EaseVPS covertly sells customers to MyRSK

[drmike]

If you frequent the low end sites, surely you are familiar with Jacob who ran EaseVPS.   He had several European locations along with Kansas City.  

Jacob was mentoring / operating from the technical competency side, Dominic's PremiumVM brand.  See ---> http://vpsboard.com/topic/2161-premiumvm-up-for-sale.

PremiumVM just went trying to sell themselves on WHT, thus the above thread.

Now at the same time, as of October 5-6th,  EaseVPS has imploded.   Yeppers EaseVPS has "shuttered" itself.  Migrated or to be migrating all customers to MyRSK.com.

Here's the docs to support this:

Email: 5th October 2013 -----

Dear, $CLIENT
Our 2CheckOut Merchant Account was disabled as of Wednesday, we have been working diligently to finding a alternative for accepting PayPal.

We have found a alternative solution to this and are proud to say that we will have PayPal available for customers to use as of tomorrow. What time this transition will happen tomorrow is still yet to be announced.

We're working through tickets and unsuspending all suspended services and making sure customers experience zero interruption while we are putting the alternative in place.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to submit a ticket or drop an email.

Regards,
EaseVPS Sales & Support
Customer Phone: 0843 2894 022


============================================================================================================

Email: 6th October 2013 -----

Dear, $CLIENT
As of last wednesday 2CheckOut discontinued our seller merchant account, this was our primary gateway and the only way possible that we could accept PayPal. Due to this we have had to make a tough decission, which for the sake of you (the customers) was to move you to a company of similar stature that can support you the same way we have, if not better. A company where customer satifisfaction is key and people that care about your business.

Within the next 30 minutes of recieving this email, you will recieve your new login creditentials for logging into MyRSK. Any problems with payment, please do not hesitate to drop a ticket to MyRSK.

Regards,
EaseVPS Sales & Support
Customer Phone: 0843 2894 02

In other news, EaseVPS was being shopped around in backchannels in past few weeks.   Buyout money was VERY low.

 

[peterw]

Can anyone provide an overview about all abandoned locations and sold companies?

 

[rsk]

Now at the same time, as of October 5-6th,  EaseVPS has imploded.   Yeppers EaseVPS has "shuttered" itself.  Migrated or to be migrating all customers to MyRSK.com.

Hello,

We tried to do it in the best way for our clients.

My partner and I decided that a best way is to do a manual approach and we have moved all clients with active VPSs into our system and sent them an email about this. This resulted in 0 downtime and a flawless approach.

So, everything has been migrated and we look forward to giving the best quality of support and services as we always do.

Regards,

R. Alkhaili

 

[AnthonySmith]

Covertly send an email to all customers informing them.... how u do that?

 

[drmike]

Customers go to bed and wake up and they are now a customer of MyRSK...  That's how the covert part happened.  It was a covert sale/handover.  

Truth be told, as a customer, I don't support being tossed around as if I am the product.

If a company I  deal with were to pull this, or any sale unannounced, I'd be moderately pissed.   Why?  Because for whatever reasoning, I was the original company's customer.  If I wanted service over there, I would have bought over there.   

Proper thing is to ask customers if they want refund or to be inherited by new company.

There are a privacy issues abound in deals like this.  Mind you not inferring trustworthiness of either party in this transaction.

I can hear the argument already --- company has the right to sell the customers, their details, etc.  Maybe if your ToS and other public facing legalese says so  Call me blind, but I don't see policies over there at EaseVPS.

 

[drmike]

So guess I should ask directly, do the providers around here and over on the low end view customers as their product to sell at will?

 

[AnthonySmith]

Well I am only saying you make it sound more dramatic than it really is.

I agree with you it would have been nice to have been given a pro-rated refund option however frankly the pre sale discussions and deal is frankly none of your business.

I think a middle ground would have perhaps been to say, on the xx date your services will be moved over to xx company, here is why and here is why it is a good thing etc. Then you have some notice to quit, leave, request refund etc. I suppose I get your point but it was not covert at the point of finalisation customers were informed.

Regarding your question, no I don't see customers as a commodity to sell at will, I do however consider a company, services and any assets as a saleable item and as a direct and obvious result the clients are now clients of a new company or in fact the same company simply under new ownership that requires no discussion or input form the customers that use it should said company come up for sale, unless of course you are a share holder in which case a discussion is needed.

I suppose it may feel a little more personal when its an internet based service but I promise you that 90% of your none internet related services i.e. gas/elec/phone/bb/misc will have been sold and bought in to more times than you could count without you being made aware and usually to foreign companies.

 

[Jack]

Refunds wouldn't be possible...

Jacob's 2CO account was closed...

Refunds are ~45 days from transaction on paypal transactions at least so yearly clients would be stuck.

 

[AnthonySmith]

Refunds wouldn't be possible...

Jacob's 2CO account was closed...

Refunds are ~45 days from transaction on paypal transactions at least so yearly clients would be stuck.

So 2CO keep your balance as well?

Not sure I understand this, assuming they don't keep your balance then they move your money to paypal or what ever you choose so you can refund from there, paypal/skrill/bank directly etc etc.

 

[Jack]

So 2CO keep your balance as well?

Not sure I understand this, assuming they don't keep your balance then they move your money to paypal or what ever you choose so you can refund from there, paypal/skrill/bank directly etc etc.

When I spoke to Jacob the information provided were they closed his account without any warning and that they kept his pending balance.

 

[rds100]

Any explanation why they did this? Too many chargebacks?

 

[notFound]

When I spoke to Jacob the information provided were they closed his account without any warning and that they kept his pending balance.

Similar thing happened to @Alex_LiquidHost, account wasn't closed but suspended or disabled I believe, but either way pretty much useless. As far as I remember he had a few Brazillian spammers who performed chargebacks, and subsequently 2CO did their thing. Let that serve as a warning to anyone with the possibility of a few charge-backs who is still using 2CO..

 

[Jack]

Any explanation why they did this? Too many chargebacks?

[06/10/2013 16:38:51] Jack: Why did they close your account?

[06/10/2013 16:39:10] Jacob: High fraud percentage

[06/10/2013 16:39:22] Jacob: Had like 10 chargebacks on the account

[06/10/2013 16:39:32] Jacob: We did not exceed the limit

[06/10/2013 16:39:40] Jacob: But they account failed transactions

[06/10/2013 16:39:42] Jack: so they just closed the account?

[06/10/2013 16:39:43] Jacob: So yeahh

[06/10/2013 16:39:47] Jacob: Yep.

[06/10/2013 16:39:57] Jack: did you get the last pending payment?

[06/10/2013 16:40:02] Jacob: Nope.

[06/10/2013 16:40:14] Jacob: They hold everything for 90 days.

 

 

So I don't get jumped on by Aldryic:

 


[07/10/2013 19:35:07] Jack: Hey?

[07/10/2013 19:35:17] Jack: Am I OK posting on forums what you told me?


[07/10/2013 19:35:57] Jacob: Yeah

 

[Jack]

Similar thing happened to @Alex_LiquidHost, account wasn't closed but suspended or disabled I believe, but either way pretty much useless. As far as I remember he had a few Brazillian spammers who performed chargebacks, and subsequently 2CO did their thing. Let that serve as a warning to anyone with the possibility of a few charge-backs who is still using 2CO..

The Reason 2CO have this:

 

[Lee]

I have not used 2co in years, for the exact reason that too many were finding their accounts suspended and balances kept due to some chargebacks.  They have long been known for doing this so it's no surprise.

That said, how can he not use paypal directly or someone else?  More to this than is being let on.

 

[rds100]

Yes, the hosting business is quite risky. There are some quite unpleasant potential customers out there, you have to control your greed and say "no" when your guts tell you to say "no".

 

[AnthonySmith]

Ah ok, makes sense.

So if the company does not have enough in the float for refunds then it would either fall on the new owner who then gets refunded by original owner after 90 days or clients get a direct refund from the original company after 90 days.

Either way it is a mess.

begs the question though.. why not just use paypal directly to begin with?

 

[Aldryic C'boas]

Ah ok, makes sense.

So if the company does not have enough in the float for refunds then it would either fall on the new owner who then gets refunded by original owner after 90 days or clients get a direct refund from the original company after 90 days.

Either way it is a mess.

begs the question though.. why not just use paypal directly to begin with?

This is all assuming there's actually a significant positive balance to hold.  Many of the skid hosts pretty much live 'week to week'.

 

[Coastercraze]

The Reason 2CO have this:

Yeah but sadly, they didn't let me know about that until after they closed my account a while ago lol. Same reason - Brazilian ordered like 10 different times all at once and boom - account closed.

 

[peterw]

I agree with you it would have been nice to have been given a pro-rated refund option however frankly the pre sale discussions and deal is frankly none of your business.

I think a middle ground would have perhaps been to say, on the xx date your services will be moved over to xx company, here is why and here is why it is a good thing etc. Then you have some notice to quit, leave, request refund etc. I suppose I get your point but it was not covert at the point of finalisation customers were informed.

But this is about selling customers. Noone would be interested in taking over only the hardware or brand. Refunds would have lower the value which was sold.