# WeLoveServers Sold to HostWinds



## drmike (Dec 14, 2015)

This just now...


We would like to welcome you to the Hostwinds Family. Hostwinds recently acquired the assets of WeLoveServers. Hostwinds will continue to operate all current services, and will provide services to all existing WeLoveServers clients.
 
We want to tell you a little bit about Hostwinds if you are not familiar with us.
 
·         Founded in 2010
·         PC Magazine Editor's Choice Award Winner
·         INC 500 Award Winner (#98)
·         25 Full Time US Based Employees
·         24/7/365 US Based Support (Via Live Chat & Phone & Tickets)
·         Average Ticket Response Time 5 Minutes
·         Owns all equipment outright (Not a Reseller)
 
Our first goal and priority is to begin migrating all existing clients over to Hostwinds enterprise billing system, for faster response times, and easier management of existing services. This will take place over the next 60 days, you will receive an email with more information on this.
 
The most immediate change you will notice, is all credit card and PayPal payments will now be going directly through Hostwinds. This means that on your Credit Card Statement the charge will show up as “Hostwinds”, also on PayPal payments, it will show up as paying Hostwinds.
 
We are very excited about working with you for a long time to come and finding the most effective solutions to your needs. If you have any questions at all, or just want to chat, feel free to open a support ticket, or go directly to Hostwinds.com and open a live chat with a friendly operator.
 
--The Hostwinds Team
(https://www.hostwinds.com/)


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## HalfEatenPie (Dec 14, 2015)

So...


Opinions of HostWinds?


I think I used them a long time ago.  Wasn't too bad, however definitely not my cup of tea.


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## zafouhar (Dec 14, 2015)

Do HostWinds have any racks over at the good old CC Buffalo?


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## drmike (Dec 14, 2015)

HostWinds are the windbags that bought the polluted Burst.net assets allegedly... after the venture / wealth idiot ran that operation into the floor.


HostWinds claims Inc 500 crap like some other folks we know...


Inc Ranks say:


98    Hostwinds    3,416%    $3.5m    IT Services


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## Francisco (Dec 14, 2015)

This one is for sure surprising. They had enough CC locations it only made sense if they got absorbed by CC/CVPS at some point, if they weren't already. To be honest, I can't see HW keeping the extra locations for long and to instead rebase things inside their own walls. The only reason I could see them keeping it where it is, is if CC is so cheap it's not worth the man hours.


As for Hostwinds, they had a pretty terrible reputation for a while but they've put in a lot of work to improve it so they get a thumbs up from me. I'm always in favor of less spammer friendly hosts.


Francisco


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## zafouhar (Dec 14, 2015)

Francisco said:


> This one is for sure surprising. They had enough CC locations it only made sense if they got absorbed by CC/CVPS at some point, if they weren't already. To be honest, I can't see HW keeping the extra locations for long and to instead rebase things inside their own walls. The only reason I could see them keeping it where it is, is if CC is so cheap it's not worth the man hours.
> 
> 
> As for Hostwinds, they had a pretty terrible reputation for a while but they've put in a lot of work to improve it so they get a thumbs up from me. I'm always in favor of less spammer friendly hosts.
> ...



So HostWinds is hosted at CC? funny thing is their support techs don't even know that.


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## Francisco (Dec 14, 2015)

zafouhar said:


> So HostWinds is hosted at CC? funny thing is their support techs don't even know that.



No, Hostwinds has their own facility and absorbed the majority of the Burstnet meltdown. Isn't HW made up of old Burstnet workers anyway? quite possible they took the clients instead of them taking the old Burstnet guy to the cleaners.


Now, WLS is very much mostly at CC. They have a UK location I think but the rest are all CVPS servers according to SWIP reports people posted.


Francisco


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## zafouhar (Dec 14, 2015)

Francisco said:


> No, Hostwinds has their own facility and absorbed the majority of the Burstnet meltdown. Isn't HW made up of old Burstnet workers anyway? quite possible they took the clients instead of them taking the old Burstnet guy to the cleaners.
> 
> 
> Now, WLS is very much mostly at CC. They have a UK location I think but the rest are all CVPS servers according to SWIP reports people posted.
> ...



Weird because I have a friend with a dedi at HostWinds that uses a ColoCrossing IP... noticed it today randomly. They supposedly have their own facility which is why I found it very weird what is going on.


Edit: the dedi was direct from hostwinds months ago


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## InfinityDaniel (Dec 14, 2015)

Wow, I love hearing about business and how some get bought out.


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## Francisco (Dec 14, 2015)

zafouhar said:


> Weird because I have a friend with a dedi at HostWinds that uses a ColoCrossing IP... noticed it today randomly. They supposedly have their own facility which is why I found it very weird what is going on.



...


Has your friend been directly with HW the entire time? New or old signup?



InfinityDaniel said:


> Wow, I love hearing about business and how some get bought out.



I expect a lot more for next year.


Francisco


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## zafouhar (Dec 14, 2015)

Francisco said:


> ...
> 
> 
> Has your friend been directly with HW the entire time? New or old signup?
> ...



I'm not really sure, i'll need to check how he ended up with the colocrossing IP, I definitely found it weird when I first say it.


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## drmike (Dec 14, 2015)

zafouhar said:


> Weird because I have a friend with a dedi at HostWinds that uses a ColoCrossing IP... noticed it today randomly. They supposedly have their own facility which is why I found it very weird what is going on.
> 
> 
> Edit: the dedi was direct from hostwinds months ago





Which geographic location?


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## Hostwinds (Dec 21, 2015)

zafouhar said:


> Weird because I have a friend with a dedi at HostWinds that uses a ColoCrossing IP... noticed it today randomly. They supposedly have their own facility which is why I found it very weird what is going on.
> 
> 
> Edit: the dedi was direct from hostwinds months ago



I just wanted to chime in and say, we have never used any service provider except for ourselves. We have exclusively used our own IP space since 2011, so this would not have been one of our dedicated servers. IT could have been a server of a company we acquired, however if it was on the 15th that you saw it, then there is no way it was one of our dedicated servers.


Our first goal with WeLoveServers is to get the massive spam problem taken care of. This company did not have a competent abuse department prior to us taking over, and handling abuse complaints, meant forwarding them on to the users in questions. There were never any suspensions or terminations, we use mailchannels for filtering all outbound SMTP traffic leaving our network, and so getting weloveservers clients moved on to our network, to begin effectively filtering spam, is our number one priority.


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## zafouhar (Dec 21, 2015)

Hostwinds said:


> I just wanted to chime in and say, we have never used any service provider except for ourselves. We have exclusively used our own IP space since 2011, so this would not have been one of our dedicated servers. IT could have been a server of a company we acquired, however if it was on the 15th that you saw it, then there is no way it was one of our dedicated servers.
> 
> 
> Our first goal with WeLoveServers is to get the massive spam problem taken care of. This company did not have a competent abuse department prior to us taking over, and handling abuse complaints, meant forwarding them on to the users in questions. There were never any suspensions or terminations, we use mailchannels for filtering all outbound SMTP traffic leaving our network, and so getting weloveservers clients moved on to our network, to begin effectively filtering spam, is our number one priority.



Thanks for chiming in, it was/is very weird but it does seem the server was not a direct one, must have been one acquired from some Colocrossing provider - it wasn't actually from the 15th but I can't remember when I noticed it exactly. Anyway thanks for clarifying!


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## drmike (Dec 21, 2015)

Hostwinds said:


> Our first goal with WeLoveServers is to get the massive spam problem taken care of. This company did not have a competent abuse department prior to us taking over, and handling abuse complaints, meant forwarding them on to the users in questions. There were never any suspensions or terminations, we use mailchannels for filtering all outbound SMTP traffic leaving our network, and so getting weloveservers clients moved on to our network, to begin effectively filtering spam, is our number one priority.



WeLoveServers = massive spam = no competent abuse department = no handling abuse complaints = no suspensions or terminations.


^^^^^^ THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF LOWEND* COMPANIES, at least the high growth ones.


@Hostwinds you vetted this deal with WeLoveServers and everything came back all right?  Are you fully aware of the owners prior conduct selling hype businesses in a box for many thousands (get rich by being lazy).. Big enough scam that it was covered in the UK on prime time television. Fully aware that WeLoveServers was doing the same skit since August selling expensive and odd reseller businesses for big cash annual buy in?


Rest of it, and your steps to right the wrong = GOOD @Hostwinds.


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## joepie91 (Dec 21, 2015)

This seems to be missing from this thread: HostWinds are the guys involved in the hostile takeover of the ZPanel project (leading to the Sentora fork).


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## Hostwinds (Dec 21, 2015)

drmike said:


> WeLoveServers = massive spam = no competent abuse department = no handling abuse complaints = no suspensions or terminations.
> 
> 
> ^^^^^^ THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF LOWEND* COMPANIES, at least the high growth ones.
> ...





Was not aware of the hype business in a box selling conduct. I was aware of all the super cheap annual buy in packages that were being sold. 



joepie91 said:


> This seems to be missing from this thread: HostWinds are the guys involved in the hostile takeover of the ZPanel project (leading to the Sentora fork).





This is not the time or place to argue about this ,however. we did not perform a hostile takeover. The founder and owner of the project messaged us directly looking to sell out, he offered us a price and we accepted the deal.


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## drmike (Dec 21, 2015)

Yeah, @Hostwinds might want to check on resellers and anyone who bought these recent biz-in-a-box annuals.  They were big buy in relatively speaking.  Like $800+ a year lump sum.  Likely you have inflated sales numbers too from that, if they actually roped folks into it.  The creative for this was semi good, so I expect they got some buyers.


Glad to see HostWinds appearing to be on right side of things.  Long wondered about the operation due to Spam prior and the Burst customer base.  But, I can put things to bed where things show improvement and seem to make sense.


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## joepie91 (Dec 21, 2015)

Hostwinds said:


> This is not the time or place to argue about this ,however. we did not perform a hostile takeover. The founder and owner of the project messaged us directly looking to sell out, he offered us a price and we accepted the deal.



Depends on how you define "hostile takeover", I suppose. The way things played out certainly leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And yes, this is absolutely the place to discuss this.


EDIT: By the way, I don't know what exactly you believe you've purchased, but it's certainly not ownership of the source code nor a license to it - there's no CLA, and from the thread I linked, it seems to suggest that other contributors did not have a say in the sale. Which would mean that, at most, you've purchased the domain and a few accounts. You're certainly still subject to the requirements of the GPL.


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## Licensecart (Dec 23, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Depends on how you define "hostile takeover", I suppose. The way things played out certainly leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And yes, this is absolutely the place to discuss this.
> 
> 
> EDIT: By the way, I don't know what exactly you believe you've purchased, but it's certainly not ownership of the source code nor a license to it - there's no CLA, and from the thread I linked, it seems to suggest that other contributors did not have a say in the sale. Which would mean that, at most, you've purchased the domain and a few accounts. You're certainly still subject to the requirements of the GPL.



I don't trust either party in that software, The main developers are idiots and Hostwind gets involved with bad businesses which dissolves trust.


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## joepie91 (Dec 23, 2015)

Licensecart said:


> I don't trust either party in that software, The main developers are idiots and Hostwind gets involved with bad businesses which dissolves trust.



Oh, absolutely. I've done my share of ranting towards ZPanel and Sentora. I just feel that these events reflect _very_ poorly on HostWinds, and they were the topic of the thread


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## wlanboy (Dec 23, 2015)

You want to read the Zpanel desaster story:


http://forums.sentora.org/showthread.php?tid=264



> 1) For many years Ballen (Bobby Allen) has run the ZPanel project. At the end of 2013, he was tired to do all the management and a proposal from Hostwinds was accepted to transfer them the full ownership of the whole project and resources. Hostwinds become free to use the project as advertisement support with the counterpart that they would ensure its management.
> Hostwinds got the project on January 14th 2014, but nothing was done to really manage the project and as time passed more and more things were waiting because nobody of the team had anymore access to the main hosting, to infos about donations and registration for "priority one", to the domains for repositories, etc.
> 
> 
> ...



Zpanel, Sentora I and Sentora II are dead - do not use them.


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## MisterC (Dec 24, 2015)

Need to find another host now that WLS has been acquired as I am sure the price on my annual VPS is going to be raised for sure or be converted into a plan with lesser resources.. Had I known, I wouldn't have subscribed to a new annual VPS and renewed my current VPS I have been using there for a few years... WLS has gone downhill after it was sold to the UK company a year ago.


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## DomainBop (Dec 24, 2015)

Francisco said:


> As for Hostwinds, they had a pretty terrible reputation for a while but they've put in a lot of work to improve it so they get a thumbs up from me. I'm always in favor of less spammer friendly hosts.
> 
> 
> Francisco



They had a bad reputation because they actively tried to gain the business of email marketers for awhile and it took Spamhaus blacklisting a lot of their IP space to get them to clean up their act (to their credit, they are now very proactive in fighting spam and malware) http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/08/like-cutting-off-a-limb-to-save-the-body/#more-31399


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## Licensecart (Dec 24, 2015)

DomainBop said:


> They had a bad reputation because they actively tried to gain the business of email marketers for awhile and it took Spamhaus blacklisting a lot of their IP space to get them to clean up their act (to their credit, they are now very proactive in fighting spam and malware) http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/08/like-cutting-off-a-limb-to-save-the-body/#more-31399



Haha ah so they was forced to change their ways. I can't see that happening with the WLS customer base though. Think of all the money they will loose.


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## CenTex Hosting (Jan 10, 2016)

I have never done business with Hostwinds. I do know a few people from BHW what use them and have great things to say about them.


From what i saw here is that they did send out a letter to the customers of the company that was bought out. Not many companies do that. I have seen time and time again that they try to keep it under the radar and try to hide the company was bought out. In fear of loosing those customers.


To me that is a good sign they are moving in the right direction.


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## MisterC (Jan 21, 2016)

Gah, time to look for a new company for hosting!


Migrations have started...


*It seems Hostwinds puts people on higher and more expensive plans during the migration...*


My $6/yr BASIC shared cPanel hosting from WLS (normally $3/month) with minimal specs converts to $8.50/MONTH -> $78.00/yr.


Their lowest plan is $6.50/month, there is no way I am renewing a shared hosting about I never used.. They did seem to have extended my plan though for a few more months.


My lot of WLS VPS' which have been running without much problem for the past few years (except recently) haven't been migrated but I am guessing it will be on their prices...


2GB VPS -> $38/yr @ WLS (8 vCPU 1Gbps) -> $210/yr (1vCPU, 200Mbps)


3GB SSD VPS -> $32/yr @ WLS (4vCPU 1Gbps 2 IP ADDRESSES) -> $378/yr (2vCPU 300Mbps 1 IP ADDRESS)


No way am I renewing at these prices, need to find another provider ASAP, too bad I dumped some of my 2-3GB ChicagoVPS $30 VPS for flapping a few months ago...


EDIT::


WLS Pricing (3GB VPS has 2 IP's):



Spoiler



Shared Hosting - Shared Hosting 2015 Sale - Instant Setup


$6.00 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE


 


VPS Hosting - '15 - Limited Specials - SSD 3GB


$32.00 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE


 


VPS Hosting - Double Specs Deal


$38.00 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE





Hostwinds Pricing (3GB VPS only has 1 IP):



Spoiler



Web Hosting - Ultimate Web Hosting
xxx


$78.00 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE


 


VPS - Budget VPS Level 3 (*NOT SSD*)
xxx


$280.50 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE


 


VPS - Budget VPS Level 2
xxxx


$192.50 USD


Annually


 


ACTIVE





Each plan seemed to be extended by 8 months from the original due dates.


Nevermind.



> Hello tzman,I apologize for any confusion. Hostwinds did recently acquire WeLoveServers.net.The notice you received regarding your service with Hostwinds however, was in error. I do apologize for the confusion.This was our first step in our migration process, pairing client's services with Hostwinds services.These services were automatically created, and will be shutdown, pending the manual migration of client's servers from WLS to Hostwinds.The services will be shutdown to avoid any clients utilizing them, prior to the migration, to avoid any chance of data loss.The billing information you see in your account area, is not an accurate depiction. During the automated setups of client's services with Hostwinds, to avoid any issues with client's that may have had a recent due date, the next due date on the service was adjusted far into the future to avoid any issues. This will be manually corrected as our Migrations team goes through the migrating process.Hostwinds will however, be providing clients of WLS additional time at no added cost, to acclimate clients to our services and client area, however this will not be 8 months, as explained above.Again tzman, I apologize for any confusion, and please if you have ANY questions at all, feel free to submit a ticket on either WLS or Hostwinds, or speak to one of our livechat representatives when visiting the Hostwinds website.



OK, but I still plan on moving ASAP to prevent any problems, their support doesn't know when VPS' will be moved/shut off.


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## drmike (Jan 22, 2016)

Why do guys buy brands, then fail to renew at the rates customers prior bought in.  Are you owners that STUPID?  No pre-buy research and risk assessment.  I don't get deals gone wrong like that.  Sure WLS sold idiot plans, but Hostwinds bought such, assumed it all, saw value, except for this customer group, that customer group, the other.  Meh, stuff like this rubs a sore spot on the bottom of my foot.


I mean in fairness I have a shared plan with a big shop on annual promo and renewal rate was multiples more... so I just don't renew... Screw it... Take my ball elsewhere, failed promo, short sighted.


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## Licensecart (Jan 22, 2016)

drmike said:


> Why do guys buy brands, then fail to renew at the rates customers prior bought in.  Are you owners that STUPID?  No pre-buy research and risk assessment.  I don't get deals gone wrong like that.  Sure WLS sold idiot plans, but Hostwinds bought such, assumed it all, saw value, except for this customer group, that customer group, the other.  Meh, stuff like this rubs a sore spot on the bottom of my foot.
> 
> 
> I mean in fairness I have a shared plan with a big shop on annual promo and renewal rate was multiples more... so I just don't renew... Screw it... Take my ball elsewhere, failed promo, short sighted.



hear hear, if you buy a business you know what products they are doing and what prices you keep them at them prices for current customers and you can freely change the prices for new customers. I thought that was also the standard in the hosting industry.


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## PowerUpHosting-Udit (Feb 3, 2016)

drmike said:


> Why do guys buy brands, then fail to renew at the rates customers prior bought in.  Are you owners that STUPID?  No pre-buy research and risk assessment.  I don't get deals gone wrong like that.  Sure WLS sold idiot plans, but Hostwinds bought such, assumed it all, saw value, except for this customer group, that customer group, the other.  Meh, stuff like this rubs a sore spot on the bottom of my foot.
> 
> 
> I mean in fairness I have a shared plan with a big shop on annual promo and renewal rate was multiples more... so I just don't renew... Screw it... Take my ball elsewhere, failed promo, short sighted.



I completely agree, its never a good idea to raise prices for your existing customers as you will end up losing them. Instead, if you are acquiring a company and looking to migrate them to your own hardware/DC/IPs, then I will make sure to create separate server, run them on low profits and leave those customers at the same pricing.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

Time to necro this thread.


Been reading along on LET where WeLoveServers suckered people into buying their inferior services:
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/71012/hostwinds-recently-acquired-the-assets-of-weloveservers


Fox2K11 over there says:



> the 1GB server is now twice of the anually price.. $19 --> $41
> 
> 
> the 256mb server went from $8 to $30 that's triples the annualy price at WLS



So HostWinds massively upticked the pricing.


Also noted that they migrated customers from Europe to the United States, totally disregarding geography and crossing international borders with customer data.  Tssk.


Same customer got this scorcher of an email from HostWinds



> Hello ******
> 
> 
> We have completed your OpenVZ server migration, and wish to welcome you to Hostwinds!
> ...



Key points:


1. The pricing that WeLoveServers was offering previously, was not sustainable for a business. The company was not profitable, nor did there appear to be any long term business plan.


2. The company was not taking ANY backups of the client's data. These nodes were setup through several third-party providers, with NO server monitoring in place.


3. The OpenVZ nodes were extremely oversold, and had hundreds of clients placed onto them. Nearly all servers were given 1Gbps transfer speeds on a node, with only a 1Gbps line.


4. WeLoveServers support was outsourced overseas to 'technicians' lacking any formal qualifications, and the bulk of the technicians lacked any access to resolve many issues.


---


1 = DUH! The rates were doable on some plans, but they did whatever to get the sale. Cut too deep.


2 = Backups = bahaha how many times are customers going to buy into the hype about backups to find out they don't exist in these shops?  Unsure if WLS ever claimed backups as a feature in fairness.  Should a company have such?  No.  I'd rather my providers didn't have backups, didn't incur the cost and didn't have my data going who knows where.


3. OpenVZ = oversold....  100's of clients on a node... This is normal.  Sad to say it, but if income per customer is $1 a month going to take 200-300 clients to cover costs and show any profit.  It's what is broken about the market at LE*.


1Gbps transfer speed = bad cause shared. Meh.  I love these old fossil companies. Here's a novel ideal fossils, have more than a 1Gbps uplink you big spending ballers.  Nope, instead they sell customers on 1990 style crap.  100Mbps, yippies!


4. Outsourcing = overseas = no formal qualifications


Meh, it's what the largest companies in the United States are doing, and well, I don't like it.  Should 'qualifications' be the issue?  Sure, if the workers are morons without any experience and hired purely because they are cheap.



It *AMAZES *me that HostWinds bought WeLoveServers then went talking all this crap in public / email / customer communications.


This is one the dumbest deals and approaches I've ever seen.  Here, buy our stuff which is 3x more in price, but we'll discount it 50% right after trash talking the prior company.  Sick and twisted approach.  Sadists.


Example:


$19/yr = $41 @Hostwinds 


Hostwinds says 50% off 41 / 2 = $20.50


= $1.50 more? a year.


WLS was unsustainable, but suddenly same crap is sustainable by adding $1.50 a year? Come on.  Extra 12 cents a month does it... I am laughing.


Sounds like they were getting so much hate and cancellations that they tried to stem the tide, right after the trash talking.


PRO TIP: @Hostwinds Hire someone to do your communications and acquisitions.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

Tee hee...


shopforbritainJason West


100.0% positive feedback


11 transactions totalling $201,245


 


https://flippa.com/4505590-branded-sms-marketing-automation-software-saas-business


= WeLoveServers owner.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

Crazy the amount of dollars he (former WeLoveServers owner) has made selling garbage on Flippa...  Mind you this guy was on BBC primetime show about selling prebuilt websites - scamming people out of big bucks for nonsense.


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## GM2015 (Feb 10, 2016)

IIRC, there was talk that TheyLoveServers was a CC shadow company and now they're owned by Hostwinds?


Hostwinds is greatly recommended on blackhatworld from what I hear, so you might want to investigate Hostwind's IP ranges.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

GM2015 said:


> IIRC, there was talk that TheyLoveServers was a CC shadow company and now they're owned by Hostwinds?
> 
> 
> Hostwinds is greatly recommended on blackhatworld from what I hear, so you might want to investigate Hostwind's IP ranges.



I looked at CC relationship and WeLove was just a customer.  The former owner of WeLove is far too interested in money to share and has history / relative interests one could track.


HostWinds and blackhat I am interested in @GM2015 toss me a PM with anything you know / saw.  I know HostWinds prior was pretty spammer friendly, but what shop hasn't been at one time or another?  Okay, most have, not all.


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## GM2015 (Feb 10, 2016)

I can't post any urls here or PM, so it  seems I'm shadow-moderated for low post count.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

GM2015 said:


> I can't post any urls here or PM, so it  seems I'm shadow-moderated for low post count.



Likely.  I just PM'd you... Ideally you can reply


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## Hostwinds (Feb 10, 2016)

drmike said:


> Time to necro this thread.
> 
> 
> Been reading along on LET where WeLoveServers suckered people into buying their inferior services:
> ...





Hey @drmike We believe in transparency here at Hostwinds, and as such we like to be completely honest with our clients every step of the way. The information we provided while it was not the nicest information, remains the truth. We do not feel that this information should be shielded from the public, doing so would be dishonest. We provided all of the users honest information about the company with which their VPS's were residing. I also want it to be clear that we purchased the RAW assets of Weloveservers. We did not actually purchase the company and all of their liabilities. We did a few acquisitions like this last year, where we simply stepped into to stop a sinking ship from completely failing.


I like how you broke out our key points saying how this is normal, and users will be aware of this. We have however had an outpouring of support from previous customers who simply chose weloveservers because of the low pricing. They had no idea of what that meant they were missing out on from the back-end. So while you as an industry expert may see these things as obvious points, many innocent users were taken advantage of and had no idea the environment they were trusting with their data. We have heard from many users who have been completely migrated that their server is actually usable, whereas before the speed was so slow that it was almost unusable. We have also heard from many users who have told us that long standing issues with packet loss and latency have gone away completely. While our pricing is a tad more expensive, we know from past acquisitions that users value not having to worry about their hosting. We also understand that some users simply cannot afford to pay more, and we always work out special considerations for users who ask. We get more information about what the user is actually trying to accomplish and if possible we build a plant to fit their needs. For example users who are running a simple VPN server, can get by with very little hard drive space, and RAM. We are able to build custom VPS's for these users that meets their budget. The most important thing to us is ensuring that our clients service is fast and consistent. We also strive to have the best support in the industry, something we work very hard towards every single day.


One more thing.... your math is a bit off. The customer in question was listing his pricing AFTER the 50% discount, he would normally be charged $82 for that product, the $41 is pricing AFTER the 50% discount. The 50% discount does make for pretty thin margins, however, at that pricing we can still operate our enterprise service to these clients without losing money.


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## drmike (Feb 10, 2016)

@Hostwinds appears I misread the pricing portion perhaps...  or more likely the poster over there pasted wrong?



> the 1GB server is now twice of the anually price.. $19 --> $41
> 
> 
> the 256mb server went from $8 to $30 that's triples the annualy price at WLS






Hostwinds said:


> The information we provided while it was not the nicest information, remains the truth. We do not feel that this information should be shielded from the public, doing so would be dishonest.



You get brownie points from me for it.  It just seems oddly misplaced though after doing a deal.  Mind you I am familiar with deals done while brands are on fire...



Hostwinds said:


> I also want it to be clear that we purchased the RAW assets of Weloveservers.



What does this RAW assets part mean? --- exact definition if you can.  



Hostwinds said:


> many innocent users were taken advantage of and had no idea the environment they were trusting with their data.



This sort of thing goes on day and night and I gripe loudly about it.  I vaguely recall WeLoveServers was also implicated in spamming their own offers to email addresses we never determined how they were in possession of... or something like that.  I feel like it is Groundhog day with [pick random annoying lowend with high aspiration company] doing the very same stunts.  Heck, about to say RICO and cartel as overlapped as some of it is.



Hostwinds said:


> whereas before the speed was so slow that it was almost unusable. We have also heard from many users who have told us that long standing issues with packet loss and latency have gone away completely.



Welcome to lowend abuse and packet therapy.  I thought WLS was doing quite well as a BlueVM replacement   No doubt you can improve server performance over the former clown owner and crackpots running the circus of WLS.



Hostwinds said:


> We also understand that some users simply cannot afford to pay more, and we always work out special considerations for users who ask.



Meh, sounds nice, but fair uniform pricing would be the more honest thing really.  Otherwise, if in the giving mood, gratis applicable users/customers with worthy use.


Good response though A++ 


Let me toss you a peace palm here... Spam, I see high volume of mail for your network via Senderbase.  Some Brazil activity per domains, and other blah named domains that are hot clue.  You continue to be actively anti-spam right?  Last blips I saw were likely attributable to ahh say Burst.net acquisition?


Link to senderbase: https://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Hostwinds%20LLC.


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## Hostwinds (Feb 11, 2016)

drmike said:


> @Hostwinds appears I misread the pricing portion perhaps...  or more likely the poster over there pasted wrong?



The user



> What does this RAW assets part mean? --- exact definition if you can.



We purchased the assets owned by the company, rather than the company itself. We purchased everything they owned, servers, clients, domain etc.



> Meh, sounds nice, but fair uniform pricing would be the more honest thing really.  Otherwise, if in the giving mood, gratis applicable users/customers with worthy use.



I'm not saying were going to give people special pricing, Im saying were going to talk to people to figure out exactly what they need, and get them on the right plan. We often times see people who have purchased a plan with far more resources than they actually need to accomplish their goals.



> Let me toss you a peace palm here... Spam, I see high volume of mail for your network via Senderbase.  Some Brazil activity per domains, and other blah named domains that are hot clue.  You continue to be actively anti-spam right?  Last blips I saw were likely attributable to ahh say Burst.net acquisition?
> 
> 
> Link to senderbase: https://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Hostwinds%20LLC.





We are dedicated in our battle against Spam, it is a constant and ongoing process. We filter all VPS traffic through MailChannels, and probably have more experience than most hosts in keeping mailers off our dedicated servers.  I am surprised by the senderbase volume information, however I am glad to see our network is not anywhere on the spam networks 


https://www.senderbase.org/static/spam/


I am honestly not sure how those statistics are calculated, however, I have someone from our abuse team going through to check in on these specific client's.


The Burst.net acquisition did bring in a fair amount of problems, however, those are all 100% contained. The WLS acquisition in many ways has brought much worse clientele than Burst.NET. Their low prices attracted users doing many blatantly illegal things with their cheap VPS's. We are terminating those users as we find them. Spamhaus has been helpful in aiding us in identifying botnet controllers that were on the WLS network. It's just taking time to identify them after we actually get them on our IP space, and are able to correctly deal with the abuse issues ourselves.


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## CenTex Hosting (Feb 11, 2016)

PowerUpHosting-Udit said:


> I completely agree, its never a good idea to raise prices for your existing customers as you will end up losing them. Instead, if you are acquiring a company and looking to migrate them to your own hardware/DC/IPs, then I will make sure to create separate server, run them on low profits and leave those customers at the same pricing.



I agree with this as well. Its not the customer fault that they are getting moved nor should the have to pay higher prices because someone bought out their old web host.


That is part of due process when you buy another host out you should make sure that after you make your offer that you are going to be able to keep customers on the same pricing plan. IF you can't afford to do that then you might need to adjust your offer. 


The answer should not be raise current customers price. You can always set your pricing higher for new customers. But leave current customer as they are.


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## MisterC (Feb 14, 2016)

50% off is still a whole lot more than I was paying for less of the server i was getting at WLS, mind you the SSD VPS I had over there was super fast with no problems and I migrated to a regular "budget" VPS. 


$6 @ WLS = $39 @ HW w/50% off already


$33 @ WLS = $140.25 @ HW w/50% off already


$38 @ WLS = $96.25 @ HW w/50% off already


No way am I paying about 3-4x for a VPS with lesser specs. So far the live chat hasn't been good, the reps aren't knowledgeable at all. Wonder how many customers are going to be retained with the increases.


Going to migrate my VPSes to chicagovps SSD plans ASAP. Yes, I know CVPS, but their $30 SSD VPS has had no problems at all for me so far.


Also, one of my accounts earlier was migrated BEFORE they decided to give 50% off. It seems like they were going to bring on their normal pricing, but changed their minds after a few weeks.



> This ticket is to notify you, that we have completed the migration of your Shared Services to Hostwinds Enterprise Servers!This migration completed without ANY downtime to your services.All you need to do at this time, is update any nameservers you have presently set, to our nameservers, or redirect any custom nameservers you have set to point towards your dedicated IP.We have already rerouted all traffic going to your WeLoveServers Shared Hosting account, to your Hostwinds account, once you have updated your nameservers, no further action will be required on your part.Your updated Hostwinds information was provided to you via e-mail. Your cPanel user and password will remain the same, the only changes would be your IP and hostname for the Shared Server your service is on.At Hostwinds, we own all of our Enterprise level servers, we utilize a Hardware Raid10, using only Western Digital RE Drives. We also closely monitor ALL aspects of our servers and network, to pro-actively correct issues before they occur.We take nightly backups of all of our nodes on off-site storage, retaining a rolling 10 days of backed up data.What this means, is that you will be placed on an Enterprise level server, with data protection. You can rest easy that your data will be safe, and your service will be solid.Hostwinds offers 24/7/365 100% US based support, via phone, live chat, or ticketing system. We pride ourselves in customer service, and strive to offer the best support in the industry.In regards to your service, ALL cPanel details remain the same. We have modified the A records on your previous server to point to your server with Hostwinds.Your due date will be 1 month after the date your service was initially due with WeLoveServers for your product.NOTE: This migration means that for this service, you NO LONGER pay WeLoveServers, all payments will be made to Hostwinds, via your Hostwinds client area.If you have a Paypal subscription for this service, you will need to cancel it to avoid any payments made in error to the wrong company. If you have ANY questions on how to do so, please let us know.If you have ANY questions at all, please let us know, and our technical staff will be able to assist you.Hostwinds will be honoring your current billing contract with WeLoveServers* through your next payment date*.We look forward to working with you, and once again we welcome you to the Hostwinds family!Kind Regards,


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## Licensecart (Feb 16, 2016)

drmike said:


> Tee hee...
> 
> 
> shopforbritainJason West
> ...





LOL the logo costed $565 who the hell would pay that for that logo, I paid $60 from Ypson for mine and it looks way more professional that that.


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## drmike (Feb 16, 2016)

Licensecart said:


> LOL the logo costed $565 who the hell would pay that for that logo, I paid $60 from Ypson for mine and it looks way more professional that that.



All about the salesmanship.


West has doinked a lot of buyers... I mean one thing to upsell a bit, whole other world with stuff he was pushing.


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## MisterC (Feb 17, 2016)

This migration is going not so smoothly for me... My site was on an "index" page for about 5 hours after they switched over my IP and removed my files from the old IP. 


I can't believe they didn't check the contents of the old IP/website to see what it looked like before migrating switching over the IP.


I wasn't able to fix my website for 5 hours I was at work so basically it was "down" for 5 hours and the techs were unable to figure out what to do during those 5 hours and kept telling me to wait, or if I had changed my nameservers etc, they didn't check anything at all.


Basically they seemed to have copy and pasted over the files, didn't FIX the permission on them and misconfigured the firewall.


Basically after work I had to go in and fix the firewall to open up crucial ports needed for the panel I was running and basically had to update all of the IP addresses manually in order for a temporary fix so my site would show up and basically need to fix the permissions on some files. All in all, a headache with support not really helping at all.


TL;DR: They switched over the IP of my website without making sure my website worked, techs were useless, resulted in 5-6 hour downtime. I had to fix it myself once I got off work, not giving me a good impression so far.


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