- Report: #1125955
Complaint Review: SSD Bay - Internet
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Author Not Confirmed
Why?
SSD Bay
Internet, USA
Phone:
855-800-5826
Web:
www.ssdbay.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
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SSD Bay SSD Bay lies about customer support, does not respect clients’ privacy, and misuses customer data Internet
I had made the mistake of registering a domain and purchasing a hosting plan from SSDBay in February 2014. The welcome email from SSDBay contained the first clue to the company’s gross inaptness and negligence. The email contained my user name and my password (!) in plain text. Sending a password by unsecure email is very bad indeed, but worse yet, it carries the implication that SSDBay does not hash (i.e. one-way encrypt) its clients’ passwords before storing them in its database. This is a flagrant violation of the most basic security principles! But the story of malfeasance only just begins here.
When I returned to ssdbay.com the next day after registration to login to my account, I was greeted by a message pronouncing that my IP had been banned until 2020! The reason provided was “due to your orders.” As stated above, my only order had been for a domain and a hosting plan. My domain name did not infringe any copyrights, was not obscene, inflammatory, or illegal in any way. Nonetheless I was banned before even getting a chance to upload any files.
To redress the issue, I made several attempts to contact the company. The web site’s live chat feature was not working even when accessed from a different IP and different browsers. I then attempted to contact SSDBay at the telephone number displayed next to a “24x7x365” pledge on the company’s home page. Instead of receiving the promised round-the-clock support, I was forwarded to voicemail at every turn in the phone tree. Finally, I managed to submit a ticket via an online form (no small affair considering my IP had been banned.)
The response to my ticket was a terse statement from the company’s System Administrator, Jean Boudreau, accusing me of “fraud” on the grounds that I did not provide a phone number at the time of registration and gave my name as John Doe. Putting aside the issue of unwarranted assumptions about what constitutes a “real” name and SSDBay’s already demonstrated inability to secure customer data, there is also the little fact that the company does not offer the option to mask customer’s information in the WHOIS directory as is customary with legitimate hosting providers. So, why would anyone trust SSDBay with sensitive private information?
My experience demonstrates that my concerns were entirely justified and should serve as a warning to all current and potential customers.
