Example:

I signed in October of 2004. I can understand a host being mad if I left them a few months after signing and being with them. After they invested so much in technology for me to host with them in hardware, etc to leave them after only a few months would be understandable if they were mad. I think this is why hosts have contracts. I understand why... No problems there. They need to protect their investments.

But for these one year contracts to "auto renew" every year from the day you signed is what disturbs me. I informed them 3 years and 1 month after the day of signing I wanted to leave and would be leaving. To enforce this 1 year contract rule on me over 3 years later is nothing more than a shakedown.

Only to learn that if I had decided to leave them 3 weeks prior in October 2007 RATHER than November 2007 I would have saved $9000.00

Here here.....Phatservers has always taken good care of me. I didn't sign a contract either :thumbsup

If you have a paper trail and followed the termination clause you should be ok now, no?

Are you sure? Google pocket filing... I'm dealing with a much more minor similar issue in my home state, and found out about that rule. Basically it means any lawyer can completely and entirely circumvent the normal court process, win a default judgment without ever filing a single paper with the court, and go directly to garnishments/levy's/etc. without a judge ever so much as looking at the complaint. I got lucky, and did some research prior to just "ignoring it until you get a summons" and it saved my ass.

Depends very much on the state.

Many states do not require you to be served (via process server) for small claims court - service by first class (not even registered) mail is perfectly acceptable. Of course, it is in a debt collectors best interest to send this summons "accidentally" to an old address/etc.

You would be surprised at what happens out there, dealing my my minor little issue opened my eyes. You can very much fight back, but you need to *actively* pursue things. Ignoring it is the worst advice anyone could possibly give, and got me into the shit I'm in currently.

I would start by looking at the statute of limitations in both the state the contract was signed, and in your state of residence. I assume the contract has a choice of law provision in it, and it is California? If so, a quick google shows a 4 year SoL on written contracts. The SoL is generally considered to start from the "date of first default" - so depending on the judge either the day you sent in your cancellation notice, the date of your last payment, or the date that they show a past-due balance. Basically the last date you were "current" on the account. If your home state has longer SoL's it may be very difficult to get the attorney suing you (if he does) to agree that the CA law takes precedence - and there it is a fight, where a decent NACA attorney would be helpful. Don't just hand it off though, do your own research and come up with your own defenses - no attorney is going to spend much time on a case that may get them $1-2k total business, they'll do standard boilerplate responses and try to settle.

Basically, it sounds like you may just be out of the SoL. In which case, I'd wait until you receive any form of summons, and also watch your local small claims and district court dockets closely so they don't ninja-file on you with sewer summons. Their entire intent is a default judgment, because once they have that the merits of your defense are irrelevant - they won. Yes, you can file for a vacation of judgment citing sewer service, but that's just another knock against you to a judge.


Basically... The original merits of whether or not you legally or ethically owe the debt are somewhat meaningless at this point. Your entire focus should simply be treating this as a debt collector coming after you for a debt. Ignoring it is horrible advice, and will look bad to a judge if it ever gets that far. If you were able to come to court with certified mail receipts, stacks of responses to the old debt collectors disputing the debt/asking for validation/etc. it looks like you were trying to resolve it and the debt collectors were unwilling.

So.. You have defenses, but you are likely well beyond the point where you can make this simply "go away" by doing simple letter writing/phone calls. If it is indeed a real attorney, and he is indeed "trying to serve you" as you stated, expect to have to bring it to conclusion soon. The fact that it's right around where I would peg the SoL to be makes me think they may actually file, in order to beat it.

Either way.. good luck!

As for the contract itself.. You signed a year long contract in October 2004, and canceled in November 2004? If so, I can't see many judges not upholding the payment of the remainder of the contract out. If you meant you signed in October 2003, and canceled in November 2004, then what they did is absolutely beyond shady. Auto-renewal w/ defined cancellation notices have their place - this is not one of them.

Hope it helps :)

-Phil

Boneprone you're getting softer by the page. Almost like someone put a gun to your head :1orglaugh

They're fucking scammers and anyone who hooked you up with that shitty deal isn't a real friend. Even if it was a normal contract to protect the host, they should've told you the details. I say fuck 'em all, but if you wanna be soft and be forgiving and only blame the new owners for bad business ethics, that's your choice. I'd take it as a lesson to not trust anybody in the business.

Welp good luck BP.

Trust me Im still pissed.
I dont feel like killing people anymore though. Im calm.

I want to deal with this new company and move on. Move on to letting everyone know to never do biz with these people.

Wheather you or anyone personally wants to do biz with ANY of the old Jupiter people is totally up to you.
I dont think ANY of them are around anymore in the biz. From the Top down.

I would be very intrested to hear of see if they were.

Canceled in Nov 2007

Yeah 2007. Im sure thats what he was meaning to write in his post.

That is seizing before judgement. A court clerk will grant that if it is provable that there is a risk that judgement could not be executed because of the defendant having time to hide his asset.


It rarely stands in court.

I had that done on my property, because a lawyer decided that I was the so-called defendant ... It so happened that the defendant had the same name, lived on the same street ( he was at 350 , I was at 315 ) and roughly the same age. It was quashed within 24 hours, with all expenses to be paid by the demanding lawyer.

:2 cents:

Correct its rare and only allowed in some places.

Pocket filing usually means serving a summmons without filing it with the Court first, this is more common and again can only happen in some places.

Navisite will be Sponsoring the Internext Bukkake Party.

Anyone who has any comments towards them or who would like to say hello may do so at the Party.

There are a few people in this thread offering you very sound advice, BP (Brad, Phil and a few others)....but there are still a few that think they know more than they really do and this is why you should seriously consult an attorney...not a criminal defense attorney but a corporate contract attorney.

My suggestion: Meet with an attorney and have them send a letter to NaviSite explaining that they have been retained to represent you in this matter and that any and all communication must now go through them. This will accomplish a few things...first, NaviSite will not be able to do ANYTHING in the court system without communicating with your attorney. Second, they will most likely stop harrasing you at all since they know that their scare tactics will not work on the attorney.

I think you are going to find that they look at your account and realize that it will not be worth taking to court over less than $10k and that will end your dealings with them. In addition, they have too many things that make this a bad case for them....first, the assumption of the contract by NaviSite is always questionable, secondly, most states do not allow for punitive damages, only liquidated damages, and they would be hard pressed to prove their liquidated damages in court for a contract that auto-renewed three times.

Probably the biggest downfall that they have right now is that they are hemorrhaging money and are probably going to lose a multi-million dollar judgment against a counter suit that started just like yours but for much, much, much more money. The entire company is only worth $10m, which is reportedly $5m LESS than they paid for Jupiter. These are the types of things that make you look at your situation and say "they probably have more important things to worry about than to come after a guy who has paid for the same server for 4 years"...but thats JMHO.

I would like to put one more thing out there for public consumption.....

Contracts are not as evil as some people would want you to believe. I dont do any business without a written contract. Contracts keep friends, friends. Where this gets into a bad area is when one friend assumes that since they are friends that they should not read the contract. I have contracts with MANY of my friends for projects that we are working on together...and every single time we would fight tooth and nail over every single point in the contract....but always with the same goal...to remain friends.

From a sheer hosting perspective, for years we never required agreements from our clients and we used the same reasoning that Brad used above...and I like doing business that way....but, as Brad eluded to in his post, once you reach a certain size that is simply not possible any longer. Once high end bankers, and credit facilities get involved then that all changes. That does not mean that the culture has to change...just the paperwork. I am happy to say that we have never, not once had a lawyer threaten anyone that signed a contract with us....and we dont plan to any time soon.

Good Luck, BP....and feel free to call me if I can be of any assistance to you.


--T

Sweet T, Brad, Phil and Alex from Isprime, thank you all of you.
It is your insight that made this more clear.

Im done being a cry baby. Its time to be an adult and get this resolved.

SweetT thanks.

i am sorry but that is dam funny
good to see you can laugh about it.

Excellent post, Tony! I think that this thread serves as an excellent example of many things especially as you pointed out, as to what happens when good corporate culture 'exits' the stage. :thumbsup

Best,

Brad

You should consult any contracts with a consigliere next time.

I'll do it for free.

Hey people keep icqing me.

Im getting a nice little list of people having same issues with them.
Its alarming at the dollar amounts and how many of us there are.

We should see if we can do somekind of group thing. Not sure what, but im sure there is something.

At the very least a get a petition going and complain to the courts that they are price gouging.

Something....

Im suprised and shocked to hear some of the stories im hearing.

We really should group together some how. We are looking at TONS of money here.

Im getting a lot of messages from customers and former customers...
Wow.

How was this quiet so long?

I have seen several new clients coming to WEBAIR from Jupiter recently with the same complaint. you should get them together and start a petition. This seems like a classic example of price gouging. Granted the market for data center space has gone UP CONSIDERABLY in the past year or so. I'll look over the contract for you and see if there is anything we can pull out of it.

As for getting a lawyer, I don't think you need one at this point, you will only incur more cost than it's worth. I'm sure if you drag it out and let them pay for a lawyer the costs will far exceed what they are trying to collect. Not to mention they will settle for far less just to avoid the aggravation.


Happy Holidays! =) :xmas-smil30

Good advice here from Phil, Brad, and Sweet T.

Specifically the stuff from Phil....I didn't know someone could screw you like that without you ever getting a notice to appear in court. Crazy.

I'm interested to see how this turns out once Bone contacts an attorney. Sure there's a signed contract, but some stuff doesn't hold up in court even if both parties sign off on it in a contract. Even if you signed up to get screwed there is a limit to how much the court will let a corporation screw you.......for instance non-compete clauses in employment contracts get thrown out all the time even though the employee signed them when taking the job. :2 cents:

(I'm sure there's a latin legal term for that, but I dunno what it is)

Very nice perspective to doing biz. :thumbsup

holy fuck.. and my contract is expiring in january.. already left them, so server is waiting to get canceled.. you say it's impossible to thank them for the business and move? wtf?

Never hosted their myself however I know a couple of people who got a bill for breaking their contract with them..

Posts like this make me want to be more like you. :2 cents:

was going to post that he should look into this with an attorney, obviously he's mad enough

Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down...

Im hearing a lot of stories. A lot of people have it much much worse.

What's this world is coming too.. I am shocked.

yes, the fuckers at jupiter have tried to shake me down in the past, trying to enforce a contract that is a) not enforceable where they are trying to, and b) they backed out of it, not me.

i know KC was a good guy, but i dont know who is still there are jupiter anymore, but i can tell you they never saw a dime of their shake down funds, refusing to pay even though its in collections, and they will put it into collections. life goes on, dont use jupiter hosting.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you're business is failing and the strategy for getting back in the black is suing the customers who are leaving you rather than retaining those customers while trying to obtain new ones.

GFY still hosts at Jupiter/Navisite.

Out of respect to those who have been burned by this new company I would like to be the first to demand that GFY leave Jupiter and tells them to Go Fuck Themselves.

I realize it is an unfair request. But from all the stories I have been hearing I think it would make a strong statement.

Break the contract.

Join the family.

Yes many companys use contracts,but as i previously said,i would never go with company no matter what service it provide and how good they are it if they require contract.Contracts are simply bad things generaly beacuse there is good chance you will have xyz line which will allow to fuck you in ass as in your case and which you wont notice it.Happened to me once,since then i am very careful what i sign.

I dont think they have forgotten about you.

This is some serious business. I hope it doesn't cross my path in the future.

EXACTLY! I didnt leave Jupiter/Navisite just for the hell of it, or for fun, I left them because their services sucked, support tickets went untouched and then closed without any reply, my promised DDoS protection was never delivered to me like they claimed etc etc, I wish we could've had a long happy relationship, but plain and simple, if you want to have a successful business without hassle and without lies and deception, do NOT go with their hosting :disgust

Is it even legal for contracts to auto-renew indefinitely?

You would think that after an intial term the billing would change to month-to-month, the same way as a cell phone contract.

Reading your story about copying domains one by one via FTP made me fucking glad I ran away to NatNet... I noticed some time ago that it's not the Jupiter Hosting it used to be before acquisition. :disgust

Your cell phone contract is month to month? What carrier does that?

Well, it's a good thing that Lensman is not here anymore. If he were, all you guys talking shit about Jupiter would be banned....that's just the kind of guy he was :thumbsup

I think SweetT offered some great advice.

Sorry to hear about your situation BP. :(

He said after the initial contract expires (two years usually) it goes month-to-month.

As far as I know, all the major carriers do that.

Boneprone,

You were with Jupiter longer than October 2004. I remember it was well before that.
And I know you had a bunch of servers with them. What became of all those? You keep mentioning 1 server. Sounds like this was the smallest one.

And they are coming after you for that? What about the others?

Woe to thee whom blasphemy the gods!!

http://media.economist.com/images/20080405/1408BK1.jpg

As far as I know, yes, as long as that is what is stated in the contract and is signed and there is a termination clause of course. But I am no lawyer :)

Okay, missed that, however, that contract said it auto renewed as I recall.

it'll be really funny if jupiter/navisite gives GFY a bill for breaking their contract

Oh the Irony when Mutt posted the other day why dosent Boneprone have his own board.

Yeah it did have that in there....although I think there would be a limit to how many times that could happen and still be enforceable, depending on what State we're talking about.

I'm no expert, but like I was saying before, just because it's in a signed contract doesn't mean it's enforceable. Consumers have rights that they aren't allowed to sign away even if they want to.


Oh, and 300 shakedowns, and 300 years of auto-renewing contracts, and 300 soon to be bankrupt hosting companies.

Congrats to all the winners!