Humorously Bad Web Hosting Policies

retard2112 writes "In the Terms of Service for pagecreators.net I found this about halfway through. D. You agree not to post any type of review about Page Creators at any time anywhere on the web. This includes any statement good or bad. You understand you will be held liable for damages of no more than fifty-thousand dollars if a review is found and traced back to yourself. What is up with that?" I ought to make a Slashdot Terms of Service thing like that where I get to hold the dude who posts goat trolls all day from behind a law firm's firewall liable for $50k! Seriously tho', that's pretty nasty. Larry Ellison would be proud.

More Info

For those who are interested. I originally found the link to pagecreators.net from cruel.com [cruel.com]. A collection of horror stories about people dealing with pagecreators.net can be found here [geocities.com]. Enjoy!

"ceased to operate"??

From http://www.pagecreators.net/: Page Creators has ceased to operate. Route questions to [e-mail].

Did they just get /.-ed or what?

-bluebomber

Interesting

The site is mysteriously down and disappeared. What is funny is that Wired just ran an article on the company (and the teenage owner) at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40673, 00.html [wired.com]

Pagecreators is a SCAM!

Take a look at this Wired article: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40673, 00.html

PageCreators is run by an 18yr old who is scamming people of thousands of dollars, by charging $1/kb of traffic. In some cases, he has falsified logs to show higher traffic. One person had such a small page, that they would have needed over 800,000 visitors to generate the traffic that Page Creators charged their credit card for.

The punk who runs it has a lawyer (or someone pretending to be a lawyer) who routinely sends threatening letters to sites that post bad reviews.

What That Policy Aims to Stop ...

... are former Page Creators customers who have started sharing stories on this Web hosting site [geocities.com] and others.

Google Cache of TOS

Google's Cache of their TOS [google.com]

the first rule of Page Creators

is that you don't talk about Page Creators...

Posted about this already

I submitted a story about this last week after the Wired article, but it was rejected. :(

What I found extremely interesting was that I couldn't find the terms of service anywhere. I actually signed up for an account (old CC number, so it wouldn't go thru) but at no time was I actually even offered the option of seeing what I was agreeing to.

The Wired article pointed out that for 'unlimited' bandwidth, you were actually charged $1/k for traffic over a sustained transfer rate of .3k/s or greater. Again, couldn't see any TOS to verify this or not, but that's not a whole lot of bandwidth.

I guess their point was yes, it's unlimited bandwidth, but that doesn't mean you'll only pay $24.95/month (or whatever the rate was).

I was very surprised the guy lasted as long as he did, charging people THOUSANDS of dollars, then defending himself by saying they didn't 'understand the technical nature of hosting', etc. Wouldn't the banks get suspicious? You have 200 charges of $24.95/month for 18 months, then 3 charges of $10,000, then hundreds more $24.95s. I think that SHOULD raise some eyebrows, just like my CC usage causes calls from the CC company occasionally - "you've never charged anything over $200 in the past 10 years we've known you, and you just charged $10,000 in 5 different states in 10 minutes. Is everything OK?"

PageCreators has bigger problems than bad TOS

The company's Terms of Service are likely just fallout from their other problems. Wired reported last week that the BBB is mad at them [wired.com] for persistent reports of fradulent charges. It's my guess that they are just trying to do damage control. Though it certainly seems unlikely that they will obtain any benefit for it.

In a similar note, the last company I worked for had as part of their NDA a nondisparagement clause. "You agree not to talk smack about The Company, its business practices, its officers, etc etc". Anybody know how enforecable such an agreement is, especially for people who are no longer with the company? Seems questionable to me.

Another *interesting* point in their TOS

From Pagecreator's TOS:

C. Copywritten Files
1. Files found on Page Creator's servers which are found to be copywritten will be removed and the account cancelled immediately without prior notification to the customer. All copyright owners will be notified accordingly.

Notice how they don't say anything about only removing files that illegally violate copyright! Any piece of work is immediately copyrighted when the author creates it. This means that each and every page that is on Pagecreators site should be removed according to their TOS. (The funny thing is that it looks like they've complied with this by taking down their entire site.) ;P

From an earlier Wired story

Geoff McCabe, a 32-year-old jewelry designer from Seattle, wanted a cheap place where his wife could post a few photos online. He found Page Creators with a search engine, and signed up for an "unlimited" package advertised at $15 a month. For a few months, he was billed as expected. But then, last November 13th, he received a three-line invoice from Page Creators by e-mail:

"Usage: 9057kbp/s, Debited: $9057, Due $0. Please let us know if you have any questions about these charges. Thank you for your business!"

His wife e-mailed the company to let them know there had been a mistake.

Page Creators responded that the charges were in accordance with the contract "$1 per 1kbp/s" in "usage."

McCabe ran the traffic tracking program provided for the website. He couldn't make out anything about Kbps, but he did see that the site had received a grand total of 48 hits all year.

After subsequent requests for clarifying documentation failed to bear fruit, the McCabes informed Page Creators that they had disputed the charge with their credit card company and threatened to report the company for fraud.

PC's response:

"Do as you wish, we have proof of your usage and will take it to the maximum extent needed. Check with the Attorney General of Minnesota, you will see our point. We will also provide Visa/MasterCard with the proper documentation. There is a fee of $150 per disputed charge which will be handled in small claims court in Minnesota. We will immediately file claim for suit if you dispute these charges with your credit card company."

Others report receiving similar threats of litigation when they questioned charges.

McCabe was incensed.

"This kid literally dared me to call the attorney general because he thinks he's untouchable. I've now made it my personal hobby to get him brought to justice."

...

Travis Gochenaur, a 23-year-old from Wisconsin who says Page Creators attempted to hit him with over $7,000 in illegitimate charges, wonders why the company hasn't been shut down. Last April, Gochenaur signed up for PC's "monthly special" that offered Web hosting for just $200 a year. In June, Gochenaur says he received a cryptic "invoice" from Kruchten saying he was being charged $1,000 for .8 Kbps in bandwidth overuse. He disputed the charge with his credit card company and cancelled his card.

"It felt like there was a little kid using my credit card like a candy jar," he said.

After gathering his evidence, Gochenaur called the Alexandria police and sent them his evidence. Eventually, they informed him that they were passing the case on the state attorney general. Four months later, he can't believe that Page Creators is still operating.

So Wired couldn't touch them. But fifteen seconds into their Slashdotting, they're off the web and probably going to be sucessfully sued by the people whose webpages they are no longer able to serve. Interesting.

Steven

Re:Perhaps they don't want to be held to ransom.

However, while I don't like this policy, I still defend their right to pursue it. If you don't like their policy, don't do business with them.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Sure, I say to not do business with them (especially as it seems they have "ceased to operate) but I am also not sure how legal that is. One thing that the person that wrote this article mentions is fair use, which is protection of the consumers' rights when dealing with companies. Fiar use has been trampled on quite a bit recently by big businesses who like your point of view.

To take your logic further, if I sell televisions I can put something in a contract for my customers to sign that if they complain about the TV once I get to kill them. This would be illegal, even if noone had bought a TV from me. I'm not a lawyer so I can't give all the correct terms, but you can see that it would be clearly wrong.

The reason that it is not right, or legal for a company to say you can't review them if you are a customer is that it could infringe on your free speech. There are limits to what you can do against a company. You can't use their logo or give information that may be confidential or proprietary to their business if you agreed not to previously. However, simply saying, "This webhost company sucks ass and gave me bad service" should not be able to get you in trouble. Also, if the company wished, why would they stop at reviews? Wouldn't contacting the Better Business Bureau be considered a breach of the terms of service as well? There are limits set up both ways, to protect the consumer and the businesses. Unfortunately the consumer's rights are going down the toilet as big businesses lie to us and the politicians representing us so they can get more of an advantage to take more of our money.

Pagecreators.net's Service Agreement

Here it is, since they have slashdotted and closed down :)

SERVICES AGREEMENT I. Mission Statement A. Page Creators provides Internet World Wide Web page hosting. Page Creators has certain legal and ethical responsibilities regarding the use of its servers and equipment involved in these services. B. Page Creator's general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. Page Creators has specific ethical concerns regarding the use of its computers as detailed below. C. Page Creators guarantees to respond to any and all e-mails regarding any question or problem you have with our service no later than 36 hours after said e-mail is sent. This guarantee does not apply to lost deliveries due to outside network problems. II. 99.9% Uptime Guarantee A. Service Level - Page Creators endeavors to have the content of your web site available for http access by any part in the world 99.9% of the time. B. Coverage - This 99.9% uptime guarantee applies to any Page Creators client in good financial standing with Page Creators at the time of a service outage. C. Credits 1. In the event that your web site is not available for more than 99.9% of the time, Page Creators will give you a credit on the following month's service fee as follows: a. For any shared hosting client, such credit shall be retroactive to the first day of the month in which the access was denied, and shall be as calculated below and as measured 24 hours a day in a calendar month, with the maximum credit not to exceed the monthly service charge for the affected month. Page Creators offers this guarantee to every month-to-month customer. b. Monthly Uptime Credit. 95% to 99.8% shall govern a 25% credit. 90% to 94.9%% shall govern a 50% credit. 89.9% or below shall govern a 100% credit. 2. In order for you to receive a credit on your account, you must request the credit within ten (10) days after you experienced the down time. a. Your request must be made by sending an electronic mail message to [e-mail]. b. For security purposes, the body of this message must contain your account user name, the dates and times of the unavailability of your web site, and such other customer identification requested by Page Creators. 3. Credits will be applied within ten (10) days of your credit request. As a courtesy to our month-to-month customers, an in-house credit to your account shall be your sole and exclusive remedy in the event of an outage. D. Restrictions on Credits - Credits shall not be provided to you in the event that you have any outage resulting from the following: 1. Scheduled maintenance as posted from time to time at Page Creators; 2. Your behavior or the performance or failure of your equipment, facilities or applications; 3. Circumstances beyond Page Creator's reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, delay in telecommunications or third party services including backbone provider, DNS propagation, domain name registration / transfer, failure of third party software or hardware or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of your web site; or 4. A client breaking any item in Page Creator's this agreement causing a machine to fail as a result. III. Miscellaneous Provisions A. Acceptable Bandwidth Use and Unacceptable Overuse Clause 1. Bandwidth is a term used to describe the total traffic your web site and other services associated with the use of your website consume. 2. We do not monitor traffic until you surpass the specified amount with your package at the time of purchase in one months period of time. This does not apply to provision III, A, 3. 3. In the event you consume more than 30kbp/s of sustained peak traffic within any 24 hour period of time, for any month, a fee of $1 per 1kbp/s will be billed to your account via the payment method used upon sign up. 4. You agree to pay Page Creators this $1 per 1kbp/s fee for bandwidth overages and you understand this fee is not refundable under any circumstance. 5. WARNING- You also understand that wusage statistics are not accurate enough for you to determine your own total bandwidth usage, as it does not include the following: e-mail transfer, httpd or ftp downloads from webpage, anonymous FTP downloads, CGI scripts, Real Audio, Real Video, Telnet, and SSH, as well as other items. 6. If you have any questions on this policy, contact us prior to signing up. 7. All customers who occur bandwidth overages will be e-mailed a receipt regarding the overages to the e-mail address provided upon sign up. 8. Client paying by credit card will be billed prior to invoice being sent. 9. Clients paying by credit card agree to accept charges for bandwidth overages. B. Background Running Programs 1. We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a one-to-one basis and an extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed. 2. You must notify Page Creators prior to the installation of any background running programs. The final consent and total fee must be arranged. C. New Domain Name Registration 1. The customer who registers for services is the legal owner of any domain name registered. 2. Page Creators reserves the right to seize any domain name at any time for the following reasons: a. Placing dispute with customer's credit card institution on any payment debited by Page Creators; and b. Violation of any provision of this service agreement. D. Disk Storage 1. The intention of Page Creators is to provide a large space to serve web documents, not to provide an off-site storage area for electronic files. 2. All (90%) of your web pages must be 'linked' with files (.gif, .jpeg, etc.) stored on Page Creator's server. 3. Web sites that are found to contain no html documents, or a large number of unlinked files, are subject to warning, suspension or cancellation at the sole discretion of Page Creators management. 4. Any customer who violates Page Creators' Policies in abusing disk storage will be billed $1 per 10MB in one months period. E. CGI Scripts 1. Each account comes with its own cgi-bin. You are free to use any CGI scripts you wish. 2. Page Creators reserves the right to disable and or remove any CGI script that affects normal server operation without prior warning. 3. Any CGI script owned and installed by you which has been stuck in memory by error will be charged a $100 management fee for each instance removed. VIII. Conditions A. Any provision of this contract which is broken will result in immediate account termination. B. Payment Policies 1. 30 day guarantee applies to month-to-month customers only. a. Setup fees not refundable. b. Guarantee does not apply to overages of any kind. c. Resellers do not receive a refund. 2. All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. a. Super, Super Plus, and E-Commerce plans have a setup fee of $25 dollars unless you are a Page Creators customer and are opening another account. b. E-Commerce Pro service plan has a setup fee of $100 dollars. c. NT Pro service plan has a setup fee of $40 dollars. 3. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of pre-payment. 4. Page Creators reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon in writing signed by management of Page Creators. 5. Any account not brought current within one week (7 days) of e-mail notices or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to suspension or cancellation. 6. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer notified Page Creators via provision VIII, D, 1-5, to request for termination of services. 7. All payments are to be made and are charged on your credit card (if applicable) in U.S. currency. 8. Page Creators will bill each client an extra $50 for every returned check and $25 for each wire transfer received. 9. Accounts not bought up to date will be submitted to a collections agency if overages are owed. C. Cancellation 1. Page Creators reserves the right to cancel service at any time for any reason without liability. 2. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to customer (i.e. transfer, space, etc.). This billing will be on the original credit card (if applicable) as originally submitted at time of order with the approval of you by signing this agreement. 3. All clients who wish to cancel must do so at pagecreators.net/cancel. Page Creators DOES NOT accept cancellation requests via e-mail, phone, or other method of communication. For security reasons, we require a faxed or mailed request provided by us after submitting the online cancellation form. 4. Clause VIII of this agreement shall remain in full effect even after full account cancellation has been completed and confirmed via electronic mail. 5. A fee of $200 will be applied to your account if Page Creators does not receive proper cancellation request yet you move your site to another provider. This fee is not refundable. You give Page Creators authorization to charge your credit card this amount (if applicable payment method). 6. Once an account is cancelled and customer notified by electronic mail, customer understands that all material stored including but not limited to email will be lost. Customer can not hold Page Creators liable for any lost information the customer failed to back up. V. Method of Payments A. Credit Card Payment - You understand that all account sales are final. you further understand that unfounded disputed charges will result in a $50 merchant processing fee and a $100 account research fee. B. Check Payment - Accounts are set up only upon receipt of payment and this signed agreement. Any check that is returned to Page Creators is subject to a $50 returned check fee and $25 processing fee. You understand that all account sales are final. C. Wire Payments - Any wire received from customer of Page Creators will be subject to a $25 wire processing fee. Advanced notice to [e-mail] must be received. Page Creators must pre-approve any request made. You understand that all account sales are final. VI. Prohibitions A. Server Abuse 1. Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of Page Creators is strictly prohibited. 2. Page Creators will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization. Such attempts include but are not limited to "Internet scamming" (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning. 3. You understand that any unauthorized use of accounts or computer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to Page Creators, will result in action against the attacker. Possible action include warnings, account cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack. B. Unsolicited E-Mail (spam) 1. Unsolicited commercial advertisements are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account cancellation. Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate postings may result in account cancellation. See the newsgroup or mailing list's charter for whether advertising is allowed or not. 2. "Spamming," or sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups, is particularly unethical and will be treated as such. Sending a message, especially an advertisement, to more than five or six recipients, is by itself spamming unless the individuals have specifically requested to be added to a mailing list on that topic. E-Mail is a person-to-person medium, not a broadcast medium. 3. Upon even your first Spam offense your account will be terminated and a maintenance fee of $1000 will be billed to your payment method used upon sign up. This is due to the enormous amount of time it takes to serve spamming victims. If customer paid by credit card, they agree to pay this fee. C. Copywritten Files 1. Files found on Page Creator's servers which are found to be copywritten will be removed and the account cancelled immediately without prior notification to the customer. All copyright owners will be notified accordingly. 2. In addition, a management fee of $500 per copywritten file will be billed to the customer's method of payment upon sign up. If you paid by credit card you agree to accept this/these debits. 3. This includes but is not limited to, files with the extension .zip, .exe, etc. 4. Page Creators will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. D. IRC -We currently do not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers. If one is found to be operating, it will be removed and your account terminated without prior notice to you. E. Chat Rooms 1. Due to the large amount of bandwidth and system resources used by chat rooms, you understand that you are not allowed to install your own chat room without first approving it with the Page Creators support team. The Page Creators support team can be reached at [e-mail]. 2. Parachat chat rooms are acceptable and do not apply to this rule. They may be installed without prior approval from Page Creators. 3. If you have any questions concerning whether your proposed chat room is a parachat chat room, contact Page Creators prior to installation. F. Abuse of SMTP Mail Server 1. We do not allow clients to send more than 2000 pieces of electronic mail per day. If you do send more than this amount, your account will be suspended for network abuse. 2. If you are sending legitimate electronic messages and they total more than 2000 per day your account will be moved to a special server that is specifically designed to handle high volumes of email. You will be charged $50.00 per month and a setup fee of $50.00 in addition to your regular hosting charges if your account is moved to this server. Please contact [e-mail] to have your domain moved or initially installed on this special server. The maximum allowable electronic messages per day on this special server is 20,000 at the price above. 3. You may contact Page Creator's sales department to work out a contract for additional e-mail at a price to be determined by Page Creators. VII. Lawful Purpose A. Page Creators reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. B. Customers may only use the Page Creators server for lawful purposes. C. Transmission of any material in violation with Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, copywritten material, material legally judged to be threatening or obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of Page Creators management. D. Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, the client agrees, for purposes of venue, this contract was entered into Douglas County, City of Alexandria, State of Minnesota, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in this jurisdiction. VII. Indemnification A. You agree to defend, indemnify, save and hold Page Creators harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against Page Creators, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by you, your agent, employee or assign. B. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Page Creators against liabilities arising out of but not limited to: 1. Any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Page Creator's server; 2. Any material supplied by you infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party; 3. Copyright infringement; or 4. Any defective products sold to customer from Page Creator's server. IX. Disclaimer A. Page Creators is not responsible for any damages suffered by you or your business as a result of services we provide. B. Page Creators makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, for services we provide. C. Page Creators disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by Page Creators and its employees. D. Page Creators reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice. It is the customer's responsibility to monitor pagecreators.net/contract for policy changes. E. All Sub-Networks and resellers of Page Creators must adhere to the above policies. F. Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate account deactivation without refund. ALL CUSTOMERS MUST BE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OF AGE

Another thing that will never stand up in court.

That's about as reasonable as a Click-Wrap license that I have recently encountered. "By opening this package you agree to be bound by the license found on the media enclosed". The license was on the CD-Rom and you have to open the package to view it. so much for freedom of speech and freedom to choose.

This is potential fun... ;)

Slashdot admins: How much will you pay me for not doing an Anonymous Coward posting with a full review of Page Creators and dropping them a note? :> I'll probably do the same thing for any other website allowing comment posting...

(This business idea has been patented with little trouble; as long as I use lynx (and the keyboard), I don't violate the infamous one-click patent...)

Re:Pagecreators is a SCAM!

Note he is charging $1/kb, and NOT $1/kB... bits versus bytes

Using that math, he would only be required to generate 1/1000th of that, or 800, visitors, which is well within the realm of possibility.

Ummm...
Last time I checked, a bit was only 1/8 byte, not 1/1000. By the math, he would still have needed to get 100,000 visitors, which is not within the realm of possibility.

Anyway, do you actually think that people would pay a lawyer to read every damn click-license that thye come accross on the web. I think not. It seems to me this kid is trying out as much legalese and restrictions as he can, in the hopes that one of his schemes will work and he'll get a bunch of money.

Re:"ceased to operate"??

From Google :

Google [google.com]
cache of their contact us page

Toll free sales :

U.S.&nbs p;
1-877-336-4472

INTERN. 320-762-7003

Toll free tech support: 888-382-4994

Fax US and INTERNATIONAL: 320-762-9060

Toll Free huh? As in he get's billed for the long distance time?
I think I have a few sales questions for him...

-ct

Oooo, very cute

II d: Essentially, they make all this fuss about 99.9 uptime guarantee and credits for you if they fail to do that, and then it says right there in plain language, "Credits shall not be provided to you in the event that you have any outage resulting from the following: 1. Scheduled maintenance..."

So their doing of scheduled maintenance makes you not qualify for credit :) tres cute :)

Re:This is potential fun... ;)

Bero, Amusingly enough, pagecreators.net is running RedHat:

$ telnet pagecreators.net
Trying 209.123.201.131...
Connected to pagecreators.net.
Escape character is '^]'.

Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman)
Kernel 2.2.12-20 on an i686
login:

Somewhat ironic.

- Sam

Fraud detector (patent applied for)

[//c](04:11pm)%cat tos.html | tr -sc a-zA-Z0-9\$ '\n' | sed -n -e 's/\(\$[0-9]\)/<BR>&/p'
$1
$1
$1
$100
$25
$100
$40
$50
$25
$200
$50
$100
$50
$25
$25
$1000
$500
$50
$50

Re:Pagecreators is a SCAM!

Not only that, but the terms weren't even in the fine print. Customers complained that the contract mysteriously changed, to add a 'subject to change without notice' and 'price is +$1/kb when usage is above 300kb'.

In the wired article, most customers didn't read the small print. But those who did, and signed hard copies, report that those clauses weren't on the contracts they signed.

MPAA, RIAA Claim Credit for Pagecreators Contract

NEW YORK (AP) - The Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America held a joint news conference today to announce that, as "proof of concept," they had drafted the Terms of Service contract for Pagecreators.net.

The TOS agreement, which forbids any criticism of the webhosting company, was hailed by Jack Valenti as "a sterling example of the bold future available to all content providers."

"It was a long shot actually," said Valenti. "We were getting pretty pissed off about all the flak we were getting about DeCSS- and Napster-related lawsuits, and so we were just blue-skying one day about what to do. The idea came up, and since everyone was coked up at the time we just went with it, you know? We found a pissant little webhosting service, offered the contract, and waited to see how far it would go."

"We had no idea it would be so successful," he added. "But we're definitely happy it did."

A spokesman for the two agencies would not speculate further on where the agreement might be used next. When asked just how far punishment for criticism would go, he replied cryptically, "Just watch us."

Free Software Foundation programmer and founder Richard M. Stallman could not be reached for comment. Said a source close to him, "He's desperately grepping all the click-wrap agreements on his hard drive."

Re:Another *interesting* point in their TOS

Does it really say "copywritten?"

Verbatim? That won't stand up to any courtroom
scrutiny! "Copywritten" means "written by a professional writer for advertising or publicity copy".

"copyright" or "copyrighted"means the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form (as of a literary, musical, or artistic work)

Credit cards are the key to scams ...

Has anybody noticed how credit cards lend themselves so easily to all kinds of monkey business?

Whenever you give your credit card number, you're handing over your wallet and telling the merchant to go ahead and serve himself. Although the credit card companies pretend that they regulate the merchants making charges, the scope for monkey business is astronomous.

The most dangerous merchants are, surprisingly, the bigger ones, like telephone companies and other utilities, and these are pushing for everybody to use credit cards.

I'm trying, however, to stop using credit cards altogether.

Since I live in Europe, and I'm quite lucky that most European consumers (and most smaller merchants too, because all transactions are registered, and handed down to the tax authorities) share this deep resentment for credit cards with me.

The more people use credit cards, the more I will be forced to use a credit cards. In the end, I'm not even going to be able to get a phone service, unless "I hand over my wallet".

Therefore, I would like to urge everybody to refrain from using credit cards as much as you can.

learn, learn, learn!

what to learn from this is never to use your CC for business on the internet. Yes, call me paranoid, what I did instead was open a checking account and got one of those bank cards that can be used as a CC, anytime I want to do a business on the internet, I just deposit an amount, and do it, if anyone ever tries to commit fraud with my card, the will at most get away with $100...

Has any lawyer ever done this before?

Check this out from the TOS:

IX. Disclaimer

D. Page Creators reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice. It is the customer's responsibility to monitor pagecreators.net/contract for policy changes.

Excuse me? It's my responsibility to monitor changes in a contract? BZZZZ! Wrong. You sign and agree to a contract, that's legit. But to create a clause that says NOT ONLY that the contract can be modified without notice BUT ALSO that one must adhere to the contract reguardless of whether or not the participant/s agreed to it without proper closure is not legal BY ANY MEANS.

One signs the TOS agreement. Legal. TOS agreement modified. Legal. Direct or written notification of change in TOS. Legal. (Why do you think banks, insurance agencies, credit card companies, and all other businesses write letters to you giving "Notification" over some business transaction?) If participant is not happy with TOS modification, the service can be terminated. Legal. But to modify a TOS without express notification to participants is not.

No doubt this is a scam.

The second rule of Page Creators...

This guy not only is a scam artist but is also clueless when it comes to running a server. All of the servers listed in the domain of pagecreators.net has telnet access open. Here's the telnet banner: Red Hat Linux release 6.1 (Cartman) Kernel 2.2.12-20 on an i686 login: Looks like he's running a standard redhat install with the standard services running. I'm suprised someone hasn't compromised his setup yet.

If you move out we'll slam you with another bill

From their TOS:

5. A fee of $200 will be applied to your account if Page Creators does not receive proper cancellation request yet you move your site to another provider. This fee is not refundable. You give Page Creators authorization to charge your credit card this amount (if applicable payment method).

HAHA that's the funniest piece of crap I've seen in a long time. Not even aitcom nor 9netave can beat that!

*** Where he lives ***

I just drove through here 18 hours ago...

His fax number listed on whois.net reverse lookup is registered to:

Rose Johnson

105 Linden Ave

Alexandria, MN 56308

Phone: [phone]

Re:Another *interesting* point in their TOS

>I wonder what the legality of a term like
>copywritten is. It's obvious that he meant
>copyrighted, but how would a court of law
>interpret a contract with such terms?

Depends on the state. In Texas, a judge would,
or would direct a jury to, strike that clause from the agreement and not consider it germane
to the case.

One invalid clause in a contract does not invalidate the contract, only that one clause.
That means for instance, if a landlord has put something illegal or unenforceable in the lease,
it doesn't mean you don't have to pay rent or change the smoke alarm battery, etc.

On the other hand, if it were "obvious" in intent, and the parties both agreed that the
word "copywritten" was construed to mean "copyrighted", then the clause could stand.

Re:Another thing that will never stand up in court

so much for freedom of speech and freedom to choose.

Such as the freedom not to buy it in the first place? (checks) No, you've still got that. Vote with your wallet.

--

Re:Pagecreators is a SCAM!

ok, yes, yes, I completely boned the math on that one.

That'll teach me to try and post intelligently when the Coke machine at the office is broken. ;-)

Re:Oooo, very cute

Personally, I like this phrase: 2. Your behavior or the performance or failure of your equipment, facilities or applications;

So, if you piss them off (like keep calling for tech support, as mentioned in one of the complaints), they can just shut off your service, and it doesn't get covered by the 99.9% agreement.

Cute.

-Jeff

Re:This is potential fun... ;)

>you shouldn't give away the version of the OS then you make it easier for script kiddies...

Someone pointed out that all of the machines in the domain appear to be running default-install 6.1 release with all the default services enabled.

This has to scream 'crack me!' If he doesn't bother turning off telnet or at least customizing the welcome message, there's little doubt he has kept up with security patches.

Cute...

I just got this back from sales...

------------------

Sure you are.

----- Original Message -----
From: Travis Roy
To:
Sent: Wednesday, December 27, 2000 4:40 PM
Subject: Terms of service request

Can you please send me a copy of your terms of service. I'm looking for a web provider.
--

Site down, so CALL HIM!!!

The owner of Page Creators' name is Bryan Kruchten. His company, according to the Minnesota Better Business Bureau [wired.com], does nothing but scam the hell [hostsearch.com] out of its clients. It's interesting to see that he hasn't been shut down yet.

Since his page is somehow down now and it seems that he doesn't answer email, I looked him up [uswestdex.com]. If you're as angry as I am, send him a note, or give him a call. He's listed under his parent's number (he's only 18)

Kruchten Paul & Debbie... [phone]
1213 Lark St Alexandria MN 56308

Be nice though.

Re:Perhaps they don't want to be held to ransom.

>At worst, it's a clear sign that he's gonna
>grow up to be another rip-off artist

He'll have to, if he expects to survive in prison.

That could be very dangerous.

As another poster mentioned, I believe you would be much worse off using the bank card method, because of liability issues. With a credit card, it's pretty easy to protect yourself from fraud. If your card gets stolen or used improperly, all you are liable for is $50.00 maximum usually. However, with a bank card, there are more stipulations to the $50.00 limit, so if you were charged $7000 and you only had $100 in the bank, this could possibly put a serious hurting on your credit rating. I've enclosed some relevant laws I found on this site [earthlink.net].

• The Equal Credit Opportunity Act says that you can limit your risk when your credit card is lost or stolen and that you can correct errors without damaging you credit rating.
  
• The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the procedure in clearing and correcting the errors on your credit record.
  
• The Fair Credit Billing Act sets up the procedures for creditors to promptly correct the billing mistakes. It allows you to withhold payments on defective purchases and limits the risk of your lost or stolen credit cards. The law defines a billing error as any charge: -- for something you didn't buy or for a purchase made by someone not authorized to use your account; -- that is not properly identified on your bill or is for an amount different from the actual purchase price or was entered on a date different from the purchase date?
  
• Truth In Lending limits your liability in Lost or Stolen Credit Cards. You do not have to pay for any unauthorized charges made after you notify the card company of loss or theft of your card. So keep a list of your credit card numbers and notify card issuers immediately if your card is lost or stolen. The most you will have to pay for unauthorized charges is $50 on each card.
  
• The Electronic Fund Transfer Act provides protection for ATM, debit or check cards. Your liability for an unauthorized withdrawal can vary: -- Your loss is limited to $50 if you notify the financial institution within two business days after learning of loss or theft of your card or code. -- But, you could lose as much as $500 if you do not tell the card issuer within two business days after learning of the loss or theft. -- If you do not report an unauthorized transfer that appears on your statement within 60 days after the statement is mailed to you, you risk unlimited loss on transfers made after the 60-day period. That means you could lose all the money in your account plus your maximum overdraft line of credit. (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1993)

Penguins with perfect credit ratings. The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]

Re:"ceased to operate"??

Well, all I get right now is a grey screen

but the server still answers up nicely to my ping tool.

See?

# - IP address - Host name --- Round trip time
1 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 152 ms
2 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 137 ms
3 - 209.123.201.131 www.pagecreators.net 127 ms

Maybe their http port crashed. Could somebody check this out?

;-)

But we could always bring it to the attention of their service provider:

IP block lookup for 209.123.201.131

whois -h whois.arin.net 209.123.201.131

Net Access Corporation (NETBLK-NAC-NETBLK02)
110 South Jefferson Road
Newton, NJ 07860

Netname: NAC-NETBLK02
Netblock: 209.123.0.0 - 209.123.255.255
Maintainer: NAC

Coordinator:
Pavely, Ryan (RP2938-ARIN)
[e-mail]
800-net-me36 (FAX) 973-590-5080 (FAX) 201-983-0453
....
Record last updated on 10-Sep-1999.
Database last updated on 27-Dec-2000
18:20:42 EDT.

MSN, Yahoo - All have the same TOS change policy

If this term is a scam then most internet companies use the same scam of assigning you the responsibility of checking for modifications to the agreement and that your continued use is your consent to the changes.

I've included excerpts from yahoo and msn but you can find the others by clicking on the TOS link that are at the bottom of most major internet sites

MSN: [msn.com]

MODIFICATION OF THESE TERMS OF USE

Microsoft reserves the right to change the terms, conditions, and notices under which the MSN Sites/Services are offered, including but not limited to the charges associated with the use of the MSN Sites/Services. You are responsible for regularly reviewing these terms and conditions and additional terms posted on particular websites. Your continued use of the MSN Sites/Services constitutes your agreement to all such terms, conditions, and notices.

Yahoo: [yahoo.com]

1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

Welcome to Yahoo!. Yahoo provides its service to you, subject to the following Terms of Service ("TOS"), which may be updated by us from time to time without notice to you.

...

21. NOTICE
Notices to you may be made via either email or regular mail. The Service may also provide notices of changes to the TOS or other matters by displaying notices or links to notices to you generally on the Service.

Call me mad ...

... but I found this part of their contract as a rather good contract clause:

3. Upon even your first Spam offense your account will be terminated and a maintenance fee of $1000 will be billed to your payment method used upon sign up.

If just every company could have that kind of spam policy, I would feel rather happy