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[Warning] CharityHost "New Owner"? Evidence of Bait & Switch, Doxing, and Andre's (NeoTechAdmin) Con

Donald2018Donald2018 Member
in General

Hi everyone, I'm a new member here on LET.
I decided to register and post this because I uncovered some concerning findings about CharityHost within the Chinese VPS community (NodeSeek).
Given CharityHost's notorious history and the involvement of the banned provider Andre (NeoTechAdmin), I felt it was important to share this evidence with the LET community to prevent others from getting scammed.

I conducted a "mystery shopper" test to verify their "new owner" claims. The results were shocking—involving bait-and-switch tactics, infrastructure that still links to Andre, and serious privacy violations.

The Origin

Although CharityHost is notorious, and every time they posted before, the community would flood the comments with warnings.
Recently, however, CharityHost claimed a change in ownership.
Seeing their new posts, it was hard to say whether the warnings still applied without knowing if anything had actually changed.
So, I decided to purchase a machine from their promotion out of my own pocket, thinking I'd test it to see if it was truly a "new boss, new atmosphere."

My Registration Info: (This will be important later)
* Name: Host Charity
* Email: [email protected] (A Chinese slang joke)

I picked a machine from CharityHost's promotional thread on NodeSeek.
Here are the details of the machine I selected:

Promotion Page Details Invoice
image image image

As you can see, whether it's the promotion page, the instance page, or the invoice interface, the instance is clearly labeled as having an NVMe drive.

So, I proceeded with the standard first step after getting a VPS: a NodeQuality test. The key point here is the disk performance.

Below are the Disk Test Results

image

Below is the full NodeQuality Report

NodeQuality Link
What level does this IO test represent?

Disk Type Sequential R/W (1m) Random R/W (4k) Rating
High-End NVMe SSD (PCIe 4.0) 7000 MB/s > 80 MB/s Enthusiast
Mainstream NVMe SSD (PCIe 3.0) 3000 MB/s > 50 MB/s Mainstream High Performance
Standard SATA SSD 500 MB/s ~ 30 MB/s Standard Speed
Mechanical HDD 150 - 200 MB/s ~ 0.5 MB/s Storage/Warehouse
Your Test Result ~ 120 MB/s ~ 1.8 MB/s Restricted / E-Waste

I bought an NVMe SSD, but the result is worse than an HDD???

Let me check how CharityHost described it:
image
image
image

I don't seem to have bought the wrong plan???

Authentication complete: It's still garbage, and I asked for it.
So, I posted a review thread on NodeSeek.

Here Comes the Interesting Part (Bait & Switch)

Later, I looked at a few review threads from winners of CharityHost's giveaways.

Review Thread 1:

--------------------Disk dd R/W Test--Thanks to lemonbench--------------------
 -> Disk IO Test (4K Block/1M Block, Direct Mode)
 Test Operation     Write Speed                 Read Speed
 100MB-4K Block     34.6 MB/s (8444 IOPS, 3.03s)        56.0 MB/s (13670 IOPS, 1.87s)
 1GB-1M Block       106 MB/s (101 IOPS, 9.89s)      106 MB/s (101 IOPS, 9.89s)

Review Thread 2:

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50) (Partition -):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 102.56 MB/s  (25.6k) | 102.35 MB/s   (1.5k)
Write      | 102.83 MB/s  (25.7k) | 102.89 MB/s   (1.6k)
Total      | 205.40 MB/s  (51.3k) | 205.25 MB/s   (3.2k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 97.70 MB/s     (190) | 96.48 MB/s      (94)
Write      | 102.89 MB/s    (200) | 102.90 MB/s    (100)
Total      | 200.60 MB/s    (390) | 199.38 MB/s    (194)

Review Thread 3:

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50) (Partition -):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 102.55 MB/s  (25.6k) | 102.35 MB/s   (1.5k)
Write      | 102.82 MB/s  (25.7k) | 102.88 MB/s   (1.6k)
Total      | 205.37 MB/s  (51.3k) | 205.24 MB/s   (3.2k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 97.75 MB/s     (190) | 96.54 MB/s      (94)
Write      | 102.94 MB/s    (201) | 102.97 MB/s    (100)
Total      | 200.70 MB/s    (391) | 199.51 MB/s    (194)

What does this show? So, the giveaway winners who advertise for you get special treatment? But the VPS I paid real money ($2.50) for is trash like this? Isn't this a classic "Golden Sample" / Bait & Switch scam?

Actually, I thought about a possibility later: Did I just happen to land on a node with a broken hard drive? However, the merchant's subsequent operations seemed to dispel my doubts.

CharityHost's Response

The Email

They sent an email stating termination due to:
"Use the Services to compete with us or damage our services. Harass, annoy, intimidate, or threaten our employees or agents. Disparage, tarnish, or harm us or the Services."
And they issued a refund.

image

First:
As mentioned above, my registered name was Host Charity, but the email directly addressed me by my Nodeseek forum username, Donald2018.
This proves that they are not only monitoring the forum constantly but also linking forum identities with client privacy. Doxing me, really? Thankfully, the forum doesn't allow full doxing.

Second:
- I didn't seem to use their VPS to compete with them or do anything with it; I just ran a NodeQuality test.
- I didn't even @ them? How did I harass, annoy, intimidate, or threaten their employees or agents?
- Does this mean that running a test and evaluating real data counts as disparaging, tarnishing, or harming their reputation? Are my test results fabricated?

Forum Private Message
He answered in Chinese.
image
English：
image

  • You have already chased away the problematic person. Why continue?
  • If you don't like the service, why not just leave?
  • I come in peace... we don't need to be adversaries.

My Reply:

image

Replies to My Review Thread

image
image

Replies to Me in His Old Thread

image
image

image

Below is today's new reply and my response (he even @Admin to play the victim):
image
image

image

image

So? The so-called "New Owner" is just old wine in a new bottle?

image
image

At first glance, this explanation was a bit confusing. But after going in circles, it means the new owner only bought the CharityHost shell, but the upstream provider is still Andre (NeoTechAdmin).
Doesn't that mean:

  • Found someone to take over? (❌)
  • Changed his own name? (✅)

So after this attempt, my opinion remains the same as before.
The so-called change of ownership is just a change of packaging.

TL;DR (Summary)

  1. False Advertising: Advertised as NVMe, actual test result: 400 IOPS (1.7 MB/s). This is worse than a mechanical HDD.
  2. Bait & Switch Fraud: Giveaway winners get good machines (13k IOPS), while paying customers get trash (400 IOPS).
  3. Rebranding Confirmed: The "new owner" admits NeoTechAdmin is the supplier, and the ASN hasn't changed. This is just Andre's reseller model.
  4. Privacy Violation / Doxing: I registered with Host Charity / [email protected], but the merchant's refund email addressed me directly by my forum ID Donald2018. This confirms they are monitoring the forum and linking user identities.
  5. Conclusion: Avoid at all costs. Run.
Thanked by 23oloke beanman109 _MS_ 384_cz sh97 ServerBachelor jnd ebietsy SashkaPro mandala OpaqueRegistrant WyvernCo JasonM hades_corps qcfgpp Porlam Socheat vadiheg bdspice besto CheepCluck JohnnySac borkedascii
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