So there I was, following a link from this story at BoingBoing, and instead of something interesting, I got a view of one of the most clueless ISPs on the planet.

It has to be one of the worst possible ways to handle the suspension of a web site account. Brought to you by provider vDeck. Instead of the web site I was surfing to, I got this:

account suspended

Your account has been suspended. We have sent you an email explaining why. This email should also contain information on how you can unsuspend your account.

Now, if that isn't unfriendly, I'm not sure what is.

In response to this, I wrote the following email:

Here's a gentle suggestion to help you future sales efforts. Your hosting operations folks are making your organization to be composed of rude arrogant assholes, I strongly suggest you modify their behavior.

The situation:
I followed a link to http://host117.ipowerweb.com/suspended.html

And I see this:

"account suspended


Your account has been suspended. We have sent you an email explaining why. This email should also contain information on how you can unsuspend your account."


#1. I don't have an account, in fact 99.99995% of the persons to see this message don't have an account. Wrong target audience
#2. Insufficient information: If they were over their bandwidth cap, just say so, otherwise act appropriately. You now force us to speculate as to why the account is suspended... were they Al-Queda members? Did the FBI say so? Or what!?!?!?!
#3. I won't get any email about this... you're routing the information that you didn't provide, to the wrong person
#4. No course of action left to the end user.
Can we assume that you're just being stupid, and its a temporary web site cap?
Should be keep hitting reload until it works?
Can we come back later and see the content?
Are your servers and networks down?


In summary, you're telling me (instead of your customer) that you don't care about the social norms of the internet. You're also telling me that you're rude to your customers.(as well as the public) Further, you put your logo behind this message. Bad idea!

I'd like to know what steps are being taken to rectify this behavior, and what steps you've made to compensate your customer.

Michael Warot


Of course, the email bounced!