right 100 %...

And if you get served lawsuit, try to get it moved to your small claims court if within the permitted amount... They hate small claims court .

I used to get from Hollywood Studios some bailiff served cease & desist in amounts of 300K or more and would tell my secretary to file them away ... ( I would have bought Canadian rights from the producer to distribute a film in Canada, and The US distributor was claiming that Canada was domestic, so my contract not valid ... one famous was on a J.C. Van Damme movie, his first one . ).

Do nothing, don't call them, refuse call from them or their reps, IGNORE them.

If they weren't losing their ass I very much doubt they would be pulling such shit. I've left plenty of hosting companies before and never have encountered any kind of termination fee. I hope they go bankrupt.

Any legit law firm will give you an hour consultation for free.

They'll review the contract and tell you what legal standing you have.

Then they'll explain your $$$ options. If there's a good chance for a counter suit your out of pocket would be less... etc..

I'd get off the board and get into a lawyer's office ASAP. The more you talk about it the more you expose yourself.

dude, you signed the contract back in 2003, back when bandwidth prices were nothing. and the one year thing was pretty much standard, its not like now when everything is dirt cheap

pay what you owe and quit bitching

idiot :2 cents::2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

It's clear you didn't read my post at all. Nowhere did I even make mention of those competitors, and I said there are many good providers who don't require contracts for service. I don't require a contract and neither do lots of other hosts. Seriously, rewind and re-read. I would be the first to say that people leave for the exact reasons you just stated - I don't know where your basis is for a) calling me an idiot, or b) stating things that I completely agree with as if to suggest I hadn't already said as much. lol

All correct!

Brad

Horrible,this is why no matter how good reputation host have avoid it at all cost if there is contract requiment.I mean,how do you know next month you would let say sell all your sites and get out of biz?Or any similar reason?That is why contract hosts need to be avoided at all costs.

everyone was zigging, i wanted to zag ;)

Reading this thread has got me thinking. I upgraded to a dedicated server with Phatservers earlier this year and I don't even recall signing a contract. I am quite happy with their service so I think that's a good thing now!

Hey guys. Lets make something clear here about contracts. Just becasue a host has customers sign contracts it does not make them a bad company. It does not make you the customer a fool for signing one and it does not mean the company is out to get you.

Im learning now that a lot of companies do use contracts. A lot dont. There is no good or bad guy here if they do or dont use one. The contracts are used to protect the company. The intent of them isnt to trick customers or use them for shakedowns. The old Jupiter or any host for that matter didnt seek out to shake people down.


What Navisite is doing here to me and what I have learned in the last 12 hours they are doing to MANY other people in our biz is special.
And to do this to me over a single 10mpbs server becasue I told them I wanted to leave and it was 3 weeks after this auto renewing contract is really just an assholeish move in there part. Nothing less. Sure Biz is Biz. Contracts are contracts but this is an abuse of the fact.

And for those of you saying well if they are going to charge you for it keep the server, take note that I closed the server back in NOV of 2007. Thats 2007. We are now over 1 year after the fact. I wasnt presented with this huge fine until March I believe it was.

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.