Endore Collapse Sparks Internet Ire

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