Cyberwing Communications aka Cyberwings ripoff abused & mistreated by shawn white. Internet Last Disclosed: Old Orchard Beach, Maine
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 2002. 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 2002, 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 billing@cyberwings.com on July 8, as instructed. I requested a refund at cwstatus@cwstatus.com 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
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Cyberwing
3 Updates & Rebuttals
#40
Wed, August 07, 2002
My response to Mr. White's rebuttal is here:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/view.asp?ID=26220
Refund allegedly mailed.
#40
Wed, August 07, 2002
A staffer asked Mr. White about my refund and was told it was mailed. We'll see if I ever receive it and if the check doesn't bounce.
Shawn
Old Orchard Beach,Maine,
Cyberwings rebuttal on these baseless, false, accusations.
#4REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, August 05, 2002
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to you as the CEO of Cyberwing Communications, Inc. This letter
is a generic response we are sending to anyone who inquires - as well as many other
agencies, offices, as a proactive way of responding to the situation at hand.
My name is Shawn J. White and your agency MAY have been in receipt of a variety
of complaints about our company. I am writing to respond to ANY and ALL of
these complaints and to keep you updated as to how our company is handling the
situations at hand.
I find it disturbing that ANY customer would attempt to harass or stalk any of our personnel. MANY of our personnel have had to change their home telephone numbers, contact their own local authorities to have people warned from calling
them and contacting them, etc. All of this over a company that was running GREAT for 13+ months and then had 3-4 weeks of issues and technical
difficulties. WE ARE an internet company. We WILL experience technical difficulties from time to time. WE ARE responding to these technical
difficulties QUICKLY and FAIRLY. We HAVE offered a REFUND or REBUILD option to EVERY customer - no customer barred out. Short of calling each customer up personally, all 3,000+ of them, we are doing everything in our POWER to ensure
that everyone get a REFUND or get REBUILT (with additional services free of charge).
Everyone that has chosen to be REBUILT with our services is being given at least THREE months and some as many as NINE months of free services as a reimbursement for the 3-4 weeks worth of time that we have been having technical difficulties.
Surely, even you, can see that 3-9 months of free services in response to 3-4 weeks of technical difficulties is a very generous & fair response.
Cyberwings is rebuilding, we are moving forward. In the age of encouraging business, etc. we are fighting through the DOT COM bombs and we are struggling our way to becoming an even better company after our technical difficulties.
We could do what most other DOT COM's have done, turn around and walk away, but that is not our goal. Our goal is to CONTINUE to build the largest & friendliest hosting community around, very simple.
Cyberwing Communications was started in June 2001 as a web hosting company, by me, Shawn White, the owner of Cyberwings. We quickly grew, in a 12 month period, to having over 16,000 websites under our network, and with over 3,000 individual clients. During the month of June 2002 our data center in Maine experienced major problems, from technical difficulties to other things, and in
July 2002, it went offline.
As a company we decided to rebuild our data center in a new location, with internet lines that were 8-12x faster than our lines in
our previous data centers, with brand new faster servers, and, during the rebuild process, offer ALL customers the chance for a REFUND or REBUILD. It was the only way to be fair to ALL customers involved. If any of our previous providers are owed monies they have a course of action to take
to retrieve their monies, at which point we are ready to debate that the level of service we received from them was far below par and far below the contracted service level.
All customers have been informed that ALL PAYPAL refunds are being processed by hand, by postal mail, and will be POSTMARKED by August 9th, 2002. With our issues ONLY starting on 7/1/02, and our servers not even going offline ntil 7/8/02, this issue is truly less than one month old, it is disheartening to find that some customers, only a select few, choose to try to depict this situation as one that has been going on for months and months. Ridiculous.
We have over 3,000 clients, 16,000 websites, and we are a very upstanding company. We offered EVERY CLIENT a REBUILD or REFUND option - we are happy to report, and can/will back this up with hard facts if necessary, that 93% of our customer base has chosen to REBUILD and NOT REFUND. That shows, right there, that Cyberwings has done something right in building our company, in building our community, and in maintaining our services.
Every business encounters problems from time to time - especially in the struggling DOT COM world. Cyberwings is no different, but we are fighting tooth & nail to rebuild or refund every customer who asks for either, and move on. That's fair, legitimate, and above board of us to offer.
As for the complaints that have been filed with "agencies", I have personally responded to each and every one of them tht I have been notified about and each and every one of them is in CLEAR receipt of responses. I have letters from a few of these agencies thanking me for my personal response & attention to the matters at hand.
I believe Cyberwings HAS handled the situation in a very professional and above board manner. It disturbs me that a customer could not follow the PUBLISHED procedure for requesting a refund, let us do our work and respond within the timeframes posted. It disturbs me that ANY customer would try to dig up personal information on employees of ANY company, including ours, and try to contact them and their families, etc. in an effort to try to get "back" at a company who is
trying to do all of the right things by way of our customers.
In ALL of our refund requests we are asking that customers provide basic contact information in case we need to contact them for any reason. During this entire REBUILD and REFUND process we have not have found a reason to contact ANY customer voice. We would like this customer to provide proof that it was a Cyberwings personnel member.
We are more than happy to provide verified copies of our telephone communications calls to
any authority figure (police department, lawyer, etc.) for the date/time in question, however
we will not provide such information to any customer or any other request.
It's ridiculous to think that anyone would accuse ANY company of calling their house at 11pm
at night, especially Cyberwings. We do not provide telephone support and RARELY have telephone contact with our customers - and certainly not with Mr. Nick Saunders who has been persistently stalking & harassing our staff members, one or two in particular.
Again, as I've responded in other "rebuttals", Cyberwings is rebuilding, and this makes
some people very angry that we have enough determination & faith in our own DOT COM
business to do such a thing. REBUILD, REFUND, and move on. That's our plan, our goal.
We are happy to report that 93% of our PROJECT has been REBUILD, and less than 7% has been
REFUND. That shows something right there.
Shawn J. White
President & CEO
Cyberwing Communications, Inc.