Not long ago we drew your attention to GreenCloudVPS’s awesome 9th birthday sale, which tragically ended on October 17th.  I say tragically because deals were great!

You probably think that once you miss out, you’ve missed out forever, but that’s not true: you can always shop on the secondary market.

Wait…secondary market?  For a virtual server?

Sure!  On LowEndTalk we regularly see threads like these:

• “Hey I missed (some fantastic offer).  Anyone get one and no longer want it?”
• “I bought (some fantastic offer) two months ago and don’t need it now.  Anyone want it?”

Many time the best deals are annual offers and sometimes people’s needs or plans change.  If you shelled out $50 for 12 months and it’s idling money now, getting back some percentage of that is pretty attractive.

Indeed there are people posting about GreenCloudVPS offers already!

But There Are Rules

First, providers always have the right to refuse a transfer.  Maybe it seems like they “always should” approve it but look at it from the provider’s perspective.  When the original provider signed up, they went through fraud checks and verification.  If any subscriber could immediately sell his account to a random Internet user, the potential for abuse is obvious.  Landlords insist on meeting new tenants if you sublet, and it’s the same thing here.

Also, providers have the right to insist you use their process.  Occasionally people want to “sell accounts,” where a subscriber just gives his login credentials to someone who buys the account.  This is again the “unknown subscriber” problem for providers.  If this new subscriber starts spamming or causes problems, the provider never had a chance to say “we don’t want that user on our network”.

In our community, it’s rare that a provider blocks transfers or refuses to allow them, but it’s always worth checking with the provider before you complete a transaction.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.