It was only a month ago we covered HXServers randomly canceling and refunding services without first providing customers their data.

At the time they explained the situation as follows:

Many mistakes were made before, during, and after our plan to decommission our retired services and platform. Although refunds were processed correctly, we completely failed in notifying customers to prepare for migration. As a result, retired platform plans were terminated with seemingly no notice to our customers, causing data loss, mass confusion and frustration. As a company, HXServers needs to do better in the future, and we take this as a hard lesson to learn what not to do when handling customer data. Although this only affected a very small portion of our customer base, we’re handling this as a disaster, caused by gross negligence. Customers affected by our gross negligence will receive a new VPS, with the exact same pricing, and hardware specification free for the first month, and future months will match the previous price the customer paid. Although we’re taking ownership of the recent issues, we must express our worrisome of our operations. As a company, HXServers needs to reevaluate our workflows, our (now former) employee(s), and our policies on customer data and customer notification processes. HXServers is committed to constant improvement, and hopefully some day we can rebuild the trust we once had in this community. We’re extremely saddened by our recent actions and owe each and every one of our affected customers a huge apology. To those who are affected, we’re so sorry for how we handled this, and we will never make these mistakes again.

Thanks,
HXServers

Now it appears they have full-blown deadpooled (abruptly closed shop for the LowEndVirgins)…

Rumors first started circulating a few days ago, around Black Friday, when it was first noticed their website was down.

It wasn’t until today that HXServers confirmed that they are indeed closing down shop, stating the following:

No, I was not scamming. The amount of abuse filed with IPXO caused them to suspend my account, including all rented subnets. HX literally vanished in an instant.

The servers are in fact still online. The trouble is the networking is of course broken. IPXO won’t help me restore functionality of those IP blocks. There are thousands of VPS on the servers. I’m trying to find a solution for customers to at least get their data, upon request.

HXServers Shifts Blame to IPXO

Seems like a bit of a cop out if you ask me, but it’s not unfamiliar that hosting providers are complaining about IPXO’s policies.

Back when IPXO last faced outrage, they released the following statement:

Hi!

As an IP leasing platform, we encounter a diverse range of client cases. While we are proactive about abuse, we also prioritize open communication and evaluate each case on an individual basis. Clients who are responsive and committed to resolving issues don’t need worry about termination. We reserve such extreme measures for clients who are deliberately abusive and either unwilling or unresponsive in addressing issues. Our focus is on fair resolution for all parties involved, rather than penalizing those who are open open about the issues they experience.

We appreciate your insights, and in light of this discussion, we are currently reviewing our policies to ensure they are both fair and clearly communicated to our clientele. Thank you!

And essentially talked down the level of intervention they do when faced with abuse complaints.

But the reality is that IPXO is only a middleman. They are required to enforce abuse restrictions because they would have no IP blocks to lease otherwise.

IPXO will gladly kick you off if it’s been made clear you’re a target for abuse reports. They have no choice.

Is This IPXO’s Fault?

Not really. It’s been established IPXO probably isn’t the best IP provider for shared hosting providers.

You need a long term IP provider that will work with you on abuse reports and doesn’t put an arbitrary limit on the amount of abuse reports per month.

While some might tell IPXO to “return their IPs” so that hosting providers can obtain them in the first place, that’s unrealistic. IPXO doesn’t own anything anyways.

IPv4 is a scarce resource, and like any scarce resource in this world, people will try to monetize it. There’s no reversing that. It’s human nature.

If you can’t afford buying your own IPs outright, you’re better off trying to lease your IPs from someone like a hosting company that understands the nature of shared hosting.

We even have a thread on LowEndTalk designed specifically for this purpose.

The Lesson Here

A hosting provider extensively relies on trust. It’s very hard to build trust, and very easy to ruin it. Once you’ve ruined it, it’s then nearly impossible to repair.

While the IPXO situation may or may not even be the real deadpool culprit here, it doesn’t matter. The majority of the LowEndCommunity already lost trust in HXServers.

For the most part, HXServers was dead in the water the second they randomly deleted servers without first releasing customer data.

You can excuse the location cancellation part if you’re issuing refunds, but you can’t really excuse the randomly deleting data part.

Furthermore: If things are happening behind the scenes it is only inevitable until it’s brought to light. You need to be willing to be transparent.

Unfortunately for HXServers they learned this the hard way.

That said, hopefully HXServers can at least get some working backups out to clients.

R.I.P. HX “thank you for your feedback” Servers 2023-2023 (things move fast in the LowEndUniverse).

(Partial credit for the image belongs to @emgh.)

Update 12/1/2023: IPXO responded over on LowEndTalk to this situation:

Hi all, we were initially hesitant to discuss this matter and we still intend to keep the specific details private. However, we want to clarify that we do not terminate accounts overnight. Our first course of action is to suspend the account, which means the client cannot lease new services but will still have access to their currently rented subnets, which are running as intended and no services are revoked. Typically, we provide about a week, sometimes even longer, for the client to resolve any issues they might have.

If an abuse would be reported to IPXO we talk with our clients and are more than willing to help solve any issues, especially if we see no patterns of abusive behavior.

@hxservers If you would like to look into your options continuing leasing from IPXO you can open a ticket or perform required actions on the platform yourself.

They followed this up by answering a question about their IP leasing abuse terms/process:

@emgh said:
Let’s say I lease a subnet, a client of mine is spamming the hell out of it, I wake up 8 hours later, sweaty and in panic. 150 of the IPs are listed on major spamlists. I’m fucked.

What would be my “required actions” to get going again?

1. Contact IPXO if you haven’t heard from us yet and explain the situation
2. Terminate the client
3. Collaborate with us to get your subnet delisted
4. Provide a plan detailing how you intend to avoid this situation in the future

Can’t stress this enough – keep the communication open. We understand that there are situations that can’t be foreseen and all sorts of mistakes happen, that’s why we are keen on helping our clients rather than penalising them right away.

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Sir Foxy

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