----- Original Message -----
From: James Cordray
To: Jenna Glatzer
Cc: 'Stephanie Cordray'
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 6:44 PM
Subject: RE: What?
Hello Ms. Glatzer,
I am contacting you in regards to several violations of our T.O.S. (Terms of Service) Policy and also A.U.P. (Acceptable Use Policy) which was agreed on when this service was set in place..
I will start with the obvious one which is lack of payment. Your site was due 05/16/2006 it is now seven days late, as stated in the T.O.S. Policy
3.Payment: Establishment of this service is dependent upon receipt by the Company of payment of stated charges. Subsequent payments are due on the anniversary date of the month for that month's service. If you are a resident of Tennessee, your purchase of dedicated hosting services are subject to the Tennessee sales tax rate of 8.25%. All setup fees are subject to an 8.25% tax. If you are located outside of Tennessee and have no nexus in Tennessee, your purchase of dedicated hosting services are not subject to Tennessee sales tax.
Description of items to be purchased:
Payments and Fees: Checks and ACH Drafts returned for any reason are subject to a $29.00 returned item charge. Credit cards that are declined for any reason are subject to a $1.00 declination fee. Service will be interrupted on accounts that reach 7 days past due. Service interrupted for nonpayment is subject to a $25 reconnect charge. Accounts not paid by due date are subject to a $7.95 late fee. Accounts that are not collectable by JC-Hosting may be turned over to an outside collection agency for collection. If your account is turned over for collection, you agree to pay the company a Processing and Collection Fee of not less than $50 nor more than $150. If you desire to cancel your account, please follow the proper procedure to do this as outlined in this TOS. ACH Drafts only available to U.S. Customers.
And
5.Failure to Pay: The Company may temporarily deny service or terminate this Agreement upon the failure of Subscriber to pay charges when due. Such termination or denial will not relieve Subscriber of responsibility for the payment of all accrued charges, plus reasonable interest and any collection fees.
Ok so far you have violated two T.O.U. rules, now lets continue to read on;
12.Network
.Bandwidth and Disk Usage: Customer agrees that bandwidth and disk usage shall not exceed the number of megabytes per month for the Services ordered by Customer on the Order Form (the "Agreed Usage"). JC-Hosting will monitor Customer's bandwidth and disk usage. JC-Hosting shall have the right to take corrective action if Customer's bandwidth or disk usage exceeds the Agreed Usage. Such corrective action may include the assessment of additional charges, disconnection or discontinuance of any and all Services, or termination of this Agreement, which actions may be taken is in JC-Hosting's sole and absolute discretion. If JC-Hosting takes any corrective action under this section, Customer shall not be entitled to a refund of any fees paid in advance prior to such action. Bandwidth usage is measured on a calendar month basis. Both incoming and outgoing traffic are counted. In the event that a customer exceeds the included allocation, JC-Hosting may, at its sole discretion, collect a deposit, in the amount of $3 per GB, against customer's account with JC-Hosting. Data transfer in excess of each server's monthly allowance is automatically billed on or around the 5th of each month, for the previous calendar month. Unused bandwidth allocations cannot be carried over to future months, or applied to other servers.
Now as you can see with your site using double its bandwidth usage allowed each month over a period of 6 months we have been more than lenient and on top of that have given you a discounted rate of $1 per gigabyte. We did this only trying to be supportive of your site and users needs.
Now that we are passed the obvious lets move on to the AUP violations.
JC-Hosting's Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") is provided to give our customers and users a clear understanding of what JC-Hosting expects of them while using the service. All users of JC-Hosting's Internet services: those who access some of our Services but do not have accounts, as well as those who pay a service fee to subscribe to the Services, must comply with this AUP and our TOS (Terms of Service).
Use of JC-Hosting Service constitutes acceptance and agreement to JC-Hosting's AUP as well as JC-Hosting's TOS (Terms of Service)
We support the uncensored flow of information and ideas over the Internet and do not actively monitor subscriber activity under normal circumstances. Similarly, we do not exercise editorial control over the content of any web site, e-mail transmission, newsgroups, or other material created or accessible over or through the services, except for certain proprietary Web sites. However, in accordance with our TOS (Terms of Service), we may remove any materials that, in our sole discretion, may be illegal, may subject us to liability, or which may violate this AUP. JC-Hosting may cooperate with legal authorities and/or third parties in the investigation of any suspected or alleged crime or civil wrong doing. Your violation of this AUP may result in the suspension or immediate termination of either your JC-Hosting account or other actions as detailed in Section 3 WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE.
4. Harassment: Use of the JC-Hosting service to transmit any material (by e-mail, uploading, posting or otherwise) that harasses another.
19. Third Party Accountability: JC-Hosting subscribers will be held responsible and accountable for any activity by third parties, using their account that violates guidelines created within the Acceptable Use Policy.
You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs which negatively impact other customers or the performances of JC-Hosting systems or networks. JC-Hosting reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities. (This was a problem for months while we tried to get you or your partner to upgrade your old forum software)
JC-Hosting intends to provide its customers access to everything the Internet has to offer. While the JC-Hosting is firmly committed to the principles of free speech, certain activities that may be damaging to the resources of both the JC-Hosting and the Internet and cannot be permitted under the guise of free speech. The resources of the JC-Hosting and the Internet are limited, and abuse of these resources by one user has a negative impact on the entire community.
We do not routinely monitor the activity of accounts except for measurements of system utilization and the preparation of billing records. However, in our efforts to promote good citizenship within the Internet community, we will respond appropriately if we become aware of inappropriate use of our service.
You may not use your dedicated server or virtual site to publish material, which JC-Hosting.Net determines, at its sole discretion, to be unlawful, indecent or objectionable. For purposes of this policy, "material" refers to all forms of communications including narrative descriptions, graphics (including photographs, illustrations, images, drawings, logos), executable programs, video recordings, and audio recordings.
If a JC-Hosting account is used to violate the Acceptable Use Policy or our TOS, we reserve the right to terminate your service without notice. We prefer to advise customers of inappropriate behavior and any necessary corrective action, however, flagrant violations of the Acceptable Use Policy will result in immediate termination of service. Our failure to enforce this policy, for whatever reason, shall not be construed as a waiver of our right to do so at any time.
Ok now, as you can see there are many violations listed that have been abused or broken by you and/or your users we have asked you in good faith to remove an email address that may or may not cause us un-do legal cost, which, by the way, is also covered in the T.O.S.;
16.Indemnification: JC-Hosting wishes to emphasize that in agreeing to the JC-Hosting Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS), customer indemnifies JC-Hosting for any violation of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS) that results in loss to JC-Hosting or the bringing of any claim against JC-Hosting by any third-party. This means that if JC-Hosting is sued because of a customer's or a customer of a customer's activity, the customer will pay any damages awarded against JC-Hosting, plus all costs and attorney's fees.
Now as for breaking the terms we have guidelines which we take:
13.Notification of Violation:
a.JC-Hosting is under no duty to look at each customer's or user's activities to determine if a violation of the AUP has occurred, nor do we assume any responsibility through our AUP to monitor or police Internet-related activities.
b.First violation: Any User, which JC-Hosting determines to have violated any element of this Acceptable Use Policy, shall receive an email, warning them of the violation. The service may be subject at JC-Hosting's discretion to a temporary suspension pending a User's agreement in writing, to refrain from any further violations.
We did this when we asked for the email address to be removed.
c.Second Violation: Users that JC-Hosting determines to have committed a second violation of any element of this Acceptable Use Policy shall be subject to immediate suspension or termination of service without further notice.
A second violation was committed when the email address was reposted and the post turned into a harass Barbara Bauer posting which can be found here.
Email Address: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=625016&postcount=58
Start of the personal harassment: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=625005&postcount=57
Now I do not know who “C. E. Petit” is but with just glancing over the bolded parts of the T.O.S and A.U.P I can see many violations which allows us to terminate this agreement for service, which is what we have decided to do seeing how you insist to go on with the violations.
You have till 8pm CST today (05/23/06) to remove the post http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28961 entirely (we tried to compromise here but your users took it one step further) or we will suspend the site for harassment to an individual’s character (which has now threaten us with legal actions), till such agreement is made that you will comply with our A.U.P. and T.O.S...
You have till the closing of business day tomorrow (05/24/06 4:30 pm CST) to either make a monthly payment of $25 which will give you 24 days to move the site (you are already 7 days past due for the month) or we will suspend it for lack of payment. We will not renew your service for any other time frame other then this 24 day period. This is with in our rights under this agreement which was accepted when the service was set up 6 months ago.
As for your request;
“I need to create a backup of the site to do that, though, so I need about double the disk space temporarily. Please let me know when that's done, and what I owe for it. I should only need the extra space for a day or two.”
This is not needed to remove your site from our server so the request is denied.
If you have any questions or comments please direct them to me at the address below. This matter has now gone beyond customer service or billing and is now a network issue which is my responsibility with JC-Hosting.
JamesC
Senior Internet Technology Adviser
Email: xxxxxx@totalweb-inc.com
ICQ# 49107171
Total Web-Inc Helping You Bring Your Business to the World
*************
-----Original Message-----
From: Jenna Glatzer [mailto:xx@jennaglatzer.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 7:33 PM
To: James Cordray
Subject: Re: What?
James,
If you attempt to shut this site down tonight, I will consider you in breach of contract and will take appropriate legal actions.
You need to talk to an attorney. You are attempting to make me liable for something I am NOT liable for according to federal law.
And you know perfectly well that I didn't get a bill until *yesterday,* even though I wrote to say that I was now the billing contact, and that I didn't even know what the bill was for.
I need the ability to make a back-up and I need a minimum of 48 hours to transfer the site. I will pay your fee, which was not explained to me until TONIGHT.
Jenna Glatzer
Editor-in-chief, http://www.absolutewrite.com
Author of The Street-Smart Writer and many other books
See Jenna's books at http://www.jennaglatzer.com/
***********************
-----Original Message-----
From: Jenna Glatzer [mailto:xx@jennaglatzer.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 8:14 PM
To: James Cordray
Subject: Re: What?
James, I'm not interested in speaking about this any further. Expecting you to abide by federal law is not bullying. You, on the other hand, ARE bullying me into an action I cannot take. All I'm trying to do is to have a reasonable amount of time to get out of your hair and a way to back up my site.
What is your Paypal address, considering you've billed me for 6 months and I can't change it on the form?
Note: The site owner could have, at any time in those 6 months, logged into billing and changed anything she wished on her account including how she paid for hosting and what plan she wanted. We don't even have up to date contact information for this site. It still lists the former partner's mailing address and phone numbers. The only thing we have for contact is an email address. In addition, she could have asked for a new invoice to be generated that would reflect current charges. She didn't. However, at this point, it wouldn't have gone through paypal, anyway, for the simple reason of being too easy to make a chargeback which would have cost us money. And her snarky reply came just a little too late. She'd already threaten us with legal action.
Jenna Glatzer
Editor-in-chief, http://www.absolutewrite.com
Author of The Street-Smart Writer and many other books
See Jenna's books at http://www.jennaglatzer.com/
*****************
From: James Cordray [xxxxxx@totalweb-inc.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 8:26 PM
To: 'Jenna Glatzer'
Subject: RE: What?
Jenna,
Your site is now suspended, if you can show proof of a federal law we are breaking we will be happy to send this on to our lawyer. Until this matter is settled we will accept no further payments by you as this agreement is now terminated.
JamesC
Senior Internet Technology Adviser
Email: xxxxxx@totalweb-inc.com
Total Web-Inc Helping You Bring Your Business to the World
***************************
----- Original Message -----
From: James Cordray
To: 'Jenna Glatzer'
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: RE: What?
Jenna,
You may take whatever actions you deem necessary; you have violated more then one terms under our agreement which allows us to terminate the service. The threat of legal action just justifies our reasons for terminating the service. You have refused to abide by the agreement set forth before the service was activated.
If it is needed we will contact the person who originally started the account and let them handle the matter, there has been no agreement set forth by us to even allow the service be transferred which is also one of our terms.
So before you try to threaten me or our company I would take a long hard look at the T.O.S and A.U.P. I am truly sorry but I do not take to well being bullied or threatened by any person who feels they are above the rules. If you would like to settle this matter with out threats then please do feel free to contact me.
14.Suspension of Service or Cancellation: JC-Hosting reserves the right to suspend network access to any customer if in the judgment of the JC-Hosting network administrators the customer's server is the source or target of the violation of any of the other terms of the AUP or for any other reason which JC-Hosting chooses. If inappropriate activity is detected, all accounts of the Customer in question will be deactivated until an investigation is complete. Prior notification to the Customer is not assured. In extreme cases, law enforcement will be contacted regarding the activity. The customer will not be credited for the time the customer's machines were suspended.
15.JC-Hosting reserves the right to amend its policies at any time. All Sub-Networks, resellers and managed servers of JC-Hosting must adhere to the above policies. Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate Cancellation. You will be held responsible for the actions of your clients in the matter described on these Terms and conditions. Therefore, it is in your best interest to implement a similar or stricter Terms and conditions or otherwise called Acceptable Terms of use policy.
16.Indemnification: JC-Hosting wishes to emphasize that in agreeing to the JC-Hosting Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS), customer indemnifies JC-Hosting for any violation of the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Terms of Service (TOS) that results in loss to JC-Hosting or the bringing of any claim against JC-Hosting by any third-party. This means that if JC-Hosting is sued because of a customer's or a customer of a customer's activity, the customer will pay any damages awarded against JC-Hosting, plus all costs and attorney's fees.
17.Miscellaneous Provisions: You must provide us with, and keep current, good contact information for you. E-mail, fax, and telephone contacts are used, in that order of preference.
a.A waiver by the Company of any breach of any provision of this Agreement by Subscriber shall not operate as or be construed as a continuing or subsequent waiver thereof or as a waiver of any breach of any other provision thereof.
b.Subscriber shall not transfer or assign this Agreement without the prior written consent of the Company. Company may assign Agreement at anytime without consent from or notice to Subscriber. Company reserves right to cancel customers rights under this contract at anytime without further obligation.
c.JC-Hosting takes no responsibility for any material input by others and not posted to the JC-Hosting Network by JC-Hosting. JC-Hosting is not responsible for the content of any other websites linked to the JC-Hosting Network; links are provided as Internet navigation tools only. JC-Hosting disclaims any responsibility for any such inappropriate use and any liability to any person or party for any other person or party's violation of this policy.
d.JC-Hosting is not responsible for any damages your business may suffer. JC-Hosting does not make implied or written warranties for any of our services. JC-Hosting denies any warranty or merchantability for a specific purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by JC-Hosting.
JamesC
Senior Internet Technology Adviser
Email: xxxxxx@totalweb-inc.com
Total Web-Inc Helping You Bring Your Business to the World
We're faced with a conundrum here. First, this person and others on her site tell us not to give into legal threats, assumes she knows more about everything than we do, insults us in the process, and makes demands while owing us money and threatening legal action? Had the site owner been a reasonable person, she would have removed the offending post and had time to make a backup of her site which is all she really needed to move it. She could have reposted the removed text at any time after the move if she was that attached to it. There is nothing saying we have to provide access to the site... ever... in those circumstances. Yes, we make regular backups of every site we host but suspended sites have no rights.
Had we been dealing with a reasonable customer it could have been worked out but clearly we were not. We were dealing with someone who thought they were above the rules everyone else must follow. The truth is that it was going to be her way or else. We chose the "or else" because to give into demanding rude customers sets the tone for dealing with all our customers, existing and future, and one nonpaying customer is simply not worth the hassle.
Walls of Shame: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10