D
Dataless
Guest
I am currently a customer of an internet-based company that claims to provide data storage (among other services) for its clients for a monthly fee. Over the past three years, this company has repeatedly lost data and mismanaged networking in a way that has caused excessive amounts of downtime and frustration for its customers.
In the past, this company has been sued for false advertising of its product, but was successful defending itself in court. However, I wonder what the law has to say about the practice of charging a monthly fee for data storage, much of which is lost or corrupted. Further, I feel that a case could be made against this company for continuing to charge a fee based on time, when -- due to their own mismanagement -- use of their services takes an exhorbitant amount of time.
Are there any relevant cases that have touched on such issues? In my view, as well as in the view of many others, this company is seriously abusing its power. There is absolutely no way for us to retrieve the immense amount of time we have spent creating the data they have lost, and absolutely no way (within the boundaries of their current system) for us or for them to replace the data.
Another troubling aspect of working with this company, is the lack of communication with the ones responsible for the poor quality of the service. They have a server-based "pager" system for help, yet the use of this system results in the customer being placed in a help "queue" for extended periods of time, often for several hours or more. Worse yet, on many occasions, after waiting these several hours to be attended to by a customer service representative, no response from anyone at the company was ever received by the caller. A vast majority of serious data loss problems go unaddressed, so much so that the customer is often forced to attempt to continue without assistance.
Though frustrating, the lack of help is only a side-note to the reality of the situation....waiting hours for a help request to be addressed takes time, and that time adds more and more downtime to the point where more time is spent by the customer either being unable to access the server, struggling to retrieve lost data, and waiting for help to arrive than actually being able to get the service he is paying the monthly fee for.
I have been very conservative in my description of the level of mistreatment this company has shown towards its customers. Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg. I just want to convey the overall categorization of this problem so you can hopefully point me towards records of similar cases, or towards any legal office that specializes in such issues. I would greatly appreciate any information or advice you could give me regarding this matter.
In the past, this company has been sued for false advertising of its product, but was successful defending itself in court. However, I wonder what the law has to say about the practice of charging a monthly fee for data storage, much of which is lost or corrupted. Further, I feel that a case could be made against this company for continuing to charge a fee based on time, when -- due to their own mismanagement -- use of their services takes an exhorbitant amount of time.
Are there any relevant cases that have touched on such issues? In my view, as well as in the view of many others, this company is seriously abusing its power. There is absolutely no way for us to retrieve the immense amount of time we have spent creating the data they have lost, and absolutely no way (within the boundaries of their current system) for us or for them to replace the data.
Another troubling aspect of working with this company, is the lack of communication with the ones responsible for the poor quality of the service. They have a server-based "pager" system for help, yet the use of this system results in the customer being placed in a help "queue" for extended periods of time, often for several hours or more. Worse yet, on many occasions, after waiting these several hours to be attended to by a customer service representative, no response from anyone at the company was ever received by the caller. A vast majority of serious data loss problems go unaddressed, so much so that the customer is often forced to attempt to continue without assistance.
Though frustrating, the lack of help is only a side-note to the reality of the situation....waiting hours for a help request to be addressed takes time, and that time adds more and more downtime to the point where more time is spent by the customer either being unable to access the server, struggling to retrieve lost data, and waiting for help to arrive than actually being able to get the service he is paying the monthly fee for.
I have been very conservative in my description of the level of mistreatment this company has shown towards its customers. Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg. I just want to convey the overall categorization of this problem so you can hopefully point me towards records of similar cases, or towards any legal office that specializes in such issues. I would greatly appreciate any information or advice you could give me regarding this matter.