February 13, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY
REVIEW) -- What began on WebHosting Talk as a typical complaint about
poor customer service, exploded into a thread full of angry hosts
looking for lost data, money, and the man who seemed to have vanished
with it all.
The first post was made about Ohio-based Endore
on January 24. Over the next week complaints poured in about downed
services and inaccessible emails and Web sites. Users said Endore's
support was not answering. The next weekend, Endore briefly posted an
"out of business" notice on its site.
Forums like WebHosting Talk, Webmaster Key, and even one for Japanese pop music
were flooded with angry posts. By late last week, there had been more
than 12,200 views and more than 275 replies to the Endore thread on
WebHosting Talk. About 260 more people responded to a similar thread at
WebMaster Key. Hosts were scrambling to retrieve lost data, secure
domain names and get their sites back up.
In addition to Endore going offline, its
owner, Ivan Rainbolt, seemed to disappear. Some customers used the
forums to beg for Rainbolt's help. "As there was no prior warning to
the shutting down of Endore, we risk being put out of business to and
are due to be sued for thousands and thousands of pounds unless we can
recover our files from your servers," wrote Joseph Cozens.
Cozens had stored his data, but viruses
and a hacker forced him to Fdisk his computers and start again. "We
were not worried at the time as we were planning to simply download it
all again from Endore."
Among the contracts Cozens lost was an
E-commerce account worth £10,000. The customer paid up-front for the
site that was supposed to be launched this week. Cozens said he had to
sell his car to repay the money. Most of his other losses involved
sites for charity organizations.
It is unclear how many customers Endore
had, but forum users urged them to lodge complaints with Ohio's Better
Business Bureau. More than 100 people called the BBB, 27 of them making
written complaints. The BBB has no enforcement authority but passed the
complaints onto local police, who said Rainbolt had not filed for
bankruptcy. Police continue to investigate to determine whether a crime
has been committed, or if this is just a case of a breach of a civil
contract, which would have to be dealt with in civil court. Police
haven't been able to contact Rainbolt.
After nearly a week, several customers
said they had spoken with Rainbolt. "I spoke to Ivan personally Friday
evening several times," one user wrote. "He did not run off with
anyone's money. He is broke, he put every single penny he had into the
company. One server died, the other was hacked very badly. Basically,
from what I gathered, the company had sunk so low that he wasn't able
to pull it afloat."
The Endore site was put back online,
stating the company was "out of business." The site indicates Endore is
working with Tucows and Key Systems to retrieve domains, and offers
links to other hosts who will take on stranded Endore customers. Many
of these hosts have also logged onto the forums to offer "refugee"
discounts.
More than a week later, the Endore
situation is just starting to lose its legs in the forums. With its
demise, Endore managed to break almost every one of the principles
driven home on these very forums concerning payment plans, quality
hosting, and disappearing hosts.
Rainbolt encouraged customers to pay for
one year up-front, and failed to deliver the service. His support
diminished. Endore did not explain why sites were going down and, one
week later, still hasn't offered any explanation. And during the worst
of it, say clients, he could not be reached.
There is no doubt that Endore's customers will be more cautious when choosing their next host. A recent thread
on Web Hosting Talk summed up the things customers should look out for:
do not pay up front, try to avoid young or inexperienced hosts, test
customer service and, simply, do your research. But, as one ex-Endore
customer writes, sometimes "it really doesn't matter. Endore had been
in business six years, had no complaints, and was highly regarded by at
least five of my close friends. I still got screwed over."
