Customer service at Anonymizer/Cyberpass/Infonex

[Dr. Evil]

Given the fact that the Anonymizer often comes up in Cypherpunk
contexts, and that many of you are probably reading this list from
cyberpass.net, which is hosted by Infonex (which is the same company
as the Anonymizer, all run by Lance Cottrell, I believe) some of you
may be interested in what Infonex's attitude about customer service
is, and how they conduct themselves as a business.

First, take a look at what they say about themselves:  At
http://www.infonex.com/top/statement.html, they claim, "All of our
services are not worth much if you are not making good use of
them. That is why service is first priority at Infonex."

I signed up with them several years ago (after c2net closed down its
shell account service).  I had my email address @cyberpass.net printed
on business cards.  I gave it out to everyone.  At one point, they
stopped offering new shell account services, and then one day, I found
that I couldn't log in to my account.  I called their customer service
number, and found it to be eternally busy, with full voice-mail boxes.
Finally, I got through to someone there who explained that there were
no more shell accounts; I should get my files out by ftp.

That was annoying, but what was worse was that I went to get my files
off and found they were all gone.  I didn't need them urgently at the
time, and I thought, "maybe they're doing maintenance on the server,
and they will be restored later."  I went back in with ftp today, and
they were still gone.

I called up their customer service.  They basically said that the
server crashed and files were lost.  Fine, that's no problem.  Why not
restore from tape?  "All the files on /r2 were not backed up, and they
are lost."  Years worth of email and other files, all lost.  As they
say, "That is why service is first priority at Infonex."  I don't
expect an apology from them; there's really nothing which is a
substitute for operating in a professional manner.

Every time I have had to deal with their customer service, they have
always been less than helpful (that is when I can get through to
them).

Think twice before you do business with them.  On the Internet of
today, there are plenty of places that do web hosting.  Why not choose
one that operates in a professional manner?

You may say, "if they lose data, that's great for the Anonymizer
service!"  That would be a naive assumption.  Companies which have a
culture of sloppiness or unprofessionalism will end up hurting their
customers in a variety of ways.  If they don't know to use RAID or
backup their servers, they probably also don't know to check the
security of their code.  Sloppy one wy, sloppy every way.

Beware.