29 Apr 08 Letter to CA AG pointing out lies in GISOL’s response to my complaint

K. Bravo
State of California Department of Justice
Public Inquiry Unit
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244
RE: Global Internet Solutions, Complaint ID Number: 211649

Dear K. Bravo

I have received your letter dated April 22, 2008 along with the response from GISOL, Inc, the company that was the subject of my complaint.

I wish to dispute certain of GISOL’s statements as being untrue or misleading.

1) “When the customer renews their package, it has nothing to do with renewing their domain name.”

That statement would be true for most web hosting companies, however all sites registered by GISOL are registered in GISOL’s name. (GISOL is the ONLY web hosting company I have found that employs this tactic.)

As such, only GISOL can renew a domain name registered in this way. This means that GISOL can hold hostage any site that it has registered. In my case, GISOL accepted payment to host my website while at the same time making it impossible to for me to renew the domain name on my own and then by neglect or deceit allowed my domain name to expire.

Indeed GISOL consistently uses this ploy to demand what amounts to a ransom payment from site owners, else they lose use of that name. In the website business, domain names are like a theater marquis. Without a domain name, a website is a useless collection of files that no one can access except the site owner.

The Internet is replete with instances of GISOL’s duplicity with respect to the ransom of domain names and the illegal tactics that GISOL employs to intimidate susceptible website owners.

2) During the Redemption Period, the Registry (Dotster/ICANN) gives the owner of the domain one more chance to re-activate the domain. Their cost to re-activate the domain is $399.”

As a statement of fact, Dotster’s charge to renew a domain name in redemption is $99.95, not $399.

3) “GISOL just acts as a middleman between a registrar and the customer”

Once again, the owner of all domains registered by GISOL is GISOL. GISOL therefore is not just a middleman but instead is the owner of the domain names used by its customers to make their websites accessible by the public.

If GISOL happens not to inform a customer and forward the payment to renew a domain name, GISOL would have to pay Dotster $99.95 (not $399) to re-activate the domain.

Rather than admit to the error and make restitution, I maintain that GISOL either allows the expiration process to continue to completion while cutting off all attempts by the site owner to contact them or attempts to extract a ransom to cover the expense and in most instances, make a further profit by intimidation or fraud.

4) “GISOL registers domain names for its’ customers as a courteously (sic) and as an act of good faith emails all customers 45 days, 30 days, 15 days and on the day of their specific expiration date.”

I never received any emails from GISOL regarding the expiration of my domain name. In any case, I could do nothing without the GISOL’s concurrence and they did not respond to any of my emails or phone calls.

5) “xxxxx obviously did not want to redeem their domain name, chose to not continue services with GISOL,…”

As I have said, a website without a domain name is useless. Why would I have authorized a website renewal payment to GISOL if I had no intention of allowing public access via a domain name? Had GISOL contacted me I would have readily renewed the domain name as well.

6) “…and while Breaching the Service Contract, xxxxx attempted to defraud GISOL into giving him money.”

This is a red herring. I would like to know in what way I have breached the service contract. I would also like to know how I have attempted to defraud GISOL into giving me money
___________________________________________

I am very disappointed that you have elected to side with a company that has harmed and continues to do injury to the public on an enormous scale and with complete disdain for the rule of law. Perhaps this is merely a reflection on the strength of my complaint and the fact that my losses were relatively minor.

However, what about the hundreds of other consumers that GISOL has defrauded. Is each to be handled in the same way without any consideration of the sheer number of complaints that have been lodged against GISOL.

Consider that the Better Business Bureau has received over 440 complaints against GISOL and has assigned it an F rating. According the BBB:

“We rate this company as having an unsatisfactory business performance record. Complaints allege unauthorized credit card charges, dissatisfaction with services, and difficulty implementing cancellation and refund policies. Some customers complain of getting continual credit card charges for service, long after cancellations are submitted.”

“The company responds to some complaints by denying allegations or disputing the validity of the complaint. Other complaints are addressed by sending advisories stating the customer was unable to contact service representatives due to an incorrect Email address listing.”

Clearly you have not done as I suggested and searched the web using the term “GISOL FRAUD”. Had you performed this search it would have become clear that my complaint against GISOL is not an isolated instance of a “difference of opinion” but is instead an accounting of a well orchestrated criminal enterprise that has operated with impunity for several years.

It is no wonder that the public loses faith in the government when a criminal organization masquerading as a business can so easily manipulate the system and continue to bilk the public.

29 Apr 08 Response from BBB to complaint filed 3/28/08

Complaint Details

Global Internet Solutions
7336 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Suite 815 Los Angeles, CA 90046
Contact: Adam Johnson
Phone: (866) 244-7925

In the absence of any response from the company this complaint despite our two requests to them, we are closing our file on this complaint.

This unanswered complaint will become part of the information we report to the public on this company for the next three years. Should any government agency request our files on this company, your complaint will also be included.

If you have settled this complaint directly with the company, would you please email us to let us know that, as well as any other comments you might have. Your help in doing this is important to ensure that our report to the public on this company is accurate.

Thank you for using the Better Business Bureau.

____________________
Complaint

Complaint Classification: Customer Service

Complaint Description – Posted 3/28/2008

Global Internet Solutions (GISOL) has been hosting my website for a couple of years. Since availability of the site seemed OK, I never asked for tech support so I was not aware of any problems until a few days ago when my site suddenly became unavailable.

I contacted GISOL tech support 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 have now sent several emails to GISOL admin via email and support ticket 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 or never answered. I found the registrar that GISOL used to register my domain but found that it is registered to GISOL, not in my name as I was led to believe. As a result, GISOL has a lock on my domain name so I cannot simply move my site to another host without GISOL’s assistance.

Most recently I generated another tech support ticket explaining that GISOL is not responding to my email and ticket requests and that the website is important not to me but to my son-in-law who runs a small business doing sports training. Without the website, he is out of business! Tech support responded with “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. Please be sure that admin department will get back to you as you have already mail your issue”.

Complaint Summary

No answer to phone or email requests to explain website domain expiration

Resolution Sought

Respond to my repeated attempts to find out why my domain was allowed to expire and be placed in redemption. I need GISOL’s assistance to get my domain back so I can move my site to another host. GISOL can keep the money that I recently paid them to renew my contract. I just want to regain control of my domain.