Fans of fraud: The web hosting industry
The web hosting industry has always been a particularly interesting one. With the combination of low barriers of entry, low cost and the ability to even launch companies with a mere $100 (Hostgator, a prime example, was built on $100 that the CEO Brent Oxley received as a Christmas gift) and scale them into multimillion dollar entities but it also leaves the industry ripe with failed shells of endeavors, companies that disappear overnight and at the top of the pile: Fraud. And no doubt it's largely in part due to the anonymity of the internet, lack of restrictions & guidelines and legal reprocussions -- still, there's hundreds of companies making great names for themselves and all the same doing their clients a great service. We rarely detail the latter, I admit, solely because the former makes for a better read.
Other than the odd article regarding downtime, companies being bought and sold and the once-in-a-bluemoon fraud review post, we rarely come across companies that will go out of their way to propagate fraud or worse: Use their own client's names to post fake reviews. Today we've come across one of these exceptional cases of companies gone wrong. And of course we're not ones to let it go without reprocussions.
At Hostjury we've had frequent fake web hosting reviews being posted -- we remove at least 25% of the posts made on our site on a daily basis. Even worse, sometimes companies even offer to pay us to remove negative reviews, a request I find disturbing. Something I've never comprehended though is why a firm will go out of their way to pay an employee or team member to post fake reviews and not simply take the time to improve on their hosting service. It escapes me how much easier it would be to answer the odd support request, invest in higher quality infrastructure and in the end sleep better at night knowing you're doing the right thing and reduce your own problems in the meantime, increase company longevity and help people.
We've caught several firms in the past posting fake reviews including ipowerweb, AISO, surpass hosting & several others that'll remain unnamed but this time around it wasn't just a mere fake review. This firm actually went out of their way to use one of their clients' actual names during the posting process. If anything, it's a simple case of fraud, but it shows a complete lack of respect for their own clientele. I'll get into their specific case later on in the post..
Who tends to be behind fake reviews
The rather odd trend I have been seeing lately is that there's no particular type of firm or age group that propagates fake reviews. If anything, it's such a diverse range that there's no particular way to class firms that are involved in such tactics (Other than calling them fraudsters). We've had companies that range from 200,000+ domains to 10 domains posting them -- ipowerweb / ipower being the largest we've caught thusfar. In most cases it seems that the larger the firm, the higher up in ranks the fraudster tends to be. We've caught VPs of marketing / sales redhanded in a number of instances down to smaller companies whose own CEOs or founders are involved.
Why do they post fake reviews
It's obvious why hosting firms would go out of their way to post fake reviews. In a lot of cases companies will post fake reviews in order to boost their signup rates, reputation online and save on advertising costs. Afterall, if they can gain clients out of a few fake reviews a day -- why advertise on google, actually put effort into the service & increase their quality to generate word of mouth signups.
So, who'd you catch this time, Hostjury?
This time we caught a firm we'd actually been watching for a number of years because of the fake reviews they've been posting on third party sites. Just recently we had a number of their reviews start showing up on our own site. The company in this particular case was PolurNet, and out of three reviews they've posted all three turned out to be clients who explicitly stated outright that they had nothing to do with the reviews. One particular PolurNet client had actually spent most of this past weekend scouring the web trying to remove reviews PolurNet had posted pretending to be the client. PolurNet has almost 200 other reviews posted on another site that'll remain unnamed but myself & a few others have always suspected them to be fake. Now we know.
(We'll post screenshots if necessary but this particular PolurNet client requested anonymity.)
Hostjury is a fantastic source for PolurNet reviews and news.
Fans of fraud: The web hosting industry
Wed, 14th October 2009, 19:54
Mon, 25 January 2010, 20:53
Wow, I had no idea that HG was started with $100. That's fantastic, I'm going to have to follow up on that, I'm sure it's a very inspirational story.
I think that one of the reasons people fake reviews when they start their first web hosting business is because they want to build credibility. Obviously, fake reviews are the wrong way to go about it. Ideally, they should give out free hosting accounts in exchange for a 30-day follow-up review. They would attract many potential clients, generate a positive buzz, and gain the "street credibility" they are looking for.
Thu, 14 January 2010, 04:52
I have been dealing with supergreenhosting.com and I have never dealt with such a shockingly horrible company in all my life .... and I am in banking!!!! This is the last e-mail I received over an hour ago and this is what happens. They get in touch and then nothing:
Hi Faith
Thank you for your email. Is it possible I can call you? If so, please let me know what number I can call you on.
This way we can hopefully get everything resolved in one fail swoop
Kind regards
Richard
--
Richard Ford
Billing Supervisor
www.supergreenhosting.com
Needless to say, no call. I am exhausted. I am at my wits end please, please, please help me as I can neither get my money back nor my website. They are receiving e-mails but not sending them on. They say the account is cancelled and that would be ok but they are keeping all my information. I was rude two nights ago but this has gone way beyond that. Please help me
Sun, 15 November 2009, 05:49
As for the reference to legal action, I recommend following up with that via the proper channels if deemed necessary.
I'll happily attend :)
Sun, 15 November 2009, 05:03
Please note that I'm not the editor on Hostjury, although this particular post was in fact proofread by me.
Sat, 14 November 2009, 03:12
Clearly, this is a biased site and without any ability to post the real truth, David is at liberty to make up anything he wants about PolurNET, a federally registered company for over 6 years.
As Dave B stated, the owner is in fact a lawyer. Certainly, he does not take the libel posted by "David" from fusednetworks lightly.
In fact, one of our customers contacted us directly stating her review was NOT posted by hostjury, despite at least 6 different attempts after contacting the so-called 'editor', David. She tried on her own accord to contact the hostjury... who happened to be hiding under a private whois, which was under the veil of fusednetworks. She apparently got hold of someone who then ignored her emails. She was kind enough to forward the email conversation, and it's surprising David decides to post BS here.
I'm only an employee of PolurNET, but for the record, we are definitely look at our legal options dealing with the fusednetworks/hostjury fraudsters, but until then the false accusations speaks volumes about hostjury's fraudulent activity. If "David" has the balls to leave this comment unedited, instead of hiding behind his hosting "company" and profits from affiliate marketing, perhaps a court of law may consider David's libel in a different light.
Tue, 10 November 2009, 00:00
I've used Polurnet for several years and I've been happy but I'm not impressed that they've tried to pull a fast one on you folks. I'm noticed another web hosting review site were they are highly ranked. Interesting that you spotted that. Worst thing is that I think the owner of Polurnet is in Law School in Canada.
Mon, 19 October 2009, 21:07
Valid point Karl! I may have confused the two, although I'm positive I've read (or discussed directly) about Brent launching it after Christmas one year as well..
http://hostjury.com/blog/view/86/candid-interview-with-brent-oxley-ceo-of-hostgator
I could be wrong of course, will ask & update the article if necessary!
Mon, 19 October 2009, 11:48
It is sad to see that hosting companies are resorting to post fake reviews on behalf of their clients just to boost their reputation. Reviews should be posted only by legitimate clients and nobody else.
@KarlZimm: That does sound to be too close to your own story. Maybe David confused your story with Brent's?
Sun, 18 October 2009, 03:40
The HG $100 story is real? Sounds like an exact copy of mine - http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200803700
Thu, 15 October 2009, 12:50
This sort of thing is sad to see.
Way to spot out the frauds HJ!