ServeLayer account terminated.

**Irving** · January 23rd, 2011, 17:59

The day 20 of this month, I received an email from ServeLayer:

Hello Irving Salas,

Free web hosting will no longer be available. You have 7 days to take your website elsewhere or immediately upgrade to one of our plans. If you caught our service reliable and great, our Server Basic is the right plan for you.

Any FTP files / information and other MYSQL and account information will be deleted after 7 days.

Please note that we do not hold the responsibility for the loss of any important information, Servelayer has warned you.

Best Regards,

Ivan Rodriguez CEO / President

He just offered me the free hosting like 3 days before. The 17 of January, so why did he offered me the hosting? if he wanted to remove the free hosting area of his host. Easy answer I think, to get some more paid hosting users. But that isnt the bad part of this. This morning i tried to access the site, and it doesnt exist anymore!! He deleted the account! And only 3 days have past, I was working in a site, and all of it is GONE!
Guys stay away from this host seriously....

**Jordan Mclay** · January 23rd, 2011, 19:18

As unfortunate as it is, atleast the company has the decency to warn you before.

**Sain Cai** · January 23rd, 2011, 20:01

Few questions:

1. You said you got the mail on the 20th, only 3 days after you received hosting. Why then are you posting this 3 days later?
2. Did you even discuss this with Ivan?
3. I have had no such letter for my hosting by them nor has my site been taken down, so perhaps something is being hosted that shouldnt be?

**[SRVLYR] Ivan** · January 23rd, 2011, 20:52

Hi Irving,

I'm terribly sorry for this confusion. As i was debating with my team, we were deciding 7 days. Our support staff who wrote our email has made a mistake. It was supposed to be after 24 hours.

Regards.

**[SRVLYR] Ivan** · January 23rd, 2011, 20:55

Also just to include into this message, Free web hosting will no longer be available as for people either abuse it or has an account that is just idle.

Free web hosting as a sponsorship is available, for that option you can contact us.

**Irving** · January 23rd, 2011, 23:42

Originally Posted by Sain Cai

Few questions:

1. You said you got the mail on the 20th, only 3 days after you received hosting. Why then are you posting this 3 days later?
2. Did you even discuss this with Ivan?
3. I have had no such letter for my hosting by them nor has my site been taken down, so perhaps something is being hosted that shouldnt be?

1.-Cause they deleted my account today, and it was supposed to be 7 days later not today. They sent me the warning email that day.

2.-Of course not, It wasn't a problem moving the site to another host, I dont have a problem with his opinion, the problem is that he deleted the account without saying anything!

3.-No there wasnt nothing, that a site in construction. There was a Joomla site with a custom template. Nothing more than that.

**Irving** · January 23rd, 2011, 23:44

Originally Posted by Servelayer

Hi Irving,

I'm terribly sorry for this confusion. As i was debating with my team, we were deciding 7 days. Our support staff who wrote our email has made a mistake. It was supposed to be after 24 hours.
Also just to include into this message, Free web hosting will no longer be available as for people either abuse it or has an account that is just idle.

Free web hosting as a sponsorship is available, for that option you can contact us.
Regards.

And how am I going to trust a host that have that kind of "mistakes". Sorry Ivan, but I dont really tolerate this things. As I said in my requesting thread, I only neeeded the host for a 7-10 days, and you really disappointed me...I will have to start over.

**[SRVLYR] Ivan** · January 24th, 2011, 00:24

Irving,

If I'm not mistaken, Circuit City has made a mistake by sending it's customers the sunday specials on a friday night. Which was accidently sent.

We truely apologize for the false email. You can proceed to look for your new free hosting provider, or you can contact us so we can work something out for a chance to support you with a paid hosting plan.

**TSO** · January 24th, 2011, 08:39

Irving, it sounds like an innocent mistake. I understand your irritation at losing your site, I really do. Ivan seems to be willing to help you out and review another application for free hosting, in addition to apologizing for the confusion. I would recommend contacting him to see what he can do for you.

**Sain Cai** · January 24th, 2011, 09:54

Originally Posted by Irving

1.-Cause they deleted my account today, and it was supposed to be 7 days later not today. They sent me the warning email that day.

2.-Of course not, It wasn't a problem moving the site to another host, I dont have a problem with his opinion, the problem is that he deleted the account without saying anything!

3.-No there wasnt nothing, that a site in construction. There was a Joomla site with a custom template. Nothing more than that.

Looking at the reply from Ivan, you certainly did nothing wrong.

Originally Posted by Servelayer

Also just to include into this message, Free web hosting will no longer be available as for people either abuse it or has an account that is just idle.

Free web hosting as a sponsorship is available, for that option you can contact us.

So you are getting rid of all free hosting? If this was the case, why did you approve my request only a few days ago? If this is not the case, then why are you suggesting Irving sign up for a paid account?

**Schmarvin** · January 24th, 2011, 10:38

Why didn't they just grandfather the old free hosting clients into their system? Seems the nice thing to do. Especially since you are still offering free hosting "as a sponsorship."

**AboutWeb** · January 24th, 2011, 11:01

This is the matter with some free hosting sites. After they get a number of clients, they switch to paid only hosting.

**[SRVLYR] Ivan** · January 24th, 2011, 19:28

@ SainCai Are you an idle? No. Your a respected member of the FWS community so i did not intend to suspend your account.

Most of the websites that we hosted for free were joomla websites. Most of them just idle with a PHPMailer script.

@AboutWeb, Not necessarily, we don't do that for them just to upgrade. We pay for a server to offer free web hosting. Most of the people that registered, provided fake details, so i didn't bother keeping their free services.

@Irving, I know you are very upset. Contact us and we will work something out immediately.

I will provide free web hosting, since it has disappointed alot of people, we will limit the free services by monthly stocks. 40 Free accounts a month. (Highly fair)

If you want to be secured and not be let down, i will host you on our top of the line server.

If you deny, i totally understand.

**AboutWeb** · January 24th, 2011, 23:48

@Servelayer if you say many people who register to free hosting just idle, you could set it that account gets suspended if:
-no visitors in a month
-client didn't logged in 30-60 days.
An advice from me - Many clients don't bother to read TOS, so important info should go on Sign-up form. You can specify there that they need to provide real info or their account may not be accepted, something like this.

**TaoPhoenix** · January 25th, 2011, 06:59

Originally Posted by Schmarvin

Why didn't they just grandfather the old free hosting clients into their system? Seems the nice thing to do. Especially since you are still offering free hosting "as a sponsorship."

It's more important than "nice", it starts to edge into business expectations. If someone gets a free account on a host that intends to be paid in the long run, the account *must* be grandfathered if the interval is short enough, or else it risks becoming Bait & Switch. Despite the lack of money, a polite customer signs up giving their agreement to follow terms, and so if those terms change at a company's whim, it begins to be unfair depending on the case-by-case.