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The $7/Year "Technical Eviction": DediRock's CEO says I'm "too advanced" for them

135

Comments

  • LeviLevi Member

    Heh, interesting, provider confirmed that it is incompetent on its own platform vs customer. Well, that’s happened :D . As always, pathetic bot-like responses from company representative.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • embarrassing. didn't even had aes-ni when other providers have it wide open up to avx/avx2.
    this is why you don't buy servers from a perfume shop.

    reguards.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • This is really disappointing from DediRock.

    There have been a few providers that have accidentally kept -cpu qemu in, but they all switched it to host (or to their lowest-common model) as soon as I asked. Screwing up by turning off CPU features is not a big deal, but doubling down and kicking out the customer for asking for it is serious, in my opinion.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • no bad words about dadyrock!

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • TrKTrK Member

    Danny could have handled this way better, also getting help from AI and letting it run the business is completely different things.

    Thanked by 1tentor
  • angstromangstrom Moderator

    @layer7 said:

    @angstrom said:
    That said, at the same time, I can also understand that from the provider's perspective, you come across as a technically demanding (if polite) customer, and in this case, the question for the provider is whether the extensive ticket correspondence is really worth their effort if you're paying them $7/year

    Hi,

    so in other words, if its just "understandable" enough that if the contract partner comes to the conclusion that an already paid contract/deal is not of (enough) benefit (anymore) the contract partner can just decide himself to reverse the contract?

    [...]

    The provider nulled here a paid yearly contract without any contract violation.

    And its seems most here have no issue with that.... lets hope that you will never have a contract partner with this mindset...

    Just to say that I didn't really intend to defend the provider's decision to cancel, and that I more or less agree with you

    Note that I also said that the provider possibly overreacted

    At the end of the day, the hard reality is that a $7/year VPS (with an IPv4) is effectively a "charitable donation" on the part of a provider, and a customer who purchases such a VPS should adjust their expectations accordingly

    That said, yes, the provider overreacted

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    Thanked by 2DediRock tentor
  • defaultdefault Veteran
    edited February 20

    Maybe we should not blame the provider for CPU limitations. It is a $7/year deal after all - in current market conditions buried by AI.

    The only problem here is support, for cancelling a perfectly good service without any abuse or legal complaints on it, just a customer asking for a enabling feature which already exists in almost all CPUs nowadays.

    I honestly believe things would have been different if customer would have opened a LET thread, and not open a support ticket. That way the feedback with regards to enabling Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions would have reached the admin, instead of some poor support staff who likely did not receive attention from their girlfriend (or boyfriend) the previous day and did not have their morning coffee (just an assumption).

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • @default said: Maybe we should not blame the provider for CPU limitations.

    It's not a CPU limitation, it's a setting.

    Thanked by 2DediRock Kodomu
  • @forest said:

    @default said: Maybe we should not blame the provider for CPU limitations.

    It's not a CPU limitation, it's a setting.

    Whatever. You get my point. It is a setting which was not enabled, therefore limiting the customer.

  • @default said:

    @forest said:

    @default said: Maybe we should not blame the provider for CPU limitations.

    It's not a CPU limitation, it's a setting.

    Whatever. You get my point. It is a setting which was not enabled, therefore limiting the customer.

    The point is that we certainly can blame them for not toggling a simple feature that every provider should know to enable.

    Thanked by 3zed DediRock Kodomu
  • @default said: I honestly believe things would have been different if customer would have opened a LET thread, and not open a support ticket.

    @default Actually, that’s exactly what I did initially.

    I didn't start with a ticket. I first asked about the performance issue right here on LET. It was @DediRock themselves who explicitly asked me to open a ticket to discuss it further.

    Proof:
    https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735081/#Comment_4735081

    So, I followed the provider's instructions, provided a technical audit to be helpful, and ended up being "Refunded & Evicted" for it. It turns out that in this case, the "morning coffee" theory doesn't apply—the decision came straight from the top.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • @forest said:
    This is also a security issue.

    I assume DediRock is naively using -cpu qemu, which means security features like SMEP, SMAP, UMIP, etc. will be turned off in the guest, not just AES-NI. You really don't need to be an expert to do -cpu host.

    The screenshot posted doesn't look like it's -cpu qemu: https://att.itzmx.com/data/attachment/forum/202602/19/012714i20eel9lww19o20u.png

    And I guess only turning off aes is kind of an expert thing to do.

    But it doesn't turn of the instructions itself, but just the feature flag - so the user could still just use the instructions (by overriding the feature flags, I guess)?

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • SsreSsre Member
    edited February 20

    @default said:
    Whatever. You get my point. It is a setting which was not enabled, therefore limiting the customer.

    It was a misconfiguration by the host's own admission - they were planning to fix it next week. Fixing it would massively reduce CPU usage for HTTPS/encrypted traffic, thus reduce CPU load across their nodes, making it better for all of their customers, even those without workloads that make use of AES-NI.

    The host should be thanking them for pointing it out, not evicting them.

  • forestforest Member
    edited February 20

    I see aes in there, so that must be on a node that does have it enabled.

    @cmeerw said: But it doesn't turn of the instructions itself, but just the feature flag - so the user could still just use the instructions (by overriding the feature flags, I guess)?

    That's true, but it's not trivial. You'd have to hook an unstable API within your SSL library with something like LD_PRELOAD, or completely patch the library in source.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • zedzed Member
    edited February 20

    I think it's just part of the business plan, any friction gets a refund. Keeps the reviews positive and any negativity can be waved off since customer got their money back, what's to complain about?

    Pretty brilliant especially due to the area of lowend pool he's harvesting with $7 deals.

    I tease @DediRock quite a bit but I fully expect to see him around down the road perhaps positioned in a similar fashion as a lowend giant we all know and love.

    Thanked by 2DediRock JohnnySac
  • Glad I didn't pick up that deal

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • for $10+ vps from racknerd you'll always get a good support. try them.
    at least they wont show you the door for fixing issue yourself on a super-cheap vps.

    Thanked by 2forest DediRock
  • @forest said:

    I see aes in there, so that must be on a node that does have it enabled.

    I see aes on the right side, but not on the left side. Certainly, the left side looks weird.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • layer7layer7 Member, Host Rep, LIR

    @TimboJones said:

    You don't seem to get it either if those are the comparisons you think are similar. Dedirock is supplying an ongoing service, not a physical good the customer has in their hands. The rest of your rant about rich people and employees has no relevance here and makes no sense.

    If Dedirock realizes he cannot deliver the service expected, a refund is exactly what is expected. He's admitting he can't come through on the service and in no way did he say the customer violated the contract. Most likely, he doesn't think he'll even have CPU passthrough next week, so why keep keep a customer that is reporting extremely poor performance that he doesn't (won't?) have a solution for? He didn't destroy the server and no data was lost.

    It's barely different than buying something and getting a refund because the item is out of stock. The provider can't deliver. Full. Stop.

    What kind of person thinks contracts are handcuffs with no outs?

    You just work for layer7, right, you're not the business owner who has to account for costs and profits?

    Edit: also, your car comparison happens ALL THE TIME. My sister in law gets a new vehicle every 4 years or so. On two occasions, she bought cars that had issues that went back to the car dealership multiple times (month+), including replacing it and having an Engineer fly from Ottawa to Vancouver to investigate new model issues. Once they realized they don't know the root cause and it's not solved and think it'll still happen, they gave her full refund. Two times, two different car brands. (I know one was a Kia, I don't know the other brand).

    Hi,

    i am sorry, i was obviously not able to work out the core.

    This is not about hosting and not about 7 USD.

    Its purely about the fact that one contract partner is allowed to decide if a contract is valid yes or no.

    This violates the fundamentals of any contract in this world. It does not matter if you buy hosting, a car or a banana.

    And yes, contracts ARE handcuffs with defined outs. Thats the whole purpose of their existence. They give security to both parties that is supposed to ensure that every party of a contract HAS TO FOLLOW the contract and can not just single handily decide to reverse it.

    In our example here we have a yearly contract. Yearly not "until one party decide its not interesting anymore". As much as the customer can not just ask for a refund, the provider can not just decide to to reverse the whole contract. I dont know what country you are located in, but probably also in your country a deal is a deal is a deal. And thats it.


    And since i was not able to be clear with this too:

    In your example your sister had issues with her cars and the dealer gave up at some point and gave her a full refund.

    The core point you did not mention. Was your sister FORCED to give back the car? Means, did the car dealer decide, independent of the will of your sister to just revert the contract?

    I can honestly not imagine that. Most probably the car dealer OFFERED the reversal, which is perfectly customer service. And your sister AGREED to it. And thats how things are done.

    If ALL parties of a contract agree to do what ever, then of course its all fine and valid. But if just ONE party agree and the other disagree ( or not even asked like in our example here ) then its just pure contract violation.


    And to give you some background: I am the idiot here in this company. Means the owner. I am doing this here in a professional way ( means real legally registered, tax paying company ), without another side line job, without mum or dad, without being a reseller or what ever since 2003 with my own hardware, RIPE membership and alll the other fancy rat's tails that comes with it.

    And thats why i already wrote in another thread that a company has no economical interest in a customer paying 7 USD for a VPS in a year and that best practice is NOT to write a ticket.

    But that is honestly the problem of the provider, if he offer something ( VPS, Banana, car, ... ) that is calculated in a way that it only works under specific conditions ( no support, no uptime, 50% packetloss, only on monday's that come after a friday, what ever ) -- which are NOT communicated to the customer ( alias part of the contract ).

    IF you as a provider write into your offer:

    " Subject to cancellation any time through the provider if the provider just feels like it "

    Then hey, perfect thing! It was clearly communicated that you as customer are fully in the hands of the mood and will of the provider. If you as customer accept this bullet in exachange for this price, go for it! Perfect contract, all went fine.

    But thats alllllllll just not the case here.

    From what we have been told from both parties:

    -> Customer ordered and paid a VPS for 1 year.
    -> Customer complained ( too much )
    -> Customer got kicked before 1 year against his will, without his agreement because the provider made the decision that its not fitting

    Clear contract violation. If you see that another way, then you are at least more provider friendly than i am. If i have a contract, i want to be able to rely on it ( thats what contracts were made for and thats why you can go to the court and enforce a contract ).

    Its not a summer host dilly-dilly fun show. Thats business. Thats serious. ( At least supposed to be in my humble opinion ).

    Thanked by 4forest lorez jsg lukast__
  • lowendclientlowendclient Member
    edited February 20

    @1265578519 @forest

    You've said way too much unnecessary stuff – like enabling AES-NI or adding "-cpu qemu" to the parameters. The boss and support at DediRock don't understand any of that.

    From their perspective, you bring up a problem they don't know how to solve, and you aggressively blaming their support staff for not being technical enough, and keep repeating what you think is the solution. Of course they'd kick you off.

    None of you even mentioned the right thing. Remember the only thing they can do is to change Virtualizor options, the correct terms in VPS panel are called "CPU mode" and "host-passthrough", it helps turn on AES-NI. So the correct approach is:

    Hi, could you please help change the "CPU mode" option to "host-passthrough" in Manage VPS (Admin Panel) - "Advanced Options" - "CPU" area?

    Check correct product documents before show off your technical abilities:
    https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#cpu-model-and-topology
    https://www.virtualizor.com/docs/admin/manage-vps/

  • forestforest Member
    edited February 20

    @lowendclient said: Hi, could you please help change the "CPU mode" option to "host-passthrough" in Manage VPS (Admin Panel) - "Advanced Options" - "CPU" area?

    That's almost exactly what I asked to Maxko Hosting when I started up a Tor relay there and realized it had no AES-NI. Shortly after asking, he asked me to reboot my VPS and sure enough, AES-NI was now enabled. What he did not do is tell me that I'm "too advanced for him" and kick me out.

    There's another host who I asked and they told me that they were unable to make changes to individual VMs. That was fine. I ended up asking for a refund and they provided it. They didn't force the refund on me, however.

    Thanked by 2DediRock tentor
  • lowendclientlowendclient Member
    edited February 20

    @forest said:

    @lowendclient said: Hi, could you please help change the "CPU mode" option to "host-passthrough" in Manage VPS (Admin Panel) - "Advanced Options" - "CPU" area?

    That's almost exactly what I asked to Maxko Hosting when I started up a Tor relay there and realized it had no AES-NI. Shortly after asking, he asked me to reboot my VPS and sure enough, AES-NI was now enabled. What he did not do is tell me that I'm "too advanced for him" and kick me out.

    There's another host who I asked and they told me that they were unable to make changes to individual VMs. That was fine. I ended up asking for a refund and they provided it. They didn't force the refund on me, however.

    DediRock uses Virtualizor, I'm sure this can be modified individually. OP just didn't give the right terminology – they have no idea where to make the changes.
    (SolusVM has exactly the same options, all virtualization based on libvirt are the same)

    Thanked by 2DediRock Peppery9
  • xvpsxvps Member
    edited February 20

    The endless discussion:
    A guy with Western EU business ethics trying to explain to a MAGA hillbilly why an MJJ’s expectations for a $7/year service are reasonable and that a contract is binding.

  • zedzed Member

    @xvps said:
    The endless discussion:
    A guy with Western EU business ethics trying to explain to a MAGA hillbilly why an MJJ’s expectations for a $7/year service are reasonable and that a contract is binding.

    I'm gonna work this into my signature, somehow.

    Thanked by 2xvps DediRock
  • lovelyserverlovelyserver Member
    edited February 20

    I've read every single message (in full or just in a hurry).

    My conclusion is:

    DediRock's offer is still available !!! Grab it while you can !

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • forestforest Member
    edited February 20

    @lowendclient said: DediRock uses Virtualizor, I'm sure this can be modified individually. OP just didn't give the right terminology – they have no idea where to make the changes.

    That's true, but if the host didn't know where to make the change because it was explained poorly, they should have either

    1. Looked up how to do it, or
    2. Decided that it's not worth it for a $7/year VPS and said that they cannot comply

    They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

    Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • [@forest said]

    They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

    Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

    DediRock chose to kick OP out, had nothing to do with the ticket, but was because of this reply:
    https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735322/#Comment_4735322

    I don’t know which AI model OP used, but the conversation comes quite rude.
    "extremely disappointed"
    "This is unacceptable"
    "for a simple configuration toggle on your side"
    Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P.

    I don't think the boss would be happy seeing such a response. To protect his employees (or outsourcing staff), it's reasonable he chose to decline OP as customer.

    As for the contract, it should be discussed in another topic, according to the TOS.

  • forestforest Member
    edited February 20

    @lowendclient said:

    [@forest said]

    They should most certainly not have forcibly refunded the service. At the end of the day, they are the provider and they should be the ones who know how to manage their own service, not their clients. A host that relies on the people asking for help to provide the help is hopeless.

    Being ignorant is fine; we all start somewhere. But taking that ignorance out on someone by kicking them out is not acceptable.

    DediRock chose to kick OP out, had nothing to do with the ticket, but was because of this reply:
    https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/4735322/#Comment_4735322

    I don’t know which AI model OP used, but the conversation comes quite rude.
    "extremely disappointed"
    "This is unacceptable"
    "for a simple configuration toggle on your side"
    Meanwhile, he filed a complaint directly against their staff Mike P.

    I don't think the boss would be happy seeing such a response. To protect his employees (or outsourcing staff), it's reasonable he chose to decline OP as customer.

    As for the contract, it should be discussed in another topic, according to the TOS.

    That's not the reason they gave when they kicked him out, though.

    Sure, OP could have been more polite, but what was communicated to him was not "you're abusing our staff, go away". Complaints, even the strongly-worded complaints coming from an LLM translator, should not be met with expulsion unless there is serious abuse. All I see here is a frustrated MJJ talking to unaware and technically-unsophisticated support.

    The garrulousness of the LLM translator surely made diagnosing the problem more difficult (there's quite a lot of fluff that could have been replaced with "Hello. I'm seeing poor TLS performance. Can you please enable CPU host passthrough? Thanks!"), but I wouldn't consider it sufficiently abusive to result in the contract being voided.

    Although I will say, this complaint was an unnecessary one:

    Broken Icon: The OS icon (Debian 11) is failing to load and showing a 404 error.
    [...]
    Please look into these UI/backend bugs and correct the unit scaling.

    I have 40 VPSes. I'm pretty sure more of them have broken icons than not. And Debian 11, really? 13 is stable!

    But the complaint about a literal >50x performance degradation (from usage 2% to 100%)? I'd be irritated too. That's not aesthetic, and "this other VPS can do with only 2% of its CPU what your VPS can't even do with 100%" is a real, serious issue that should be prioritized.

    Thanked by 1DediRock
  • @layer7 said:

    @TimboJones said:

    You don't seem to get it either if those are the comparisons you think are similar. Dedirock is supplying an ongoing service, not a physical good the customer has in their hands. The rest of your rant about rich people and employees has no relevance here and makes no sense.

    If Dedirock realizes he cannot deliver the service expected, a refund is exactly what is expected. He's admitting he can't come through on the service and in no way did he say the customer violated the contract. Most likely, he doesn't think he'll even have CPU passthrough next week, so why keep keep a customer that is reporting extremely poor performance that he doesn't (won't?) have a solution for? He didn't destroy the server and no data was lost.

    It's barely different than buying something and getting a refund because the item is out of stock. The provider can't deliver. Full. Stop.

    What kind of person thinks contracts are handcuffs with no outs?

    You just work for layer7, right, you're not the business owner who has to account for costs and profits?

    Edit: also, your car comparison happens ALL THE TIME. My sister in law gets a new vehicle every 4 years or so. On two occasions, she bought cars that had issues that went back to the car dealership multiple times (month+), including replacing it and having an Engineer fly from Ottawa to Vancouver to investigate new model issues. Once they realized they don't know the root cause and it's not solved and think it'll still happen, they gave her full refund. Two times, two different car brands. (I know one was a Kia, I don't know the other brand).

    Hi,

    i am sorry, i was obviously not able to work out the core.

    This is not about hosting and not about 7 USD.

    Its purely about the fact that one contract partner is allowed to decide if a contract is valid yes or no.

    This violates the fundamentals of any contract in this world. It does not matter if you buy hosting, a car or a banana.

    And yes, contracts ARE handcuffs with defined outs. Thats the whole purpose of their existence. They give security to both parties that is supposed to ensure that every party of a contract HAS TO FOLLOW the contract and can not just single handily decide to reverse it.

    In our example here we have a yearly contract. Yearly not "until one party decide its not interesting anymore". As much as the customer can not just ask for a refund, the provider can not just decide to to reverse the whole contract. I dont know what country you are located in, but probably also in your country a deal is a deal is a deal. And thats it.


    And since i was not able to be clear with this too:

    In your example your sister had issues with her cars and the dealer gave up at some point and gave her a full refund.

    The core point you did not mention. Was your sister FORCED to give back the car? Means, did the car dealer decide, independent of the will of your sister to just revert the contract?

    I can honestly not imagine that. Most probably the car dealer OFFERED the reversal, which is perfectly customer service. And your sister AGREED to it. And thats how things are done.

    If ALL parties of a contract agree to do what ever, then of course its all fine and valid. But if just ONE party agree and the other disagree ( or not even asked like in our example here ) then its just pure contract violation.


    And to give you some background: I am the idiot here in this company. Means the owner. I am doing this here in a professional way ( means real legally registered, tax paying company ), without another side line job, without mum or dad, without being a reseller or what ever since 2003 with my own hardware, RIPE membership and alll the other fancy rat's tails that comes with it.

    And thats why i already wrote in another thread that a company has no economical interest in a customer paying 7 USD for a VPS in a year and that best practice is NOT to write a ticket.

    But that is honestly the problem of the provider, if he offer something ( VPS, Banana, car, ... ) that is calculated in a way that it only works under specific conditions ( no support, no uptime, 50% packetloss, only on monday's that come after a friday, what ever ) -- which are NOT communicated to the customer ( alias part of the contract ).

    IF you as a provider write into your offer:

    " Subject to cancellation any time through the provider if the provider just feels like it "

    Then hey, perfect thing! It was clearly communicated that you as customer are fully in the hands of the mood and will of the provider. If you as customer accept this bullet in exachange for this price, go for it! Perfect contract, all went fine.

    But thats alllllllll just not the case here.

    From what we have been told from both parties:

    -> Customer ordered and paid a VPS for 1 year.
    -> Customer complained ( too much )
    -> Customer got kicked before 1 year against his will, without his agreement because the provider made the decision that its not fitting

    Clear contract violation. If you see that another way, then you are at least more provider friendly than i am. If i have a contract, i want to be able to rely on it ( thats what contracts were made for and thats why you can go to the court and enforce a contract ).

    Its not a summer host dilly-dilly fun show. Thats business. Thats serious. ( At least supposed to be in my humble opinion ).

    I agree with your contract law analysis. I'll just say that your "because I want to" clause likely wouldn't stand up in court even if it existed in the contract. If someone actually took a $7/y VPS case to court, the provider would probably be compelled to perform.

    That said, these are academic discussions. The reason in reality why DediRock can just unilaterally cancel the contract is that no one is going through the multi-jurisdictional nightmare that would be this case over $7. I can see a scenario where someone could claim damages if they lost a massive contract because their site was down at the exact time a customer was trying to make a purchase. In this specific case, that wouldn't apply because DediRock didn't actually pull the plug on the site, they just refunded and left the VPS running.

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