October 23, 2019

auf wiedersehen

I had this love-hate relationship with then Philhosting now Webtextmedia since 2008, which I would love to go in detail, but that's not the main topic of this post.

So here's a little story that may add to the fire that is Philhosting/Webtextmedia debacle:

My hosting was supposed to expire on April 30, and I had received an email on April 15 telling me of the upcoming billing. So I head to the site viewed the invoice which also slapped me with a 100peso "Late Fee" starting May 1 (which hasn't arrived WTF) for one year cloudUNLI hosting. The renewal invoice email came April 15 which I paid on April 16. I still had credit with them worth 706, so I only paid the remainder of the invoice through Paypal. Besides that, I also have an aggregate of five years renewal for my two domains (I've paid for Domain #1 until 2023 and until 2022 for Domain #2).

I was dillydallying in my decision to transfer web hosts since forever (btw, I tried GoDaddy) until September when I finally gave it a thought after noticing my blog has errored out. I logged in to my Cpanel only to find out that I cannot do anything with Cpanel as there have been some errors on their (Philhosting/Webtextmedia) part which means they haven't been maintaining their servers well (NOTE: This wasn't the first time Cpanel hasn't worked. There was also the time when they let their Cpanel license expire).

Also to my surprise, my invoice remained "Unpaid" - something I was surprised about given that I had paid it way before the May 30 email so it should have been updated. My site was still online so there seems to be some kind of implicit understanding that "I had renewed" and my hosting with them will continue on until April 29.

Given the "suspension" of service by Philhosting/Webtextmedia, there is no support - EPP codes were not given at all, that Cpanel error will never be fixed. And there was no assurance that Webtextmedia or any surviving entity (if there is one) will continue to renew my domains (likely not). I decided to wing it and abandon the prospect of recovering anything from my site and get hosted on a reputable host. I also did wrestle control of my domain from Philhosting/Webtextmedia by coordinating with OnlineNIC foregoing the five years renewal credits - at this stage, as I had already cut my losses, I couldn't care less.

Then I had this stupid idea of trying to launch a Paypal Payment Dispute Resolution on my April 16 payment given that:

  1. Webtextmedia services were terminated
  2. My Invoice remained "Unpaid" and no actual assurance hosting will stay until April 2020
  3. even if they keep my site up, with no way to do stuff due to broken Cpanel, it's not really worth it.

My payment was refunded and the hosting was instantly dropped

What does that mean? Ruel Mindoro still has control of everything (Webtextmedia site and servers). If he sold it to that "Chinese Businessman" there should have been a notice of the change in ownership when it was consummated. Also if he sold the entire business, he shouldn't have control of the Paypal payments and then the site.

Long story short, Auf Wiedersehen Webtextmedia. We won't miss you

Posted by harm.evil.lilac on October 23, 2019 at 12:45 PM | comment
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