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RackVM - £20/Year 512MB OpenVZ VPS in France Exclusive Offer

Updated Sept 2010. Yes, RackVM is in deadpool. Servers died by end of August and the website no longer resolves by early September. FAIL.

RackVM Ben from RackVM sent me another awesome offer for the LowEndBox readers yesterday. Similar to their previous offer but requires yearly pre-payment. For £20/Year (~USD$31.28, or ~USD$2.68/Month) you can buy the following OpenVZ VPS package using this ordering link and promo code LEB-YEARLY2.

  • 512MB guaranteed/1024MB burstable memory
  • 30GB storage
  • 300GB/month data transfer
  • OpenVZ/SolusVM

That’s right — 512MB OpenVZ VPS for less than 3 bucks a month, if you are looking for a VPS in France. Do read our previous threads on RackVM. There are mixed-but-mostly-good reviews on this company.

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

280 Comments

  1. InsDel:

    erm, as this offer is in France, you might want to change the title accordingly.

    August 17, 2010 @ 1:53 am | Reply
  2. Argh. Thanks for noticing. Fixed it now.

    August 17, 2010 @ 1:58 am | Reply
  3. Seem like this is not a recurring offer. But it’s worth for a try.

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:00 am | Reply
  4. very nice looking site, I like the colors

    August 17, 2010 @ 4:57 am | Reply
  5. Dean:

    Please post an example ip, testfile.

    August 17, 2010 @ 7:12 am | Reply
  6. @Dean — they are hosted in OVH which you should be able to find out what the test IPs are.

    August 17, 2010 @ 7:19 am | Reply
  7. Dean:

    @LEA Thanks for info. =]

    August 17, 2010 @ 7:40 am | Reply
  8. These guys seem to be doing good.

    August 17, 2010 @ 8:14 am | Reply
  9. IWTFI:

    @RackVM: Please come back with the previous offer.

    August 17, 2010 @ 8:38 am | Reply
  10. Very happy with my UK based VPS from these guys!

    August 17, 2010 @ 8:55 am | Reply
  11. Dirk:

    OVH has ipv6 active in their datacenter…do you also have it on these VPSes from RackVM?

    August 17, 2010 @ 1:06 pm | Reply
  12. Hi No I am afraid we haven’t implemented ipv6 at the moment. The offer is now recurring :)

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:00 pm | Reply
  13. Dirk:

    If it’s recuring, then why do I get a recurring fee of 20 instead of 18?
    It shows:
    Subtotal: £34.42GBP
    16.00 Recurring Discount: £16.00GBP
    Total Due Today: £18.42GBP
    Total Recurring: £20.00GBP Annually

    Can you explain the 16 (while 50% of 36 is 18) and why the recurring is 20 instead of 18?

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:05 pm | Reply
  14. Dirk:

    Never mind my last remark …. misread the offer….thought it was 50% off, while it 20/year…my mistake….

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:06 pm | Reply
  15. Dirk:

    16 minutes between order and setup…nice…
    Also great pings to others hosts in Europe!

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:32 pm | Reply
  16. Daniel:

    @Dirk I think they have pro-rota billing, meaning your paying for the “rest of the year” or something.

    August 17, 2010 @ 2:55 pm | Reply
  17. Dirk:

    @Daniel: it’s indeed pro-rata billing. I misread that the offer was 50%, while it was 20/year …so the amounts were correct.

    August 17, 2010 @ 3:09 pm | Reply
  18. Dirk:

    @Ben: thanks for making it recurring
    About the ipv6 addressing, is that something that you plan on adding (shortly)?

    August 17, 2010 @ 3:41 pm | Reply
  19. innya:

    Last time I took on in uk128 and one in France(384) with earlier offer from Rackvm. My trace showed thru. OVH’s branch of Kimsufi. Anyway it is good but this offer has more space and ram :( as well as good price. I paid $27.68USD/year for 384/25g/250g. :(
    only 5dolloar more and I could have bigger ram. Can I be able to switch it:)

    August 17, 2010 @ 4:26 pm | Reply
  20. innya:

    @Ben I just kidding about switching, I am happy with what I have:).

    August 17, 2010 @ 4:34 pm | Reply
  21. Hi

    Yes we will add ipv6 soon but I belive SolusVM doesn’t support it in its IP pools.

    August 17, 2010 @ 5:00 pm | Reply
  22. Dirk:

    @Ben: Correct SolusVM isn’t supporting it yet, however that shouldn’t stop you from offering them. Your “collegues” @BuyVM for example offer ipv6 addresses (16) AND use SolusVM too.

    August 17, 2010 @ 5:11 pm | Reply
  23. Test ip and big file to test download speeds in from your french data centre please.

    August 17, 2010 @ 7:40 pm | Reply
  24. August 17, 2010 @ 8:33 pm | Reply
  25. rio:

    vpn allowed?

    August 17, 2010 @ 10:51 pm | Reply
  26. Hi

    Yes VPN is allowed.

    August 17, 2010 @ 11:34 pm | Reply
  27. Just placed my order. Thanks for the offer.

    August 18, 2010 @ 12:49 am | Reply
  28. dannix:

    What about payment with paypal?

    August 18, 2010 @ 7:05 pm | Reply
  29. Hi

    We have opened this offer to UK also, however there is only currently 10 placements. Order link is. https://secure.rackvm.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=76

    August 19, 2010 @ 11:40 am | Reply
  30. Is the offer only available to french people or it just means that the servers are located in France, so I can buy that VPS offer from Spain?

    Kind,
    Ivan

    August 20, 2010 @ 10:00 pm | Reply
  31. Why not accept Paypal?

    August 21, 2010 @ 6:55 am | Reply
  32. VPS:

    Does RackVM allow IRC?

    August 21, 2010 @ 8:47 am | Reply
  33. mina:

    They do not, atleast not on UK servers. Hopefully they’ll change this policy in future. IRC really isn’t that “bad” :)

    August 21, 2010 @ 8:07 pm | Reply
  34. scyllar:

    I’d srtongly suggest SSL for its control panel.

    August 22, 2010 @ 11:47 am | Reply
  35. I have removed the comments between Ben @ RackVM and Daniel. Please move the communication between yourselves.

    August 23, 2010 @ 11:40 am | Reply
  36. melf:

    I’ve wget from pingvps and the result’s below:

    sudo wget http://178.32.50.26/100mb.test
    --2010-08-25 23:34:40--  http://178.32.50.26/100mb.test
    Connecting to 178.32.50.26:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-tar]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 11.2M/s   in 9.2s
    
    2010-08-25 23:34:49 (10.8 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]
    

    Please anybody, Is’t good result? and what’s the proper method for testing?

    August 25, 2010 @ 11:41 am | Reply
  37. It’s over now

    August 25, 2010 @ 12:11 pm | Reply
  38. Goran:

    I am testing RackVM for 30 days, ad I must say that they are slow on suport tickets, above 24 hours to reply, also i had many problems with them like, not working console access, my vps was offline last 3 days, all in all I do not recommend them, slow support and buggy servers.

    “Hello

    Apologies for the delay all nodes are up and working fully with uptimes of over 30 days.

    Please let us know if you are still having issues with your server as from what I can see all servers are working.

    I would recommend a rebuild should you server be offline and that there is an issue with your vps.

    We provide an unmanaged service which solely includes Level 1 support.

    Unmanged services cover network and power.

    We full appreciate that some ”


    Hi

    Sorry for the delay please could you try now for me as I have fixedthe console.”

    August 29, 2010 @ 8:21 pm | Reply
  39. Goran:

    As expected, today they forbid access to my PAYED vps! You can see what kind of people I was dealing with. Dont take chances with them if you have real hosting business.

    August 30, 2010 @ 6:41 pm | Reply
  40. The duke:

    Same for me….my VPS does not work anymore!

    August 30, 2010 @ 9:18 pm | Reply
  41. @Goran, @Theduke
    I’m having the same problem. VPS is down and not rebootable from SolusVM. I’ve contacted their support but no responds from them.

    August 30, 2010 @ 11:34 pm | Reply
  42. Goran:

    2 more proofs for my experience with them. My advice to the administrator of Lowendbox, please remove rackVM from the list, they don`t deserve to be mentioned here.

    August 30, 2010 @ 11:48 pm | Reply
  43. The duke:

    No responses via ticket.
    No response via mail.
    VPS still down…

    August 31, 2010 @ 5:26 am | Reply
  44. dean:

    fail.

    August 31, 2010 @ 7:00 am | Reply
  45. razor:

    I have the same problems. Since yesterday, my VPS’s is down and RackVM no response to ticket. This is a very incompetent.

    August 31, 2010 @ 8:14 am | Reply
  46. RS:

    I’ve had no response either after all the problems I had last week it’s been down since friday and it can’t be booted in the management console

    August 31, 2010 @ 8:40 am | Reply
  47. The duke:

    It’s really frustating…NO RESPONSE and VPS DOWN!!!
    If I were the owner of this site I will not host any kind of rackvm offer!

    August 31, 2010 @ 12:24 pm | Reply
  48. Hey I am the owner of this site, and I do post most offers when I come across them. At this end of market (price wise) there is always a risk — you do get what you paid for, which is just common sense.

    Ben has been active here previously, and with a node offline it does seem a bit strange. I am not writing them off yet as I still have a VPS with them and it is still online. We’ll see in the next couple of days.

    August 31, 2010 @ 1:02 pm | Reply
  49. My VPS is also online since 22 days now

    August 31, 2010 @ 3:47 pm | Reply
  50. Dirk:

    I have 3 VPSes with them. 2 in the UK, with an uptime of 23 and 25 days (which are the same number of days that I have the VPS :-)) The one in France was up until yesterday. Today it’s down.
    A couple of weeks ago Ben was always quick in answering tickets. Last week I opened a ticket (to get extra info) that took several days to get a response. The 2 tickets I opened today (opened about 8 hours ago) are “silent”, although one is tagged as being urgents as its about a down vps.

    August 31, 2010 @ 3:57 pm | Reply
  51. RS:

    My VPS is now up with an uptime of something like 8 hours. So it was down and I know it has been down since last friday. I’ve had this VPS for 3 months and until the past week it’s been fine (minutes of downtime at most and rectified very quickly).

    However no response on my high priority ticket (VPS Downtime) even now and that was also posted on friday.

    August 31, 2010 @ 4:21 pm | Reply
  52. NoName:

    I have 2 VPS UK.

    20:25:57 up 28 days, 18:35, 5 users, load average: 0.00, 0.05, 0.03

    My openvz one has been online since it was provisioned with no network downtime, however my xen one seems to keep having issues, atm the control panel for xen and openvz is down along with my xen vps, I’ll keep you posted.

    August 31, 2010 @ 4:27 pm | Reply
  53. NoName:

    Out of interest, can people post the nodes they’ve had problems with.

    August 31, 2010 @ 4:57 pm | Reply
  54. Goran:

    I think Ben is arrogant, an he don’t stand criticism of his cuspomers. I didnt get what I was paying for, he banned me because of my criticism, 3 days before my contract with him was expired. I intentionally do that just to see if he was professional, I will open thread about this also in the webhostingtalk.com

    Don`t use rackVM.com, you will only be sorry after.

    August 31, 2010 @ 6:42 pm | Reply
  55. Gary:

    I think it’s about time for Ben to address some of these issues. The accusation that he closed a paying customer’s account before the due date without refund, because the customer criticised the company, is a serious one.

    August 31, 2010 @ 7:51 pm | Reply
  56. Hello,

    Idem for me, my VPS in France Datacenter (OVH) is down since 39 hours now …
    No response on any support/sales tickets.

    I think I can understand 1 or 2 hours downtime from time to time because I pay low price, but I dont understand so long downtime.

    Mykeul

    August 31, 2010 @ 8:46 pm | Reply
  57. My advise, never put critical websites in a low end VPS. I just use this VPS for my dev/test purpose only.
    FYI, I’m in OVH node, France.

    August 31, 2010 @ 11:24 pm | Reply
  58. Aubs:

    Would be nice if we had an update. I have a ticket open since mid-day on 30th Aug. Still no response, but more importantly, no update on the ‘Announcements’ page http://secure.rackvm.com/announcements.php or ‘Server Status’ http://secure.rackvm.com/serverstatus.php or even ‘Network Issues’ https://secure.rackvm.com/networkissues.php

    My IP’s are responding to ping requests though (average 56ms), but the management console is no longer working now either http://openvz.rackvmcontrol.com/

    Aubs

    September 1, 2010 @ 12:22 am | Reply
  59. NoName:

    My UK vps is still offline, ticket opened 17:14 yesterday. Now 3:31am in the morning and still no response, the control panels are still not responding. My vps 2 is still online however.

    September 1, 2010 @ 2:31 am | Reply
  60. Dorian:

    My VPS is not responding at the moment, but come on guys lets give them a fair shot at this, if they have some major issues then it might take time to fix them.
    If its not a huge company then fixing issues may take longer I checked mine yesterday (31-AUG-10) and it was not allowing me in via the control panel, so I will wait till Friday, I have raised a ticket and hopefully it will get a response.
    I understand the position of not being ale to access the server but there are some things you can have an impact on and some you cant, lets see what happens. I am on node 3 by the way
    Dorian

    September 1, 2010 @ 7:11 am | Reply
  61. @Dorian

    Yes but customers should be informed whats heppening instead of ignored. Do you not agree?

    September 1, 2010 @ 7:18 am | Reply
  62. Dorian:

    @Daniel, yes I fully agree with that,but as its probably a small company, the guy who owns it might not even be aware of issues especially if he has employed someone else to deal with the support side of things.
    The guy who owns it could be on holiday or something might have happened to him, the point I was trying to make is that with big companies who have lots of staff, things can get sorted out faster, for smaller companies with few or no staff things can take longer.
    If it was a big company and I had paid a premium price I would be angry.
    Dorian

    September 1, 2010 @ 7:28 am | Reply
  63. Ryan:

    I’ve been using one of the more expensive Xen packages with RackVM for about 2 months now. It started out ok but recently my server has been going down for 24+ hours straight and on more than one occasion. This is absolutely not acceptable, even for a low end host. I advise anyone to avoid this company.

    September 1, 2010 @ 7:51 am | Reply
  64. RS:

    It being a small company doesn’t mean they can’t communicate with their customers especially when they have the facility to do so in a generic way on their website.

    September 1, 2010 @ 7:56 am | Reply
  65. Dorian:

    @ RS Of course, you are correct in that statement, but if its a 1 man operation with maybe 1 member of staff anything could happen beyond their control.
    I am going to give it till the end of the week then start chasing.
    Dorian

    September 1, 2010 @ 8:02 am | Reply
  66. Dirk:

    1 man operation or not, there is something that isn’t very clear in all of this.
    No reply to tickets about those VPS issues.
    Fake phonenumber in the whois of the RackVM.COM domain.
    Several people on WHT mention strange issues with their VPS, like suddenly pointing to other providers, or other software being installed

    September 1, 2010 @ 8:06 am | Reply
  67. Dorian:

    @Dirk If thats the case then that opens up other issues

    September 1, 2010 @ 8:19 am | Reply
  68. @Goran I am not sure what your story is but most providers will ask you to stop abusing first and then ultimately banning you from their support system for x days etc. I was once angry with Godaddy’s support and they did the same thing to me.

    I am on their XEN PV package, its a special 6 pounds/6mo package and it has been running smoothly. My NAGIOS didn’t complained even for a nano second ever since I bought this XEN PV. Uptime 17 days. I cant remember correctly but I think I was on UK01 or UK02 node, cant access SolusVM hence cannot confirm at this stage

    September 1, 2010 @ 8:33 am | Reply
  69. NoName:

    I have to say it’s unsual that a response hasn’t been made in over 21 hours of my VPS going offline, it’s really out of character since Ben usually answers my tickets same day. My OpenVZ VPS is still going strong but I can’t say what node it is because of the obvious control panel downtime, lets hope they sort this soon.

    September 1, 2010 @ 2:26 pm | Reply
  70. Phil:

    Hi,

    I have 3 VPS with RackVM, two in France (which have been down now for over 48 hours) and one in the UK which is still up, so it looks like a problem with their French data centre (which they don’t own, so might not have any control over). However, I raised an urgent support ticket 2 days ago about this problem and have heard nothing at all.

    A further development today is that I can no longer access the RackVM control panels for my servers, as website seem to be down. Fortunately, one of the servers that is down is on a monthly contract, but the other one is my main VPS and is only 1 month into a yearly contract.

    Hopefully, the guys and RackVM will get this sorted soon, or at least give us some idea about what the problem is.

    September 1, 2010 @ 2:36 pm | Reply
  71. Jon Nolan:

    I suggest you all switch host. This idiot is either going to continue having 24 hour blackouts or just decide to throw in the towel one day, wipe his servers and not bother to tell anyone. This is the worst hosting experience I’ve had in a long time – probably ever.

    September 1, 2010 @ 2:56 pm | Reply
  72. Me too:

    My UK based VPS has also been down for nearly 2 days now so it’s not just the French servers.

    September 1, 2010 @ 3:06 pm | Reply
  73. Maybe someone needs to contact the upstream? My UK VPS has VooServers as the owner of the IP address. Maybe upstream provider can give us some status on those servers.

    September 1, 2010 @ 3:14 pm | Reply
  74. Tom,:

    Seems like there are people on WHT having problems with their dedicated servers as well.

    And no response from them yet.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=6988106#post6988106

    September 1, 2010 @ 3:16 pm | Reply
  75. Tom:

    2 cents – unpaid servers are shutting down, if you still have access to your server like uk8 BACK UP IMMEDIATELY!

    September 1, 2010 @ 3:44 pm | Reply
  76. NoName:

    @tom Are you saying that they haven’t paid for the servers and they are being shutdown in the datacenter? Please explain what you’re on about.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:04 pm | Reply
  77. Tom:

    My 2 cents guess, as you can see servers are going down every few days and all that gone down never went back up.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:15 pm | Reply
  78. NoName:

    My IP appears to belong to entanet who offer collocation and by what Ben has told me before all their severs are collocated, I’ll try to contact them.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:15 pm | Reply
  79. Husky:

    Same problem here. Got the UK offer a week ago and the VPS has been down for the last three days, and no response to tickets whatsoever. For 20 quid a year i’m not expecting 99.9% uptime, but this is pretty much unacceptable.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:20 pm | Reply
  80. NoName:

    @LowEndAdmin is your VooServers vps still online? My vps that is in that datacenter is still working but the one in Entanet is not and I presume that’s there other location.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:29 pm | Reply
  81. NoName:

    Ok, confirmation from VooServers, they have not suspended any Servers there so I believe if your IP belongs to them you shouldn’t be experiencing any issues with your VPS. However Entanet (haven’t got hold of them yet) must have either an issue with their datacenter or the agreement between them and RackVM.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:37 pm | Reply
  82. @NoName

    I doubt all of there servers are colo. I am 99% sure the france vps is on a kimsufi server.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:38 pm | Reply
  83. NoName:

    @Daniel

    Ok, but I think the UK servers are collo but obviously we can’t believe everything we’re told.

    September 1, 2010 @ 4:41 pm | Reply
  84. Ryan:

    From what I’ve gathered so far, assuming it’s correct, RackVM would appear to be running on this service: http://www.vooservers.com/kent-colocation/. What people are paying would barely cover the cost of bandwidth so NoName may well be correct about the servers dropping one by one. I wonder how much Ben has cashed in for on this little stunt.

    September 1, 2010 @ 5:59 pm | Reply
  85. Anon:

    Hosting really should become a regulated activity. There are way too many a-holes like Ben, not too mention cheating Indians and 12 year old resellers. The really annoying thing is that even when his current business dies from the reputation it’s getting here – he can still very easily set up a new one and do it all over again.

    September 1, 2010 @ 9:17 pm | Reply
  86. Anon:

    Lol I’ve just noticed the RackVM website says “Dedicated 24/7 Support Staff”. What a huge joke that is. How does a one man band stay awake 24/7?

    September 1, 2010 @ 10:28 pm | Reply
  87. @NoName — Yes mine is with VooServers and currently 31 days of uptime.

    September 2, 2010 @ 12:11 am | Reply
  88. Looking at my IP address tracking of RackVM.com

    – 3 May 2010 — Giga-Hosting in Germany
    – 11 May 2010 — VooServers in UK
    – 12 May 2010 — Giga-Hosting in Germany
    – 24 May 2010 — Star-Hosting e.K. in Germany
    – 25 May 2010 — Giga-Hosting in Germany
    – 18 June 2010 — Entanet in UK
    – 22 July 2010 — VooServers in UK

    Is it common for web hosting companies to move its web sites around?

    September 2, 2010 @ 12:25 am | Reply
  89. Gary:

    Odd to move from Giga to Voo to Giga to another company to Giga to another company then back to Voo.

    Are you seeing the results of some weird load balancing or something? Are all the Giga IPs the same? Likewise with the Voo ones?

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:07 am | Reply
  90. @Gary — all the Giga-Hosting’s IPs are the same. It has already been repurposed for a web hosting company in Brazil. The current IP @ Voo is different from the one from May though.

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:32 am | Reply
  91. @LEA – Brutal :(

    There has been a lot of concerned users on WHT wondering what’s going on, as well as a few people asking me to bring BuyVM to Europe =P

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:37 am | Reply
  92. Thats 2 companies failed this month, First diverse web and now rackvm. i might send Ben a email to see if hes interested in selling :)

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:41 am | Reply
  93. Is there any confirmation that more gear is going offline? last I read was only UK2 & “UK3” were offline.

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:03 am | Reply
  94. @Daniel — both at Entanet. I guess we have to wait for them to confirm whether they have indeed turned off Ben’s servers.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:45 am | Reply
  95. NoName:

    I have to go work today, so haven’t got time to contact Entanet so if someone else could try getting hold of them by phone, they won’t be able to give much information away because of data protection but they might be able to tell you if they have suspended any servers or not. And @LowEndAdmin then I guess my theory of the VPS’s hosted on the Entanet side being down would be correct, thats the 188.39.*.* branch. And with their Control panels both being located there it seems there is an issue there. Also the price of the collo at VooServers is indeed a lot more than is covered by the price quoted here, unless of course he was putting 80+ people on one box.

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:17 am | Reply
  96. DrFalken:

    Mmmm… :(
    RackVM admin could have moved the control panels to another host: if He didn’t do anything until now I suppose it’s not a temporary problem.
    He could have also informed his customers through his Twitter account and in the Announces section of his website, but now seems really disappeared…

    September 2, 2010 @ 7:34 am | Reply
  97. Dirk:

    If what is said on http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=973507&page=2 by olie122333 then they are answering support tickets. Maybe just those that are not about problems :-(

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:17 am | Reply
  98. Anon:

    This guy is a full blown prick. He’s just a cheat and a fraud.

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:20 am | Reply
  99. If the master is down, they won’t be able to easily remake it unless they pulled backups. I dunno, it sounds like bad news all around.

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:33 am | Reply
  100. RS:

    I’m on UK02 and it’s been up since late on Tuesday. Though it’s not in the 188. range (although it used to be) I’ve had my VPS moved 4 times.

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:33 am | Reply
  101. @RS – “moved”? Like IP swaped or just migrated to different nodes?

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:41 am | Reply
  102. RS:

    My IP has changed four times in the the 2 – 3 months I’ve had the VPS. At first it was because they said they were changing from Xen to OpenVZ, then it was because I an eth failed so moved me to another node, then that node appeared to fail (they didn’t actually say it had) and I was moved from UK04 to UK02

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:07 am | Reply
  103. RS:

    Each time I was moved my IP address was changed. The previous IP to the one I have now was a 188. one

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:08 am | Reply
  104. It sounds like you got moved around DC’s as well, what a mess :(

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:09 am | Reply
  105. Jeremy:

    I’m in the 188 range too. Raised a support ticket yesterday but no answer as of yet.

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:14 am | Reply
  106. Aubs:

    My domain points to one of my RackVM IP’s which is in France just gave me this response, after I left it trying to load. It’s taken a long time, but is this a good sign? It knows at least I was using Ubuntu …

    Bad Request

    Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
    Apache/2.2.14 (Ubuntu) Server at myDomain.co.uk Port 80

    September 2, 2010 @ 10:57 am | Reply
  107. I do have the some problem with my VPS.
    My server stopped working Monday evening (same IP class, 188.x.x.x).

    Now I don’t think this is temporary.

    I have raised a ticket for a refund :(

    Regards,
    /Sorin

    September 2, 2010 @ 10:57 am | Reply
  108. Aubs:

    My IP is in the 178.33.*.* range. Still shows as

    Hostname: 178.33.*.*
    ISP: Ovh Systems
    Organization: RackVM Providing low cost vps servers.

    using http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/178.33.*.*

    September 2, 2010 @ 10:59 am | Reply
  109. Yet another “me too” comment…

    I have two rackvm VPSes. The one on 188.39.22.* has been down for a day and a half; the second one on 91.216.93.* is running fine (although I’ve now deleted any personal stuff). No answer to support tickets.

    On a more positive note, at least it’s given me motivation to automate my deployment process….

    September 2, 2010 @ 12:19 pm | Reply
  110. Anon:

    A lot of companies are willing to arrange a month (or more) trial service these days due to fierce competition. Has it occurred to anyone that this guy has just been moving his customers around every time his trial expires?

    This little venture of his has probably outgrown his ability to upkeep it and he’s just decided to cash in and disappear. I guess the only reason why the main domain is still up would be to catch a few extra customers who haven’t bothered to read any reviews.

    September 2, 2010 @ 12:47 pm | Reply
  111. There goes my VPS too (XEN PV) on UK01/02 node (cant remember)

    ***** Nagios *****

    Notification Type: PROBLEM
    Host: UK
    State: DOWN
    Address: 194.0.252.125
    Info: CRITICAL – Host Unreachable (194.0.252.125)

    Date/Time: Thu Sept 2 18:07:06 PKT 2010

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:08 pm | Reply
  112. RS:

    Well mine is down again now too, and so is rackvm.com! Looks like the whole thing has gone bump.

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:13 pm | Reply
  113. Vooservers confirmed that the server, on which my VPS was, is now DOWN

    MattP says:
    Yes, the server is down.

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:20 pm | Reply
  114. LEB dead pool here we come!! lol

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:22 pm | Reply
  115. Bart:

    Mine too (91.216.93.*) went down hours ago.
    How long should I wait before filing a Paypal dispute?

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:24 pm | Reply
  116. kimus:

    2 VPS down here!!! refund? how?

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:31 pm | Reply
  117. @Bart

    Paypal wont help you. They usualy help scammers….

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:38 pm | Reply
  118. I paid them using Google Checkout. How to dispute? Any idea?

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:40 pm | Reply
  119. Aubs:

    I only ever saw payment with Nochex or maybe google. Don’t remember paypal? … I’ve already raised a query with Nochex. Will raise one with my credit card if they don’t play ball.

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:43 pm | Reply
  120. They did accept paypal.

    Recently, RackVM have incurred numerous problems with one of our payment gateways (PayPal).
    While we discuss the above issues with PayPal, We ask existing clients to move to another one of our payment gateways. We have now enabled Google Checkout as a payment method which should enable the vast majority of our clients to make their payments with minimal fuss. Furthermore, clients who pay via MoneyBookers need not worry as we will continue to offer this option.
    We are continuing to work closely with PayPal to resolve our current issues and hope to have this rectified as soon as we can.
    We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:45 pm | Reply
  121. The duke:

    Way to have money back with google checkout?

    September 2, 2010 @ 1:52 pm | Reply
  122. David:

    My 91.212.* RackVM vps on UK00 just went down an hour ago and hasn’t come back up. Well, I paid $8.56 (for a year) and got a bit over a month of service.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:04 pm | Reply
  123. Alberto:

    Also mine (91.216.93.*) VPS is down!

    :( :(

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:08 pm | Reply
  124. Rob:

    I used nochex too, but can’t submit a support ticket – just get a 403 error. I think I’m going to try my bank. They’re usually pretty good with things like this.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:11 pm | Reply
  125. Rob:

    “Vooservers confirmed that the server, on which my VPS was, is now DOWN”

    Did they say why? Lack of payment I assume??

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:12 pm | Reply
  126. Aubs:

    @Rob: Take a look at http://esupport.nochex.com/ – This morning, it has yesterdays date on so my guess is maintenance work over run.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:14 pm | Reply
  127. Rob:

    @Aubs: Thanks for that, I’ll submit a ticket once they’re up and running again.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:15 pm | Reply
  128. DrokDR:

    Now their DNS servers not working too.

    Someone’s going to get a lawsit i guess.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:34 pm | Reply
  129. Dorian:

    @DrokDR Just curious to know what you had with them?

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:51 pm | Reply
  130. Anon:

    Did anyone notice that the invoice came incredibly early this month? It’s almost like he planned this in advance and made every effort to collect up the last bit of cash he could get.

    Ben Harper – you complete and utter c*nt. You will burn in hell for sure.

    September 2, 2010 @ 2:53 pm | Reply
  131. NoName:

    Well I paid mine through paypal opening disputes now, hopefully should get over 20 quid back

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:03 pm | Reply
  132. Rob:

    I guess the address is as fake as the phone number? Well, not completely fake as the address exists, but I don;t see why a 1-2 man VPS hosting company would rent office space somewhere like that. Maybe he has some connection to the address??

    registrant-street1: Venture House, Silver Court
    registrant-street2: Watchmead
    registrant-pcode: AL7 1TS
    registrant-state: HRT
    registrant-city: Welwyn Garden City
    registrant-ccode: GB
    registrant-phone: +44.19929049049
    registrant-email:

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:05 pm | Reply
  133. Steve:

    Yes. My invoice came early too. And I paid for another month of service with them, and only got 1 day out of it…

    Ben sounded like a nice guy. Just shows that “nice guys” can turn out to be complete dicks.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:09 pm | Reply
  134. NoName:

    I kinda feel sorry for all these people, maybe if I can get enough support I could try to get a low end deal up on a cheap dedicated server, and then hopefully provide a service at £2/month, but I need to raise funds first.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:11 pm | Reply
  135. Aubs:

    I’d do it if everyone on the planet gave me £2 each. Then I would set up a million servers and give everyone in here one each.

    I am such a lovely guy, please believe me, all my friends like me. blah blah blah.

    Sorry, no one online can be trusted 100%. Reputation, accountability and longevity are the key. There’s too many scammers going around, sadly.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:16 pm | Reply
  136. NoName:

    Well, guess you have to find out the hard way as so many of us did with Ben, I’ve lost £40 to this jerk.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:21 pm | Reply
  137. Aubs:

    Fortunately I only lost out by £4 and a couple of hours work (no backup). I do feel for all those who have lost more though as I was tempted to go for a £36 package.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:28 pm | Reply
  138. NoName:

    And considering I’m only 16, I don’t have that sort of cash to just spend again, so I now have to go the hard way and tbh the only way for me to cover this cost is to start hosting my own VPS on cheap dedicated servers with like 10 people on a box. But that depends if I can find the funds.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:31 pm | Reply
  139. My OpenVZ VPS on 194.0.252.x went down at 1311hrs UTC today. Thankfully I opted for the monthly payment.

    September 2, 2010 @ 3:53 pm | Reply
  140. thekreek:

    Maybe if enough people make claims at Paypal, we will posibly get a partial refund. As for the service, luckily i got another vps with buyvm, so my site it still up, a shame on RackVM.

    September 2, 2010 @ 4:02 pm | Reply
  141. thekreek:

    Forgot to subscribe.

    September 2, 2010 @ 4:03 pm | Reply
  142. DrokDR:

    @Dorian I paid for 12 months of service not 2. I had important files with them that I lost.

    September 2, 2010 @ 4:19 pm | Reply
  143. Peter:

    Prior to this happening (about 10 days prior) Rack VM sent out an email requesting people did not choose paypal as an option to pay for their VPS. They claimed they were having issues with paypal that they were looking to rectify.

    Late in August the option was removed to be able to use paypal.

    I strongly suspect they had issues with chargebacks or disputed payments and paypal locked their account. This could have also meant that his money was tied into paypal and was unable to make payment for the servers. This is of course guesswork however.

    September 2, 2010 @ 4:53 pm | Reply
  144. Daniel:

    I received 20 invoice reminders within 1 hour , 2 days before it was due, and after I paid them, servers go down.

    Ben Harper appears to be a scammish fag.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:05 pm | Reply
  145. 20 invoices reminders WOW!! Its a real shame this happens it makes other low end providers look bad…

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:14 pm | Reply
  146. @Rob Vooservers said they cannot comment on the client’s account status or the reason behind the server going down since this is condifential. I asked him just tell me is the server on which my VPS was is down? He confirmed

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:19 pm | Reply
  147. DrokDR:

    I talked with my lawyer. If they do not be online in 48 hours we will proceed with a lawsit against them.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:22 pm | Reply
  148. A lawsuit for £20? and you dont even know his address. but good luck :)

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:24 pm | Reply
  149. Gary:

    A lawsuit for $30? Talk to paypal, talk to your credit card company. Make enough fuss and they’ll refund you. Threatening to get lawyers involved seems a bit silly.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:25 pm | Reply
  150. DrokDR:

    A lawsit for my files.
    And actually there were so many people which lost their files.
    I’m sorry for the Ben guy or whatever his name is.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:28 pm | Reply
  151. Dirk:

    If they were still up-and-running you would see from their TOS that they are NOT responsible for backups and as such not responsible for your files at all. If those files are important then you and only you are responsible of having a back-up of them.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:30 pm | Reply
  152. I agree with @Dirk, when playing with small, cheap boxes especially ones from a totally new provider, alwasy take periodic backups. I take rsync backups to two different VPSes every 6 hours to protected my data. Thats the same reason I didn’t bother to backup RackVM data when my VPS was alive since it was all taken care of in the backend.

    Fighting in court over data protection is a weak lawsiut in my opinion.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:34 pm | Reply
  153. Tom:

    Makes me wonder where all the money he’s been making has gone too.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:38 pm | Reply
  154. NoName:

    To build a case against Ben would take time, But remember we don’t even no if his name really is Ben, He cleary moved stuff around to avoid patterns etc… Plus I paid via paypal several times and I just looked back while making disputes and noticed they changed paypal accounts, they have one called RackVM and one called RackVN Billing. I kind wish i picked up on this sooner, I could of warned people.

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:41 pm | Reply
  155. Rob:

    Yes I noticed the rackVN name in Paypal when I opened a dispute for my other VPS. It was still linked to billing@rackvm.com though

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:45 pm | Reply
  156. DrokDR:

    admin-c-firstname: Ben
    admin-c-lastname: Harper
    admin-c-street1: Venture House, Silver Court
    admin-c-street2: Watchmead
    admin-c-pcode: AL7 1TS
    admin-c-state: HRT
    admin-c-city: Welwyn Garden City
    admin-c-ccode: GB
    admin-c-phone: +44.19929049049

    September 2, 2010 @ 5:54 pm | Reply
  157. NoName:

    Ring that number, do you get an answer? Ask for Ben but don’t directly mention the VPS servers, first establish if that’s his real number and his real address, once you know this you can start working on whatever u plan to do

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:04 pm | Reply
  158. Its an invalid number. Just tried it now.

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:07 pm | Reply
  159. NoName:

    I’m not surprised, so it’s likely the address is leading to some random office building somewhere as well. Infact @LowEndAdmin Do you log IPs on this blog, if so you could have a link to finding him (depending whether he was clever enough to use a proxy) I guess contacting the ISP and trying to find out like that would be the only way.

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:17 pm | Reply
  160. @NOName

    I doubt Bens ISP would tell LEA any info, however it is easy to tell if hes using a home or office connection.

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:20 pm | Reply
  161. NoName:

    That’s the problem, with so many data protection laws it’s very hard to track someone like Ben down, btw 91.216.93.247 is still up so There must be atleast one VooServers dedi still online.

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:36 pm | Reply
  162. NoName:

    And now it’s not!

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:41 pm | Reply
  163. NoName:

    Just had a thought, it’s quite likely that Ben had each one of these servers on for a month and then claimed on the 30 day money back guarantee

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:43 pm | Reply
  164. bio4m:

    Theres a lack of transparency and reputation checking for low end vps providers.
    Too many fly by night operators like Ben out to scam people.

    Tempted to start a site to properly review VPS operators so this kind of situation can be avoided.
    In the meantime theres not much to do but hope Paypal sides with the customer for a change…

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:45 pm | Reply
  165. Tom:

    http://www.novaloca.com/property-details/18950?search=true

    That address has to be fake as well. If you alert nominet, they will make sure he puts correct details up there, otherwise they can take the domain down. (or so i’ve heard)

    September 2, 2010 @ 6:57 pm | Reply
  166. Tom:

    Just noticed…

    Reverse Whois: “Ben Harper” owns about 68 other domains
    Email Search: xenuk1@gmail.com is associated with about 21 domains

    I wonder if any of his other domains have valid address details?

    September 2, 2010 @ 7:17 pm | Reply
  167. AlexuSSS:

    RACKVM is very very bad guy. чтоб ему гореть в аду сцукованину.

    September 2, 2010 @ 7:24 pm | Reply
  168. Aubs:
    September 2, 2010 @ 7:27 pm | Reply
  169. NoName:

    @Aubs I guess he did, didn’t see it. mybad =-[

    September 2, 2010 @ 7:31 pm | Reply
  170. Aubs:

    My VPS is back up and running with the same IP as it has always had.
    http://rackvmcontrol.com/ is back up, but none of the other sites is up and can’t get to http://openvz.rackvmcontrol.com/ either.

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:01 pm | Reply
  171. Aubs:

    $ uptime
    21:20:59 up 3 days, 15:21, 2 users, load average: 0.35, 0.28, 0.23

    Anyone know how I can find out which node I’m on?

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:22 pm | Reply
  172. @Aubs – What’s your IP? You can blank out the last digits but the first bit we can at least see what DC you’re at.

    Francisco

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:24 pm | Reply
  173. Aubs:

    @Francisco Dias:

    Is this enough?
    http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/rackvm-20-gbpyear-512mb-openvz-vps/#comment-8763

    My IP is in the 178.33.*.* range. Still shows as

    Hostname: 178.33.*.*
    ISP: Ovh Systems
    Organization: RackVM Providing low cost vps servers.

    using http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/178.33.*.*

    September 2, 2010 @ 8:26 pm | Reply
  174. Phil:

    One of my French servers just came back via SSH and claims to have been up for over 15 days (i.e. since I bought it). The IP is 178.33.8.* Other two are still down (French one 178.33.27.*, UK one 91.216.93.*). Is Ben getting things back on track? rackvm.com and openvz.rackvmcontrol.com are still down.

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:35 pm | Reply
  175. Mine is up now !
    3 mins uptime
    UK03 Node
    OVH FR DTC
    178.33.28.x

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:38 pm | Reply
  176. NoName:

    I guess we’ll have to wait and find out, but in all honestly, I doubt many people will still want to use the service after the events that have unfolded after the last few days. Plus there’s still the unexplained fake details etc… So I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:43 pm | Reply
  177. Yes, clearly, I am tarring my files to copy them to another VPS.
    I bloqued payments on Paypal and filed a dispute about RackVM

    September 2, 2010 @ 9:49 pm | Reply
  178. Peter:

    Phil you seem to be correct. Mine wont allow ssh access, it immediately terminated the connection when you enter the password.

    I can however access sites still pointing to it.

    September 2, 2010 @ 10:14 pm | Reply
  179. Dirk:

    My 178.32.70.xxx VPS (that in France) is again accesible via SSH and shows an uptime of 16 days.
    The 2 VPSes is have with them in the UK (91.216.93.xxx for both) are still not accesible via SSH and don’t respond to pings either)

    September 2, 2010 @ 11:02 pm | Reply
  180. In the recent XVPS thread there appears to be some connectivity issue with OVH in France. So maybe that was the cause? But whatever, if you see your VM coming online, grab your files and run as fast as you can :)

    Although I do have Ben’s IP addresses I do not think I should disclose them here. Yes he has an UK IP address from a local broadband company.

    And sorry guys I think I am partly responsible for this fail. Head stopped working when I see things too good to be true :( I also got a VPS there which I paid 6 pound for, although it has nothing but work files that I used to write the previous tutorial on Git/Trac hosting.

    September 3, 2010 @ 12:24 am | Reply
  181. Gary:

    Not your fault LEA. People should be responsible for their own actions.

    Before spending any money on anything people should really do their own research about the past and future of a provider. If they didn’t bother, they clearly weren’t that bothered about losing the money. Personally I’ve taken advantage of a couple of offers from here that I just can’t imagine are sustainable for he provider. Perhaps they’re loss leaders to build up a customer base and get themselves some reviews, or perhaps there’s a less acceptable reason for these packages being so cheap, but if any of my VPSes go down I won’t be too bothered. They’re cheap and do the trick right now.

    There aren’t many providers I’d be happy to pay a year up front with…

    September 3, 2010 @ 12:33 am | Reply
  182. David:

    I don’t think it’s LEAs fault at all. I only risked $8.56, and I knew there was a possibility it wouldn’t last. I have automated daily backups, so there’s no data loss for me, and I wasn’t using it for anything critical anyway. I realize that’s not the same situation for everyone, though.

    From my support emails with Ben, I don’t get the feeling that this was intentional. I don’t know one way or the other but that’s just my feeling. I hope Ben is ok. If he knew things were ending, it would have been nice to at least get some kind of notice, though. Even 24 or 48 hours would have helped many people, and if I’d known for sure they were closing shop, I would have wiped my data off before it went down, and gotten DNS changed earlier.

    September 3, 2010 @ 1:54 am | Reply
  183. @David

    You hope ben is ok?

    He is a fraud!. chances is his whois address is invalid. Phone number invalid… shall i continue? Any company that hides this information is clearly insane and should not be trading.

    This is what i have to say as a competitor aswell as a rackvm customer.

    September 3, 2010 @ 4:43 am | Reply
  184. David:

    @Daniel, yes I hope Ben is ok. Maybe I’m too trusting, but I’m working under the assumption that he didn’t intend for this to happen, and something unfortunate happened. If it’s largely a one man show and something happens to the one man (accident, in the hospital?), then the show may stop.

    September 3, 2010 @ 5:17 am | Reply
  185. Yes you are correct david, but not in this case as he has actualy been replying to tickets he has also sacked his staff.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6990146&postcount=63

    September 3, 2010 @ 5:51 am | Reply
  186. @LEA It is not a connection problem with OVH, I live in France and I have access to a direct peering with them. The first thing I tested is the connection.
    My VPS (node UK03 I think) does not show 16 days uptime, but 11 hours as of now.

    Mykeul

    September 3, 2010 @ 6:01 am | Reply
  187. Gary:

    Living in France and your ISP peering with them doesn’t matter if it’s an internal OVH routing problem. Not saying this is the case with RackVM, but that’s what XVPS attributed their hour or 2 of connection problems to.

    September 3, 2010 @ 9:17 am | Reply
  188. OVH/Kimsufi is fine. i have a few boxes with them myself.

    September 3, 2010 @ 9:21 am | Reply
  189. Gary:

    Again, internal problems wouldn’t necessarily affect every part of the datacentre. I doubt this is what’s happened to RackVM mind you, the guy just sounds like a scammer.

    September 3, 2010 @ 9:33 am | Reply
  190. Phil:

    Hi Guys,

    I’ve been in touch with Nochex and they’re going to try to get in touch with Ben. If he hasn’t replied by Monday, they’ll take further action (i.e. offer me a refund).

    I’ll let you know how I get on.

    September 3, 2010 @ 10:57 am | Reply
  191. Dirk:

    And who is Nochex? And will they refund other VPS customers of Ben too?

    September 3, 2010 @ 11:03 am | Reply
  192. Gary:

    Nochex is a method of payment like Paypal. I’d imagine that if you paid via Nochex, they’d refund you too. The more people who complain to paypal/nochex/whoever, the more chance there is of all-round refunds.

    September 3, 2010 @ 11:21 am | Reply
  193. Phil:

    @Dirk If you paid by credit card (which was only available to UK customers), the payment was processed / arranged by Nochex – essentially you pay Nochex and they pay RackVM. This means that for UK credit card customers, Nochex is the first port of call (see your credit card statement for their number), followed by your credit card company.

    They were really helpful, so we’ll see how it goes.

    September 3, 2010 @ 11:25 am | Reply
  194. Dirk:

    Not in the UK…but in Belgium.
    Paid parts with PayPal and part via Google Checkout.
    Disputed opened with both, paypal directly closed it as it was not above real goods. However if they receive a lot of complaints we still might get a refund via Paypal.

    September 3, 2010 @ 11:30 am | Reply
  195. NoName:

    @Dirk, I’ve claimed on paypal many times for VPS issues, so I don’t know why some people say that it doesn’t work, I now have 2 cases open since yesterday, still open and waiting for response from Ben, if no response auto refund. Lets see ;)

    September 3, 2010 @ 12:43 pm | Reply
  196. Dirk:

    @NoName: this is what I got back from Paypal, less then 1 hour after opening a claim with them:
    “Our investigation into your claim is complete. As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund. “

    September 3, 2010 @ 2:12 pm | Reply
  197. @Dirk

    Perform a chargeback, it may piss paypal off but you will get your money back.

    September 3, 2010 @ 2:17 pm | Reply
  198. Dirk:

    @Daniel: you mean via the CC company? To be 100% honest I can’t request a full charge-back as I received about 1.5 months of service on the 12 I paid for (that’s why I “only” requested a partial refund too).

    September 3, 2010 @ 2:21 pm | Reply
  199. Well personally i would request the full refund. As he has failed to even provider 3 months. Or find yourself a new Host that you can trust.

    September 3, 2010 @ 3:26 pm | Reply
  200. Dirk:

    @Daniel: don’t want to be to greedy…will already be happy if I get something back.

    September 3, 2010 @ 3:29 pm | Reply
  201. Gary:

    I wouldn’t say it was greedy. Your time’s worth money too, and you’ve already spent more time than I’m sure you’d like to have spent trying to sort out this mess.

    Remember that a lot of hosts refund you for downtime too, at a higher rate than pro rata. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a full refund, given several *days* of unexplained downtime.

    That being said, with your time being worth money, you have to ask if it’s worth putting effort into chasing a refund for a few $…

    September 3, 2010 @ 3:38 pm | Reply
  202. Dirk:

    @Gary: exactly, that why I just filled the claims with PayPal and Google Checkout. With some luck they will get enough requests to see that there realy is a problem and they will do something with it, else well bad luck….

    September 3, 2010 @ 3:43 pm | Reply
  203. Pure scam! Even their website is down now.

    September 3, 2010 @ 5:47 pm | Reply
  204. Hello,

    Am I the only one who have a VPS up and running since yesterday ? (I had 92 hours downtime before)
    I entirely migrated to another VPS hoster, but I wonder what will happen in RackVM …

    September 3, 2010 @ 6:29 pm | Reply
  205. Dirk:

    No you’re not the only one :-)
    My VPS in France is again running (SSH login is very slow but still it works).
    My 2 VPSes in the UK are both still down.

    September 3, 2010 @ 7:01 pm | Reply
  206. Nick:

    how can I ask for the money to paypal?

    September 3, 2010 @ 7:06 pm | Reply
  207. Fuxor:

    My UK server went offline yesterday (2 sept), today it isn’t back yet.

    September 3, 2010 @ 8:33 pm | Reply
  208. My VPS with RackVM has had very poor to no performance for the last week. It worries me that the server running their website is down as well. On top of that, I’ve not received any replies for support tickets. I’m about to cut my losses and find another host.

    September 3, 2010 @ 10:20 pm | Reply
  209. @Jesse

    Join the club :)

    September 3, 2010 @ 10:21 pm | Reply
  210. I just fill in the dispute form at Google Checkout, seem like I need to wait another 5 business days..

    September 3, 2010 @ 10:43 pm | Reply
  211. Dear LEB Readers,
    I thought I would pop on here to try and resolve some of the questions that are being asked as there have been a number of people on our live chat and e-mailing our support desk for details or to recover their data.

    First of all please note that the details we hold for RackVM will never be released to anyone unless it is through a court order due to data protection.

    As far as VPS’s that are down we operate on the following range’s and the VPS’s on these range’s through RackVM will currently be offline as the servers have now been turned off. If your VPS is on another IP range then it was not hosted in our facility and you should speak to the provider who operates your IP range.

    194.0.X.X
    91.212.X.X
    91.216.X.X

    For data recovery we are currently seeking legal advice as although it may be your data our contracts are with RackVM and therefore from our legal standing at the moment the data holder is RackVM. The second issue here is data protection as we do not know who was operating each VPS so providing access to any VPS or it’s data is going to require some form of verification which we will have to work with our lawyers on to determine a suitable form.

    Lastly I would just like to state that we will do everything in our power to help those people who have VPS’s offline and need to recover data etc however due to the legal complications it is not going to be an easy or a quick process.

    If you have any queries please feel free to contact me directly on matt[at]vooservers.com. Please note however that our priority is supporting our own customers who have active contracts but I will ensure that I get back to you within a few hours if you e-mail me.

    Best Regards,
    Matt Parkinson.
    Managing Director.

    September 4, 2010 @ 5:50 am | Reply
  212. Daniel:

    @Sei Kan , how do you file a dispute at Google Checkout?

    September 4, 2010 @ 6:25 am | Reply
  213. @Matt

    What was the point in telling LEB readers what they already know? Can you help or not its simple realy.

    September 4, 2010 @ 7:04 am | Reply
  214. Fuxor:

    Daniel, no need to be rude. They’re trying to help RackVM clients when they don’t have any obligation whatsoever.

    September 4, 2010 @ 7:07 am | Reply
  215. @Fuxor

    I wasnt being Rude. I was simply stating a point. if you have a problem with my comment i suggest you contact LEB admin..

    September 4, 2010 @ 7:08 am | Reply
  216. @Matt

    Could you not switch the servers back on for a short period of time so LEB readers can get backups?

    September 4, 2010 @ 7:15 am | Reply
  217. I was simply posting the official word so people knew exactly what was being said rather than speculation and to prevent people from contacting my support staff who should be dealing with our own customers who are our number one priority.

    The problem we have with turning them back on is that not everyone will know they are being switched on so then we will repeatedly get requests to turn them on. We have tried this approach in the past and it just didn’t work.

    September 4, 2010 @ 7:28 am | Reply
  218. Gary:

    Fair play to you Matt, you’re doing what you can to help out someone else’s customers. There are plenty of DCs who would just reformat the boxes and wash their hands of it. You obviously can’t say, but the chances are that RackVM have screwed you guys over a little as well, so to leave those boxes offline, still not earning their rack space, is good of you.

    September 4, 2010 @ 12:27 pm | Reply
  219. DrFalken:

    I agree with Gary.
    Matt is doing something *very* valuable for *FREE*, keeping busy resources that He could sell to his clients, just to help people (that aren’t his clients!) that have important files in the RackVM space.
    That’s very professional, the opposite of RackVM owner behavior…

    September 4, 2010 @ 12:42 pm | Reply
  220. Tom:

    @Daniel No need to jump on him. He’s trying to help the RackVM customers – something which he’s doing out of goodwill.

    September 4, 2010 @ 5:57 pm | Reply
  221. Peter:

    Just an update. Those mentioning that the French servers were back up. They appear to be down again.

    September 4, 2010 @ 11:23 pm | Reply
  222. Peter:

    okay maybe not, it appears to be unstable. was down for me for a while but back up atm.

    September 4, 2010 @ 11:35 pm | Reply
  223. NoName:

    Anyone doing refunds via paypal, just say you did not receive the item and even if its virtual it should process, aslong as the dispute is within 45 days of purchase (i think thats the time range), you can’t however say the virtual good wasn’t to standard, if you didn’t get a years of service you didn’t get the item! simple as that, so you select that and gl to you.

    September 5, 2010 @ 8:32 am | Reply
  224. Dirk:

    @NoName: they don’t process it for Virtual goods. Tried it as virtual good and service :-(
    However it’s still a good idea to file the claim. If they see that there are a lot of claims they might still do the refund (even for virtual goods or services)

    September 5, 2010 @ 8:53 am | Reply
  225. NoName:

    2 of mine still open wand waiting for response from ben, I’ve claimed many times for virtual goods, the only one that got closed was the one thats now past 45 days. And btw I’ve never lost a claim that’s within the time range.

    September 5, 2010 @ 9:10 pm | Reply
  226. NoName:

    And just woke up, checked my mail, I won both and paypal refunded me.

    September 6, 2010 @ 6:10 am | Reply
  227. @NoName
    Good to hear that. Hopefully Google will contact me soon as well.

    September 6, 2010 @ 6:40 am | Reply
  228. Rob:

    Yep, I got my £5 back from Paypal too! Now it’s just the £45 I paid through Nochex…..

    September 6, 2010 @ 8:28 am | Reply
  229. Pascal:

    @NoName,

    How exactly did you get PayPal to refund you? My dispute got killed immediately because it were virtual goods.

    September 6, 2010 @ 8:34 am | Reply
  230. Bart:

    Good work PayPal. Got my £23 back :)
    Now going to search for a reliable vps company.

    September 6, 2010 @ 8:56 am | Reply
  231. Dorian:

    I asked Pay Pal for a partial refund pro rata and got a full refund so am very pleased, well done Pay Pal my opinion of Pay Pal is restored
    Dorian

    September 6, 2010 @ 9:29 am | Reply
  232. NoName:

    @Pascal, i opened it as payment not received and as virtual good, and since they were both paid under 45 days a go it stayed open and then I got a refund this morning, I also think paypal are onto this guy now because I was refunded fast when usually you wait so many days for a reply from seller. So I guess his account is now frozen and they’ve refunded everyone.

    September 6, 2010 @ 3:07 pm | Reply
  233. Hi guys, I just get a full refund from Google Checkout.

    September 8, 2010 @ 4:56 am | Reply
  234. Dear LEB Readers,
    Please find below the e-mail which I have sent to users who have e-mailed me directly with the official legal stance that we have been advised to take. I am still trying to arrange release of your data which is explained below:

    I have now been able to clarify everything with our lawyers but unfortunately at this time we are not able to release the data ourselves. We have been told that due to our contract and terms of service the eyes of the law would see the data on the servers as RackVM’s and allowing access to that would be a breach of data protection and confidentiality which could potentially land us in a lot of trouble. I do have plans to raise our own legal case against RackVM before the end of the week so the outcome of that may put me in contact with Ben and therefore I may be able to get written permission to release the data from him.

    As I have said before however this is not going to be a quick or easy process to resolve however I am trying to ensure you can get your data back but we must address the legal aspects from our side first of all.

    If you have any queries please let me know and I will be happy to help.

    Best Regards,
    Matt Parkinson.

    September 8, 2010 @ 4:21 pm | Reply
  235. NoName:

    @Matt Parkinson
    We really appreciated your efforts, we understand it’s not your job to do this and we really really do appreciated it. Thanks

    September 8, 2010 @ 4:25 pm | Reply
  236. Daniel:

    @Matt Parkinson, but didn’t Ben violate your TOS by doing illegal activities.

    September 8, 2010 @ 6:13 pm | Reply
  237. @Daniel, Even if our terms of service have been violated it still does not permit us to release data it purely permits us to terminate the service and pass data over to the correct authorities if it is requested for a case.

    September 8, 2010 @ 6:27 pm | Reply
  238. NoName:

    @Matt Parkinson
    “I do have plans to raise our own legal case against RackVM before the end of the week”, Can I ask what’s your case going to be, just out of interest, I really hope Ben gets what he deserves.

    September 8, 2010 @ 10:15 pm | Reply
  239. @NoName, Unfortunately until our case has been founded and presented I cannot release much but as I have more information become available for release I will be sure to keep you up to date.

    September 9, 2010 @ 10:53 am | Reply
  240. NoName:

    @Matt Parkinson
    Ok I’ll keep checking back :)

    September 9, 2010 @ 11:48 am | Reply
  241. Dear LEB Readers,
    Another update for you today! We have now been able to speak to Ben and we are making arrangments for these servers to be switched back on for a few hours for data to be recovered. Data recovery will be down to the individual clients however, all we are doing is powering the servers back up and we will not be able to reset any passwords or rectify any problems with VPS’s. Once I have arranged for these to be turned back on I will make another post to let you know.

    Best Regards,
    Matt Parkinson.

    September 11, 2010 @ 9:59 am | Reply
  242. Fuxor:

    Thanks Matt, you’re awesome!

    September 11, 2010 @ 10:57 am | Reply
  243. All of the nodes have now been powered up and are online. We will keep these running for at least 4 hours.

    September 11, 2010 @ 11:05 am | Reply
  244. KLIKLI:

    @Matt –
    Thanks for your work :) Probablly you are the most generous host on the world ;)

    – even though I am not one of RackVM’s customer :)

    September 11, 2010 @ 12:07 pm | Reply
  245. @KLIKLI, Thank you for your kind words, it’s what makes the effort worthwhile :).

    September 11, 2010 @ 12:09 pm | Reply
  246. David:

    @Matt, thank you for this. I was able to login to my old vps and wipe my data off it.

    September 11, 2010 @ 1:17 pm | Reply
  247. NoName:

    @Matt
    Thank you for all you’ve done, when you were talking to Ben did you find out what actually happened?

    September 11, 2010 @ 5:08 pm | Reply
  248. @NoName, From what Ben said RackVM wen’t bankrupt and no longer exists.

    September 11, 2010 @ 5:29 pm | Reply
  249. Poor business plans with these people…. Most annoying part is probably not the servers being down its not being updated from the Owner/ Was rackVM actualy a Registered business?

    September 11, 2010 @ 5:34 pm | Reply
  250. @Matt : Thanks for switching up the nodes. Although I am on a OVH one, I think it is necessary to thank these type of way of thinking, very generous.

    Mykeul

    September 11, 2010 @ 5:55 pm | Reply
  251. @Daniel, I am not too sure on whether RackVM was registered or not but it’s not a limited company as it’s not on companies house. As we have the infrastructure to do so we are trying to see if we can put together some VPS solutions ourselves as we have had quite a lot of people expressing interest in us offering them alongside our dedicated servers.

    @Mykeul, Thanks for your kind words especially as you are not on one of these nodes. It does mean a lot to us that people have shown their appreciation.

    September 11, 2010 @ 7:52 pm | Reply
  252. NoName:

    @Matt
    Thanks, if only Ben had told us that himself ;)

    September 11, 2010 @ 10:22 pm | Reply
  253. @Matt Wow, thats extreme customer (and non-customer) support. I would love to be a customer for one of your VPS offerings, if you ever do that. +1 for that

    Totally Brilliant!

    September 11, 2010 @ 10:49 pm | Reply
  254. @Asim, we now have a couple of nodes online. If you want to shoot me an e-mail (matt[at]vooservers.com) I will arrange a trial VPS free to the end of September for you.

    The same offer goes for any other old RackVM customers however there is a limit on the number we can accept. We have been around since March 2005 so we won’t be disappearing a couple of months down the line :).

    September 15, 2010 @ 12:48 pm | Reply
  255. dirk:

    @Matt Parkingson: will you have ipv6 on your VPSes? How will your pricing be?

    September 15, 2010 @ 12:56 pm | Reply
  256. @dirk, at the moment we do not have support for IPV6 as our upstream providers do not yet support it. If you want to shoot me an e-mail I will drop you our price list as we have not posted them on our website yet as we are only making this offer to previous RackVM customers at the moment to try and help them out a little bit.

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:00 pm | Reply
  257. @Matt

    Are you using XEN or Openvz?

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:04 pm | Reply
  258. @Daniel, At the moment we are using Xen PV however we have another couple of nodes being delivered next week to offer Xen HVM and also a Windows Server 2008 node for Hyper-V Windows VPS’s.

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:07 pm | Reply
  259. @Matt thanks, dropped you an email just now

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:11 pm | Reply
  260. Ive dropped a email too :)

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:13 pm | Reply
  261. Thanks. It may take a couple of minutes to come through the greylisting on the spam filter however I will reply as soon as it comes through :).

    September 15, 2010 @ 1:14 pm | Reply
  262. NoName:

    Me too!

    September 15, 2010 @ 3:15 pm | Reply
  263. Hello Mate i just drop an email :)

    September 15, 2010 @ 5:17 pm | Reply
  264. The duke:

    Mee too ;)

    September 16, 2010 @ 6:22 am | Reply
  265. Thanks for the e-mails. Everyone should have had a response within a few minutes of them being sent however if you have not heard back please re-send your e-mail as there have been quite a lot.

    September 16, 2010 @ 6:56 am | Reply
  266. check it out, this could be “Ben” surfaced here!
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=982144

    September 18, 2010 @ 5:36 pm | Reply
  267. their domain is registered July, 2010.

    September 18, 2010 @ 5:37 pm | Reply
  268. KLIKLI:

    Well I don’t think he can really register a limited company, as I believe him to be a college kid.

    September 18, 2010 @ 5:39 pm | Reply
  269. @John

    The address is totaly different at companies house so it probably isnt Ben

    Name & Registered Office:
    AKISOFT LTD
    SUITE 638
    CHYNOWETH HOUSE
    TRURO
    CORNWALL
    UNITED KINGDOM
    TR4 8UN
    Company No. 07361026

    @KLIKLI

    If hes 16 or older he can Register a LTD company.

    September 18, 2010 @ 5:57 pm | Reply
  270. dirk:

    @Daniel: and the address used for the domain is something else then the one used for the LTD:
    Registrant’s address:
    60 Windsor Avenue
    Dalton House
    London
    SW19 2RR
    United Kingdom

    September 18, 2010 @ 6:14 pm | Reply
  271. Gary:

    The domain being registered before the collapse of RVM doesn’t mean it’s not him, but why do you think it IS him? What evidence led you to that suspicion?

    Domain name:
    akisoft.co.uk

    Registrant:
    Akisoft LTD

    Registrant type:
    Other UK Entity (e.g. clubs, associations, many universities)

    Registrant’s address:
    60 Windsor Avenue
    Dalton House
    London
    SW19 2RR
    United Kingdom

    Registrar:
    Webfusion Ltd t/a 123-Reg.co.uk [Tag = 123-REG]
    URL: http://www.123-reg.co.uk

    Relevant dates:
    Registered on: 07-Jul-2010
    Renewal date: 07-Jul-2012
    Last updated: 24-Aug-2010

    Registration status:
    Registered until renewal date.

    Name servers:
    ns3.akisoft.co.uk 66.96.206.154
    ns4.akisoft.co.uk 66.96.206.158

    WHOIS lookup made at 19:12:23 18-Sep-2010

    Dalton house is a virtual office – http://londonoffice.co.uk/

    And the “Other UK Entity” registrant type when it’s clearly a business is against Nominet rules.

    Saying he’ll donate 50% of proceeds to charity seems a bit off too. If I want to donate to charity, I will.

    His registered office is a virtual office too.

    http://www.scanmypost.co.uk/

    September 18, 2010 @ 6:20 pm | Reply
  272. NoName:

    Yes, I would like to see the proof that this is Ben, please. Enlighten me.

    September 18, 2010 @ 7:23 pm | Reply
  273. ya, trust again, and get ripped again.
    Look at the pattern, can you survive with $15/yr offer? Honestly?

    September 18, 2010 @ 10:38 pm | Reply
  274. NoName:

    @john
    But this doesn’t mean it’s Ben ;P

    September 18, 2010 @ 10:57 pm | Reply
  275. Craig:

    I have to say that the writing style of the akisoft.co.uk post on WHT does seem very similar to Ben’s.

    Also, it truly seemed like Ben genuinely gave a shit about his customers until he realised he was going bankrupt. I think desperation led him to try one last (illegal) shot at making some cash – which was a yearly payment offer, which he never intended to deliver on.

    My theory: it worked very well (I for one never got a refund) and now he’s back for more of the same. Even if I’m wrong I’m 99% sure that whoever is running that operation is out to scam people – quite simply because you cannot provide the service he’s offering for $15/year unless you’re aiming to make a huge loss.

    September 28, 2010 @ 5:06 pm | Reply

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