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Dead Pool July 2010 - DataHostDirect, StrategicVPS, VPSRepublic and Zabogo

Here is the compiled list of previously featured low end providers that have detected to be dead. Note that those are only reported if the website is no longer resolving/connecting. In reality the business might have been long dead, in which case feel free to contact me if you like to see them listed on future dead pool posts.

DataHostDirect DataHostDirect

Current Status: Domain expired

I have only got notified when the domain datahostdirect.com has expired. It was first featured on LowEndBox back in September 2008, with an offer of 128MB OpenVZ VPS for $5.95/month. The domain expired on 12 July — such a good domain as it has been registered since 2007. It looks like Nick was trying to offload it earlier, and from his LinkedIn page he has ceased to be the owner of DataHostDirect LLC since Dec 2009. Moved onto something else better hopefully.

VPSRepublic VPSRepublic

Current Status: Domain parked

On 6 July vpsrepublic.com has resolved to a different IP address — not to a different hosting server, but to GoDaddy’s parking farm. It was featured very early on at LowEndBox — July 2010 offering $3.50/month OpenVZ VPS with 128MB memory. Echoservers.com did bought the business back in 2008 and the domain is still registered to Jesse (owner of Echoservers). After almost 2 years on life-support it is now officially pronunced dead. I guess there is no point keeping a brand that is 2 years old anyway, although the offer was attractive even at today’s standard.

Zabogo Zabogo

Current Status: Domain parked

Originally I thought Zabogo is going to be alright, as it is backed by Graxis which owns other hosting providers (dclayer, sharedlayer). But it turns out they all look very dead at the moment. The domain is now parked with ads. Sounds like the 2nd episode of Web Hosting Opera (previously featured on BuzzServers) wasn’t really a hit either. I can probably conclude that any new drama featuring “Jason S” would not go down too well anyway.

Anyone knows what happened to Graxis?

StrategicVPS StrategicVPS

Current Status: Not resolving

Strategic VPS was featured here merely 3 months ago, and its owner has already pulled the plug on 8 July. Domain registrant’s web design company website is still there, but the VPS hosting website is no longer resolving. It was selling 128MB OpenVZ VPS for $5.91/month after the discount — not super hot deal for 2010

That’s it for this month! 4 declared dead last month but quite a few more being added to the tracker. Interestingly BreezeHost, who was on the dead pool last month, appears to be trading again although it has been “sold” to InoxHost. The same WHT account that is posting the offer — but would you sign up with them again?

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

14 Comments

  1. Wow, I actually thought Zabogo would be around for a long time.

    August 2, 2010 @ 1:39 pm | Reply
  2. Tom:

    Luckily I moved from Graxis a few months back. Was fed up with the lack of support and also when they offloaded me onto Shared Hosting when I paid for a VPS!

    August 2, 2010 @ 3:06 pm | Reply
  3. @Tom

    Seriously? Yikes…

    Not surprised on StrategicVPS, they’re using another template for a design =\

    Fran

    August 2, 2010 @ 6:30 pm | Reply
  4. Tom:

    @Francisco Yeah. Cheeky really!

    August 2, 2010 @ 6:45 pm | Reply
  5. @Tom,

    There’s a case on WHT about ‘HostATree’ scamming their users in a similar fashion. The users have been purchasing dedi’s but they’ve just been getting issued VPS’s on an i7. The users were ordering slow CPU’s so they didn’t notice it until they started trying to issue a lot of different commands (namely trying to ntp your time) and saw that they didn’t have access.

    Needless to say, they are banned off WHT

    Fran

    August 2, 2010 @ 7:07 pm | Reply
  6. There was a thread on WHT about Jason Scales hiring someone for support and at HighVPS and promising payment at the end of the contract term – This guy that was hired for support said that he was never paid. Since then Jason has vanished. He hasn’t been tweeting on his Twitter. (Last seen on his Twitter 26 June.) I haven’t seen him sign into MSN for a long time. He doesn’t post on various forums I know him from.

    Here is a link to the WHT thread – I have placed a link to it in a txt file on my own server/site so my comment isn’t marked as spam. (Seen the notice below.)

    http://themegaidiot.info/jasonscaleswht.txt

    Jack xD

    August 2, 2010 @ 9:50 pm | Reply
  7. Hasanul:

    @LEB Admin, looks like you lost for six months about DataHostDirect. Reffered in WHT archived webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-909776.html, DataHostDirect closed their VPS service sinced 24-12-2009 :)

    I’m a part of this history, because I was with them for a month at 11-2009.

    August 3, 2010 @ 7:11 am | Reply
  8. John:

    Jesse, the President & CEO & COO & CFO & CIO has shut down his “republic”? Why I am not surprised…

    August 8, 2010 @ 3:21 am | Reply
    • Did you have an issue with us (Echoservers)? Not sure why having one publicly facing person is a big deal… especially when we’re well reviewed and perform pretty well for the price.

      VPS Republic was an idea a friend wanted to try. It was DoS’ed into oblivion in about a week after opening. I bought everything from him and moved it to our servers and never touched the site after that. It didn’t make sense to maintain a site that was not really anything special and did nothing for Echoservers.

      I’d love to understand where your hostility is coming from.

      Cheers,
      Jesse

      January 13, 2011 @ 5:55 am | Reply
  9. I have a hosting with Breezehost. They are doing quite well after changing of owner. I think, their current promotion code is too cheap and support is very fast.

    August 20, 2010 @ 5:22 am | Reply
  10. Adam:

    @Jackk What happend to your WP installation ?

    @Aleksey Your website is down ?

    August 20, 2010 @ 9:29 am | Reply
  11. @Adam – blog.themegaidiot.info – Nothing wrong with it?

    August 20, 2010 @ 9:36 am | Reply
  12. Adam:

    @Jackk Interresting, when I tried access http://themegaidiot.info/jasonscaleswht.txt – I got the WP installation page, now I get a 404

    August 20, 2010 @ 11:27 am | Reply
  13. Dominic Hakke:

    @Tom,

    Could you please contact me, i would like to review your situation where you claim you where put on a shared hosting account when you paid for a VPS.
    As far as i know, we never maintained any shared hosting environments.

    When we purchased Buzzservers they did offer Shared Hosting but all of those accounts where dropped at their renewal date because that wasn’t a market we wanted to operate in.

    If for whatever reason what your saying is true i want to make that up with you.

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:54 pm | Reply

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