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ChicagoVPS - VPS unusable & unreliable, customer support even worse, but lost pp dispute - what now?
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God help you if you subscribe to this forum by RSS, lol.
On another note: if this was about a provider who wasn't a marketing partner with LET, do you think the staff response would be the same?
I was under the impression this community was supposed to be customer/consumer oriented. I guess my take on the governing ethos of this community was mistaken. Sorry for that.
For those telling me I should reach out privately, I never received a response to this request. The invitation to Chris is still open and standing.
I can actually say that's not the case, as I have previously been banned from here; the Administration (occasionally) will ban providers, regardless of their affiliation. The thing with this situation between you and CVPS is that you didn't handle it very well either, so it's not a cut and dry case.
This place is a marketplace with tutorials, the odd CVE announcement for provider's sakes, and loads and loads of threads of people bitching about "Known Shitty Provider XYZ"
"The thing with this situation between you and CVPS is that you didn't handle it very well either, so it's not a cut and dry case."
How did I not handle it well? This I'm really curious about.
Is it because I used the word "bullshit" after nearly a week of the tech staff completely ignoring my requests? Would you really not be driven to the point of ferocity if you requested an explanation of what was going on, and the other person literally ignored it over and over again?
Maybe it's because I didn't take them up on an offer to move, despite them providing no indication there was a problem on the current node? Once again, if they had exhibited 1) an understanding of the problem and 2) an acknowledgment of the problem which a shift to another node would have fixed, I would have gladly given them the opportunity. But as it stands, just like the request for PM, it's not a reasonable solution...and that moves us onto the next point.
Or maybe I should live in two different universes, one where Chris claims nothing was wrong, and the other when his staff all says it was a network outage? Chris explicitly claims nothing was wrong - so what would moving to another node do?
Are you claiming I should have just let it die and not post here at all, attempting to warn others?
I'm still completely befuddled as to what you think would have been reasonable for me to do. What would be a reasonable level of service in this circumstance? You're a host yourself - do you think the level of service and support I received was reasonable?
I mean seriously - if we're to give any credit to the members of this community and their broad opinion, why is a host with such a patently terrible reputation allowed to continue to taint the community's reputation?
No one even pretends CVPS doesn't suck...at best, the administration seems to take the stance that "they suck, but oh well"
@GoodHosting said:
It isn't just a review for me. It's also grown into what I see is a constructive discussion on what to do about these types of companies, both as a community and personally. I've learned a lot in this thread, and it seems like there are a lot of underlying issues that got brought up as well.
I don't know what the existing animosity is all about between the members and staff, but I definitely share many of the frustrations that have been expressed here - namely, why someone with such a patently bad reputation is allowed to subsist on the back and reputation of this community. But, my intention was never to derail this thread to a discussion about this community's policies, so I apologize for that tangent.
At the end of the day, I want to make sure people see this thread, understand even more clearly than before just WHAT level of service they can expect (like I said, I had tempered expectations) and what measures people can take to protect themselves.
I think that's a reasonable and constructive intention.
Wow someone took a blue pill and has a hard-on for Chicago VPS. (Joke!)
""I will join as your equal and leave as your equal, and we shall have intellectual discourse."" - 2006, My Debate Teacher, nice man really.
I don't perceive your truth of the words out of his mouth literally smelling of feces as insulting to any degree, as frankly it wasn't (and I probably would have been upset as well given the replies you were receiving.) I would not have been "driven to the point of ferocity" however, I only truly put effort into things worth fighting for (like my personal beliefs, my country, my friends/family, etc.)
My belief is that you could have handled your posts in this thread with more elegance.
There is some evidence available (through independent research around this "Forum" for example) that backs up the possibility of an improvement in your service's quality if you were to accept the move.
I too agree that their staff are completely unknowledgeable, and ignore issues.
@CVPS_Chris has a habit of not responding to messages that go directly to him, especially if he cannot be held accountable for not responding to them, or has the ability to outright lie about the receipt of the messages.
I personally believe the only way he will reply is in this thread, if ever.
Moving to another node is akin to moving to a different city, you will have different neighbors and your environment may change for the better or worse.
I have never claimed this.
If you were my customer, you would have had a full refund by this point. Our policies dictate that this situation is unacceptable. It is worth noting however that GoodHosting is not in any way affiliated with ChicagoVPS/123Systems or @CVPS_Chris .
The community's reputation is not defined by the hosts that are allowed to be here. As long as the host is following the vague rules of this community, they are allowed to have their account. There is no special status given to hosts/providers to set them apart from regular users, and as such; they have no position to lose. Just as we can ignore individual users, we can ignore providers entirely as well.
That being said, if you wish to help make the Moderator / Administrator life easier, you can go through @CVPS_Chris 's posts, and start flagging the ones in which he has explicitly broken a rule here at LowEndTalk. If you provide enough damning evidence, I am sure a ban could be handed out.
As the "Forum" is hosted on servers in the United States of America, and the staff running the site beleive in similar "Free World Values" (as the Americans like to call it); operate under an "Innocent until proven guilty" standpoint; as does criminal law in many countries.
(Note: I am not implying that the USA/Americans "invented" this ideal, far from it.)
Agreed.
I agree, this is now a constructive discussion. I believe that many members may learn from reading this thread, but I also know that many of the members that deserve to learn the most will simply bypass the thread, and continue to order these sub-standard services.
@CVPS_Chris : Your node shows 99.7% uptime to your internal network/monitors; I would consider this a serious issue and evidence of a much larger issue at play, our services have a 99.99995+% uptime to our monitors both internal and external, from which we prove our 100.00% hardware and power uptime.
Please see my previous information on the running of this site as seen by a provider.
Excellent, and this thread may serve that purpose for some.
Agreed.
PM sent.
0xdragon peaks inside the thread
Voice from behind: "Drama?"
0xdragon sighs happily, pulling out popcorn
0xdragon: "Drama." crunch
Thank you for the thoughtful responses. Your feedback from the beginning has been exemplary and helpful.
No one ever lauded me for my diplomacy. In that vein, though, my "belief" is that someone shouldn't be allowed to run a scam operation with little incentive to actually provide the service bargained for. Other than correcting some of the misinformation or responding to suggestions without context (I should have taken the offer to go to another node), I don't see how I've been a bad player here. I've been extremely open about my experience, and have provided everyone, including the administration of this forum with a complete rundown and anything requested.
I speak plainly and directly - that's all I see that may be my fault. Other than that, I waited multiple weeks in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably and privately before coming onto the forums. This wasn't a "shoot from the hip" move. I've given Chris every opportunity under the sun to make this right. He's chosen not to time and time again.
This is the biggest one for me. Beyond ignoring issues, my direct requests were completely and wholly ignored. This is what frustrated me - not even the downtime. But beyond that, the lack of any acknowledgement that it was a server issue and not an infrastructure issue, moving to another node is not a reasonable "solution." I want solutions, not options. Just because an option was given doesn't mean it was a solution. Chris still stands that there was NOTHING wrong. Fine - so why would moving to another node solve anything?
Fine - but Americans also don't file scam-artistry and chicanery under "free speech" or "free world values." The "guilt" here is evidenced by an overwhelming negative reputation, and what can clearly be seen as a complete dereliction of duties by Chicago VPS. (And that's giving them every benefit of the doubt). The very fact that the universal response by the community is that I'm a "sucker" for even trying ChicagoVPS in the first place is probably a good litmus test on whether or not they should be allowed to "play" in the forums. Regardless of your take on "free speech," that doesn't mean the community needs to explicitly provide a forum for which he can hawk his scammy wares.
Again, thank you for the honest and thoughtful responses.
To me?
etc
While I perfectly understand that from your perspective you feel screwed and don't trust them anymore, I also feel that this has turned into a vendetta. Sorry.
In many countries laws demand a reasonable attempt to settle things out of court. Don't get me wrong, Chris will never be my friend and I will never be his customer, and I don't consider him a nice or trustworthy guy but he has undertaken that very attempt to sort it out.
You preferred to write some 100 lines here rather than 5 lines there (PM). What do you want? A solution, maybe a (at least) partial refund? To kill Chris' business? A holy Anti-CVPS crusade? Or what?
Yes, maybe he'll screw you again. But this time you would be prepared. You would have witnesses, a screencam running and whatnot. IF you had taken his offer and written those 5 lines PM and things went wrong again, you could come back here, present proof and create a tangible effect.
But you didn't. You kept on with your crusade and publicly snubbed his offer to settle things.
You see, you act on your subjective perspective. So do we. So does Chris. As long as there is no tangible and credible evidence on the table there's just that, subjective perspectives. And in that game the one who shows good will get points and the one who snubs good will loses points.
Oh and btw: Your "So that others won't fall for that ugly company" is largely senseless. Because those who would need it most to inform themselves front up just don't, or ignore what they read - as demonstrated by ... Yes, yourself.
Yes. But then I decided to make some edits, and then some more ... but now you have it. Dumb - I should have clicked Post Comment on the PM first. :-(
Just stop
Except this completely ignores the fact that I already requested a personal conference with Chris (before this thread was even started), which he refused. His request for a PM now is just posturing. There is an open request for him to engage me right now on his own software.
Why is this fact so hard to comprehend? The PM request was spurious. It was Chris' effort to 1) looks nobler than he really is and 2) to try to avert this discussion to private quarters. If he was interested in sorting it out, I'm still waiting on my request for a private discussion to be fulfilled.
As a member of this community, wouldn't you want the resolution to be found publicly, so you can see transparently how the company operates?
The notion that I "snubbed" his offer is patent nonsense. You're judging me based on certain assumptions you've made regarding the timeline or what I've tried/not-tried, but it's not reflective of reality.
Nothing has changed. No vendetta other than what the original issue was. I'm just responding to a minority of the participants in this discussion who've made illogical or unreasonable suggestions, or willfully ignore the circumstances. If your suggestion is that I should sit idle while these statements without context are being made, then we'll have to agree to disagree.
No, PMing him is silly when I've tried to reach him privately for days - my request was explicitly
ignored. Therefore, it's not a reasonable option.
No, trying another node absent of indication that the node I was on was the issue, and in light of the fact that the CEO says nothing was wrong, was not a reasonable option.
No, continuing on with a provider whose staff wholly ignores any of your inquiries and doesn't do any due diligence for weeks to identify an issue is not a reasonable option.
No, just sitting idle while ChicagoVPS continues to defraud members of this community is also not a reasonable option.
What really surprises me is there are a few users of this community who are so calloused to bad service and have such a low standard for support that their reflexive response is to rebuke the customer who was clearly screwed over.
Yes, there are legal duties beyond the terms of service. No, a terms of service can't generally waive the warranty of merchantability as a legal duty. Regardless of this fact, there's a right and wrong. Ethically, a refund was due. Even if hiding behind the terms was effective in this circumstance (it's not), at the very least he should have refunded the amount after multiple requests (and in light of the utter lack of support of any kind and service failure) in good faith.
He refused and ignored my request for a private discussion. Now we're here. It's really that simple. If you give Chris credit, it's because you want to, not because it's due.
I've never ever participated in a community where people are so ready to pounce on their fellow community members and attack them when they've been taken advantage of. I understand some of this is nerd-ranging, and endemic of the industry culture, but seriously???!?!? "You got what was coming to you" is the best response some of the members of this community can muster?
123Sytems has not been owned by us for quite some time.
Back on track, according to the ToS the OP agreed to at signup:
1.7 Refunds
1.7.1 Refunds are subject to approval by ChicagoVPS on a case by case basis. If a refund is deemed appropriate, then ChicagoVPS will credit your account or refund through PayPal.
I want to take notice of the bold text, as that is exactly what we have done in this case and have followed the procedures we have written out that were agreed to at signup.
However, I am a nice guy, which people do not give me credit for and will do a partial refund and meet him in the middle even though it completely goes against what I believe in. $50 will be refunded, $40 will go on account credit, and $10 was for used service.
I think this is very fair. Myself and the brands I own are not what most people seem to think we are and its a shame. We offer one of the best products for the price, but a handful of people ruin that for everyone and just like to tarnish the brand. For once myself and @W1V_Lee agree:
No I am not excusing them but overall the issues between CVPS and customer appear small of those being reported here. Largely I am going to "assume" based on what I see and no evidence to the contrary that most are happy with what they have.
I don't think any of you fully understand the scope of ChicagoVPS and how large of an operation it is. Like I have said it until I am blue in the face, all these threads are the same 10-20 people that have followed me around since day one.
Will they ever go away? Probably not, but I am OK with that because I know the product we provide is a great value, and unlike what the OP believes, it works.
@mpkossen, I believe the thread is resolved and can be closed or whatever you want to make of it.
If you wanted to create the perception that the staff is at your beck and call, congratulations.
As stated prior, legally, regardless of what your terms of service say, beyond it not being good business (it's obviously not) there are warranties of merchantability that have been breached.
Since your business is so large, you won't mind just refunding the amount and being done with it. Ethically, given your customer support and failures in providing the service, I believe it's due.
Really? So you're saying that your broad reputation on here (and one that's been carried for years) is not well-earned? That somehow you're just a victim? That other providers operate with your level of abject incompetence, but their behavior somehow gets swept under the rug? That's ridiculous. If you really believe that, you live in your own world.
Read the ticket responses that I received, think about the fact that neither you nor your staff are on the same page at all, and the downtime is clearly not configuration oriented (despite your continued insistence) and it's quite clear why you have the reputation you do.
I'll ask one more time:
What configuration issue could I possibly have introduced that would take my server offline and make it wholly unresponsive to even Solus for HOURS?! And then, poof magically it just comes back up, and your support parrots are there to notify me, "your server is up."
Your claims defy reason and logic.
Screw being a nice guy. If you were a honest merchant and cared about your reputation, you would have refunded me in the first place. The fact that you didn't speaks both to your business ethics and to your general demeanor. There are plenty of crooks that are nice - but pickpocketing you while smiling doesn't mitigate the fact that you were just swindled.
You didn't provide what was bargained for. Your support showed -zero- diligence and urgency in resolving the issue despite the fact that they explicitly admitted there was an issue. Your claims that there was no issue is in direct conflict with your own staff. As well, your staff utterly ignored all of my requests. etc etc
What else am I missing in this? What did I do wrong?
Also, let me state this again, if you had identified an issue with the server, I would have gladly moved to another one. What brought this situation to this point was not even the hardware failure, but rather the support (or lack of it) even in the most urgent situation (the server was down).
As I said. A crusade. etc seems set to fight some kind of holy war against Chris/CVPS.
You can claim that by fiat - that's certainly your right, but you still haven't responded to any of the points I made regarding your suggestions. Absent any reasonable suggestions on what I might have done, I guess what you're really saying is, "you got screwed, tough shit, deal with it and move on." Fine. I get it. You would have moved on by now, or you would have kowtowed to try to get the refund.
If you like vendors lying to you and taking advantage of your fellow community members, by all means. You're obviously willing to accept a reality that I'm not. Kudos to you for having the ability operate with that level of apathy.
Sometimes you do things because they are right, not for the money. And sometimes that might mean spending a lot of time and effort which someone else might not appreciate or agree with. That's ok. But don't mistake my insistence on what's "right" to be a "holy war."
If this was a "crusade," the last thing Chris would have to be worried about was a forum post on LET.
Don't think so. Actually I think that you run this forum crusade because you can't do much else.
This guy (Chris) might breath or say "Good Morning" and you would take it as evil.
In the end - from my perspective, which might be wrong - it's simple. You feel screwed and he feels screwed (unfairly treated).
BUT: He made a public peace offer. And you didn't take it but declared it to be evil.
Take his refund and go on with your life, man.
As an attorney, I could easily file suit against him if I wanted to take it to that level. So no, that statement is simply not true. I'm just not litigious and don't like resorting to that. I also know a number of individuals in the Illinois AG office. Thanks for questioning me on what other avenues I can pursue this, because now that I mention it, a formal complaint with the AG is probably the logical next step given the continued refusal.
Huh? The extent of my relationship with Chris is through the company he runs. Outside of that, I have no opinion of him. If I met him on the street, even if he told me his name, I'd likely not put two and two together. My issues are isolated to the scope of our engagement.
I paid money for something I didn't receive. Period. I want my money back (and willing to accept the prorated amount). That's a very straightforward and FAIR resolution.
He feels screwed? On what basis? There are things you STILL refuse to respond to that Chris can't explain. Such as 1) why his staff all acknowledged an issue, but he claims none existed, 2) that his insistence it was a configuration issue is nonsense, because there is NO configuration issue that I could have introduced that would have rendered the entire node completely non-responsive at a core level to Solus for HOURS 3) why I should have to accept that his staff utterly refused to do any due diligence or identify the issue with the server. and 4) why my server was down for hours at a time.
Why do you continue to refuse to respond to any of those facts? On what basis could Chris possibly say he was "screwed?"
You keep parroting the same accusation over and over again, conveniently ignoring all of the counter points that I've made. Why even author a reply if you're not going to actually constructively respond? I've made a number of points as to why your suggestions aren't reasonable, but you've just ignored all of them.
If you bought a lawnmower from Sears, and it just wouldn't work a few hours out of the day, and support refused to even attempt to fix it or figure out what was wrong - and then Sear's offered you a 50% refund...would you think that's reasonable?
Given your response here, I guess you would. I, for one, don't find that to be reasonable.
I've brought up a number of issues that prove conclusively that Chris' version of the events is not accurate. No one is getting screwed in my refund requests. Chris gets paid for the time the server was active, and I get paid for the unused time.
Pray tell, @bsdguy, what's more fair than that?
Honest answer why I don't answer your questions?
Because in my perception you are in a holy war, because in my perception you've lost control and can't stop it, and because in my perception you are chosing more and more to get a pain in the neck (you are also insulting (e.g. "parroting") but in your current state of mind I don't hold that against you).
Whatever, don't care about me. After all that whole thing is not for me to settle but for you and Chris or, if either of you choses so, by some court.
I sincerely wish both of you a mutually satisfying or at least acceptable settlement and some peace of mind.
I just sent @CVPS_Chris a private message with the precise wording provided by @emg.
Perhaps your perception would be different if you critically considered those other factors. I may be hyperbolic in my rhetoric at times, but I believe I'm well-grounded in reason.
And accusing me of being on a crusade or holy war isn't? Hypocrisy, as it seems, knows no bounds.
Thank you. That's actually what I've been hoping for as well, for weeks. And despite our more recent contention, I do appreciate the contributions and time you've invested in this thread.
Let me state this again, CC did not make this decision, I did! It appears that people either don't read that when I state it or it doesn't land. I decided to ban them after having received input from my staff here. I then informed Jon about the ban, since I still consider banning a provider from this place is a big measure.
Back on topic: this seems to have turned into a personal vendetta so let's leave it here.