Blacklist Issue - Frustrated

[Reseller]

I've written glowing testimonials here when I get outstanding support but the following is 30 plus day support issue that has caused me to post this as I'm frustrated with H9's support.... (I'm a Reseller and Dedicated Server Customer)

On December 1 2009 I opened a support ticket regarding one of my clients email be bounced back... I investigated and discovered that the Reseller server's IP was blacklisted on Backscatter.org, NoMoreFunn and Rats-Spam.

NO ONE RESPONDED TO THIS TICKET.

On December 4th I made a second post asking for support.

The first response back was on December 4th from Dan indicating he had contacted them (the blacklisted companies referenced above) and within 48 hours the blocks would be fully removed.

Waiting... on December 11th I sent another request (same ticket) indicating that the server was still blacklisted.

Not until December 28th did Blake respond again promising it would be resolved in 72 hours. He also apologized for the inconvenience.

On December 31st I posted another request as the server was now listed on Backscatter.org, WPBL, Rats-Spam and UCEProtect Level 1 and the servers deliverability score was a "D"....

On January 1st 2010, Jeff responded and indicated it would take a "... few days for the spam data bases to update and remove the server IP from their systems..."

I waited... and on January 8th 2010 I "AGAIN" submitted a request to have Backscatter.org removed from the server as my clients emails were being bounced back as the server was still being listed... that was posted at 3:32 PM and I asked at 4:02 PM to have the account moved to one of H9's clean servers (which I included in that post).

Not hearing from anyone at H9 by 8 PM needless to say my patience had run out... frustrated with the feeling that H9 was ignoring this issue... I opened a new ticket and asked for that someone to please respond to my previous ticket...

At 8:10 PM... Matt responded "scolding me" not to open second tickets as that slows down the process... really... I don't believe it can get much slower. I am now a month and eight days without a resolution to this ticket.

At 8:12 PM Matt responded with the following which can only highlight why I'm posting this Testimonial...

"The Backscatter blacklist is not used anywhere major, and can be disregarded.

The backscatter blacklist is very rarely utilized due to it's poor nature and the ability to pay them off to have an IP address de-listed.

100K IP addresses in a black list is extremely small seeing as SpamHaus has well over 10 million.

We can still migrate this account, however, looking at this servers blacklist status, it's not on any major RBL's of which would affect your experience as a web hosting client.

If you still wish to have your account moved, please note the domain(s) to be moved.

As I am new to this ticket and have not had any other information with regards to this ticket, I would prefer to get the most accurate and up-to-date information."

First let me say... that Matt clearly didn't read the postings as my client's information was previously provided along with the request to move the client.

As a long standing customer (3 Years) not only as a Reseller account but as a Dedicated Server account, I find it hard to believe that H9 would consider this "support"... it should be called "excuses". I may be old school but when I ran my national company "Petsmart" as CEO for 26 years this would be grounds for termination of someone responsible to providing oversight for support and at least a review of the proceedures and policies regarding support.

Needless to say I'm a frustrated customer and believe that this example is just the tip of the iceburg. I write this with a sincere desire for management "Ben" to look at what has occurred and resolve this from occurring to others.

Reseller

[H9NickH]

Hello,

I do apologize for the inconvenience you experienced with a blacklist issue.

You should note that blacklist issues are not handled by our support team and this issue, in no way, reflects upon our technical support. Blacklist issues are handled by a dedicated team that work with the companies that are blacklisting us to request removal.

What Matthew told you is absolutely correct - There is nothing more we can do about a blacklist issue except to contact the party that is blacklisting us and request that we be removed. He is also absolutely correct that Backscatter is a hardly-ever-used blacklist and their sole purpose is to extort funds from honest companies like HostNine to remove listings from their blacklist that is hardly used by anyone.

We will continue to contact the blacklist owners, just as we always have, but we cannot make any guarantee on (a) when they remove us; or in cases of extortionists like Backscatter; (b) IF they will remove us.

I apologize you're frustrated, but there's nothing more we can do in regards to blacklists than we've already done. If you have a specific suggestion as to what we could do, I welcome you to contact managers@hostnine.com via email.