Fiberlocity webhosting aka Championhost, aka Americasdesign is a ripoff business that doesn't give a dam. Wheeling, Illinois
I was looking for a hosting company for my new domain. I found Fiberlocity.com They state on their website that "All Champion Host accounts come with these great features: "
30 Day Money Back Guarantee
15 Minute Setup
Fast and Friendly Support
The list is longer, but I am only concerned with the above 2 items. Before I registered with them I contacted them to see how this fast and friendly service worked. I asked them to clarify some items of the TOS. Well, they did respond fast....Until I registered with their services. The 15 minute setup...I registered on Friday May 31.2002 Today is Saturday June 1 2002. After registering, I waited, and waited for this 15 min setup.
Ok, so even one hour would be acceptable..if they had contacted me in the interim. (You know, like thanks and we will be setting up your site soon...) I paid through PayPal which means that they received the money immediately. I did receive an autoresponder that asked me for the hosting fee of $18.95. Funny , but I had just paid them and have the paypal e-mail receipt. I found out that if I had paid by CC I would have to wait 24 hours. This is after being told in an e-mail by their support staff prior to my registering that setup is 15 minutes. I did not use a CC to pay since I have a Paypal account. The money is directly transferred.
I have told them to cancel the service and refund my money. They do offer the 30 Day money back guarantee ( As stated on their website ). No one has responded to a online helpdesk request or 2-3 emails that I have sent them. They have basically ignored my emails. I did a bit of research after the fact. It seems that Fiberlocity just registered with ICANN in January of 2002. Prior to this they were Championhost.com.
I did my research on Championhost and found a few complaints regarding similar experiences and some worse than mine. Championhost no longer is online. Igor Amburg is the registered owner of these sites, as well as AmericasDesign.com I just wonder what happened to Championhost. Businesses don't just disappear if they are healthy. But sick ones do they take the money and run, and then like majic reappear as a new business. Championhost supposedly had thousands of accounts. Where are they now?
This might not mean much to those who are not in business and are hosting consumers only, but I am a software developer and web designer and I cannot be offline or gone. This could make me look like I was a shady character when in fact, I work very hard to keep my customers happy. It's about customer service. I see too many hosting companies disappear overnight.
I wish that besides the normal search for domain names such as whois, that there was a registry for owner names as well. I e-mailed Fiberlocity and told them that if I didn't receive a refund within 24 hours,I will contact the IL state attorneys office with my concerns and file a complaint with the FTC as well. This was a few hours ago and so far nada...
If they advertise a 30 day money back guarantee...then according to FTC rules they must give me my money back. But I don't need the money as much as I need a reputable and reliable hosting service.
Jamie
New Port Richey, Florida
14 Updates & Rebuttals
R M
Ljubljana,Europe,
Slovenia
Employee ..Fibe ..Igor Amburg and Denis Zlatov are criminals.
#15Consumer Suggestion
Mon, February 10, 2003
From november 2001 to december 2001 Igor Amburg and his "companion" Denis Zlatov stoled from my account (credit card abuse) 7.062,46 US$. Because of this a wrote letter to US Ambassy, also I contacted police in Wheeling Illinois. That's the only way if you wanna receive your money back!
I heave all documentation and if you're interesting, I will put it on web in next few days.
Igor Amburg and Denis Zlatov are criminals. I hope that police in Wheeling is still working, because I recived my money back (after few months) but I never received any answer from police in Wheeling Illinois. From state attorney I received manual "how to protect your self". That's why I think we must protect our self and publish all documentation about Amburg and Zlatov. Maybe, finnally, police will react and stop those two criminals!
Jennifer
Atlanta,Georgia,
Full Speed Web, Fiberlocity, Championhost etc etc
#15Consumer Comment
Thu, October 17, 2002
Igor Amburg now owns FullSpeedweb.com domain name.
I don't know what he might be up to this time, but if his past exploits are any example then check this out:
Listed on his site is a phone # and address for fullspeedweb.com
I did a reverse look up and found the following for this phone# and address:
Ferrentino & Kroll Cpa
1 Northfield Plaza
Northfield, IL 60093
847-441-2929
Did Igor sell his hosting company to a CPA firm?
Do these CPA's know that Igor is using their address and phone # on his latest web site?
Do kroll and Ferrentino have anything at all to do with fullspeedweb.com?
Hummmmm...wonder what is going on here......
Hope
None,Florida,
WATCH OUT! Heeeeeees Back!
#15Consumer Comment
Wed, September 18, 2002
Just found that Igor is up to it again.Wonder where he gets these great looking templates for his sites.LOL !!!
http://www.fullspeedweb.com
Registrant:
Igor Amburg
1500 Chippewa Trail
Wheeling, IL 60090
US
Domain:
fullspeedweb.com
Administrative Contact:
Igor Amburg (IA128-IYD)
igor@fiberlocity.com
Full Speed Web
1500 Chippewa Trail
Wheeling, IL 60090 US
+1.8476680805
(FAX)
Nadja
New York,New York,
WARNING::Fiberlocity Uses Others' Credit Card Info
#15Consumer Comment
Wed, September 04, 2002
If anyone has done business with Fiberlocity in the past please note that they are using peoples' numbers to buy various items and services.
I had my account frozen and could not fly back to the east coast for a death in the family because of these creeps as I could not access my funds.
They aren't very brilliant as they used their home email address as a confirmation email: fiberlocityweb@aol.com .
I am sure they will try to make a run for it, but I and a few others on my side work for law enforcement and will not tolerate this fraud! You will be caught.
Hope
Tampa,Florida,
Get Igor!
#15Consumer Comment
Mon, August 26, 2002
I hope you get this creep soon! I am a victim of Igor Amburg and he is now operating yet again under another domain name...I caution anyone who is looking for a hosting service to carefully search whois database to make sure that they do not sign up with Igor Amburg...
Craig
Willoughby,Ohio,
Credit Card Fraud
#15Consumer Comment
Mon, July 29, 2002
We run a web hosting directory, and had run advertising for Igor at ChampionHost a few years back. He of course revered his credit card charges after the ads were run. After being sent to a collection agency, we never did receive the money. Fast forward a year or two, and we run ads for a company named Fiberlocity.
He paid by credit card for standard ads, and pay-per-click ads. This week, we received two chargebacks which were both from Fiberlocity. The first may have been his credit card, because he tried to reverse it.
We faxed 25-pages of documentation showing his order, stats, emails, etc. However, today, we received a fax from our merchant provider that said one of the credit cards Fiberlocity used was from a guy in Turkey who obviously did not authorize the charge.
We also found in logs that when he tried to pay for his advertising on our site, the first 9 cards he tried were declined. We are reporting him and will pursue charges for credit card fraud.
As of today, fiberlocity.com is down.
Craig
Willoughby,Ohio,
Credit Card Fraud
#15Consumer Comment
Mon, July 29, 2002
We run a web hosting directory, and had run advertising for Igor at ChampionHost a few years back. He of course revered his credit card charges after the ads were run. After being sent to a collection agency, we never did receive the money. Fast forward a year or two, and we run ads for a company named Fiberlocity.
He paid by credit card for standard ads, and pay-per-click ads. This week, we received two chargebacks which were both from Fiberlocity. The first may have been his credit card, because he tried to reverse it.
We faxed 25-pages of documentation showing his order, stats, emails, etc. However, today, we received a fax from our merchant provider that said one of the credit cards Fiberlocity used was from a guy in Turkey who obviously did not authorize the charge.
We also found in logs that when he tried to pay for his advertising on our site, the first 9 cards he tried were declined. We are reporting him and will pursue charges for credit card fraud.
As of today, fiberlocity.com is down.
Craig
Willoughby,Ohio,
Credit Card Fraud
#15Consumer Comment
Mon, July 29, 2002
We run a web hosting directory, and had run advertising for Igor at ChampionHost a few years back. He of course revered his credit card charges after the ads were run. After being sent to a collection agency, we never did receive the money. Fast forward a year or two, and we run ads for a company named Fiberlocity.
He paid by credit card for standard ads, and pay-per-click ads. This week, we received two chargebacks which were both from Fiberlocity. The first may have been his credit card, because he tried to reverse it.
We faxed 25-pages of documentation showing his order, stats, emails, etc. However, today, we received a fax from our merchant provider that said one of the credit cards Fiberlocity used was from a guy in Turkey who obviously did not authorize the charge.
We also found in logs that when he tried to pay for his advertising on our site, the first 9 cards he tried were declined. We are reporting him and will pursue charges for credit card fraud.
As of today, fiberlocity.com is down.
Ernest
London,Europe,
Fiberlocity are cheats
#15Consumer Comment
Tue, July 23, 2002
My name is Ernest Vershiyi, and I'm the Chief Technology Officer of Last Digital Ltd. (www.lastdigital.com). We are a successful Internet hosting and web development company based in London, United Kingdom. See the following review.(http://www.webhostmagazine.com/bg/displayReview.asp?revID=46).
A few months ago, we began receiving email threats from people claiming that we had ripped them off. We managed to establish contact with a guy based in Australia, who then pointed us to www.fiberlocity.com
To our amazement, we realized that fiberlocity and copied our entire website except for the logo on the top right corner.
Anyone who has been to my company site (www.lastdigital.com) will not immediately notice the diffence. I'm sure anyone who has been ripped off will testify to this.
The mistake fiberlocity made was that, they re-built the site in html, while ours is dynamically served using php scripts, hence they had to manually edit the links on all the pages.
For this reason, they forgot to edit some of the links and the contact link on their terms and conditions page pointed to our contact page (the original site). That's how the ripped off customers accidentally contacted to us, and we promptly replied, because we act on all customer messages within minutes.
If anyone was to view the website source code, they would see my name Ernest V. and www.lastdigital.com.
Apparently the people at fiberlocity were not smart enough to wipe off all tracks.
They violated international copyright laws and we notified our lawyers to press maximum charges.
If Igor or anyone working with him is reading this, please be advised that we are coming after you.
You will find all our contact information on www.lastdigital.com.
Regards,
Ernest V.
Last Digital Limited
T: +44 (20) 8880 4405
F: +44 (20) 8880 4550
E: info@lastdigital.com
I: http://www.lastdigital.com
Jamie
NPR,Florida,
Fiberlocity is indeed a ripoff!!!!!
#15Consumer Comment
Thu, July 11, 2002
Dearie, You might be his girlfriend..like OK valley girl...But it's now July and I never received my money back....So what a poor poor excuse you have...where is this 30 day guarantee??so it's not thirty days???60???90???
But I do know many people, and will certainly spread the word about Fiberlocity and warn others about your boyfriends shady tactics...
Kari
Wheeling,Illinois,
Fiberlocity is not a ripoff
#15UPDATE Employee
Wed, July 03, 2002
ok first of all i am the girlfriend of igor amburg the owner of fiberlocity and do you expect to get everything right away??? no! he deals with other companies too that setup everything so no it is not a rip off
Kari
Wheeling,Illinois,
Fiberlocity is not a ripoff
#15UPDATE Employee
Wed, July 03, 2002
ok first of all i am the girlfriend of igor amburg the owner of fiberlocity and do you expect to get everything right away??? no! he deals with other companies too that setup everything so no it is not a rip off
Kari
Wheeling,Illinois,
Fiberlocity is not a ripoff
#15UPDATE Employee
Wed, July 03, 2002
ok first of all i am the girlfriend of igor amburg the owner of fiberlocity and do you expect to get everything right away??? no! he deals with other companies too that setup everything so no it is not a rip off
Kari
Wheeling,Illinois,
Fiberlocity is not a ripoff
#15UPDATE Employee
Wed, July 03, 2002
ok first of all i am the girlfriend of igor amburg the owner of fiberlocity and do you expect to get everything right away??? no! he deals with other companies too that setup everything so no it is not a rip off