What to do when someone disappears?

[jdab]

Someone I met on here offered to host my forum FIFAForum.org for free as they had a hosting account they didn't need. However, the site went down and was suspended.

I spoke to him about it, and he said there was some confusion and that's why it went down. He said he'd get it back up again, but that was over 2 weeks ago. Since, he hasn't been online on Skype, responded to my messages and has deleted his Facebook account.

What would you recommend I do? It's not vital the site is up right away as it's fairly new so I'm not too worried, just wondering what others would recommend.

 

[Tindris]

There really isn't much you can do. I am assuming you didn't take any backups and that the server is down completely so you are unable to get hold of any backups of any kind? In this case, the only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes and restart the site at a reliable source.

 

[jdab]

There really isn't much you can do. I am assuming you didn't take any backups and that the server is down completely so you are unable to get hold of any backups of any kind? In this case, the only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes and restart the site at a reliable source.

The site was only in early stages so I lost very little, it's just a bit annoying.

 

[Tindris]

If I recall this isn't the first time you have ended up in a situation like this? You really just need to be more careful.

 

[jdab]

If I recall this isn't the first time you have ended up in a situation like this? You really just need to be more careful.

I guess I have too much trust in people. I'll wait a little longer, sometimes people do have genuine reasons which is why I'm not giving names 🙂

 

[Migi]

Looks like there's really nothing free in this world. 😛

When it comes to things like this, being unreachable gives a very bad signal to me. Impression quickly changes during urgent time like when there's a problem, and your response rate decide whether the client/other party will stay or not. In this case perhaps you can't really bug him too much because he's offering it for free. But I quickly assume that the other party just run away and don't wanna deal with it again, thus ignoring you. I mean, if there is a real reason and it takes so much time to be solved, I think the side suffering the disadvantage has the right to know what's going on.

But that's just me. I learn to be more patient nowadays, sometimes it pays back, other times it doesn't. I hope you'll get a respond soon, Jamie. 🙂

 

[Geoffrey]

I'll tell you the same thing I told Darth with his problem: Move on.

You took a free hosting offer, when any host worth using charges you money. It wasn't going to last and as soon as that person needed the money, they would either start charging you or drop you completely.

At least you didn't lose much, as you say, so just either start fresh or move on without it. Up to you there.

 

[mav3n]

Yeah, I would have been wary about moving to a host that was "free." To me, almost like what Geo said, any reliable host charges a fee for using their service. Now, that's not to say there isn't good free services out there, but most of them are shady and something I would never use.

I wish you the best of luck with your recovery though. 😀

 

[jdab]

Yeah, I would have been wary about moving to a host that was "free." To me, almost like what Geo said, any reliable host charges a fee for using their service. Now, that's not to say there isn't good free services out there, but most of them are shady and something I would never use.

I wish you the best of luck with your recovery though. 😀

Just to clarify, it wasn't a free host. He's a person that is around on a few forums like this, and he had a spare hosting account with a paid host that he wasn't using.

 

[VirusZero]

To me the fact that this person deleted their facebook account in addition to not responding is really telling. Most people don't just delete their facebook accounts. Most people if they're having problems will tell you what is going on. I suppose there could be some legitimate reason for why they suddenly closed their facebook account and stayed off messengers. (Perhaps someone has been threatening/harassing/stalking them?) But in most cases people only go that far to cut off communication because they've done something really wrong.

Granted you didn't really lose any money or anything by using this person's site/service (which is a good thing). But you did lose time and energy to set up what you already had.

I think the best thing to do would be to send one final email asking for your data and then if they don't get back to you within a week, it'd be time to move on.

 

[Gizmo]

If you still require hosting I can host you for free on my VPS. 🙂

I have 30+ clients who all say their hosting is great.

This goes for you and anyone else in the same boat.

 

[Exel]

Moral of the story; Get your own reliable hosting.

Don't rely on friends, or other people, because things like this can happen and then those friendships fall apart.

There's pretty cheap hosting plans out there. 🙂

 

[Smokey]

Moral of the story; Get your own reliable hosting.

Don't rely on friends, or other people, because things like this can happen and then those friendships fall apart.

There's pretty cheap hosting plans out there. 🙂

^ This. If you need affordable shared hosting, i'd suggest Hawkhost. 🙂

 

[Shawn Gossman]

OP, I am sorry that this has happened to you! 🙁

I hate to sound like a broken record but you live and learn from these mistakes. Never host with something who promises one thing but has no real reputation. I won't personally host with a company unless it has been around 5 or more years and has a lot of customers. There are too many start-ups being created that last only a month or two.

 

[jdab]

I decided to move on. I sold the domain and just gave up with getting the database back. Lesson learned - pay for hosting 😛 Thanks for all of the kind offers too guys!

 

[CyberFreak]

What I have learnt over the years is own everything of everything you work on online. Own "all" the sites you manage (don't be partners with someone else), own/manage the hosting and own/manage the domains.

People do things online that they wouldn't do offline. Quite often because they think they can;t be found and/or can easily vanish with minimal effort.

 

[R44]

Lesson learned - pay for hosting

You got the wrong lesson out of this... Do your research. There are places out there that do offer free hosting and are reliable. And I can point you in the direction of one that has the ping rate to prove it's uptime if you really want it. You can PM me for the details.

In short, there are free things in this world, it takes a bit of digging.

 

[Medora]

Yeah, as I have described several times over the years, my host was Exocrew, which offered me free hosting with theoretically unlimited hdd and bandwidth, FTP and phpMyadmin access, etc., in exchange for some activity on their support forum and a medium sized banner near the header (originally near the footer).

They are now much more selective about who they freely provide this service to, but I relied on them before a friend offered to host my forum for free, and I am grateful to both. Finding Exocrew probably took me hours of searching on Google.

 

[Zlasarma]

If he said he will host you for free, then there is nothing you can do.
It is his own will, because he is hosting your website for free.
Or maybe he sold that host to someone else? Who knows...
The point is, there is nothing you can do, only to buy hosting :/

 

[Beverly]

Maybe something happened on his end of things, like he lost the host space or account or didn't pay his monthly charge and had financial troubles and had to let it go. And, now he's embarrassed and doesn't know how to tell you the truth. It is a little extreme that he would delete his Facebook account. Yeah, that's weird. But I can see where maybe something came up and he just didn't know how to tell you. Though really, sending you an email explaining the situation would have at least been the cool thing to do. Like you said, it's annoying, you put faith into someone and they flaked. :/

I don't know what to suggest now. I'm sure you have some plans on the future for your project and hopefully they work out.