I love you.
Chicago VPS scammers
- Thread starter VMBox
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mpkossen
New Member
So much rage...
LowEndBox is a business asset and it is being used as such. People that have not been able to draw that conclusion ever since the ownership of ColoCrossing became public knowledge should seriously have their brains checked out.
Other than that: I don't think two career ColoCrossing Stalkers and Bashers are in any position to judge me or my motives. You don't know me, you don't know my motives for managing LowEndBox and LowEndTalk (let me give you a hint: it's not the money), and you certainly don't know how I actually feel about a lot of things going on there.
Herein lies part of the problem though. The opposite was true for such a long time prior to those in power actually admitting to it. Likewise, new visitors wont necessarily be aware that the once impartial community is now listing and acting as shill for the vast majority of brands that belong to the same owner(s).
I don't necessarily agree here. There is no distinction made and no clear-cut line that indicates you or the other one aren't acting as puppets to the CC overlords.
There is also the fact that this thread has apparently been deleted over there. This isn't the first time it's happened and for some reason, it's always to try and hide something against CC/CVPS or one of their brands.
If you and the others would be straightforward and actually state your intentions then I'm sure a lot of the hate/distrust aimed in your general direction would either be diluted or at least warranted. Make your feeling known instead of saying "you don't know". If that results in you being kicked out then does it really matter? It's not about the money after all.
Just my 2c.
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Aldryic C'boas
The Pony
If it's not about the money, I suppose he's just really into sucking dick and getting praise from his masters. Just sayin'
On a more serious note - at least if it was just about the money, that's an understandable position. Plenty of people are willing to set their morals aside for a paycheque because, hey, at the end of the day you can't fend off starvation with platitudes. But it's not about the money for him? Well, that hints at something much darker - a power trip, actual joy from deceiving others, pleasure from watching the frustrations of buyers he's taken part in misleading into buying such... subpar service.
Given that he won't actually elaborate on "how he actually feels" or his motives, I'm of the mind that my opening statement is spot on. I just don't see him being intelligent enough for it to be the latter.
On a more serious note - at least if it was just about the money, that's an understandable position. Plenty of people are willing to set their morals aside for a paycheque because, hey, at the end of the day you can't fend off starvation with platitudes. But it's not about the money for him? Well, that hints at something much darker - a power trip, actual joy from deceiving others, pleasure from watching the frustrations of buyers he's taken part in misleading into buying such... subpar service.
Given that he won't actually elaborate on "how he actually feels" or his motives, I'm of the mind that my opening statement is spot on. I just don't see him being intelligent enough for it to be the latter.
Why is it that everybody who dislikes CC or LET are immediately bad people? Please, get off of your high horse and try checking into reality for a moment.
I don't particularly care what you have to say on this subject. You (indirectly) called two people biased with the quoted post, but in doing so, showed that you are both biased towards CC and against these members/board in particular. You make every single post with the assumption that the person reading it is stupid, and the tone of everything you write remains condescending. It's also pretty humorous how you get so defensive when people call you out on things like this. Do you know who gets defensive when questioned? Guilty people.
Every single day on LET you censor people who dislike CC. You consistently and perpetually show bias towards anybody involved in CC, as displayed by the offers on LEB, your posts telling CC-bashing members that they are wrong, while ignoring the abuse that CC members partake in.
I think at this point all you've proven is that you can lie very, very well. You're good at deceiving people, and that's all I see. I've been deceived by you, and I'm sure many others have. It's hard not to believe a "leader." As humans, I'm sure we'd all ask ourselves, "How can somebody be in that position if they're not responsible?" Back in 2010, LET was so different, and the degradation is the result of YOU AND CC. I used to enjoy the valuable information shared there, the guides specifically, and even the providers. I remember it being a community.
You DO NOT care about community or the people around you. Nobody is judging your motives, but rather making accurate assumptions as to what they are. This doesn't necessarily mean a personal attack, or even personal involvement. In the past, I've tried to discuss only people's issues, and make it clear that my opinion relates only to the outcome of a specific action, and not generalizations. However, you ALWAYS make it personal, regardless of the nature of any provoking material. To worsen this, you call everybody out on personal attacks, yet continue to both attack and insult people on personal levels.
People have opinions, and it doesn't make them a stalker or basher or whatever terms you're going to use. From what I see, people are trying to stop others from being victimized like so many have already. CVPS has hurt people, plain and simple. So has CC. They continue to hurt people, and that's all I care about. I don't care if the victims didn't read reviews, or do research, it doesn't mean they deserve to be scammed. Nobody deserves to be scammed, and to blame the victims, is a horrible thing to do.
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mpkossen
New Member
That is fair enough.
About the thread: I cannot see when it was created and/or if it was deleted and I cannot see whether it was deleted or not. I don't have server or database access and the Vanilla log can be manipulated (as in: entries can be deleted).
As for my intentions: for you, I am willing to elaborate. You have shown a bit of respect and you don't always just jump to conclusions. Our differences of opinion aside, here's the story:
I started with LEB as a tutorial writer. Chief one day asked for people and I responded. Eventually I was picked and I happily wrote a decent number of tutorials, paid. I liked doing that. It not only gave me a chance to share any knowledge I have, it also enabled me to expand it.
During that period, I offered Liam to help out at LowEndTalk. I was made a moderator in order to help deal with day-to-day issues. When Liam left, Jon requested a call from me. He offered me more money if I would be willing to pick up managing both websites. I saw writing offers as a good opportunity to get to know the industry better, to improve my writing skills, and to keep my English at a decent level (it not being my native language and all). Most importantly: being a key part of an international, diverse, and political environment would be a major learning experience for me. I've been in such an environment before and I really liked it. I still like it right now. There's a lot of nice people around and a lot of different views on things. I really appreciate being able to operate in such an environment and I learn a lot from it. Managing two websites, about VPS hosts, owned and operated by a DC provider is a big challenge but also a big learning experience.
There obviously are downsides to having my position. It's a sensitive position to start with. Not only because of the history and the way ColoCrossing's ownership became public, but also because of all the policitcs involved. The site being a business asset and being run as such does definitely have its challenges. I do not necessarily agree with things that happen or all the things I am asked to do. Without going into too much detail, I would like to say that if it were 100% up to me, things would be done quite differently. Having said that, I have been able to prevent certain changes to both websites that would have definitely seen a steep decrease in their user base and would have really upset the community.
The bottom line for me is: I learn a lot from this, I get to write tutorials (though not as much as I would like to), and the pay is nice. So when I weigh this all out, I think I still do get an advantage out of all of this for me personally. I don't expect others to understand that, though.
Spirit and jcaleb, to name just two, have been a great help over the past few months and a huge motivation. Without these guys, I would have probably given up long before. They give me really valueable feedback. I am also open to feedback from others. There's just few people that give it though, other than posting simply rude threads or posts at LET demanding an explanation.
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
The judgements of two "CC Stalkers and Bashers" are personal opinions and as such don't hold any real weight beyond the forum post they're made in, but the FTC is very much in a position to judge whether you are adhering to its guidelines when you write your little puff piece promotional blurbs on the LowEndBox Marketplace blog. You have repeatedly intentionally omitted important negative details that a consumer has a right to know when making a purchase (details which in many cases would be the difference between the consumer buying or not buying).
Here's the kicker about your writeups, while the owner of LowEndBox may enjoy USC230 immunity (debatable given their repeated attempts to shape editorial content of users and use of selective censorship), you as an independent contractor don't enjoy USC230 immunity for your offer writeups and you can be held 100% responsible for misleading omissions or statements in those poorly written writeups you call "articles".
Just to give an example, here are a couple of FTC guidelines (the guidelines are available in a 53 page .pdf from the FTC) that you personally regularly violate in your writeups Maarten and probably weren't aware that disclosures were required (we'll use your last CVPS offer post as an example):
1.you're a contractor not an employee of CC so you must disclose in every blog article that you're receiving compensation from CC for writing those advertising offers/blog articles (ask Jon to put you on the payroll so you won't have to worry about this guideline in the future FYI: employee means he deducts payroll taxes...).
2. if the provider you're doing a writeup on is a paid advertiser on LET/LEB (i.e. they buy those reportedly ineffective overpriced BuySellAds banner spots) then you must state in the offer writeup post that they are a LET/LEB advertiser.
tip 1: the new FTC guidelines require that all disclosures must be made within the blog post itself...putting them on the blog's about us page no longer cuts it.
tip 2: if you do a writeup on LEB about a LEB advertiser and then tweet about the post on Twitter then your tweet must also contain the disclosures.
Read the entire FTC guidelines because there are several other guidelines you regularly violate (or have violated in the past and for which the statute of limitations has not run out) in the offers you post. You as an independent contractor for a US hosted blog owned by a US company (Velocity Servers Inc) are responsible for adhering to the US FTC guidelines when you do your contract work for LowEndBox..
A repost of my complaints from my earlier post which were related to Maarten's writeups not to "CC stalking" as he claims because most of the points I raised are things that do violate FTC guidelines ( disclosure: a degree in journalism and a resulting extreme life long dislike for misleading promotional puff pieces that hide important facts is the primary reason I singled out Maarten in my previous post and will likely single him out again the next time he misleads consumers on LEB)
straight from the FTC's mouth "The Commission will find deception if there is a representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer acting reasonably in the circumstances, to the consumer’s detriment."
edited to add:
Maarten, if you need an example of the type of disclosure statement that contractors/contributors are required to make when they receive any form of compensation from a site for writing a review or promotional offer like those you write for LEB, take a look at the disclosure statement in some of wlanboy's reviews here on VPSboard.
"This is one of the reviews that are sponsored by vpsboard.
I will update each review every two months and will add notes on what happened during this time.
MannDude is funding the reviews and we are randomly selecting providers and test their service, their panels and their support."
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See, that's where LowEndAdmin always did his best to keep his nose clean.
The site was originally hosted by QuickWeb and the forums were with Brandon and whatever his company was named (as a reminder, Brandon has some real gold on CC supposedly dating back to when Fabby put out the 2G/$7m plans).
Every time an offer went up for either of those providers, he had a note at the bottom stating that they
were hosting a part of the site.
You've at least done that in the latest HVH offering, but there was 1 1/2+ years where it didn't happen.
Honest question (lets be honest, we won't get an honest answer), when did Fabby send in his SJC offering that's frontpage right now? You made a comment stating that it was 'last minute', but does that mean "he had an offer sitting for 2 weeks and added SJC right before i posted" or "he submitted it 2 hours ago and I was told to push it now".
You've said more than once that it's not your job to police what offers get posted, but there's some that are so hilariously bad that break the few rules you have on the site. There was one where some random host was using a nulled WHMCS, etc, etc, etc, yet still go posted up.
In his prime, LEA did his best to police all offers and make sure to remove any sketch offers or refuse to post companies that were obviously screwed. Sure in his later days he let a few slip but he admitted to it, cleaned it up, and took the people down. He never put it on the customers to play 'buyer beware'.
At the end of the day we all wish that you were in absolute control and were able to smite down the completely trash offerings that get posted up by obvious scammers, spammers, & the likes, but you're not in that position, you're just a figure head.
In the end, the sites were suckered out of the community. LEA himself made a statement not too long ago where he said the site was to never be owned by a host or anything like that as it killed what it was supposed to be. In the end I kick myself for ever getting Joel involved and should've just dealt with the fallout of running it myself.
Francisco
The site was originally hosted by QuickWeb and the forums were with Brandon and whatever his company was named (as a reminder, Brandon has some real gold on CC supposedly dating back to when Fabby put out the 2G/$7m plans).
Every time an offer went up for either of those providers, he had a note at the bottom stating that they
were hosting a part of the site.
You've at least done that in the latest HVH offering, but there was 1 1/2+ years where it didn't happen.
Honest question (lets be honest, we won't get an honest answer), when did Fabby send in his SJC offering that's frontpage right now? You made a comment stating that it was 'last minute', but does that mean "he had an offer sitting for 2 weeks and added SJC right before i posted" or "he submitted it 2 hours ago and I was told to push it now".
You've said more than once that it's not your job to police what offers get posted, but there's some that are so hilariously bad that break the few rules you have on the site. There was one where some random host was using a nulled WHMCS, etc, etc, etc, yet still go posted up.
In his prime, LEA did his best to police all offers and make sure to remove any sketch offers or refuse to post companies that were obviously screwed. Sure in his later days he let a few slip but he admitted to it, cleaned it up, and took the people down. He never put it on the customers to play 'buyer beware'.
At the end of the day we all wish that you were in absolute control and were able to smite down the completely trash offerings that get posted up by obvious scammers, spammers, & the likes, but you're not in that position, you're just a figure head.
In the end, the sites were suckered out of the community. LEA himself made a statement not too long ago where he said the site was to never be owned by a host or anything like that as it killed what it was supposed to be. In the end I kick myself for ever getting Joel involved and should've just dealt with the fallout of running it myself.
Francisco
DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
The "not the site's job to police" bit depends on who is doing the posting. If a provider is posting their own offer on LowEndTalk then any liability for false or misleading advertising claims falls on the provider's head. Most sites that allow offers to be posted do however look out for consumers and will police and remove scammy ads, or block access to scammy or shilled advertiser's sites. SlickDeals is an example of this good netizen policing, and here's a relevant ad where they blocked access to a scammy advertiser who was shilling ads on SlickDeals. SD changed all links to "urlhasbeen blocked"...the scammy advertiser in this ad was ChicagoVPS http://slickdeals.net/f/5915440-stillgoing-chicagovps-2048mb-ram-50gb-disk-2tb-bandwidth-2x-ip-address-40or-30-year-4-location-choices). This is the info page SD users get when they click on a link to an advertiser they've deemed to be a scumbag: http://slickdeals.net/forums/blocked.html
On the other hand, LowEndBox does have a legal responsibility to safeguard consumers when its employees (or paid contractor in this case) post offers on LEB, and they have a legal responsibility for making sure consumers aren't misled and are provided with all relevant information. It is up to LEB to comply with the FTC guidelines and not knowingly omit any info. LEB has obviously failed miserably at complying with its obligations over the past year.
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
You know not rage until the 'guberment comes looking for answers and puts your real life on pause due to your hobbies. That's where things are going to end up and the only thing saving you is jurisdiction, maybe. Long overdue big picture.
Kossen really perplexes me. He has the right stuff and he has ethics, but somehow both get left outside while he's posting on LE*. I feel he's being told what to say / do. Why he won't run straight and narrow and stick to ethically correct things to do, pfft.... what is the reason then?
I can judge anyone, part of the whole freedom of speech... Plus you have this highly visible public role that you fubar daily and do inconclusive and in opposite things sort of consistent with bi-polar disorder or being a puppet for your paycheck. Plus you do such in two sites that have a history of deception and fraud, and what goes on daily continues to self enrich yourself and your boss(es). Go ahead, tell the pocketbook they are acting wrongly and bite, I dare you to.
If you aren't hanging on to LE* roles for the money Kossen, then by all means, don't draw a paycheck from ColoCrossing. Do it freely for the "experience" and to get accustomed to your submissive role of being bent at a whim by the corporate masters. Labor on, for the love it, slave.
But since Kossen appears to want to regain his integrity again (we are forgiving people) - how about LET and LEB update footer or sidebar to reflect who owns the sites. Surely this matter is hidden intentionally and mis-represented on the front side as being "hosted by ColoCrossing". That's my olive branch for September.... I'll slow down and play nice for the rest of this month if you comply.... and some vague VSNX ownership without a proper link or decoder ring on ownership and nested company BS names isn't cutting it. SAY: "a ColoCrossing owned site" or something clear and similar.
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drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
I neglected to note this....
See, assets are fine. Using said sites to self promote without clear disclosure on the relationship to who is listed, who is posting (and being paid by such owner) and using such to steer things for their "owner/invested" companies violates a multitude of State and Federal laws. It's fundamentally basic: IT IS UNFAIR.
If CC wants to run these sites how they are now and be rogue, fine. Then only list CC-only locations / companies. Then they can claim it's a self promotional website and only about them and those in their eco system.
I'd shut up in a New York minute if LE* did this, and that would be that.
Assets, like these sites aren't used in such ways that are so apparent and dirty. Real companies don't want stomped in the face and robbed by legalese. They are used to generate income normally through advertising, promotional buy ins, etc. Not to pump companies the owner controls and owns through thinly veiled skins like Chris Fabozzi.
WHEN WAS THE CHICAGOVPS LEB OFFER SUBMITTED - A DATE / TIME...????????????????????????????????? Because clearly Mr. Kossen you said to the effect that the offer was just sent in and rushed through approval. For what legitimate reason would CVPS get some priority in the offer stack and get posted up immediately?
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
and.... why is LEB accepting Fabozzi's offers VIA EMAIL???? Doesn't Fabozzi have to submit like everyone else and follow rules or what? Can I start sending offers to you via email for my new BACKTOSCHOOLHOST?
I think someone else over there would appreciate some honest answers also....
And I am certain those non CC companies who are in the queue and who have been bumped back would appreciate some TRANSPARENCY here too.
Link: http://lowendbox.com/blog/chicagovps-12year-128mb-7month-2gb-and-more-ssd-ovz-in-san-jose/
I think someone else over there would appreciate some honest answers also....
And I am certain those non CC companies who are in the queue and who have been bumped back would appreciate some TRANSPARENCY here too.
Alright, been away for most of today as it was a holiday and family is important. Let's keep this on topic (CVPS) and keep personal attacks out of this. The questionable LEB stuff can go in one of the other, more specific and on-topic (for that) threads that probably exist somewhere. This is a CVPS review thread and let's try not to sidetrack it with industry politics. 
Thanks.
Thanks.
mpkossen
New Member
This is the last I'm going to say here, otherwise MannDude wil give me a kick in the nuts for not listening to him.
I see what you are saying here. I share some of your concerns and I am trying to get these addressed.
I am working on getting that up actually. My idea would be to put it in the footer and the e-mail requesting that will be out either today or tomorrow.
Nah, was just trying to prevent this from getting too off-topic and give a warning to others to play nice to avoid timeout.
drmike
100% Tier-1 Gogent
I'll throw this log on the fire because it's more of the same over on LEB and looks like confusion by actual customer/VPS provider as to who/what they are buying from:
LEB Offer for FTPIT ---> http://lowendbox.com/blog/ftpit-4-very-cheap-annual-offers-in-three-usa-locations/
Company 'employee' made this comment:
Now it has changed to this:
Similar oddness exists with the offer posts. FTPIT offers on the DC part have gone like this over time [whole time technically nested under ColoCrossing via ChicagoVPS - but they appear to have other CC nesting via CloudShards also]
June 24, 2013 @ 5:40 pm, by Liam
Servers are with ColoCrossing in Buffalo, New York.
Test IPv4: 172.245.209.182
September 4, 2013 @ 9:35 pm, by Liam
Servers are with ColoCrossing at the QuadraNet datacenter in Los Angeles, California.
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
December 25, 2013 @ 12:00 pm, by Maarten Kossen
Location: Los Angeles, California with Quadranet via ColoCrossing
Test IP: 192.3.23.126
---- here onward the DC info goes stupid ---
March 4, 2014 @ 7:30 am, by Maarten Kossen
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
May 22, 2014 @ 1:00 pm, by Maarten Kossen
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Dallas, TX, USA
Test IPv4: 23.227.189.19
July 27, 2014 @ 1:00 am, by Maarten Kossen
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Dallas, TX, USA
Test IPv4: 23.227.189.19
September 2, 2014 @ 4:19 am, by Maarten Kossen
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Chicago, IL, USA
Test IPv4: 23.94.33.131
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Why in 2014, did it suddenly become UNIMPORTANT to post the DC information for FTPIT offers?
All other offers in the past 5 offers bear DC information (be it simple and scant on details --- at least baseline sufficient)...
LEB Offer for FTPIT ---> http://lowendbox.com/blog/ftpit-4-very-cheap-annual-offers-in-three-usa-locations/
Company 'employee' made this comment:
Now it has changed to this:
At last and every prior check, post contributors cannot edit their posts. So an admin or ColoCrossing staff edited that post.
Similar oddness exists with the offer posts. FTPIT offers on the DC part have gone like this over time [whole time technically nested under ColoCrossing via ChicagoVPS - but they appear to have other CC nesting via CloudShards also]
June 24, 2013 @ 5:40 pm, by Liam
Servers are with ColoCrossing in Buffalo, New York.
Test IPv4: 172.245.209.182
September 4, 2013 @ 9:35 pm, by Liam
Servers are with ColoCrossing at the QuadraNet datacenter in Los Angeles, California.
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
December 25, 2013 @ 12:00 pm, by Maarten Kossen
Location: Los Angeles, California with Quadranet via ColoCrossing
Test IP: 192.3.23.126
---- here onward the DC info goes stupid ---
March 4, 2014 @ 7:30 am, by Maarten Kossen
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
May 22, 2014 @ 1:00 pm, by Maarten Kossen
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Dallas, TX, USA
Test IPv4: 23.227.189.19
July 27, 2014 @ 1:00 am, by Maarten Kossen
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Dallas, TX, USA
Test IPv4: 23.227.189.19
September 2, 2014 @ 4:19 am, by Maarten Kossen
Buffalo, NY, USA
Test IPv4: 192.210.150.2
Chicago, IL, USA
Test IPv4: 23.94.33.131
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Test IPv4: 192.3.23.126
Why in 2014, did it suddenly become UNIMPORTANT to post the DC information for FTPIT offers?
All other offers in the past 5 offers bear DC information (be it simple and scant on details --- at least baseline sufficient)...
One is hid, one member sent what was interpreted as a personal threat to another member and someone got a ban out of it.I haven't seen any personal attacks.
Haha. Yeah, I happened to notice that and glad someone else did too. Members can't edit their own posts, so I am curious why it was so important to change "No, we are renting from them" ('them' = ChicagoVPS) to "We have not been acquired,we are using colocrossing in some of the locations".I'll throw this log on the fire because it's more of the same over on LEB and looks like confusion by actual customer/VPS provider as to who/what they are buying from:
LEB Offer for FTPIT ---> http://lowendbox.com/blog/ftpit-4-very-cheap-annual-offers-in-three-usa-locations/
Company 'employee' made this comment:
Either way, both comments deny the acquisition and state more or less the some thing, that the servers are located with Colocrossing, so just odd to see it be edited only to re-word the original statement when they both say the same thing.
Note: I'm not trying to group FtpIT with CVPS or anything, I don't know or really care who they pay each month for their servers. I'm just noting the change.
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DomainBop
Dormant VPSB Pathogen
I asked on the Virtovo thread and Nippon said they basically buy from whoever is offering the cheapest deals when they need a new server so they basically have a hodgepodge mix of CC, and NWNX in Buffalo. They also have some legacy servers in the CC
On another note: more thread merging of CVPS complaints by LET's unethical admins Spirit and Maarten Kossen today, and of course more lying by Fabozo. tl;dr yet another customer complaining that CVPS/123's incompetent outsourced help wiped their VPS and reinstalled it (there have been a ton of similar complaints over the past 2 months) and Fabozzi saying "we didn't do it" (and also saying "it's unfair that people are starting all these complaint threads...whine...mommy admins help!")