CI HOST carries on age-old tradition of <sue-proofed> Options

[usr.c]

The worst experience I've ever had in all my years of existence (possibly worse than that time when a train ran me over leaving me stranded for hours until a helicopter ambulance finally came only for it to crash and burn over the mountains shortly after takeoff where I survived for two months by eating slugs and other niceties while slipping away from the jaws of death on half a dozen occasions that involved running away from leopards, moose and, once, a lion), was dealing with CI HOST support and staff back when this website was hosted there.

Any money that I made back then all went to the good folks at CI HOST. So it came as no surprise to learn that following a recent robbery of one of their datacenters, they did what they do best: they reached into their bag of tricks and came up with the best way to tell their customers about the unfortunate situation: blatantly lying to them and saying it was caused by a router failure. It's ironic that the "Register" article is titled "Masked thieves storm into Chicago colocation (again!)"

Were it not the case that people's data got stolen and that they'll probably not be reimbursed by CI HOST, again no surprise, I'd have said that karma's a pretty cool guy. How that company has survived for so long given the rotten way it deals with customers is a mystery.

More here, here and here

Edit: A /. reader points us to this gem of a page.

[amir]

do u think hacking into their systems could also be as easy? 4 times!
i think they are paid to provide hands-on experience to novice/junior robbers.

[usr.c]

So many good memories, here's one of the conversations I remember having with their tech support, exaggerated for effect. This was about 5 or so years ago:

(after waiting on hold for God knows how long)
a: Why does this month's invoice say $460 for "overages"?
b: Because you went over your bandwidth limit

a: But you said that I had unlimited bandwidth
b: Yeah well, we also have a fair usage policy

a: No one told me about that, what does it state?
b: That your usage of bandwidth has to be fair

a: And how do you define fair?
b: Bandwidth usage that is below the fair usage limit

a: Umm...So if I used 50GB a month would that be fair?
b: No

a: How about 40GB
b: No

a: How about 30GB?
b: No

a: How about 20GB?
b: (no answer)

a: How about 19GB?
b: Yes

a: Aha, so the bandwidth limit is actually 20GB!
b: What gave it away?

a: You don't really provide unlimited bandwidth, you just say you do so that people buy your supposedly attractive "crazy deal" plans, which actually use inferior hardware parts and are badly configured. You then suck money from your customers by charging them for going over their non-existent bandwidth limit.
b: It doesn't seem very fair to blame us for badly configuring our servers. You know, gardening* takes up most of the day and so by the time we get our hands on the boxes we're all out

a: What the...So you're all actually gardeners?
b: Yeah

a: You must be ****ing me. You mean my all my data is at the mercy of a few guys in rubber gloves and boots?
b: Our manager is actually a former wrestler

a: Bye (click)



* Not that there's anything wrong with being a gardener

[amir]

You don't really provide unlimited bandwidth, you just say you do so that people buy your supposedly attractive "crazy deal" plans, which actually use inferior hardware parts and are badly configured. You then suck money from your customers by charging them for going over their non-existent bandwidth limit.

just like the scenes from old classic black and white movies when the guy is convicted of a murder in the court room:

no, i didn't kill her, no, please...
YES, u did and you thought u can get away with all the money.
no, i only installed the latest SP! then she died. a blue death.

[usr.c]

I just had to share this. I stumbled upon an article talking about the guy who agreed to have the webhost's name tattooed on his head a few years ago and how successful it all was in getting them new customers. The part that I really like is this:

"He is the best sales person I have - he passes out flyers, talks to people and does not ask for a salary or commission," Faulkner stated.

Umm...yeah I mean can you believe the nerve of some employees, you know, asking for a salary.