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The IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 aims to give the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism.
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April 7, 2008
Internet Crime Complaint Center
Dear Sir/Ms
I am a victim of an internet crime perpetrated by Global Internet Solutions (GISOL). According to GISOL’s website, GISOL’s postal address is:
GISOL, Inc.
7336 Santa Monica Blvd.
Suite #30
Los Angeles, CA 90046
GISOL had been hosting my website for a couple of years. Since availability of the site seemed OK, I never asked for support so I was not aware of any problems until March 25, 2008 when my site suddenly became unavailable.
I contacted GISOL tech support the same day via their website’s support ticket feature and was told that “Your domain is expired its in a redemption period you need to wait till the redemption period gets over …and also you need to e-mail this issue to admin[at]gisol[dot]com”.
I checked my records and found that GISOL had accepted a PayPal subscription payment for $71.40 on February 8, 2008 for an additional year of web hosting. However, GISOL neglected to advise me that GISOL had allowed my site’s domain name to expire on the same day.
I also found that my domain was registered to GISOL, not in my name as I was formely led to believe when I signed up for their service. As a result, GISOL has a lock on my domain name so I cannot simply move my site to another host and GISOL is completely unresponsive to my requests for assistance.
I have sent numerous emails to GISOL admin with no response. I have called all the phone numbers on their website plus others that I found on the web but the numbers are either disconnected, never answered or connect me to an outsourced technical support representative that claims to know nothing. I have generated additional tech support tickets only to receive the same advice to wait for GISOL admin to get back to me.
The BBB gives GISOL an F rating per the following review: “Complaints allege unauthorized credit card charges, dissatisfaction with services, and difficulty implementing cancellation and refund policies. Most complainants are unsatisfied with the company’s response and most complaints go unanswered.”
Most of the complaints against GISOL go far beyond dissatisfaction with their services. In my case it is my contention that GISOL committed fraud by accepting payment to host my website even though they had allowed my domain to expire thereby making their offer an empty promise.
I guess I am lucky as many other GISOL customers (there are literally hundreds of similar reports on the web) have been defrauded of thousands of dollars - a thinly disguised but calculated scheme to extort money from customers with “valuable” domain names to insure that GISOL keeps them current. Others. (like myself) without a valuable domain name (and protected by PayPal) are simply defrauded for the renewal fee and then dispatched with the expectation that we will go away to make room for more lucrative “customers”.
It is depressing to learn that Global Internet Solutions has been committing such fraud on unwary consumers for several years. While my immediate monetary losses are relatively small, I have spent hours attempting to contact GISOL. Later, when I finally realized that my attempts were futile and that my domain name was not going to be restored, I was forced to register my site under a different domain name and move it to a new host which cost me additional losses. However, my out of pocket losses pale compared to the goodwill losses suffered because my customers can no longer reach me under my old domain name and my former search position has been forfeited.
If you need additional evidence I strongly advise you to simply search the internet for “GISOL”. You will be surprised at the number of complaints that this search term reveals and the extent of GISOL’s fraudulent conduct.
Sorry, but due to Gisol trying to post comments, they are now being moderated. They will appear ASAP.
I made another complaint also. I’d like also share all victims contacts who like to join to make group complaint to have strong effect. If you like to join my group complaint please send your contact info to us at email adw[at]cimonet[dot]net.
this email is spam box (i’m sure spammers picks this address) which will be filtered with subject ‘group-comp2008′ , so if you like to join send your contact info with that in subject line. all your contacts are confidential and are not used to any kind of marketing and are not given to any other third party except to authorities when asked, where we make gruop complaints.
I lost only ~$150 but i have principals whish i honour.
trust and honesty. I shall do everything i can to make them stop this kind of activity. I can even sponsor websites who wants to give their effort to make them stop, we got facilities and capacity. not from them no more 8o)