FeaturePrice.com Closing?

Although it's somewhat unclear, we have had various customers coming to us reporting FeaturePrice just notified them about the closing and provided 2 weeks for the customers to transfer their files elsewhere. There are also various posts through other forums that indicate this is true.
 
Did they happen to mention the reason? Were they required to shut down by the authorities or are they just out of business? It can't be the second actually because they were so good at taking money and running... They are supposed to have plenty of those.
 
From what I heard, they were having troubles with the company that provided some of their services which prevents them from continuing to provide service.
maybe oneday the whole story will come out..
 
Orioli said:
Is Feature Price closing? .... is this information confirmed yet?
Click to expand...

As a Feature Price customer, I can say that as of 5 May 2003 the status of the firm has not yet made its intentions clear, but hosting services appear to be continuing (e-mail for hosting accounts is another matter). Various notices regarding the firm's operations have been posted on its website and then subsequently removed, often within hours. They are not responding to e-mails or help desk inquiries specifically asking whether they will continue to operate.

As to why they may be closing, it seems pretty clear that any downfall will be due to the company's abysmal treatment of its customers. The firm's current refusal to explain its status and plans is rather indicative of the customer service and communications strategies that have caused so many people to desert the firm, whether or not it attempts to continue its operations. The little information they have posted is often confusing and rather illiterate, at that; just see the 24 April notice currently on their "support" page (www.featureprice.com/support.php). Customer complaints include poor uptime, allegedly fradulent billing practices, refusal to release customer domain names, and a widespread failure to provide support services, to name a few I've seen posted or experienced myself.

If anyone actually has definitive information on this issue, I'm among those that would love to hear the certified facts. However, it looks increasingly unlikely that the real truth will ever be know, no matter what ultimately happens.

-Danny.
 
They are now being investigated http://legal1.firn.edu/lit_ec.nsf/2c8e275c590c080e852563cc0010d6bc/767cfb6b7cf1f5de85256cd2006e58a8

FeaturePrice posted a letter on their home page stating that they were going out of business, but a few moments later it disappeared.

Here's a copy of the letter:
Featureprice's Closing is NOT BY ITS DECISION. It is due to Nova Information Systems (merchantconnect.com) "holding" the revenues from featureprice. Featureprice has not seen a penny since the "hold" and FP must shutdown since it has no money, no realized revenues. FP cannot pay employees or anything due to Nova's position.

FP tried to work with many companies, none of which where willing to "assume liabilities" and that placed all the deals in the trash can. FP tried to work with many creative ideas. So this is NOT FP's wishes to shutdown, the decision is not ours to make.

All clients are recommended to move within the next 14days.

All sites and servers will be left online while we are closing down. All clients are requested to download all files and here is a list of Companies that have been to visit Featureprice and have not been able to reach any deal that would allow a smooth migration to their services.

1. GlobalHost.com - Nice People, Great Support, Will Give Incentives For FP Clients to Join. Personalized Service and A former VP of Time Warner joined their company, these guys are going places. Understand They will be loaded when you go there, FP is very large, please work with them while this post will tap their resources.

2. Atlantic.Net - http://hosting.atlantic.net (800-521-5881) - Atlantic.Net is offering TWO months of free service for Feature Price clients. Founded in 1994, Atlantic.Net was honored as Host Indexs Top Web Host in 2002 and has been named by Inc magazine as one of the nation's fastest-growing private companies for the last three years. All services feature 24/7 phone and email support, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and redundant connections to the Internet backbone.

3. Ipowerweb - Value Hosting Provider. Don't Expect Personalized Service, Another Large Company.

4. Server4you.com - (BEST OFFER) Great Hosting Deals For Unbelievable Prices with the same great technology that Featureprice used. Just sign up for information on their page and they will contact you extremely soon. Best of that, all Featureprice customers wont have to pay for setup and get 3 months for free.

5. Affinity - Has Built A Large Business Based From Acquisition. Don't expect peronalized service!!. Another Large Company.

Ecommerce.com is under control by Fathi Said (stolen), SiteandSites and a host of other domain names are owned exclusively by Fathi Said. Stay away from any site or business that has Austrian Ownership or Fathi Said or any other affiliation with Fathi Said. The problem with this is that Fathi will setup anywhere at anytime, you may or may not know who is actually behind that company, Fathi will use other names, and etc to fool you, be warned and be careful. Fathi while in office ran several businesses "on the side" and sold services that looked like the respective names but were indeed FP services, no one at FP approved this but Fathi, Fathi also registered Dotregister domains for the clients and did not title them in the right names or addresses but with 100% owned by featureprice client, these domains were held hostage, with numerous other domains like Featureprice.com unless the officers of FP were to give him over a half million dollars, the officers called the FBI for Extortion.

The officers of the company were faced with a decision to make, sign a release of ecommerce to fathi or face the domains of all our clients to be misdirected. Fathi got his release and then we got the passwords to the account, all of this was done with communications with the FBI and corporate counsel. Fathi also worked with many companies that we will not release the names of and received payments for the placement of their domains in the list of directories. More to come …

NEVER TRUST DIRECTORIES, NEVER TRUST FORUMS These directories are paid for and profit by the amount of sales that the links generate and the reviews that are made within those directories are paid and forums that people like to post their hate and problems are fueled by someone whom is hosting that site or etc.

Reviews and Directories / Bulletin Boards Forums are not reliable or trust worthy sources.

They in some way and some form are getting paid to talk trash on one provider and then promote another, they ALL are getting paid, they say they are not, but somehow and someway they are getting paid by someone, you may not see it upfront and may not see it at all, but take it from one of the Largest and experienced companies that worked this business for years that they get paid somehow.

NOTHING IS FREE and EVERYTHING COSTS including the site, bandwidth, time and upkeep of these sites.

TRUST WORD OF MOUTH!! TRUST YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND NEVER TRUST FORUMS AND DIRECTORIES / REVIEWS

Perfect Example of MISUSE of information is bulletin boards that release information that is private and confidential, family, children, mothers and fathers and innocent contract employees have been hurt by a lot of clients and former employees (any employee dismissed from FP was for cause, drugs, etc.) that misuse their sources of information, they signed agreements with Equifax and Online Record Searches to not MISUSE this information, they have violated the agreements and have resulted in hurt and anguish for these people. Bulletin Boards, Hate Sites, Etc. have been formed and state very wrong things and distort the truth of FP and don’t state that Officers and Supervisors and Staff worked 12-16hrs a day 7 days a week to keep services stable as much as humanly possible and as much as can be done with shared hosting servers and those whom abuse them, spam from them.

This site will be updated ongoing and will tell the story of FP and all that has led to this, you will know about everything, you will know even to the potential deals that did not work with companies and why FP was not purchased (and NO! it is not because of anything bad) but the dealings in corporate business. And finally but not least, FP was never about just money, FP was about the dream and goals of a few people that made it happen and gave their all, not of the false and untrue statements of upset people. We will write parts and publish in parts, visit back often and don't miss a line.

Thank you for those clients that have called FP home for years and thank you to all those whom have supported FP since they came to know the truth and spirit of the company.
Click to expand...
 
In the post taken from Featureprice's site, this quote appears:

"/ Bulletin Boards Forums are not reliable or trust worthy sources.

They in some way and some form are getting paid to talk trash on one provider and then promote another, they ALL are getting paid...."

I didn't know when I joined this forum that I would be getting paid, and I look forward to receiving my first check. But do I have to talk trash? I am highly confused. Any enlightenment will be appreciated.
 
Hmm... very interesting that.
I've not been to, or seen FeaturePrice for a while, plus I've never ever used their services. Yet, on many occasion I'd hear of so many people hosting there.

I knew of at least ten or more people who hosted there some time back.... now I know of none. :rolleyes:
 
Hello,
What was feature price? Sorry to sound a bit dumb here but I've never heard of them.. But from the post listed above, sounds to me like they were a very high risk business. Most merchant account companies do not initiate holds unless the merchant has a very high ammount of credit card fraud or chargebacks.. But yet there is no mention of this at all but one can assume that things have not been going very good for them in the payment processing department?

Anyway, Just my thoughts at the moment,
Chris
 
I remember the frantic scramble for their 40,000+ customers very well and the mess they left behind with domains they registered in their own name. The bids at Google Adwords for featureprice climbed up their really fast!

It was a very sad case of a large host that grew too fast, oversold their servers and did not provide adequate support to keep the customers satisfied. It is also an excellent example of the power of the consumer. Their rapid fall did not happen by some plot by competitors but from within their own customers complaining to the Florida Attorney General, BBB and numerous chargebacks.

Sadly many of the 40k+ customers never retrieved their site files or transfered the sites away. An attempt was made to sell the company to Atlantic.Net but that appears to have failed last summer. Interestingly, http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts shows there are still 5,205 domains hosted somewhere using their old name servers as of last Monday yet that number is dropping each week.

Moral of the story,
1. Take care of your customers ad be honest with them
2. Don't assume that the size of a company is always and indication of longetivity and reliability

Best Wishes for a .Net Success!
 
I was one of those customers. One day I went to their site, and saw a message that they were going out of business, and the servers would be kept running as long as possible so that people could move.

So, I did just that. Jumped out of the frying pan right into the fire (that'll be another post), but I moved. Then later, I got an email telling me that they were being bought and trying to get me to stay with the new owner. I deleted the message and didn't look back. Looks like from what I've seen here that it was the right decision, even if I moved to the wrong place.

John
 
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