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Piohost have cropped my year long contract to 4 months and are charging way more.
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We dont know who the PioHost "manager" is..
if you have an issue why don't you open a ticket and speak with the support manager? LET is not a helpdesk
Come on, let's not play games.
From the client notification:
What is "PioHost"? The company? The brand? The website? This still hasn't been clarified. I already addressed this and the question of who's liable for the refunds in my previous reply as well.
Here you said:
"The company" that was represented was PioHost Ltd., and this was even mentioned explicitly:
Yet the company registration has not changed, and is still on Bopie's name, and customers are being told that the liabilities of the Wigan failure somehow lie with Bopie.
So... which is it? Did Access Internet Group acquire PioHost LTD, or did they just purchase the customers and assets? Are the liabilities for the Wigan failure with Bopie personally, with PioHost LTD, or with Access Internet Group?
I don't have an issue, I'm just saying that even though they're saying that they're not being un-transparent they still don't say who specifically is managing the PioHost LET account.
who do you think? its probably the public relations manager.
I don't want to back them, but sure this happens. Sky do it all the time. You have the right to cancel and get a refund if they change the goalposts half way, though.
Then why would he call them the "PioHost manager" if they were the public relations manager? It makes it sound as if they are more involved with the behind the scenes processes of the merge other than just public relations.
Only the brand was acquired.
That looks like a response to whether the old company had it in their terms they could change prices when people entered into contracts.
Correct.
PioHost LTD holds the liability to refund Wigan orders as the hardware failure and promised refunds happened prior to sale, the services were also removed from billing by the previous company prior to sale. We have a limited view on the Wigan situation and advise customers to seek a refund via the payment vendor.
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I won't be commenting further on this. If any customers have issues or questions, please open a ticket and if this was not addressed to your satisfaction ask for me or PM me.
You knew that PioHost plans were unsustainable when buying "the brand" and most of the people does not see/care the difference between the brand or the company because the name is the same. That's the trick you are playing with. You knew you were going to change things after buying PioHost. And I think you knew you won't be affected legally because your customers were not going to make a demand at those prices.
So you made the changes and decided to stay in silence. That until your reputation went downhill.
I think those things qualify as "being un-transparent".
I'm surprised because you were one of the most trusted people in this community (now I see you are not an admin anymore, but I don't know since when and whether it is related to this thread or not)
The keys are "when" and "how" are being notified.
this sounds like a question for the PioHost manager
Not entirely the same - It'll be in their contract that that Sky are able to do that, but if you were to pre-pay a year with them and then they turned around and said 'Hey, could you chip in an extra fiver please?' it'd make it onto the news.
Okay, good to have that clear. I do feel that you should add this information (specifically, it being a brand operated by Access Internet Group) to the PioHost site, as that's currently unclear. The footer still says:
... which suggests PioHost LTD.
I also still feel that this was all very badly handled, and I am not yet entirely convinced that your apology and change of heart is anything other than a response to the Provider tag being dropped and wanting to recover business. But, time will tell. You will certainly need a lot of time to earn back your reputation.
No, that is unrelated to this entire business. Nothing to do with trustworthiness either. I forgot where the exact explanation was posted, though.
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EDIT: I wonder why PioHost LTD has not been wound down yet. As I understand it, it's basically just an empty shell with a bunch of liabilities at this point, and there's no chance they can continue to operate under a name that they've just sold the rights to (or so I assume, or AIG would be in much bigger trouble).
Thanks for the clarification.
@joepie91 I don't think Piohost Ltd can be left open with liabilities like that. Any strike off action by gov or by the owner can be blocked by even a single Customer they owe £0.01 too while one can prove they are still fighting to get money (and prove is even emailing the owner asking for the payment).
So can PayPal and whoever got hit with all this chargebacks.
It's simple really. The moment we start filtering hosts by approval of everything they do, the provider tag becomes what I am dead set on it not being: an endorsement. They're providing services that were paid for, no longer an LET staff issue because there is no scam. We don't filter providers based on how much people "like" them and I stand firmly on the decision that we will never do so. A bunch of provider tag and accounts floating around here for people that I think are shady pricks, but how I feel is not the sole factor in making fair decisions.
Totally understand that @jarland and agree.
I think perhaps my perspective was not communicated well.
piohost are no longer a host, the company has stopped trading, they are therefore not a provider, by allowing it to remain active essentially means one can 'buy' a provider tag, which given a number of scammers around here is not a great thing.
In this particular case, due to the confusion around the on again, off again, goal post shifting sale this account has been used by both the new owners and the old owners during the transition, it's just confusing.
I am not suggesting they should be 'filtered' on the grounds of approval, you are right about the dangers of implied endorsement I just meant for clarity as it seems to be getting used as a personal shield or to misrepresent things.
I mean, perhaps I have things wrong, but I don't feel it would be appropriate for me to have a separate account for Inceptionhosting and serversnv and lowendspirit and AnthonySmith and use them interchangeably because it helps my narrative at any given point in time?
It could well be that I have things wrong and that is considered broadly acceptable.
I dunno seems messy, seems like Jordan made a statement, provider tags were removed, Ishaq saw that was not desired so used the account of the company he does not own to make a statement rather than do it with his own account then later used his own account to reaffirm it.
If there's anything to learn from this thread, it's not to buy stupid unsustainable offers like $12/year 2GB RAM KVMs from non-reputable hosts, and that @Ishaq and his business practices are dishonest. I don't give a crock of shit whether it was him or @Jordan who handled the revaluation, the refunds, or even the "breach". When one company takes over another, they fully control the assets. As this shit show turned into a bigger clown fest each growing day, customers remained confused as to who was in charge and whether they would continue to have services based on the agreements they paid for. This whole story belongs in a Ripley's Believe It or Not book. @Ishaq and @Jordan, you're both morons and neither of you is fit to run a business.
I'd like you all to consider an alternate scenario:
First: Piohost owner posts that he's hitting the deadpool.
Second: These guys step in and say "we'll take over and try to save what we can, or at least give the customers more notice and spin everything down with a bit of dignity."
I propose from observation that this scenario is closer to what happened than people realize. Look at the offers. Look at the age of the previous owner. You all know it was doomed, you all have the same instincts that I do here. The major difference is that the dignity was afforded from day one. The deadpool announcement never came. The takeover happened before things went to shit. I think they took it on as a charity case, but for some stupid reason they framed it as an acquisition.
Had they framed it as a charity in which they attempted to save customers from an immediate and unannounced loss of service, every one of you would see this differently. You would be pushing blame toward the original provider who sold unsustainable hosting.
Am I right? I don't know. What I do know is that this is easier for me to swallow than the idea that @Ishaq went from someone I respected to much less in just a few weeks. Framing and PR, totally never been his thing. Trying to do right and understanding our industry, those have been his things. For me, from what I see, my version makes more sense to me.
Just some honest thoughts sitting at the front of my mind this morning.
The mans right, I overlooked the fact I pay my bill monthly and you pre-paid a year, my bad for skim reading.
So far I've not seen a single shred of evidence that piohost was deadpooling/struggling for money just a bunch of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.
Where does it say Piohost was deadpooling? just for clarification!
Thanks!
More than sufficient evidence can be found here:
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/110181/piohost-ltd-uk-ovz-special-50gb-raid-5-sas-1-5gb-4core-10-year-instant-activation
After PayPal fees, they might as well have said free.
Exactly my point. I think they took it over before any of the signs came out and this drastically changed perception. Had they waited until it went to shit and then swooped in this would be an entirely different story. But I always thought Piohost was headed for the deadpool, did you guys honestly not? Were you not seeing the same offers I was? From a brand new provider run by someone that young? How was Piohost ever not deadpooling?
I don't think it was posted anywhere, but the behaviour, lack of knowledge and experience was implying the direction.
I completely understand your scenario on this, however the way they handled the entire situation was still completely botched and ended up with a negative reputation on both of their ends. Had they completed the sale and transfer in a smoother process, perhaps this wouldn't have blown up as much as it did.
Agreed, the scenario is much better than if the brand wasn't acquired, there would likely be more threads opened with a permanent loss of money/services rather than what Ishaq has now offered, but yeah, the problem was definitely the communication.
But all people can do now is just wait for any future moments where communication is going to be crucial, and see how they handle it then.
It would be different from a PR perspective, but not from a legal one if they still bought the customers.
It would only be different if they had given customers of Piohost the choice to transfer by their own will, which hasnt happened.
@Ishaq has said a few times now that he bought customers and assets. That includes the contracts though. Trying to change these contracts does not work that way. And since they seem to have bought ALL customers, that includes those that were affected by the Wigan failure. No matter, what agreement they have with Bopie, @Ishaq and friends are responsible for refunds to customers now. They can then refer to their contract with Bopie and get the money back from him, but they cannot refer customers that they have contracts with to Bopie.
There is gold in this thread.
Aye. I will say it is rather fortunate for them in the legal sense that regardless of what laws might or might not apply and in what jurisdictions, simply no one is going to press the matter for $10.
From piohost:
Please ignore that. Your due dates have been reverted to the originals.
You will be emailed soon regarding price changes.
Regards,