A “Lifetime” is Short on the Internet: World Web Hosters Scams Customers, Starts Again as Zosee
Written by Brandon on June 19, 2006 – 11:16 am - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Not only has Worldwebhosters.com shutdown on it’s customers without notice, destroying their content but, they are directing all of their old customers that have been swindled out of their “lifetime” hosting plans to what appears to be their new company, Zosee.com.
For those of you who haven’t read our first post, Gop3.com lost about 600 of our 1000 posts when our hosting company shutdown completely without notifying us and deleted all of our files. This wouldn’t have been so bad except that the backup software that they built into their system that we were using was faulty as well. We have done our best to return to our original system and even improve on it.
Since our orginal post we have heard from a number of people, some whose sites are still working (such as The Warrior and Odessey Scoop) while other sites are having problems similar to Gop3.com:The Triumvirate. One sufferer and commentor, Brenda, stated:
I can’t access anything! I have been trying for a week & decided to go there & contact them & that’s when I found out they had shut down & took all my things with them! Why didn’t they contact anybody & give them at least time to get their stuff? I have been with them since 2001 & they didn’t even have the guts to write any of us who did have accounts! I’m so mad at them!
Bj
This prompted further investigation of World Web Hosters and the company they are now referring to, Zosee.com.
Structure
First, I checked out both sites visually and structurally. Here are the pages available on Worldwebhosters.com:
Home About Us Domain Registration Hosting Plans
Order FAQ Resellers rapidwebtraffic.com Affiliates Support Contact Us
and Zosee.com:
Home About Us Domain Registration Hosting Plans
Order FAQ Support Affiliates Contact Us
Zosee.com appears to just be a stripped down version of Worldwebhosters.com
Appearance
If you look at the visual aspects of both pages they are very similar in size, solid-bar format and the both companies supposedly started in the same year, 1999.
Plus, perhaps the most striking visual similarity is the logos:
Registration
Finally, I inspected the WHOIS records for both domains. These records show who paid for the website address. Here are the entries:
Worldwebhosters.com Registration Information
Registration Service Provided By: Registerfly.com
Contact: support@registerfly.com
Visit: http://www.registerfly.comDomain name: worldwebhosters.com
Registrant Contact:
Innovative Internet Services, Inc.
Joh Poligna (christiangraphic@sprynet.com)
+1.3602486393
Fax: +1.3602486393
Charleston
NA
Charleston, NA WI
KNName Servers:
ns1.onwebusa.net
ns2.onwebusa.netCreation date: 19 Mar 2002 22:04:11
Expiration date: 19 Mar 2007 22:04:1
Zosee.com Registration Information
Registration Service Provided By: Registerfly.com
Contact: support@registerfly.com
Visit: http://www.registerfly.comDomain name: zosee.com
Registrant Contact:
RegisterFly.com - Ref# 19759022
Whois Protection Service - ProtectFly.com (pg6g53bnh7ckxcr@protectfly.com)
+1.8458183604
Fax: +1.8456984014
P.O. Box 969
Margaretville, NY 12455
USName Servers:
ns1.onwebusa.net
ns2.onwebusa.netCreation date: 06 Jun 2002 00:00:00
Expiration date: 06 Jun 2007 00:00:0
The Glove Fits
Both sites are visually and structurally similar. They offer similar hosting plans and were registered at close to the same time, one by a Joh Pigna, another by the secretive “Whois Protection Service - ProtectFly.com (pg6g53bnh7ckxcr@protectfly.com)” and both use the same name servers.
What seems to have happened here is Worldwebhosters.com shutdown taking with them all of the fees they had charged for their “lifetime hosting plans” and then had the nerve to open a new site, Zosee.com, for the express purpose of making all of their subscribers pay up for a new “lifetime hosting plan”. Ridiculous.
I have switched to BlueHost and I am extremely happy with their service and system performance.
UPDATE: Digg the scam to get the word out.
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Posted in Beyond the Facade, Points of Personal Privilege |
June 27th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
BlueHost has been working great! I called their tech support line and got a real person right away!
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:53 pm
Is there no recourse against worldwebhosters? Perhaps the credit card companies can turn off their accounts? Where is Charleston, NA WI
KN.
July 5th, 2006 at 10:39 am
My WorldWebHosters service was working up until this weekend. On July 1st or 2nd (not sure which day exactly) the server stopped responding and my email is now getting bounced. I have been scouring the internet for clues ever since. Has anyone had luck contacting WorldWebHosters since this changeover? Is there a valid phone number I can call?
August 25th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Doing this Worldwebhosters.com have lost their reputation, their costumers and the potential costumers. I think that the losing is bigger than the gaining.
September 25th, 2006 at 8:47 am
[...] After dealing with the same hosting failure that we did here at GOP3.com, the Marquette University College Republicans website, http://www.murepublicans.com, is back up and completely redesigned. New forums, reminders, and a news aggregator are just a few of the features of the simple but powerful site. [...]
November 18th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
give the specific identification of 1st and 2nd triumvirate