol, FS has a clause that all content is the responsibility of his/her owners.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-16-2007, 02:51 AM
Hi, So what? Does that bar FS from providing free service for those servers for a day or two? No it doesn't. Greetings OK
Posted by mike240se, 09-16-2007, 04:03 AM
turn on the servers and be done with it. who will there be to even try to sue you? and even if someone did, no judge is going to penalize a company for acting in good faith to people who are in need, we arent saying to release all the data on the net to anyone, only allow people with their valid passwords to get the data.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-16-2007, 04:10 AM
Law and moral ethics don't coincide, and law unfortunately is quite the determining factor. FastServers can choose to do whatever they wish, as by doing so they lose their bargaining chip with Jatol. It is indeed a very practical and economical world.
Posted by mike240se, 09-16-2007, 04:22 AM
its got to be getting to the point where its costing fast servers more in bad rep and fielding support calls and emails where it out ways jatols outstanding balance. people arent going to give up till they get their data, they may as well fold now before they are spending thousands a week dealing with this mess.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-16-2007, 04:27 AM
Hi, "bargaining chip" - bulls**t! Any first year student of psychology can tell you that after such a grand disappearance act no one is ever going to pay up, whatsoever is the psychological pressure. If Tim Tooley lives, and that's the BIG if, then the only way he will pay anything back will be on court order and via a bailiff. If Fastservers had money and payment on their agenda, then they'd have taken what was - several times - offered by ex-Jatol-clients for getting their data back. That's the only fast and ready money Fastservers could in all probability count on without a lengthy court trial. They didn't want that, so the reason why they do this most certainly is not money. It's most certainly also not a legal matter, as continuity of service for free for a few days isn't changing facts in the least. No, I am by now absolutely convinced that conceptwing's and Keith's suppositions have hit the nail right on: it's a totally childish and inane means to get their own back on Tim Tooley. Nothing more, and most certainly also NOTHING LESS! And this is what at least those Jatol customers here on this thread and people reading it will take home with themselves. Greetings OK
Posted by mike240se, 09-16-2007, 05:18 AM
i am betting its the old "well if we do it for them, the next person will expect the same thing" or "we cant have our customers thinking they will get free service if they dont pay their bill"
Posted by tinkertim, 09-16-2007, 05:37 AM
Can you guys approach Fastservers and _BUY_ the drives, then ship them somewhere to have them put on-line for a few days? Its what, 5 or 6 drives? Everyone could pool 50 bucks and have them. Let whatever host puts them back up keep them after everyone has their data as payment for the bandwidth. Seems sensible to me
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-16-2007, 05:50 AM
Tell you what, FastServers might go for that. You would pay well over retail -- FastServers is not a hardware supplier. You might be a bit disappointed when you get the drives, though -- they will, according to contract, company policy, and law, wipe the drives completely and securely prior to shipping them -- thus you will pay well over retail for used drives with no data....
Posted by tsj5j, 09-16-2007, 06:01 AM
They probably need not spend a single cent on this matter. Realize they have been smart enough to not answer calls regarding this. You are the ones losing from the situation and the more time you spend on it, the more you lose. Technically, those who go for cheap hosts like Jatol will never be their target market, so they really don't care what you think. Those whom they really care about (as their target market), will be rather pleased this is happening as it only shows how much FS cares about their (potential) privacy.
Posted by tinkertim, 09-16-2007, 06:35 AM
Then, perhaps its time to get a lawyer. If nothing else, stop them from wiping those drives. Behold, the power of copyright. They have 'unpublished works' in their posession and the only copy thereof. The point is, get your data.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-16-2007, 08:36 AM
Ozyman is 100% right. They cannot sell and ship those drives anywhere. The only secure and orderly way to allow access is by a bound IP, and a valid login and password. The IP will log all activity, and the logins/passwords already have access levels assigned. There's absolutely no need for monitoring or auditing, nothing would change from the minute right before they shut them off. I knew Faldran well enough to wager everything I own that he not only would not come after Fastservers for doing it, but would probably applaud. If he is still in contact with them (ref: Travis /checks w/ accounting to assess ongoing stalemate...), I guarantee it would also ease some tensions there. If you don't know Faldran, don't bother posting a comment about that. Every single person here who DID know Faldran would back me 100%. In fact... you know... dammit... I've thought about every time I've dealt with Faldran, from when I got a starter account, then a reseller account, then finally a dedicated server. He was just in my server on June 16th, helping me upgrade the mail transport, that's the last contact I had with him directly. I've spent literally hours upon hours chatting with him on Yahoo IM over the years, and being a dedicated server client, quite often we would discuss business issues with servers (not just software and stuff). As disappointed as I am about not getting any warning whatsoever (which again would be very uncharacteristic for him), I have to wonder aloud... maybe Fastservers did something to HIM? Maybe he didn't default for business reasons, but maybe he defaulted because of a disagreement with them. If that were the case... I mean, say he approached them about an issue, be it money or whatever. We all now have FULL KNOWLEDGE about the arrogance of Fastservers' management, and how cold they can be. So maybe they pulled that crap on him. Maybe he then threatened to take all of his servers and clients elsewhere. Maybe it escalated. Maybe Fastservers just started clicking servers off. It would sure explain a lot of things... That's just one hypothetical scenario, there could be a million others like it, different ways it could have escalated to the point where Fastservers just shut him off. It would explain why we got no notice from Faldran (he wouldn't have known). It would explain why they are treating US like lepers. In fact, it would make everything that currently boggles a SANE mind perfectly clear, except for why he hasn't been in contact with Logan. So maybe he went broke and let the service just die.. left us all stranded. Or maybe he dealt with Travis. Maybe he told Travis he was extremely ill, but getting better and needed some help. Maybe Travis laughed at the hilarity of his situation. Maybe. - Keith Last edited by EzCom_Mgmt; 09-16-2007 at 08:39 AM.
Posted by moosh28, 09-16-2007, 09:04 AM
Did Fast Servers tell you that? Did they really? Bet the farm they did NOT. And as far as suppositions go, do you really think a business of their scale wants to deal with this crap just to stick it to one customer? Be real. Guys - go after the real villain here. The guy you paid money to and didn't deliver the product.
Posted by conceptwing, 09-16-2007, 10:26 AM
But no one from FastServers has made that claim. If this is their company policy, then that's a legally and logically defensible position and a valid business decision. Hell, if they said that, and even "per our company policy, after XX days of failure to pay, we have deleted our customers data and moved the server back into production" this probably would have quieted down awhile ago. It would still have sucked for those who can't recover their data but it would be over. Instead, they continued to say they were doing all they can legally do (which has never been supported beyond that blanket statement) and are still stringing people along - basically saying just hold tight, maybe Tim will pay us and you'll get everything back.
Posted by aww, 09-16-2007, 11:22 AM
Wow I was just checking back in to see what happened here and hoping something like a business partner or family member stepped in to help. Still going on eh? Has anyone thought of running a newspaper classified or two in the paper(s) near his last address looking for contact? Or the nearest craigslist? Family members may be completely non-technical and not aware of the situation at all.
Posted by tfischer, 09-16-2007, 01:54 PM
About the only logical suggestion made in the past 25 pages of this thread was that if people really want their data back, they should hire a private investigator. And they should be working with Fastservers to make sure those drives don't get erased while they search out Tim, rather than trying to bully them into bringing servers up. I'm personally getting very sick of the armchair-legal crap being posted here from BOTH sides. Until someone's data is worth enough to hire a REAL lawyer and REAL investigator to handle this, it's all a bunch of hot air... -Tim
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-16-2007, 02:04 PM
Or maybe he actually died, and his executors looked at all his on-going payments and bills and actively closed out his accounts everywhere. If they were not techies, they may not realize what they were doing. My guess is as good as yours -- maybe better because from my experience Travis, in the case you cited, would rather arrange to assist and retain a customer -- legally -- rather than lose one.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-16-2007, 02:07 PM
Tick Tock Tick Tock. It's been what? 7-8 days since the server shut down? I'm going to guess that that date that they can place those servers back in the rental pool (requiring a drive wipe) is rapidly approaching, and FastServers is eagerly waiting to say just that.
Posted by respite, 09-16-2007, 02:08 PM
you can talk to your lawyers and pay them money but you see you are wasting your time! Stop talking like your all big and have lawyers, if you where all so smart you would have owned your own servers, and did backups. your big words like i think i should contact my lawyer now. You guys need some counseling your not going to win! TOS states they are not responsible. fastservers will not give you the hard drives with the data on it, and they will not activate the server unless the bill is payed by Jatol. Get a grip people
Posted by tthost, 09-16-2007, 02:29 PM
He did that on purpose. He posted the exact same post in english, and it was (rightly so) deleted by the moderators. He is trying to circumvent webhosting talk policy by re-posting it in a foreign language.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-16-2007, 06:53 PM
Finally someone that agrees with what I have been saying for the most part. But these people think they are big and "the lawyers" are going to win for them, I say we both stop wasting out time and let them waste there money. Not trying to be rude but a lot of people here have stated its a waste of time, everything thinks they know more about the issue than the rest of us, so let them find out the hard way that we are right.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-16-2007, 07:01 PM
For that matter, posting in a none-english language is also against WHT policies.
Posted by mike240se, 09-16-2007, 10:26 PM
from your own words you are making the point that the people here dont know, so you should take your own advice and keep your comments about "wasting time and money" to yourself.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-17-2007, 01:11 AM
Well first off, you guys seem to think that you have a contract with fastservers, you don't. the said hosting company had a contract with them, and anyone that hosted with that company had the contract with the hosting company. Second if its that big a deal where if you lost it, it would cause soooooooo much damage as to warrent a law suite don't you think you would back it up? Third, fastservers is not responsible or liable for anything so any attempt at a law suite would fail and therefore money down the drain that you could have used somewhere else. fourth, who do you think is going to have the better lawyer. fifth, i am going contradict myself to make a point 9 out of 10 people that sit and threaten a law suite never go through with it. That being said, My only point was I wouldn't even waste time or a lawyers time. sixth, if your intellectual property is that important you may want to think about bring your own oc48 or what ever line into your house or renting an office space where it is available buying a server and hosting your own stuff. http://www.intelletrace.com/Domestic...ivate_line.htm doing a google search I found the above link on getting an oc-48 connection your looking at paying thousands a month just for the connection, then you have the server, the mail server, the database server, the building, the security, the tech to take care of the server, installation fees. But if your the said property is that important thats the way you should go. AGAIN YOU HAVE NO CONTRACT WITH FASTSERVERS. On top of that you have to file in the same state they are located in you cannot file in your own city then expect them to come to you. Which means you need to find a lawyer that is licensed to practice in said state pay for a jury cause anything over $5000 in most state is out of small claims. For chicago the cap is $ 7,500 and in small claims you have no lawyers its you against the other party. And you have A<<< lawyer i am sure fastservers has a whole legal department. Cause you do not run a datacenter without a legal department for cases just like this where someone wants to sue them when they are not even liable. Cause like I have stated a number of times you have to prove its your property, I.E Copyright filed with the U.S Copyright office or simiular if in another country and that has a treaty that honors U.S Copyright laws. A patent or something of such. Domains are not considered intellectual property as they are are easily changed. So thats why I say its a waste of time and money. Yo should have backup your stuff its as simple as that.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-17-2007, 01:32 AM
Hi again, actually most of the people still discussing Fastservers here are either not touched by the whole thing at all or have their data already. And nope, I wasn't talking about having a contract with Fastservers, I was talking about Fastservers' business, general and particular manners and behaviour. Entirely different kettle of fish really. What you apparently misunderstood is, that people here have said, that Fastservers could have met the challenge properly and humanely and let ex-Jatol-clients who couldn't backup or had failed backups pull an up-to-date backup from the ex-Jatol-servers. It was discussed that so far all comments from Fastservers as to why they can't do that, is pretty much nonsense. They simply don't want to and THIS is what throws a certain, rather unfavorable light on Fastservers. Greetings OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-17-2007, 01:50 AM
What you apparently refuse to understand is that FastServers has legal problems with just giving you access to that data, and that any reaason you have come up with why they can is pretty much nonsense. See? anyone can simply ignore the arguments made against them and call them nonsense. Come back when you feel like making a real argument.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-17-2007, 02:22 AM
Hi Ozymandias, no, so far no one, not Fastservers, nor anyone trying to support their legal smokescreen, absolutely no one has been able to bring forth a valid legal argument or document which would bar FS from simply providing 2-3 days of free uptime for these servers. So please stuff that old high tale about legal issues. The point is, they don't have to do that - everyone so far is agreeing with that - and they also don't want to do it, that much is clear as well. Not for legal issues, but instead for ulterior motives. And that's what people react to here, in my opinion by the way all the time so. A simple flipping of a couple of switches could have helped many people out of grave troubles and created a truly good name and rep for Fastservers. As it is the contrary was achieved. You don't feel comfortable with that? LOL - none of your business really. One of my large design clients has decided after all that trouble to sign up for an own account now. He presented me with a few choices and I explicitly pointed out that two of them were leasing from Fastservers. He dropped them like hot coals, as he like me doesn't want to have anything to do with them from now on. Have a nice day, OK
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-17-2007, 03:27 AM
I listed quite a few possible reasons, even going so far as to give examples from the contracts I work with daily. And ruined their name with their actual customers -- the resellers. If they show the people paying them money that they won't honor their contract, or follow the law -- thats a bad thing. Good to see that you are holding grudges against a company for things outside their control. Way to be an adult.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 04:02 AM
@all the hot air balloons The most productive part of this discussion over the last 48 hours has come from those who are actually ex-Jatol customers and now dealing with Fastservers. I stated yesterday (Sat) that nothing legally would move forward over the weekend, so I don't know why some of you are expecting any new information so soon... there's none available. So, after one day of an information vacuum, here come all of those who have no vested interest in any of this, lecturing us and basically making the thread a bunch of noise again. @Dedihosting >Get a grip people See, the difference between you and other real professional webhosting services with accounts here is, they STAY OUT OF threads like this, and if they do contribute to it, they certainly don't tantrum about things that don't concern them. They also would NEVER come to a thread like this and start trying to pimp new clients out of the carnage like you did (and WHT mods had to delete that post a few days ago). Why do you care what we talk about in this thread? Here's a clue: this is a VAST forum, with thousands of threads. Go find one that actually interests you if this one makes you so upset... Most professionals who use this forum are very aware of their public perception, and post cautiously and accordingly. Obviously, you don't care if you look like a fool who butts into business that he has no vested interest in. The 'Reply' button is optional, not mandatory. @puppet You have contributed some good contrarian opinion, some of it backed up with substantial content, but likewise, now you seem to be reverting back into lecture mode. Have you run out of information? If so, understand that we (the actual customers affected by this) are going to remain discussing this issue. If the data eventually gets wiped, I would imagine the discussion will certainly increase for awhile. >Not trying to be rude but a lot of people here have stated its a waste of time Not trying to be rude either, but we don't care what they think. We don't know them personally, professionaly, and have no idea what their background is in order to give much weight to their 'opinion'. They are entitled to their opinion, but are we bound by it? Also, interesting fact: about 99% of those voicing that opinion are NOT parties involved in this. Coincidence? I think not. Some people can't avoid a good train wreck forum thread. >let them find out the hard way that we are right. Would that satisfy you to know you were 'right'? Again, your act was much better when you were providing informative discussion, rather than condescending lecture. Well, thanks 'dad', but I'll think I'll just go right on ahead and see this issue through to the end of it... even though you're right and all. @tfischer I recognize you from the Jatol forums. Never posted with you there, but hello anyways. = ) >they should be working with Fastservers to make sure those >drives don't get erased while they search out Tim Nah, we tried that. I mean really really REALLY tried that. For two days I tried, and at least in my case, as absolutely civilized as I could possibly be (sincerely civilized for say, the first 3 or 4 phone calls!). When someone says 'no', and then you call back and it starts sounding like 'maybe' or 'we're thinking about it', 'discussing it', 'gonna have a meeting about it', then you're going to remain civil. But when you are treated so badly, so coldly, and every call (no matter what level of 'civilized' you were) ends up with a CLICK! in your face, you tend to stop treating them with the respect and dignity you afforded up front, but are not nearly receiving in return. In plain English, we are giving what we got. We just use more words than they did, and do not hide behind 'legal reasons' why we can't say more. We're quite happy to say more. Honestly, what would have been your advice after hearing 'the answer is no, and it won't change'? Should we just be silent, hold candlelight vigils, and just wait for them to wipe the drives? If they intend to wipe the drives, and are looking forward to the moment when they feel they can legally do it, then we SHOULD be here to tell our story and warn current or potential customers of Fastservers how they deal with a situation like this. Inside some of the legal posturing back and forth has come some VERY telling attitudes that Fastservers management has. I have had many conversations with a variety of Fastservers employees. I have posted a few, and will keep adding a bit here or there as it becomes relevant, so here's another one: I spoke to an individual in Sales. After a 20 minute or so very civilized conversation, I asked him to retain my phone number and call me in the next day or so if any position had changed 'above him'. His response? /slight chuckle "well, I'm not supposed to say more, and of course the longer our conversation goes on, the more I put myself in jeopardy and should probably end this call. But I will tell you that no, it would do no good for me to say I would call you if it changes, because it won't. The decision came from the President of the company himself. No matter how management feels or what we would suggest here, HE makes that call, and nobody is going to take a position about something he feels so strongly about." So you see, that's really the point where I started getting a firm glimpse that this was't LEGAL reasoning as much as it was now appearing to be a BUSINESS, if not PERSONAL decision by Ian for sure, and possibly Travis as well. After countless phone conversations being told "we can't legally do that", a light bulb comes on and says "well, after all is said and done, this information suggests that they CAN allow us to use our logins and passwords to access our property, but they just don't want to, and they don't want the PUBLIC to know they don't want to." At that point, a very specific fire starts burning in your gut. Add in the fact that they are also publicizing the point that very soon, the drives will be wiped, and well... you've got a war on your hands. I'm not going to sit here quietly and speak respectfully of this company when I know they intend to destroy property they could quite easily give us back. >Until someone's data is worth enough to hire a REAL lawyer and REAL >investigator to handle this, it's all a bunch of hot air... Sure, I agree. Point number one, I am obviously not foolish enough to discuss legal strategy that I myself or my clients might employ. I will happily disclose things that seem to be inarguable, and barring a possible day where a judgement might clarify things, I'll also pontificate points that are so far unclear at best. Trust me here, this thread is NO waste of time for me. I jot down many of the issues some have brought up, and they will be at the ready Monday morning for comment by people WE are talking to. The closest we have in this thread to an educated point of view is Puppet, but he's only worked in a Law Office and had some paralegal schooling. You know, umm... that's just not really enough expertise for me to read his opinion and go away with "well, that's the bottom-line then". As well, he is constantly posting about issue positions that we are NOT interested about... lol... but oh well, I like most of his posts anyways. Point number two (slightly repeated), there are two systems of justice. Formal court systems, and the court of public opinion. Hopefully, through the noise and hot air, current or potential Fastservers customers will have a better idea of who they are doing business with, and how they will respond as a mangement team during a tragedy. At this point, it's safe to assume, if you have an issue with them that could probably be settled quickly with a smaller company that's still interested in image, you are going to probably need a lawyer with these guys. I'll leave you all with one last thought for this post, and don't be surprised if I repeat it in the future: They say I don't have an account with them, therefore they owe me NOTHING, not even common courtesy. I say: For four years, our payments went EVERY MONTH through a 3rd party into FASTSERVERS' bank account. OUR MONEY. Legally, yes, we have no account. Morally? You guys gotta be kidding me... our money helped your business grow and maintain itself for the last 4 years. The SAME way people with actual house accounts and account numbers did. EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. Our money contributed to new datacenters, Christmas parties and post-it notes during those 4 years. Our money. But you say our money has no value to you now, and you hang up on us. Potential customers need to know that. - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 04:24 AM
@ozyman I'm quite curious as to your continued interest in this thread. You are obviously not an ex-Jatol account... You signed up the same time as most in this thread, I would assume, to participate in this thread? You obviously went off and made 5 posts elsewhere, so you could have the access to forum features (your post count of 5 has not changed in quite a few days, so assuming what I said above...). So... here's the big question... are you a Fastservers reseller, customer, or otherwise affiliated with Fastservers? You seem to be rather vocal on this thread, very untypical of the casual person who might run across this thread and comment once or twice. So what's the deal there? If you want to add more credibility to what you are posting, ESPECIALLY since you are being so direct with your lecturing, tell us what's up here? - Keith
Posted by mike240se, 09-17-2007, 04:44 AM
if your just going to be going "oh see this is why you need to backup" and oh these whining people, they didnt backup" then i will pass
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-17-2007, 04:56 AM
Nope. Yep. Got tired of not being able to post links, mainly. Not really, no. I happen to live in the same town as one of FastServers' offices. I have no financial investment or involvement with FastServers. I mainly came to help people get going again after a friend linked me the post, and I got caught up in the conversation. I find it pretty entertaining to watch the armchair lawyers getting all wound up, and prove they have no clue what is going on, or even what the reality of the situation is. I also think it is interesting to be on the other side of the coin here, where many of the people are consumers of reseller hosting, I work at the other extreme, and work with providing high end hosting -- so I look at this a little differently. It was initially an idle posting, but the longer this goes on, the more I am enjoying the conversation, and the side conversation that some of the locals are having about this thread.
Posted by mike240se, 09-17-2007, 04:56 AM
please, its probably travis or ian under an alias.
Posted by mike240se, 09-17-2007, 04:58 AM
EXCELLENT, well thought out post. Notice i quoted the whole damn thing just because it should be displayed as much as possible. I agree with every single word of it. i was supposed to see my friend who is an actual contract lawyer today but didnt, will probably see him tomorrow, i wont ask him to take my case but will get some free legal advice from him, i will report back if he gives me anything i think should be shared and/or wont hurt my case if i do share it.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 07:18 AM
@ozyman Thanks for the reply, and I do feel you are being honest. You and Puppet have recently been quoting a lot of contract issues, and while I agree with a lot of the generalities regarding liability under those contracts, I will again say that our 'issue' would not include those things. In other words, we would have no argument that we have NO contract with Fastservers, etc... However, courts can, and quite often do, re-interpret parts of contracts if they find that the contract does not adequetly address certain good faith or reasonable efforts in particular sections. Also, it is not unheard of for courts to make favorable rulings for 3rd partys against contractors who display maliscious or reckless intentions. In plain English: if your actions really piss off a judge, it doesn't matter whether your contract says you can do it. As well, every contract I've read or entered into states that the contractor can't be held liable for anything whatsoever, you use at your own risk, yadda yadda. Yet liability is awarded daily in cases like these. Why is that? Because again, it doesn't matter what your contract states if you have done something maliscious to someone. You CAN be held liable, even if your contract states otherwise. Liability can be very specific in your contract, and a judge may agree not to award for that specific area, but an overall judgement can be entered against you, as well as punitive damages in some cases. Note that I am not suggesting ANY of this applies specifically here. I'm just saying that never say never... agreed it doesn't look favorable, but when David looked up at Goliath, that didn't look too favorable either. Anything can happen on any given day. Hell, the Raiders almost won a game yesterday! hehe - Keith
Posted by tsj5j, 09-17-2007, 07:20 AM
This thread has become more or less a flame war between two sides. Way to go in fueling it, EzCom. I think WHT practices freedom of speech. You have no right to revoke a member's freedom, unless you believe he is breaking rules, then please use the report button. No need to get all personal. I believe most here is trying to help. Many are recommending ways for you to get back faster, and the longer this drags, the longer it'll take. Just because you think in a fashion, doesn't mean FastServers will agree with you. And to get them to agree, you'll probably need a legal battle which isn't going to benefit either party. I believe they have received hundreds of such phone calls. Frankly, how will you feel as an operator if you have received hundreds of such phone calls and want to help them, yet your superior says "No, our policy states that this is not possible.". Inevitably, the people calling will start blaming you for a decision you DIDN'T make. Being human, I don't think we can blame them for becoming edgy. You, the minority, fighting a company. Admirable, but frankly you're not likely to succeed. Note that individual customers may be a nice market, but most company's main share of the market is from businesses that value their data privacy. Which proves my point that the sales operator can't do anything yet some are inevitably blaming them. This is their business, so hence this is their sole decision. It doesn't look like they are going to suffer from it and so they won't change their stand. Instead of sitting here and let the fire rage, why don't you start with the very first step? Obtain some sort on injunction for them not to wipe the drives till the case is closed. I'm glad it's no waste of time for you, but perhaps it's a good idea to take action quickly. Have they responded poorly? I don't really think so. They are a business, and afterall they are here to make a living, not be charity. Their decisions must be answerable to either shareholders or top management. That's how life works, doesn't it? Actually, I don't believe Jatol colocated more than 10 servers. To them, they are a very, very small client. Therefore, in a business perspective it's not really worth helping. Resellers and such sometimes can colocate hundreds of servers. Those are the ones whom they really care about.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-17-2007, 07:22 AM
If indeed, this lawsuit goes through, then pretty much every dedicated provider will disallow hosting companies, since they invite trouble from their client's clients. Not very wise, eh?
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 08:06 AM
@tsj5j >I think WHT practices freedom of speech. I think they do too. >please use the report button. I didn't on that post, since it had been up for about 13 hrs before I checked back in on this thread. But since he is obviously trolling this thread now without any intent on contribution, I did in fact report a post he put up right above yours. You won't see it. Obviously the mod who took my report agreed that he is adding unnecessary and rude noise to a heated debate, and deleted the thread. That's the second post by him that I've reported and had removed. I believe I owe you no apology or explanation, as I have made it clear that contrarian opinion is quite welcome by me, and I learn from it. I'm not about censorship, I'm about noise-pollution abatement, specifically people who have no reason to be in this thread and just taunt the participants who do. Definition of troll posts. I'll report 'em, moderators will read the post and make their own call. By the way, I do appreciate you helping me to learn how to use forums. I've only run about 9 of them and set up 100's of other ones for people in the 13 years I've been an online administrator. I guess you just learn faster than me, so keep up those tips 'o the day! To the rest of your post... well, frankly I guess here you go educatin' me again! I had no idea that big business only cares about other big business! Whooda thunk it! I had no idea small guys can't fight big guys! I guess that just makes 'em right and all of us wrong! dangit! And they answer to shareholders! That's how life works? You an all out genius of this stuff, ain't ya? Wow... wish I knew life like that... Welp... guess whatever big business wants to do to us, we gotta just grab our ankles and take it then! No use fightin' 'em! You so good with so much information, I guess we'll all just pack up and head back to the ranch then. Ciao! - Keith
Posted by tsj5j, 09-17-2007, 09:23 AM
I have no idea why you are attacking me for, but I'm just telling you to put yourself in their shoes (operators) and maybe you'll understand why they're hanging up. It's not there's no use fighting them, but it'll take more effort from your side, more time and in the end you might win the lawsuit but lose much more time and money than they have.
Posted by deckard666, 09-17-2007, 09:29 AM
Hey, I'm also a former Jatol customer. I called up Fastservers and got the same answer ... can't talk for legal reason and click. I just don't understand why they can't turn on the servers. arnold
Posted by stephm69, 09-17-2007, 09:43 AM
Totally agree... If they took the right to turn of the server, there is no reasons not to have the right to flip in on for few hours... Although they don't HAVE to, just to humanly help us solve hour problems, they certainly could help us doing a simple thing, without consequence for them. Then they would have done all they can to help us. Nobody in the world, the least probable would be Tim Tooley, would cause them any legal problem for helping us accessing our data, with our username/password. I understand they don't do it for their own obscure reasons... Willing people find solutions, unwillling people find reasons... Stéphane
Posted by Velo222, 09-17-2007, 10:18 AM
Fact is Tim Tooley is the guy to go after first. So like someone said before the best thing to do would be to hire a private investigator into what has happened to Tooley. We don't have one ounce of factual information on exactly what is going on here. Nothing "official" has even been released on this issue. We are customers of Tooley's that have been left completely in the dark with only speculation. We need to find out what is really going on here, and I believe we have a right to know what is going on (at the very least). If the man is dead, we need to know that he's dead. If he's not, then we still have the potential for legal recourse. Until then, all we have is heresay and speculation and that's getting us nowhere. I think Fastservers has the information that we need, and since they're not releasing it, then all we can do is push them to do so or give us our stuff back. So even though Fastservers is definitely not at fault here, the fact that they're witholding information essential to this case is not helping them any. Last edited by Velo222; 09-17-2007 at 10:33 AM.
Posted by Velo222, 09-17-2007, 11:02 AM
What upsets me now is that people looking at this situation from the outside are like: "Well that's what you get for going with a company run by one person" or "You get what you pay for" or "You should've backed up your stuff if it's that important"....they are passing the blame onto us. This is not jatol customers' fault whatsoever! Yeah jatol was cheap, yeah it was small, but does that make it right? We lost time, money, and intellectual property, and we aren't even being given information on what the "fudge" (to put it nicely) is going on. In essence, we have been robbed, and as far as I can tell there is nothing being done about it. All I can do is wait to hear if Tim Tooley is dead. If he is, I wouldn't be so upset. If he isn't, all I can do is call him Tim the "tool" man Tooley. Right now I can't even make a decision because I have no information, and yeah I think I have good reason to be pissed off. P.S. (I backed up my website but it's the principal of what is going on here that is really at stake)
Posted by rpelerin, 09-17-2007, 11:57 AM
Just my two cents... Many people are making light of the Jatol outage, like a 'tough luck' stance. I have received calls from dozens of larger businesses that are absolutely lost without their sites/databases. There are a few people that WILL go out of business without access to the data, to at least move it to another server. (That's right there are larger business that because of suggestions by their webmasters, developers, etc. went with inadequate hosting for their websites/databases.) 80%+ of the time, hosting companies that have financial difficulty will usually at least try and sell their clients before getting to this point thus ensuring continuity, data integrity and uptime, at the same time hopefully profiting. It's really just a shame it didn't happen in this case. I understand the legal implications on the fastservers.net end, their hands are really tied as to what they can do. That said, they have to look out for their own business interests. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. They open up access to the machines, everyone leaves as soon as they can and they face a series of potential lawsuits should Jatol reappear or a relative of the owner decide to get any lawyer involved (of which there would probably be 100's right out of law school who would take something like this on contingency). The other scenario, they follow their company policy and don't open up access they face lawsuits from 10, 20, 100 or more people (at least the need to respond to legal letters, possibly lawsuits) and certain loss of money and eventually all of the clients on the servers anyway. Just a horrible scenario. I'm sure FS has had several meetings internally and with their attorney's regarding this and have not made the decision to block access lightly. Jatol had 1000's of clients, so this is not a small problem with a few hundred sites. I guess all anyone can do is offer sympathy and suggest that the Jatol client who is still waiting for possible access to their old sites/databases do the best they can to move on as quickly as possible, get the sites rebuilt or blank templates put up and take a very hard lesson in the importance of backing up data. I don't think there's going to be anything positive coming out of this anytime soon.
Posted by deseroka, 09-17-2007, 12:17 PM
Well, this was a sad thread for me to locate. I had to be hospitalized suddenly for a couple of weeks and came home to a ton of messages from clients I was hosting thru a reseller account with Jatol that their sites were down for days now. While I haven't read the entire 53 pages of this thread, I am pretty sure that I'm just stuck in the mud here until I can come up with more money for more hosting. Has anyone had any luck contacting any of the people from Jatol? Dang, dang, double dang.....dam*
Posted by puppet87112, 09-17-2007, 01:50 PM
Everything is made up on the fly so therefore its hard to know what going to be said, but there will be a call in number for anyone to call and state there opinion back up there opinion but it looks like things we will get resolved as the owner of said company has responded in this forum.
Posted by newgirlchicago, 09-17-2007, 02:02 PM
Have I missed something here because what "owner of said company has responded in this forum."??? Not sure what you're actually talking about other than the spot on your show.
Posted by puppet87112, 09-17-2007, 03:02 PM
Well, this was a sad thread for me to locate. I had to be hospitalized suddenly for a couple of weeks and came home to a ton of messages from clients I was hosting thru a reseller account with Jatol that their sites were down for days now. While I haven't read the entire 53 pages of this thread, I am pretty sure that I'm just stuck in the mud here until I can come up with more money for more hosting. Has anyone had any luck contacting any of the people from Jatol? Dang, dang, double dang.....dam* <<<<<<<<< Look at that response it looks a lot like the owner to me.
Posted by mike240se, 09-17-2007, 03:39 PM
lol that is clearly someone who "hosting thru a reseller account with jatol" NOT THE OWNER.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 04:32 PM
I'm on Califorina time, and it's only a bit before 9 am here, so obviously nothing new to report. I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss a little bit about backing up and then on liability for data (per almost every machine contract you might run into). Almost every discussion about backing up comes from the standpoint of drive failure. Anyone familiar with hardware issues will agree that a complete hard drive failure resulting in zero data recovery is an extremely rare event. More common would be a drive failure to the extent that a machine will no longer boot or otherwise run properly, but most of the data is still copyable. Even more common is the intermittant drive failure suggesting that a full failure is imminent. In this case, often the machine will boot and run normally, and pretty much all of the data is recoverable; there is plenty of time to take action. As stated, as the box administrator, I have no obligation to backup individual site's data to an offsite location. As well, due to privacy issues, I wouldn't be ALLOWED to have a copy of a domain's data offsite somewhere without their expressed permission and legal verbage dictating how that would be managed. What I can do, and did, is backup certain things to the server itself. That's a reasonable attempt to be ready if the drive starts throwing misc. errors, or cannot load/run the system. This policy obviously does not take into an account whereby in one fell swoop, the drive is damaged beyond any data recovery, and we were all perfectly comfortable with that. In other words, if that unlikely scenario happened, we would do what we're doing now by rebuilding and restoring that data by hand, but this time without any grumpiness. It would just be a bummer. The next issue would be a DOT issue. Once absorbed, you have to connect the issues through the DOT. So we move onto liability for data loss. The portions of contracts dealing with data loss have been posted already, so I'll refrain from duplicating that. What is apparent when you read that at the time you sign the contract is that the contractor does not want to assume any liability of you accidentally rm -f the root directory, or any other directory or file that might cause the server or your website to quit operating. Cool, no problem. They don't want liability if the drive fails for any reason. Cool, no problem. They don't want liability under any situation where an unavoidable accident or Act of God takes place that destroys your data. Yep, not a problem, agreed. So let's scenario. Let's say you request a software upgrade or change, or try it yourself. The system gets nerfed or sensitive data gets nerfed. Liability? Clearly yours. In the case of their engineer causing it, they would probably reinstall the OS and get it working for you again, but there's no liability for downtime or data loss, and everyone generally agrees that should be so. What if no request for server support was issued by you, but an engineer accessed your machine and nerfed something. So, unauthorized access resulting in downtime or loss of data. No liability? See, I think there is now liability. From what I have seen go through legal systems time after time is that there is no way you add contract verbage that holds harmless the contractor for gross or maliscious negligence. Next scenario. You call tech support, they don't respond timely. You fire off a nasty email and threaten to switch services if they don't get their act together. They receive the email, shut your machine off and then wipe the drive. Does their contract allow for that behavior? Well, they CAN terminate you for any reason, but can they immediately destroy your property in what could be proved as a maliscious act? I really don't think so, and I don't think their contract with you allows them to be vengeful or maliscious, no matter how sugar coated it is worded. Once you have proven that they did it because they were pissed at you, a whole lotta court systems will then start frowning at them, and I guarantee that contract is becoming less enforceable by the minute. People back here keep highlighting FOR ANY OTHER REASON. That does not, at face value, cover all liability. If you can prove or convince bad faith or gross negligence, a court is free to start throwing portions of that contract out. The more likely scenario here is that a provider will terminate your service, but give you notice of such. This is a reasonable and good faith effort at terminating the contract, yet giving the account the opportunity to collect their property and move their business. If the company gave you notice and time, and you failed to take action to secure your property, can you sue? Your case would likely not make it beyond a filing, and would be thrown out. Well, what about a situation where the the custodian of the property has no reasonable means to contact the owner of the property, and may not even know who the actual owner is? More than likely, if they proved they held the property for a reasonable period of time, no one claimed it, and so they destroyed it, they would be held harmless. How does that apply to us? Well, the difference is, we have contacted THEM and made them aware of our intent to collect our property. They cannot possibly claim that they did not know who it belonged to. They are INTENTIONALLY and WILLFULLY denying us our property. If they destroy that property, could we prove malisciousness or gross negligence? I think that wouldn't be much of a stretch. You request your property. They do not tell you how or why it is being held and encumbered, or how you can release that encumberment. They tell you they will not EVER let you have your property until some 3rd party issue is resolved that you have no part in, and then they destroy your property when that 3rd party conflict goes south. If the property you are requesting has no bearing on why the 3rd party conflict developed, and has no bearing on the outcome of it, we believe you can prove maliscious intent if they destroy it. All of this hinges on the fact that it IS our property. As you who are hosts clearly know, you CANNOT access a client's filesystem without their authorization, unless an emergency exists (such as a security breach or search warrant is served, etc). You certainly cannot access their filesystem and destroy things or otherwise impede their internet presence or commerce intentionally. Tim Tooley does not have my root password. In fact, I have the ability to change my root password daily or hourly if I want to. I am the only authorized person to access my filesystem, and if I request Tim to go in, he asks for permission and my password. Ok, that section will have to remain uncompleted. I have been typing this post inbetween a lot of different tasks, it's now noon here, and I have new information. Our people have found that it is QUITE possible for us, the clients of Jatol, to inherit certain aspects of the contract between Jatol and Fastservers! This is very positive! Basically, there is no verbage in Fastservers' contract with Jatol demanding Jatol to disclose that Fastservers is the actual owner of Jatol's servers, and that we as clients cannot reasonably be expected to find that information on our own. There is no verbage in Jatol's contract with us that voluntarily discloses same. Therefore, we know that if we violate our agreement with Jatol, we are going to be subject to Jatol's termination policy. If we don't violate those terms (which none of us did, therefore none of us were suspended or terminated by Jatol), then we can't reasonably be aware that a 3rd party exists who has the right to terminate Jatol, or what that termination policy is exactly. That means that we cannot be expected to exist in a way where an 'unknown entity' has the ability to exert unreasonable control or extort us from our property. This is now tied into the fact that they are aware (in an extremely public way) that we are claiming that as our property and have requested it returned. There is case precedence to back this up. The protection Fastservers needs here, is to demand that all resellers disclose Fastservers as the actual service provider, and what terms of service they have between each other. In general terms, all 3rd party clients would need to agree that Fastservers has the right to disconnect their services and/or destroy their property should the reseller not perform. This is not the case currently, and Fastservers cannot expect our cases to just be tossed out of court because we don't have an account with them. We are getting closer... Sorry to those who have expressed frustration with the so-called 'armchair' legal posturing, but this is how it's done, one piece of information at a time. No one in our camp is going to cowboy on in and start filing papers. The research needs to show that we have a reasonable case to be heard first, and that takes some time. - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-17-2007, 04:42 PM
@Puppet Deseroka is not Tim Tooley... lol... @Deseroka Sorry to hear of your health issues and even worse you get hit, like all of us, with this. I can help you on a temporary basis with any of your needs, gratis - free. Drop me a line to keith AT ezcommunities DOT com and we'll get your people restored immediately. I'll be out of the office until 6 pm here (9 pm EST), but then available the rest of the night. - Keith
Posted by Internal~Ops, 09-17-2007, 05:40 PM
I think Fast Servers is fooling themselves, if they think that Tim Tooley is being hurt by their refusel to help us. If, Tim took our money and ran for it, then he is now sitting in a foreign bar laughing his head off. If, Tim is on his death bed, would you expect him to care about his customers problems? If, Tim is dead and buried in someones backyard; he might care, but is completely unable to help us with our problems, or pay Fast Servers. If, Tim simply couldn't stay on top of his business and it tailspined out of controll, then he is a coward for not telling anybody what was going on. The longer he waits to surface, makes it increasingly less likely he will on his own. If, Tim was simply a victim of some vindictive game of Fast Servers, (while unlikely is still possible) then he is still a coward for not at least telling Logan what was going on. I would probably hide too if I knew a lot of very smart and angry people were hunting me down, and I couldn't or wouldn't help them. For those of you offended by the idea that such a 'nice' man could ever be so callous to his customers think again. from reading this entire thread I suspect that Tim was only truly helpful to those with larger accounts. I know he has been extremely rude to me in the past when I needed help with a technical problem that was solely jatols fault. I should have left after the incident, but i procrastinated. I wasn't overly dependent on my e-mail, and just stoped submitting tickets altogether. While i reserve final judgment on him untill the truth comes out, I still doubt he has been honorable in his business dealings. As far as Fast Servers goes, what proof does anybody have they are being honest? I have had librarians lie to me every time I kept a book too long. " please return this book, there is a waiting list for this book", there is a waiting list for 'Caligraphy for Dummies'? Come on, half the people in the entire state can't read, and a lot of people don't even know they live in the US! Some of the books i read hadn't been checked out since the 80's, yet a sweet librarian was telling me there was a waiting list! For some people this may be hard to accept, but lying is practically company policy in corporate america. Unfortunatly, some of us didn't get the memo. So when Fast Servers tells me they would love to help me, but can't due to legal contraints. I hear those sweet librarians voices in my head. For those still fighting, good luck.
Posted by Internal~Ops, 09-17-2007, 05:58 PM
we have the opportunity to buy some old servers for cheap. We are seriously thinking of buying these servers from a company and providing hosting as a sideline to our Web Design business. The servers might be slow, and we really don't know much about servers, except we know we will have to download c-panel and probably windows xp which doesn't sound bad. We have managed other peoples sites as well as our own and aren't completely ignorant in this area or with computers in general. I would really appreciate anyones advice,opinions or suggestions. Thanks
Posted by CameronH, 09-17-2007, 06:02 PM
Lol, Windows XP? You will need CentOS (Which is free) and then cPanel ($47 Per Server) It doesn't sound like you have alot of dedicated server knowledge, So you should probably get someone to manage them, I personally charge per install of software, And per weekly maintainence, But you can get people which charge a flat rate to do everything.
Posted by oldcqr, 09-17-2007, 10:43 PM
I too do not see any reason why FastServers could not turn on the Jatol servers for a day or too. What legal reason could there be against giving a customer (that being Jatol, not US) a day or 2 of free service? Now, with that said, FastServers is under NO OBLIGATION to us to do so. Their stance has been made quite clear - they will NOT bring up the servers. No amount of posturing or threats will change that. The best we can do is vote with our dollars... My recommendation to anyone looking for managed servers should not look to FastServers and look elsewhere. On the opposite side of the coin, I again want to personally thank the nice people over at OnlineNic. What I thought was going to be a nightmare has actually been a very pleasant experience with them. FastServers should take note here -- we were not the 'customers' of OnlineNic either. However, they understood our plight and helped. I recommend them highly!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-17-2007, 11:37 PM
Evidently you are.. A) CPanel doesn't run on windows (ok, ok they have a new version that might -- but it's crazy untested/stable) B) You don't host with XP. Ew. Just ew. C) have fun getting hacked.
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-18-2007, 12:06 AM
@Ozyman lol... = D @I-Ops You know, there's certainly enough help here to walk you through a few issues to getting some servers up and stable, but really, after what you've posted, my only recommendation to you would be to continue seeking a managed or semi-managed outside source. Once you are stablized there, you can focus on one in-house machine and start learning server software, setup, maintenance and security. That way nothing is mission critical while you are learning from the hundreds of mistakes you'll encounter and learn from. Best of luck with it... - Keith
Posted by EzCom_Mgmt, 09-18-2007, 12:20 AM
@I-Ops btw >If, Tim took our money and ran for it, then he is now sitting >in a foreign bar laughing his head off. If Tim took the entire month's worth of hosting fees and ran off, trust me, he wouldn't last very long on it at all. He wasn't -that- big, really... not nearly that big. What he was making was probably not much more than your average salaried employee. If he didn't pay out to Fastservers from the gross receipts, add a little more, but really, not much. If he had somehow managed to pull some scam on Fastservers and has pocketed many months of gross receipts, then that might start to get a bit bigger, but still not anything someone is going to retire to a foreign country on. - Keith
Posted by mike240se, 09-18-2007, 02:35 AM
that could explain fast servers hating and not wanting to help jatol customers so bad. tim maybe ripped them off big time some how.
Posted by Mr. Obvious, 09-18-2007, 03:50 AM
UGH. For the FINAL TIME in this thread. FastServers DOES NOT HATE YOU GUYS. They are in a legally binding contract and if they break the contract they can have legal action pinned against them. Don't gimme the crap about "Oh well only Tim can bring legal action" because I don't care about it. Yes, Tim is gone, long gone, but FastServers still has a contract to honor, and they are going to honor it until the day that its terminated. Once the contract is terminated they follow standard procedure and wipe every single machine of any and all data that resides on them. No matter how much bitching and whining a person does will ever change that, because of the United States legal system. Once entered into a legally binding contract, if you make the decision to break said contract, you're pretty much asking to have your *** handed to you on a silver platter. I've spoken with them, and they DO want to help you guys, but its because of that stupid contract that they can't. If this wasn't the United States, and they weren't based out of the United States, they would probably just be like "Oh whatever, here have your stupid data, login and get it over with" but once again, THEY CAN'T SO QUIT COMPLAINING ABOUT IT. Now it's my turn to go into detail about why you should always keep a recent full backup of your site. FOR JUST IN CASES LIKE THIS WHERE A HOST VANISHES! I know that this is a public forum, and yes I am probably going to get flamed for this post, but right now I don't care. If you haven't paid enough attention in that past 6 months to notice that the company was going thru the floor, then its you're own problem. Not everyone elses. Do everyone a favor and get over it. You're not going to get your stuff back unless a frickin miracle happens, and thats probably not going to happen..ever.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-18-2007, 04:58 AM
Hi, Aha? Can you please point out WHERE EXACTLY it says in their contracts that they can't provide service for free? NO ONE here has been so far able to do that. So if you are so ****-sure about this, please do it. Greetings OK
Posted by mike240se, 09-18-2007, 06:30 AM
that guy at travis has been here being a snickering little prick, giving everyone a hard time and really rubbing salt in the wound. i doubt the contract says they have to do that??? so therefore, they hate us
Posted by tsj5j, 09-18-2007, 06:35 AM
Well, maybe they might have given you a nicer time if you didn't flood their operators meant for customers and some people won't be so demanding as if it's their responsibility. Just maybe.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-18-2007, 06:37 AM
They aren't obliged to, they are a business not a charity. If they don't want to not make a loss from this they'll have to get some payment - and with the no revealing of billing terms clause, they can only get it from Jatol.
Posted by AlbaG, 09-18-2007, 07:12 AM
Hi ByteHut, Not being obliged is absolutely NOT the same as "and if they break the contract they can have legal action pinned against them". How often do people here have to point this out? So far no one was able to procure a wording of FS contracts which forbids them to provide service for free. Yes, we all know they are not obliged. But we also all know that they could if they wanted. More nonsense. People here have offered to pay, repeatedly so and blindly so. And if money truly were at the background of this, any normally thinking business person would have taken what's offered. With several hundreds of people FS might have made 2-3K for one or two days of putting those servers online. And as far as I can tell, we talk here of way less than 10 servers, looks more like 3-4. So that would indeed have been a pretty good deal. It's, as was also repeatedly explained, extremely unlikely that they will ever get money from Tim Tooley or his family without a lawcase, so this very argument is none. Greetings OK
Posted by tsj5j, 09-18-2007, 07:55 AM
Which company doesn't want to look good? Sometimes, it's better to be indirect. Of course, this is pure guessing. Before dismissing me as "nonsense", let me remind you that there DEFINITELY is a clause within the contract that FS is not to reveal billing details to a third party. Legally speaking, hinting at a rough ballpark figure may already be a breaking of this clause.
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-18-2007, 11:55 AM
Or, say, your host is hit by a hurricane, or an earthquake or some other disaster.... It's almost like you could have a plan.. on how to recover...after a disaster... We could call it a "Disaster Recovery Plan"!!!
Posted by ozymandias2, 09-18-2007, 11:57 AM
Actually, I fail to see how what Travis said can bee seen as rubbing salt in the wound. Sure, it was not the more poilte way to say it, but these guys have been harassed on this issue, and people are choosing to ignore the facts of the case. Travis could have been slightly more political on the issue, but the end result would have been the same.
Posted by sirrens, 09-18-2007, 02:36 PM
Notice travis has not posted since his assualt? Seems fasterservers has pulled him back!
Posted by isildur, 09-18-2007, 03:34 PM
Sadly, I answer to zero particular souls here. I have overflowing responsibilities elsewhere of which to attend. It happens. I do wish you all the best and I am terribly sorry that an eminently feasible resolution appears to have eluded us. We'll continue to hold out hope, just the same. As a dude that has been here since the genesis of our establishment, it's painfully obvious in retrospect how fervor-packed I can become, especially in this unique case. It does no good whatsoever, to be sure, and I do apologize for certain venom-tipped contributions. I just won't tell you which ones. Best of luck everyone. Our eyes and ears remain open, though legally nothing has been or seemingly will be uncovered here to empower us further. There's nothing more to say. Last edited by isildur; 09-18-2007 at 03:37 PM.
Posted by lalcan, 09-18-2007, 03:45 PM
> I am terribly sorry that an eminently feasible resolution appears to have eluded us. So... could you at least tell us what was that "feasible resolution"? or have you guys been in touch with Tim or someone representing his interests? please let us know how you did that, i believe some of us'd like to have a little chat with him... Best regards Leo
Posted by tsj5j, 09-18-2007, 09:36 PM
Yea right. FastServers probably have nothing more to say on this discussed-to-death issue. They have tried telling, convincing, and whatever to you guys, so now they've apparently decided to ignore. Not a bad idea.
Posted by respite, 09-18-2007, 11:20 PM
Or maybe the are more professional and learn to get on with things, Tough luck you chose a wrong host, grow up and stop acting like 2 year olds.
Posted by tsj5j, 09-19-2007, 01:53 AM
Pretty agree, except this company was reputable in the past too. Even reputable companies can go wrong, and the most important thing? Always have a failsafe. Not just in terms of backups, but maybe a cheap hosting with another provider so you can always put up a "We'll be back" message. And NEVER register a domain with your host.
Posted by ElfNori, 09-19-2007, 10:00 AM
I know of one person who had an automated payment made via paypal on 9/4. She petitioned PayPal for a refund and PayPal made it happen. ElfN
Posted by deseroka, 09-19-2007, 01:34 PM
HA! If only I were Tim Tooley. I'd fix this crap and be done with it. However, I'm merely someone who got caught in the mess like the rest of you. Keith, I just sent you an email. I'll be back at checking things again tomorrow. I must say tho, that I always had good response from Jatol on anything I needed. Even back when I started out with 50megs and hosted my site only. I dunno, maybe he just liked me. For those who did register domain names with Jatol, I believe I have the info on who they were reselling thru somewhere in my files. I don't know that it will be of any help to anyone, but I'll try to locate it and post here in hopes that it will be of some use. If all else fails you can always renew your domain name and have it transferred somewhere else. This is what I did with a few stubborn services who wanted to hold domains hostage.
Posted by tfischer, 09-19-2007, 06:14 PM
All people are saying is that ultimately, you are responsible for your own data/livelihood. If your data means something to you, you best back it up. Because I can tell you, it means very little to Tim Tooley, and even less to FastServers, who have thousands of rack units to maintain. Nobody has implied that this isn't ultimately Jatol's fault. But it's NOT FastServer's fault. Just because Jatol flew the coup and Fastservers is still around DOES NOT make it their problem. Why don't you instead complain to AT&T or whoever runs the network that FastServers uses? You'll get about as much help from them... As for "you should have saw it coming", maybe yes, maybe no. I was a loyal customer that had referred dozens of customers to them -- and I jumped ship over a year ago due to frustrations with support issues (which had been impeccable for years). I can't say "I saw this coming", but I did switch hosts so something was up... -Tim
Posted by rileez, 09-19-2007, 06:35 PM
I just have to quote this and make it heard again. This is what people need to read and read over until they realize that fastservers is not at fault and to not bring their complaint to them.
Posted by sirrens, 09-19-2007, 06:38 PM
I am so sick of people defending Fastservers... They are also a cause of a lot of people’s grief here. They should have NEVER - EVER, brought the Jatol servers online to let "Some" people get there data back.. Sorry, when a rep from fastservers comes to this forum and posts a "high and Mightier then thou" (In Words) "We are not going to be your savor here and we can't do anything to help because of legal reasons" That’s BS! You can help us but won't because it's ALL ABOUT MAKING TOOLEY SUFFER and PAY! Lets face it, Must of us are small little guys with no money to get a lawyer and sue both Jatol and Fastservers (to release data) The Big Business (Fastservers)wins again.. They are not going to help us, EVEN THO THEY CAN! If i hear one more person say, The same old legal song and dance.. They have a vested interest in fastservers then... THEY CAN HELP, THEY DID HELP SOME PEOPLE ONCE! THEY CHOOSE NOT TO HELP! Because they could care less, its NOT going to hurt them any! Sorry the AT&T reference is bunk! ATT doesn't have my data.. Plan and simple It's just another case of Little Guy Verses Big Guy and we all know how they always turn out.. fastservers, with one single post here... Hey All, we are going to put an end to this. Tomorrow from 7-10PM EST we will put the servers online, if you have a current login and password, get your data. After this we are done! That can fix this whole problem! For those that say, Tim Tooley and Jatols are the ones to blame... YES, Sure I'd love to go get them.. But we can't! have no idea where they are.. But I sure know where my data is or "was".. Last edited by sirrens; 09-19-2007 at 06:42 PM.
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-19-2007, 06:53 PM
Sorry, I've been out of the loop the last couple days because every time I tried to access WHT, it was either down or slow and wouldn't advance to the last page of posts. I started to think WHT might be on one of JATOL's servers (little joke there) or even OnlineNIC (who also has apparently been having problems the past few days given the response I received to a support ticket). Anyway, I don't know if anyone has mentioned this prior, but the previous posts I saw listed Tim's address on Raindrop or Rainbow (or something to that effect) Lane/Street whatever. Anyway, I did a little digging into their corporate legal structure info (public records) and noticed that there was another address listed for Tim. Apparently the company did not submit their annual report and other records on time and the State of Kentucky dissolved the corporation in November of 2004. It was then reinstated in December of 2004. In those records, it lists the following address for Tim: Timothy M. Tooley 3431 Wandering Lane Owensboro, KY 42304 It states that their last annual report was 6/1/07, and their current company officers as: President: Timothy M. Tooley Secretary: Kelly Tooley Treasurer: Timothy M. Tooley Director: Timothy M. Tooley Director: Matthew Jackson Apparently Matt was never removed from the list of corporate officers. Interesting... Anyway, perhaps the person who checked out the Rainwhatever address could check out the Wandering Lane address. Given, it's probably an old address, but if they didn't sell and still own the house (even if renters live there), he might be traceable from there. Just a thought.
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-19-2007, 07:08 PM
Also forgot to mention that although J.H. Calvert formally resigned as JATOL's registered agent, there does not appear to be any corporate dissolution paperwork filed as of yet. Technically, the corporation is still an active, legal entity. That's good to know for anyone trying to get their money back by legal means. It shows negligence on the part of the corporation and it's officers as the corporation is still "active" as was still receiving payments (at least up until the end of August), yet they did not communicate with their customers regarding status. Also, they haven't been good corporate citizens in dissolving their company with the state in which it was registered. This is where the whole situation leans towards shady. If the corporations's president died and an attorney was handling the estate, one of the first things they would do is dissolve the company.
Posted by FilmDiva, 09-19-2007, 07:14 PM
Also, if I was Matt and I was in no way still associated with the company, I'd want to get my name off that list of corporate officers as quickly as possible. By being listed as an officer of the company, he's potentially liable for any refunds, etc. -- especially if someone sues.
Posted by tfischer, 09-19-2007, 07:43 PM
Do you have concrete proof that they did? And if so, do you have concrete proof that it was a) intentional, and b) sanctioned? It could have been an auto-restart. It could have been a misguided employee just trying to be helpful. It's VERY doubtful that they just decided "hey, that's enough, let's screw the rest of 'em..." Can you please point me to the post where they said they're trying to "make tooley suffer and pay"? Please see my original point above. If you can PROVE that they CHOSE to help some people, then completely switched positions and decided NOT to help others, then lets talk. Speculation doesn't count. You don't even know that Fastservers has your data anymore. What if Jatol self-hosted? Then who would you be blaming? You are as much of a customer of Fastservers as you are of AT&T (or whoever). You might have email messages sitting on some relay server somewhere on the 'net-- why don't you track them down, and hound their people?? What it boils down to is this: If your data is valuable, hire a lawyer and see if there is any legal way you can a) track down Tooley and get your data back, or b) get a court order to get FastServers to hand it over, if it indeed still exists. If you're not willing to do this, quit hounding an innocent company. -Tim
Posted by tfischer, 09-19-2007, 07:47 PM
Matt AND Logan's names were still on Jatol's website as well, which is why so few people realized Jatol was going down the tubes. I suspect Matt has asked for his name to be removed, but if Tim won't do it, what can he do, short of suing Jatol? Just because my former employer lists me as an employee, doesn't make me liable for their mistakes. It might get me a subpoena, but it would be pretty easy for me to get the charges dismissed... -Tim
Posted by lalcan, 09-19-2007, 09:16 PM
Today, one of the servers of my new host suppliers had a hiccup and had to be rebooted... I, who was looking at one of the domains hosted there at that exact time, got into damage control and sent immediate mails to that client and called to my partner to tell him about it, all that while loading a ticket as fast as you say "click!" The ticket was answered pretty fast, the server had to be rebooted... and well within the next two minutes the page was loading happily as ever... I was scared, even tough i've made my homework and checked the references of my new host supplier, i was really scared, it only lasted two minutes, do you believe i have grounds to sue Jatol with psychological damages? just think... what would you have done in the same situation? Where the hell is Tim Tooley and why hasn't he come out and explained everything? Me
Posted by Justin, 09-19-2007, 11:20 PM
While this debate could go on forever and the constant flaming in this thread may be left to continue as well.... I suggest whomever has a need to discuss this further please do so via PM as this thread continues to keep going off topic. /thread