I'm a recent victim of a web hosting fraud perpetrated by Global Internet Solutions and have taken it upon myself to expose the duplicity of this company. A lot of what I have to report I found by searching the Internet, rather than a description of my own experiences which luckily were not as costly as other victim's have been.
To start off I suggest that you similarly perform a web search using the search term "GISOL FRAUD". You will be astonished at the number of complaints that surface alleging deceptive advertising, extortion, intimidation, credit card fraud and forgery.
GISOL is the corporate acronym for Global Internet Solutions (www.gisol.com), a corporation claiming to be located in Los Angeles, CA. Their scam begins by offering unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited sites, 6 months free hosting, a free domain name, a claim that the cost will never go up and a 100% Satisfaction Guaranty all for only $5.95/month
The problems begin some time after the customer signs up. An unsophisticated customer may only become aware there's a problem when after a year he learns that his domain name has been allowed to expire and that his site is now inaccessible.
Other customers that monitor their sites more carefully may become dissatisfied early on with GISOL's service outages and incompetent tech support, motivating them to try to cancel. It is then that the customer is made aware of GISOL's Terms of Service (TOS).
According to the TOS, all domain names registered by GISOL on behalf of its customers are "the intellectual property of GISOL" making it impossible to move to another host without GISOL's concurance. Depending on how dissatisfied the customer is and on how much vested interest he has in keeping his domain name, the scam can take several different routes.
In one scenario, the scammer at GISOL offers a customer that insists on moving his site to another host a "DNS Management Package" which allows the customer to point his domain name to an alternate hosting provider. The fee for this "service" is "solely at the discretion of GISOL" but typically runs $500. (The customer still does not gain title to the domain name.)
Alternatively, the scammer may convince a customer to stay by offering to migrate the customer's site to a better server or offer other considerations but this will require that the customer obtain an "Upgrade/Consolidation Package". The scammer will then deceptively make it seem as if the customer can obtain the Upgrade/Consolidation Package at a cost of $49.95/year instead of the price stated in the TOS of "$49.95 per month and prepaid for 36 months".
The customer only realizes that he has been scammed when he gets his credit card statement showing a charge $1798.20. The customer of course then attempts to contact GISOL to correct what appears to be a mistake. However, his phone calls never go through and his emails are never answered. (Once the customer has been fleeced, the scammer simply "call blocks" the customer's phone number and marks his emails as spam which are automatically trashed.)
Occasionally, the scammer makes a mistake and doesn't call block the customer's number or the customer uses a different phone number to call from and the call does go through. Depending on his mood, the scammer then takes on different personas and names to hide his true identity and make it appear as if there are several people in the company.
Sometimes its Shaun, at other times its Brian or Mike. Depending on how irate the customer is, the scammer can be consoling but suggest that he can do nothing but pass on the complaint to the "administration" or "refund" department". Of course the customer is never contacted and his subsequent attempts to contact GISOL are frustrated.
At other times, the scammer becomes intimidating and threatens to shut down the customer's site or take legal action against the customer. If the customer initiates a charge back on his credit card, the scammer forges the customer's signature thereby "authorizing" the charge.
There are many other scams based on the onerous provisions of the GISOL TOS that are sometimes invoked and the scenarios I've described are common but not inclusive of all those attributed to GISOL.
The Better Business Bureau has been made aware of GISOL (it has received over 400 complaints) and has assigned GISOL an F rating. Many customers that GISOL has scammed have also written letters of complaint to various law enforcement agencies.
Even though my losses were minor, I myself have written to the California Attorney General, the Los Angeles District Attorney, the Federal Trade Commisson, the National Fraud Information Center and even senator Dianne Feinstein pleading with her to urge the CA AG to investigate GISOL.
I have to believe that eventually these thieves will be brought to justice but in the meantime, the public must be warned of this corporate predator hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet.
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