There is nothing remotely positive to say about an organization (I refuse to call them a company or corporation, as they were illegally attaching "Inc." to their name before June 12) who steal money from individuals.
(cyberwings communications portland augusta old orchard beach maine virginia)
I began my business relationship with Cyberwings in January. I was attracted by the price, but the specifications on the Web hosting account I purchased didn't seem out of line at the time.
I was pleased with the service and soon created another account during a sale to set aside for later use.
In early June Cyberwing Communications began having "chat sales" - that is, special offers only available to those in the IRC chat room at a certain time. It was at this time that I became slightly nervous because Shawn J. White, the CEO of Cyberwings, was offering things like "Zap2x", which doubled all stats on one's hosting account for a SMALL fee, and soon it became "Zap4x", and then "Zap5x".
There's nothing I can say about having 108GB of bandwidth and 1GB of space for $20/yr except that it's a wonderful deal - too good to be true. Common sense was screaming in my face not to do it, but I ignored common sense and bought an "AYW" account - that is, an account I could host multiple sites on - for $20/yr, half off the normal price, and then paid $15 more later to get it "Zap3x'ed".
Just when things seemed as if they could get no better, they got much worse.
In late June, sporadic downtimes were a frequent inconvenience, but Shawn J. White assured all of us in his IRC chat room that all would be fine, and that there was a misconfigured router.
And then Independence Day, July 4, struck.
Bandwidth was severely restricted by LightShip, but Mr. White assured us all in his IRC chat room that he was having "talks" (but, as always, he could not disclose any details for "legal reasons") with LightShip and that all would be okay soon.
Although the servers didn't go down completely until July 8, it was taking over 20 minutes to load my site, which, needless to say, usually caused timeouts.
And, as I mentioned before, on July 8, Shawn J. White claimed that the "talks" had gone sour and that he was moving everything to a new data center in Virginia. Of course, Shawn was unable to disclose the exact location because allegedly the data center was to be shared with government servers. Furthermore, he stated that the data center would not even acknowledge Cyberwings as a customer, and he could not disclose any details of the contract between the data center and Cyberwings. However, he DID assure as that it was extremely secure - he even told us that he had his hand biometrically scanned for access.
Since then, LightShip has apparently seized all servers in Maine, so Cyberwings customers will be unable to retrieve their data.
Strangely enough, RackShack shut down Cyberwings' service for the three servers they had in Texas as well just a few days later. Through the kindness of employees of RackShack, the servers were put back online for a couple days for Cyberwings customers to retrieve their data, although Shawn White has claimed that he forced RackShack to do this. I have no comment regarding what my belief is.
I requested a refund in the amount of $64.50 (this is generous, considering I am really owed slightly more) at [email protected] on July 8, as instructed. I requested a refund at [email protected] on July 12. I requested a refund at the new helpdesk just a few days ago. I have not recieved my refund.
Just before I put in the last refund request, I had a spitting match on IRC with a Cyberwings employee and received a late-night phone call which woke my parents. The timing was such that it leads me to believe that this employee used the information I was REQUIRED to enter in my refund request to call my house. I could be wrong though. It might just be a coincidence that the phone rang only moments after he told me he was aware that he was harassing me and that it could get MUCH worse. I don't talk to people who call at 11 PM, so I'll leave it to you to decide your opinion.
My helpdesk account stopped working the day after I entered my refund request. I entered the username and email address that my welcome email was sent to in the lost password form, but it said they don't match. Shawn sent me an email insisting that my ticket still exists and that I "WILL" receive my refund, but I am only able to monitor the ticket through email if this is the case, and I just don't know what to believe.
The long and short of it is, don't do business with Cyberwings if you aren't willing to pretend that your first amendment right to freedom of speech DOESN'T exist. Don't do business with Cyberwings if you don't like unsolicited phone calls late at night. And don't do business with Cyberwings if you want honesty and reliability.
Nick
Lake Havasu City, Arizona
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