Posted on December 9, 2019 at 5:17 PM
20 VPS Providers have Notified Customers of their Operational Shutdown
On Saturday, no less than 20 WebHost providers issued shutdown notification to the customers. The hosting providers have issued statements on the shutdown, which will begin on Monday, 9th December.
The companies have alerted their customers and given them two days to save their data before they begin the shutdown process. It means that any customer that could not download and save their data could risk losing such data, as the companies would wipe their servers clean.
The providers that are shutting down include LQHosting, KudoHosting, Hosting73, HostedSimply, HostBRZ, DNCHost, Bigfoot Servers, ArkaHosting, SupremeVPS, SuperbVPS, StrongHosting, SparkVPS, SnowVPS, ServerStrong, N3Servers, MegaZoneHosting, X4Servers, WelcomeHostng, UMaxHosting, and TCNHosting.
Most of these hosting providers offer very affordable VPS services to their customers.
Also, the websites have many things in common, including notifying customers with one email template and using the same CAPTCHA technology. They are also sharing a large portion of text and featuring similar webpage structures.
With the overwhelming evidence, it could be deduced that all 20 websites may be run by one entity or are sharing a single affiliate program.
Customers already confirmed shutdown
When some customers received the news in their mails, they were skeptical at first. Some believe that a hacker may have infiltrated the hosting company’s site and passed that message across. Most customers thought that someone had taken control of the provider’s VPN by spending fake mails in the hope that customers would change their hosting platform.
But they were wrong.
A few hours after receiving the mails, some of the users analyzed the emails and confirmed that the mails were actually from their hosting provider. They also confirmed by speaking with the support staff of the hosting company. They found the same copy of the email after logging into the company’s message dashboard.
After the realization, most of the customers have gotten enraged with the development. Many customers are already getting their data from the companies to avoid losing all of them when they eventually shut down.
Customers suspect Exit Scam in play
Many customers of these hosting firms are accusing the companies of what is now referred to as “Exit Scam.” According to them and other stakeholders, a single company established all these VPS services with a single aim of swindling the end-users. They said the company had taken advantage of the Cyber Monday deals and Black Friday to plat a fast one on their victims. They have taken people’s money without delivering on their promise to provide equivalent hosting service.
As a lot of users have said, these VPN service providers do not have any reference to their ownership. Also, there’s no proper information on their business module and no physical address. They function more or less like ghost companies. According to the users, these are all signs of someone trying to take users on a long ride of deceit.
Some reporters have sent a request to some of the companies for their response and comments on the development and accusation. But at the time of writing, none have responded yet.
A source from the Webhosting industry, who wanted to stay anonymous, said the action by these companies is not new in the hosting industry. He even had a name for it – “deadpooling.” According to the source, it’s a bad practice where some companies offer cheap servers for Webhosting for a few months.
After collecting enough money from customers for a few months, they suddenly shut down, taking customers’ money with them. He continued that the situation is more prevalent in the low-end market because of their offer for ridiculously cheap hosting services. But the source said this does not happen so often in the industry.
Another source also pointed out that some users have not seen the mail yet. These users may not be able to access their data on time before the hosting services finally shut down. In that case, more complaints will come from more customers and the firms responsible for this sharp practice could be exposed soon, the source concluded.
