RE: [cobalt-users] Legal Action / Cobalt Racks.com

["Carrie Bartkowiak" <admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry about sending this back to the list, but I can't get Kevin's email
addy out of the message (even by hitting forward and looking there)

||>Putting this in very easy terms.....
||>
||>I am not going to file a lawsuit.
||>
||>I AM FILLING OFFICIAL CHARGES FOR INTERNET FRAUD WITH
||>MY LEGAL RESOURCES.

Okay. So if this charge for internet fraud goes through, what happens then?
Is CR simply fined, or are they forced offline, or what?  As a CR customer,
I need to know what the consequences of this action will be. If they're
going to be shut down by federal law enforcement agencies or *anyone*, I
need to know so that I can be ready to move.

||>If they were to take off today, you would be out of
||>luck with no recourse.
||>
||>It has Happened. Other companies have ran fine, until
||>a problem is out of the bag.
||>
||>Guess what? It's out of the bag.

Yes, it's out of the bag. As such, I contacted CR and things were quickly
fixed.
However, if things like this internet fraud charge cause CR to be shut down,
then those of us who took the time to deal directly with the company and try
to get our problems resolved are the ones who suffer.

Let me put it this way. Thing could have been handled very nicely,
person-to-person, and things could have gotten fixed. After all, "the cat is
out of the bag", and now CR is going to *have* to put these customers on
real RaQ4's in order to keep them as customers. They are willing to do
that - whether the problem was initially theirs or not.
Things could have been fixed, everyone could have walked away happy, and
CR's customers who experienced this would probably get even better personal
attention because of it. Case open, case solved, case closed. Problem,
mistake, 'caught red-handed'... whatever you want to call it, it would have
been taken care of. (It is getting taken care of, all of the customers are
being moved - takes less than ten minutes.)

But with this charge, and charges possibly being leveled by Cobalt
themselves, now ALL of CR's customers are in danger of their service
suddenly disappearing and them being left high and dry.  Personally, I feel
that even though my problem has been resolved and then some, much to my
satisfaction, I am now going to be FORCED to find a new provider. Even
though I - and other CR customers - worked out this problem with CR.

It's like renting an aparment and suddenly having the water heater blow up.
You get the manager to replace the water heater, and things are cleaned up.
Your situation is resolved, and you now hold a card to play on the manager
should something else go wrong - the manager is going to bend over backwards
to make sure nothing else goes wrong in your apartment. You'll get better
service than you had before.
Then someone else comes in and says "Nope, we don't care if you and the
manager worked things out and things are fixed and on the level now. You
have to move. Now."

If CR customers want to leave on their own accord and find a new provider,
that's their choice. But don't force the rest of us to HAVE to come up with
the setup fees, sign new contracts, reconfigure new servers to our details,
put our clients through downtime while this happens, and more. This
RaQ3/RaQ4 problem was fixed in ten minutes. I warned my clients of it
beforehand, explained what was going on, and everything went smoothly. No
lost customers.
However, if the FBI walks in and turns the power breaker off, or if this
fraud charge carries such a huge fine with it that CR can't pay it and is
forced to shut down, then I WILL lose clients. Then I WILL be out of luck
with no recourse. Then I WILL have to somehow come up with money that I
don't have to try to get back online and provide refunds to my clients.

There are more ways to solving a problem than to automatically call the
authorities and involve people who don't need to be involved just yet. IF CR
wasn't willing to fix the problem, then yes - call the authorities. But
that's not what's going on. They're fixing the problem. My hosting business
could be just fine, in no danger, with me better off than I was before. But
it's not, because of this fraud charge. Now my hosting business is in danger
of being cut off.

What happened to letting people work things out on their own, and if they
couldn't get it resolved, they could go elsewhere? There is a choice, stay
or leave.

I'm just so upset about this I can't seem to make my point clearly. My
problem is fixed, I am satisfied. Yet I could still have my service ripped
out from under me and be out of a LOT of money and owing a LOT of money to
people because of this whole fraud charge, FBI, etc.

Carrie Bartkowiak