FreeHostSpace.com out of business??

[killjoyce]

Has anyone else used FreeHostSpace.com?
I've had a site there for about 5 months now. I've had no problems, no down time. Support is okay considering its a free site.

But today I got an email from Cheaphostonline.com saying that FreeHostSpace has been shutdown, and all customers should transfer to Cheaphostsonline for $2.99/mon. Failure to do so means the site will be terminated.

I'm wondering if this is for real or it is a scam from another company trying to get my business. I went to Freehostspace.com, and the site is up and running. My site is also still up. I have not received a message from Freehostspace directly about this.

Any suggestions or advice?

I've pasted the email below.

Thanks,
KILLJOYCE

--------------------------START OF EMAIL--------------------------
>From: "Cheaphostonline" <cholkill@cheaphostonline.net>
>To: "killjoyce@yahoo.com" <killjoyce@yahoo.com>

>Subject: Important info regarding FreeHostSpace


We at Cheaphostonline.com/DH Enterprise regret to inform you that our
reseller/dedicated server reseller freehostspace.com has been shut
down due to non payment of its debt and technical difficulties.

All of freehostspace.com customers have 3 choices

1)
Signup on the cheaphostonline.com service plan at a discounted rate:

$2.99 for the free customers
$4.99 for Package 2
$7.99 for Package 3
$9.99 for Package 4
$11.99 for package 5

In order to do this you will need to goto the link below and fill out
all the information listed. Please note that we will verify all
information with what is on your whois registry. Please keep in mind
that we may need to contact you to verify your account, so make sure you
leave a valid number.

https://www.cheaphostonline.net/freehostspace/newcustomer.php


2)
If you registered a domain thru freehostspace.com then you can keep
your domain active and request to change the name servers to another
host canceling your service. You will be required to enter a valid
credit card number, but it's only for verification.

https://www.cheaphostonline.net/freehostspace/transfercustomer.php


3)
Cancel all together. By choosing this option you will loose your
domain account and any chance of renewing services in a year if you
registered the domain thru freehostspace.com.

Your site will be interrupted and soon removed from the servers.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Customer who signup after February 1st 2002 The best way to get you
account setup is to follow the link below. Your site may be on the
servers that they have in their current location, which we have an
agreement in place that if they go under we would acquire those servers
as well. If you don't get the chance to move your sites to our
current servers your site may be down for a while. To know if you are
affected your name servers would say something like
nsv3a.freehostspace.net or anything with freehostspace.net.

If your service cannot be interrupted for a period of 24 hours or
greater then you may want to setup an account on our existing servers.
To do this please contact our support department.
http://www.cheaphostonline.net/perldesk/ . Please note that we
cannot help any of the customers with any other problems until they have
signup with option 1 or 2 plan to move.

All freehostspace customers have until April 5th 2002 to pick one of
these options or else their site will be terminated. By continuing
service most of freehostspace customers will not have to make any
other changes to their website or network settings.

To be kept up to date please visit
https://www.cheaphostonline.net/freehostspace

Thank You
Cheaphostonline

[4allisons]

I had three accounts on freehostspace: personal, school, and a school team. All of them were rock solid--with minimal outages and good response times. I never once had to call for technical support.

Suddenly, it looks they're toast!

What bothers me are four things:

1) they didn't keep the services alive during a transition period. All of our Web servers got redirected to this "sombody didn't pay the bill" error message <http://www.cheaphostonline.net/freehostspace/>

2) the alternatives seem really shoddy. They're not precise; you have no idea what you're signing up for; and the actual text is written in a stilted Engrish that doesn't give me any confidence that these people will do anything other than take my money

3) I would expect this type of behavior is freehostspace had been taken over by a debtor. But it looks like this is a parent company saying their subsidiary failed. It might even be the same people. I don't know for sure, but it looks like this is the user-hostile method of trying to bail out of their "free for life" money-back guarantee.

4) They're acting like they own the domain names... and they definitely don't. Their note says that if I want to transfer my domain to a reputable host provider, that I have to give them my credit card information. I'm sorry--I own the domain name. The more I look into this, the more shady it sounds.

Has anyone actually signed up with these new people yet? Does anyone have any experience with cheaphostonline?

Thanks!
Burgess

[Cracker]

Someone ought to go kick that Cheaphostonline guy in the nuts!

[4allisons]

Earlier, I wrote:
> 3) I would expect this type of behavior is freehostspace had been taken over by a debtor.

OK, OK, try it THIS way:
> 3) I would expect this type of behavior if freehostspace had been taken over by a creditor.

Creditor, debtor. Is, if. (Maybe my hands were typing faster than my brain--not really all that difficult :-)

(BTW, I *wouldn't* expect this type of behavior from a company that's bailing out on its users.)

Yeesh. :confused2