Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > Host closed / Can't get access to my data
Posted by xavierk, 08-13-2011, 12:06 PM I understand that starting a topic with zero posts to my name with such a title requires more than some loose accusations. I'm in some serious trouble here, not (directly) caused by Rackspace, but they seem unwilling to help a victim of one of their customers. Here's the story, read it and weep: When I was younger, so much younger than today, I asked a friend for hosting. He "had some left", he uploaded Wordpress for me, and I went on my merry way. Until one day, a week ago, my Wordpress website stopped working. I got this error: "This website is temporarily unavailable. Please check back later. Unfortunately there were no suitable nodes available to serve this request." Looking at the HTML source, some content on this error page originated from stabletransit, Rackspace. I asked my friend what this was about. He confessed he actually resold a Rackspace account to me (I believe he said it's a cloud based hosting package, so that's why I'm posting it in this forum), owned by a friend of his. So I've been re-resold a Rackspace account. My friend gave me his name, and I tracked him down using Facebook. It turns out, the person reselling the hosting account to my friend is behind on his payments. About $400 behind. I've made screenshots of this conversation. Now the problem is, Rackspace won't let me access my data until this man pays his debts to them. He has told me there is a chance he will not be able to pay them in time. I've got in contact with Rackspace through their website, I had to be connected through sales, since I myself do not have an account with them. Then I tried through Twitter. The person who mailed me seemed genuinely willing to help me not become a victim of this struggle between them and a customer who couldn't pay. Until: "Unfortunately our legal obligations do not allow us to release the data to you, or even verify that we have the data." Legal obligations to whom? I tracked down the customer, and he says he has no problems with them releasing the data to me. Mind you, since I said Wordpress above, none of you will think this is any kind of important data. The truth is, I thought it was hosted somewhere secure, and I've database backups, the problem is: the website contains a lot of images, I have manually edited and resized just for this website. They are not saved in a MySQL database but in the Wordpress directory tree. I just want my data back, but Rackspace seems to be holding it hostage. If this man doesn't pay they're going to delete it. Why can't I get my data? The person I made the website for is listed in the WHOIS of the domain, just send it there! My e-mail address is there too. The person who needs to pay Rackspace wants them to send me my data, so there is no legal issue here. It's just a question of them holding my data ransom until he pays them. "Hi Xavier, We'll continue to work with him and will release data to him as soon as arrangements have been made. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, we can't release anything to you or your customers. Very sorry for the trouble!" I have a feeling that they want me to put pressure on him so he pays, but I'm in Holland, while this person is in the U.S.A., so I have no power of any kind over him. I'm just a poor student who made a website for a local business owner. It's one of my few sources of income I need to pay for my housing and education, if this situation persists I will have to rebuild the entire site, if my client doesn't decide to fire me before then. Since above quote is the last I heard from Rackspace, I was hoping maybe some of you know someone at Rackspace who can talk some sense into them. Seriously this stuff has already ruined my week. I'm not looking for free hosting from them, I just want them not to delete the data because of some payment dispute with someone else. Kind regards, Xavier. Last edited by xavierk; 08-13-2011 at 12:11 PM.
Posted by Akisoft, 08-13-2011, 12:19 PM At the end of the day, unless the account holder actually pays up, they have zero reason to give you a copy of the data, even if the account holder verifies it. I've got some contacts at Rackspace and I'll throw them a message, but I doubt anything will come of it.
Posted by xavierk, 08-13-2011, 12:23 PM Thanks for throwing them a message, it means a lot. I realize they have zero financial reasons to help me. But a little compassion for one of their (ex) client's clients would not be too much to expect, I sincerely hope. I also realize this situation is party my fault, as I should have investigated more thoroughly exactly how and by whom I was hosted. Unfortunately since I never had an FTP account and did everything through Wordpress, I'm not in this predicament. Thanks again! They can contact me at the e-mail address I've been using to contact them the previous days: repairs.matchbox@gmail.com (which is also in the domain's WHOIS.) Or call me at +31621411459 (that's my cell phone number, please don't spam.) Last edited by xavierk; 08-13-2011 at 12:25 PM. Reason: contact info
Posted by TheJoker, 08-13-2011, 12:24 PM The fact is, you are not the account holder and Rackspace has no obligation to you. You have the database backup but no home directory backup - lesson learned. No. It's entirely your fault. I'm not being a wise guy, I'm just being honest.
Posted by xavierk, 08-13-2011, 01:30 PM I'm not talking about obligations. I'm just asking for some consideration. And I agree that I'm to blame. But I trusted a friend, I didn't know there was someone else I had to trust. I'm just grasping at straws here, I know that.
Posted by lynxus, 08-13-2011, 01:49 PM I agree that it is indeed a very bad position to be in.. However Rackspace / any business will have security to think about. They cant just go about handing over data from one of their customers servers to Joe Public. ( You could be anyone! ) A lot of business's will only deal with the account holder and that is it. All I can suggest is that you either keep trying or hope the account holder comes up with some cash.
Posted by xavierk, 08-13-2011, 01:59 PM "They cant just go about handing over data from one of their customers servers to Joe Public. ( You could be anyone! )" The customer has confirmed that I am the owner of the data. I can have him call them, I can submit screenshots of our conversations, whatever they need. My e-mail is in the WHOIS amd has been forever. I can provide identification. This has nothing to do with security of the data, and everything with them putting (understandable!) pressure to have him pay. I'm caught in the crossfire, at least, that's what it feels like. Kind regards, Xavier.
Posted by lynxus, 08-13-2011, 02:01 PM Ah. That sucks then Keep at them then ( short of paying for his server to come back ) You can always try google cache / wayback machine to try and get your posts back?
Posted by TheJoker, 08-13-2011, 02:02 PM Everyone sympathizes with your position but Rackspace, or any other provider, will most likely not release the data until they are paid what they are owed.
Posted by xavierk, 08-13-2011, 03:13 PM I understand. I am even prepared to pay, say, one fourth of the bill. To Rackspace directly. If I pay the debtor I do not know for sure he will put it towards procuring my data. Thanks for sympathizing all. This sure tought me to not assume the safety of my data. Google cache is a good suggestion. But my data consists of specially made images, which google doesnt cache. Unfortunately.
Posted by xavierk, 08-14-2011, 07:53 PM Ok, I'm really glad I posted this message, in utter desperation. An account manager from Rackspace just contacted me. I hope we can resolve this issue. I'll keep you posted.
Posted by hostiseasy, 08-15-2011, 06:13 AM Keep posted for us to know how the out come. I can sense you will get your data back because they had contact you to resolve something.
Posted by WholesaleBackup, 08-15-2011, 06:21 PM You can also try to search for cached versions of your website via google, and rebuild the posts that way. If you google for site:XYZ.com, then hit the cached versions, you may have most of your data back very quickly via cut and paste. Depends how big the site is. Also, you can try the waybackmachine as well, but this just underlines the value of good backups ;-(
Posted by RyanWeberser, 08-15-2011, 08:18 PM I agree... You'll need to pay in order to get a copy of the data.
Posted by OpenInternet-Vince, 08-15-2011, 11:09 PM If the data means so much to you, then tell the original owner to take over the account then pay the $400. Rackspace have no obligations to help you. You are not even a customer or ex-customer.
Posted by SeriesN, 08-15-2011, 11:19 PM Hey guys it is not his fault.He just asked a friend for help and never knew about it and if you are kinda new at this business you can not actually figure out who owns the main machine. And I understand RackSpace situation my self. I think what would be possible is to setup a 3 way converstaion, Let this poor guy pay 1/4th to rackspace, get his data relesed and rackspace can deal with the main service customer. Just My 2 cents
Posted by admin0, 08-16-2011, 12:07 AM Did it get resolved ?
Posted by senaia, 08-16-2011, 01:22 AM Its not entirely his fault and I dont understand your way of thinking! Hes a client who got screwed by a reseller. Thats it and no more to add to it. Regardless of that reseller being his friend, mom, big company or even an alien from mars! His only mistake is not making a full backup of his website. Anyway, im not here to flame but making him think that "It's entirely his fault" pissed me off! I hope rackspace releases your website data. Good luck bro and welcome to the web hosting world!
Posted by GeekMCM, 08-17-2011, 11:05 AM Sadly I have learned a similar lesson, I can't remember what exactly happened. However I did get my data back. All I remember is that my friend's provider got in trouble for not managing their server right (think spam on hosting accounts or something of the sort) and the upstream data center suspended access to the host node. I don't know which way they but the main IP on the box was offline likely by null route. My friend managed to get both our data off the box using an FTP account he had on another IP. Long story short I hope you learned the lesson I did. The lesson is to always and I mean always make backups of anything you can't afford to lose. I didn't learn the first time I lost data, but then I didn't use WHT and it never crossed my mind it happens as often as it does! Best of wishes and hope you learned what it took me two bad experiences one with a host and one with a drive failure to learn!
Posted by glh5, 08-17-2011, 12:20 PM Just find a new host and use your backups to bring the site up again.
Posted by Serverfruit-Kris, 08-18-2011, 12:57 AM That is hard when he only have backups of the database.
Posted by microsight, 08-25-2011, 11:32 PM I think the major lesson to learn from this experience is to always make sure you have a reliable backup strategy in place. Many issues can cause loss of data on a server, or loss of its control. If the data means anything to you, you need to have it safely stored away somewhere else. Hopefully in a way that makes it easy to setup a replacement in a fairly short time with little effort.
Posted by Joel Theodore, 08-26-2011, 03:31 AM I'm more intrigued that the hosting was from a friend but he was selling this to a business? How is this affecting that individual's business? It seems nobody along the way stood back and looked at the situation.
Posted by xavierk, 10-14-2011, 06:21 PM Thanks for all the kind words, and some humbling ones also. The situation finally got resolved thanks to the very kind Sammy Balogun from Rackspace. He reached out to the debtor and thanks to him this situation is resolved. It takes a while, but once you find a reasonable person at RackSpace they truly give it their all to help you I will change the topic of this post now. EDIT: Seems I cannot. I'll add a TL;DR. @Joel Theodore, I know. I am not the naive person I was back then and will avoid situations such as this in the future TL;DR, RackSpace is no longer holding my data hostage. They even helped me get it back, even though they had no legal obligation to me. Last edited by xavierk; 10-14-2011 at 06:24 PM.
Add to Favourites 
Print this Article
