Forget Rackshack

[gio.framba]

I can use harsher words here, but I'll try to stay objective and let the reader draw their own conclusions.

I have been in hosting in "RackSpace" for the past two years. The prices are moderate and the customer service has been excellent.
I was tempted by "Rackshack"'s much lower prices. They offer much more powerful servers for more than half the price of RackSpace.
I checked out all of the major web hosting forums for more info into Rackshack before trying them. There were some negative comments, but I tried to put them down as "sour grapes" and perhaps expecting too much..
So I tried to check them out for myself, especially seeing as they offer month-to-month contracts, it wouldn't cost too much to try them out for a month, keeping my current server where they am.
Following is a brief account of what happened (I'll try to summarize and just stay to the facts; Note I have email correspondence from them which confirms almost everything I have written).

Friday - May 17th, app. 4AM CST, Rackshack has 1 server, Celeron 1.3 Ghz, 60 GB HD, Linux Redhat 7.2, etc. offer available for $99 plus $1 setup fee. They also have a series of other servers for $1 setup fee, ranging from $99 to $129/mo.
Their online ordering system "is not available". I send in a fax order. In the subsquent hours, I keep returning to their site, to find that there is always the one server available, and their online ordering system is not working.

At about 9 AM CST, I noticed that the server was gone.
I contacted RackShack by ICQ and then by email. After a lot of strange stories, they admitted via email, that the server was sold "online" and that even though my order came through many hours before the online order, they process fax orders after online orders.
I wrote them that I can understand that maybe this is something that crops up, hopefully infrequently, otherwise their system is flawed, and that they should just offer me another $99 server (which they had available) waiving the $99 setup fee.
They responded "no" and that in any case, within the next 7 days, if another Celeron came up, they would give it to me at the offered price.

There was an exchange of a series of emails between Rackshack and myself, where they kept trying to have me chose a more expensive offer.

Friday May 24th - I checked their website, and there were 18 of the same exact servers available, the price is $99 + $1 setup. I saved a copy of the web page so I know that I wasn't seeing things; and no, it wasn't cached.. It now says Project 10K and the old page said something like Project 6K.
I emailed them asking "how about my server". Within 10 minutes I got a reponse saying that they are putting my order through, but I had made a mistake on the original form I sent in.
Before emailing them, I went back to their webpage, probably 10 minutes after I got their response, and the offer had all of a sudden changed from a $1 setup fee to a $99 setup fee!
Anyway, I immediately emailed them the correction and didn't hear from them again.

Monday May 27th - , I wrote them again. I got a response that they are sorry for the delay in setting up my server, but they will no longer be able to give me the server at a $1 setup fee.
I told them to cancel the order.

A few hours later (take a look yourselves), I went back to their web page and the Celeron offer is now at a $249 setup fee!!

So, even though I had an open order for a $99/mo., $1 setup fee, and the servers were available, and their own people confirmed they were going to give me this offer, they categorically refused to give me this server.

There is an expression for this sales tactic, but I'd rather not mention it.

Make your own conclusions.

My personal suggestion.. Stay away from them. Even if they can deliver (and it's a big IF), it would be hard to trust them with your server and your data!!!

[Phoenix]

It's not a sales tactic, it's an unfair competition practice and a violation of consumer protection laws.

If you feel you have been a victim of bait and switch, contact the Attorney General's office and/or the Federal Trade Commission, and report them to the BBB.

[wowewo]

Bait and switch is illegal? What is the provider truly runs out of items for sale and only has more expensive alternatives? Truthfully this has an does happen... I couldnt see it costing too much for rack shack to build this server special since the order did arive before the deadline and the cs dept. did say they would provide. I've built computers myself in less than an hour, it took me an hour to shop for the parts, and about 3 hours to load the necessary software. I'm not A++ certified or any of that fancy jazz so I assume Rack shack could do it even quicker.

Hmmm bait and switch sounds like a plan... but for fishing not business.

[Phoenix]

Yes, bait and switch is illegal, as is any form of deceptive or 'false' advertising.

ResellerMatrix/HostingMatrix, et al., found this out recently when the Washington State AG's office slapped them with a $300,000 ($2,000 per customer) fine for being deceptive, illegal and unfair. (HostingTech magazine, June 2002).

You can't promise a customer what you are not able to deliver. You can't make claims about your business, product, or service, that you can't prove. Nor can you lie about anything that is going to affect their decision to purchase. The use of the word unlimited when there is in fact a limitation, is deceptive advertising, and also against the law. Claims about your infrastructure that are not true, are also deceptive advertising.

Web designers beware: "Advertising agencies or website designers are responsible for reviewing the information used to substantiate ad claims. They may not simply rely on an advertiser's assurance that the claims are substantiated. In determining whether an ad agency should be held liable, the FTC looks at the extent of the agency's participation in the preparation of the challenged ad, and whether the agency knew or should have known that the ad included false or deceptive claims." (from the ftc.gov website)

And if you advertise something for sale at a particular price, you have to provide it to the customer, or give them a 'rain check', or provide some form of compensation. If you don't have enough of the item for everybody who wants one during the sale period, you need to clearly state that quantities are limited, and once those are gone, the sale ends.

In this case, according to the website, and the communications the customer received from the business, there were items available for purchase at the sale price, and the customer then observed repeated changes to the advertised price for the item. They eventually refused to give the customer the sale price for the item. This is bait and switch at it's most egregious.

Bottom line, anyone running a business, using the Internet as an advertising vehicle, or designing websites should be familiar with the laws regarding deceptive advertising. More information is available at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menu-ads.htm

I'd recommend reading Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: The Rules of the Road and Dot Com Disclosures: Information About Online Advertising to start with.

[gio.framba]

Phoenix, thank you very much for your comments, advice and links.




What is the provider truly runs out of items for sale and only has more expensive alternatives?

They had the item, and they had alternatives at the same price. They just wouldn't give it to me at the originally offered price, on which I had an outstanding order. Go figure it?

[directtech]

I've ordered servers from RackSack before. Your server is setup in realtime when you place your order online.

Why didn't you just place the order online? You would have had your server immediately.

[sitehostz]

Make sure that you read any info such as legal docs before signing up with rackshack. They charge you for just about everything once you have your server. And if you are not satisfied in your first month of hosting or any other month, They do not offer you a refund period. The don't refund the first month for the setup fee if you happened to pay $99.00 for it.

They are greedy and the money comes first, Not the client or customer. I was ripped off by them a few months ago so I know the deal.

[Martie]

Originally posted by sitehostz
Make sure that you read any info such as legal docs before signing up with rackshack. They charge you for just about everything once you have your server. And if you are not satisfied in your first month of hosting or any other month, They do not offer you a refund period. The don't refund the first month for the setup fee if you happened to pay $99.00 for it.

They are greedy and the money comes first, Not the client or customer. I was ripped off by them a few months ago so I know the deal.

I think if you look around on the Rackshack site they are pretty clear with their terms, policies.
http://www.rackshack.net/english/aboutus/tos.asp

[jeffj]

Their online ordering system seems wonky. I was looking at their services some weeks ago and everything was listed as $0.

Needless to say, I tried to place an order but it didn't work ;).

[serversurgeon]

I can't even get to thier site right now: http://www.rackshack.net/, assuming that was the correct URL posted. Googling rackshack doesn't provide hit either, they must be an unknown.

[serversurgeon]

This is bizarre. Rackshack.net uses NS1.RACKSHACK.NET and NS1.RACKSHACK.NET as thier nameservers, and those nameservers are returning 127.0.0.1 as the site IP. That's why I couldn't get to the site.

root@dev1 [/tmp]# nslookup
> server NS1.RACKSHACK.NET
Default server: NS1.RACKSHACK.NET
Address: 207.218.223.132#53
> rackshack.net
Server: NS1.RACKSHACK.NET
Address: 207.218.223.132#53

Name: rackshack.net
Address: 127.0.1.1

[Phoenix]

Serversurgeon,

Rackshack isn't an unknown, this is an old thread. Back in 2003, Rackshack changed their name (or as they call it "rebranded") to EV1Servers.

http://www.ev1servers.net/

Article about the namechange: http://www.ev1servers.net/about/newsroom.asp?article=20

Cheers,

Phoenix

[serversurgeon]

Ahh, I've got some customers with EV1. Working on a cPanel issue for one right this second.

[serversurgeon]

It would seem to make sense to keep the old domain pointing somewhere though -- and it's very odd for any nameserver to return 127.0.0.1 for anything but development purposes.

[Phoenix]

It would make sense for them to have that domain forwarding to ev1servers.net, but they must have some reason for it. Part of their rebranding strategy, perhaps.

Or just nobody's realized it.

[serversurgeon]

Possibly they read this post about rackshack.net and thought, "Quick, take down the redirect, we don't want to be associated that" :)

[newmocha]

ev1 is good but you really need to know what you are doing in order to get the right help from them. we do have customers hosting with them that we are assisting and currently are escalating couple of issues related to their technical support and web management system - which we will not disclose for now since their VP of communication seems to be responsive and have assured she will follow up on the issues.

we will definetly disclose these issues if they are repeated or not addressed properly.

[Alyssa]

Have you found another host? If you want try sparkservers.net their prices are reasonable and they offer many payment plans. A lot of ISP's are there to take maoney from people buthtey do not deliver as they promise. I used to be with a sucky company called Interland who btw went bankrupt ! I am sure you have heard of them!