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I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason. If I have a Rackspace account, I can go into twitter and say "Rackspace fucking sucks, everyone who works there can go fuck themselves," and there's no chance in hell my account would be canceled. The idea that they are still defending this action is unbelievable.

You are way off base on this point.

Any company can refuse service to an individual for any non discriminatory circumstance. A company can't refuse your business because your race, ethnicity, age or sex or any other determination of discrimination by law but they certainly don't have to do business with you if you're a dick (Pardon my language). If you want to badmouth a company's service or product that you are currently using they certainly can choose to let (force) you to take your business elsewhere (closing your account). You may be entitled to a refund matching the remaining duration on your account, maybe--but as a company they don't have to put up with you forever just because you gave them some money.

Now, I'm not defending This*'s customer service or actions, I'm simply pointing out a blatantly false presupposition you are making.

You're making a statement about the law. I don't think the comment you're replying to was. "Can" is not identical to "may legally." A more reasonable reading of the parent would be "You can't cancel valid accounts and maintain any kind of credibility."

Depends on the ToS. Also, it's bad business no matter how you justify it.

> Any company can refuse service to an individual for any non discriminatory circumstance.

Well, sure, ahead of time, but not after the contract has begun.

If you're taking a bus between two cities, can they decide in the middle of the trip that they don't want your business anymore, refund half your money, and leave you at the side of the road?

Of course not. That's called breach of contract.

And unless This* has a carefully-written escape clause in their service contract, they would be just as liable for canceling service in the middle of a contract period as well.

From: http://www.thiswebhost.com/terms.html :

9. Suspension/Termination

(a) Suspension of Service. Customer agrees that ThisWebHost may suspend services to Customer without notice and without liability if: (i) ThisWebHost reasonably believes that the services are being used in violation of the AUP; (ii) Customer fails to cooperate with any reasonable investigation of any suspected violation of the AUP; (iii) ThisWebHost reasonably believes that the suspension of service is necessary to protect its network or its other customers, or (iv) as requested by a law enforcement or regulatory agency. Customer shall pay ThisWebHost’s reasonable reinstatement fee if service is reinstituted following a suspension of service under this subsection.

I don't see anything in there that looks like it pertains to what happened.

If either of them suffered a significant loss due to the suspension or the deletion of data, they might have a pretty solid case.

You're forgetting about the AUP, especially this part:

Customer Communication

Please remember that the staff at this* are, like you, only human. We expect to be treated with the same level of respect as you'd expect us to treat you, so please bear this in mind when communicating with us, and more importantly before clicking the "Send" button.

We reserve the right to ignore and discontinue any correspondance we consider personally threatening, abusive or otherwise intended to invoke negative responses to the person receiving them. Legitimate and constructive criticism, however, is strongly welcomed - providing you can deliver this to us in an appropriate and sensible manner.

Abusing members of staff is absolutely not tolerated, and will result in an instant account termination.

Why does everyone always quote AUPs? The law counts above an AUP.

What law was violated?

Contract law.

The Agreement references the AUP, so it's on the same level as said Agreement.

Precious fusspot

To extend on your analogy, I'm pretty sure if you started cussing out the bus driver because your mate hadn't paid and got left at the depot, you'd be on the side of the road too.

It all depends on the contract. Presumably, a bus ticket would say something about not endangering or disturbing the other passengers, but if you just, say, tweeted angry messages to the president of Greyhound, it would be a hell of a stretch for them to find grounds to legally void the contract (i.e., kick you off the bus).

Someone in the UK was convicted of a crime about joking about an airport on twitter. Getting kicked off the bus sounds mild in comparison.

Really? I've seen plenty of people kicked off buses for unsociable behaviour.

True

I addressed that three hours before you posted this.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2894221

Yea, why don't you just try? Step on a bus and start being a total dick and harass other travelers, chances are high you'll be kicked off the bus before you arrive at your destination. IMO that's exactly the same thing.

I addressed that four hours before you posted this.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2894221

> I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason.

I'll agree with that, but with qualifications. Certainly you don't just cut off somebody's service. But there are pathological clients who aren't worth keeping on. I don't want to go into details, but I've personally seen one particular case, at a hosting company I once worked for, where it was no longer worth the time and aggravation to keep a certain customer, despite their (as far as I knew) flawless payment record.. We gave them a month to find another service provider, but there was no way we would allow them to remain a customer after that.

As a business, you have the right to deny service to anyone for any reason, aside from certain protected classes such as race and sex. Unless you're broke, you can and should exercise this right to whatever extent it benefits your business. And even if you're broke, sometimes you should consider it.

I understand 100%, as I'm a small shop and I turn away bad clients all the time. But if you're not going to provide the service, you return the money, and you _definately don't delete the backups_!

What This* did is terminate the account, pocket the money, and delete the backups. Not only is that unprofessional, it's _illegal_. If it weren't it would give a legal defense to every person charged with fraud ("we just decided to terminate the business relationship without a refund").

I don't see it stated anywhere that they kept the money. Based upon the fact that a paypal dispute was behind the entire situation, it is very likely the customer simply filed a paypal dispute because he didn't agree with something that happened rather than outright asking for a refund.

As a company that has provided paypal support for products in the past, disputes can be a massive headache and there are certain customers that use the process to their advantage (i.e. using a service for 30 days then filing a paypal dispute claiming the service was broken etc.)

> We gave them a month to find another service provider, but there was no way we would allow them to remain a customer after that.

That is exactly the right way to handle the situation and, in my opinion, does not contradict what gfunk said. If you were to simply cut off a client, no notice, for no other reason except you don't like them -- that's not right.

No, there are limits. They differ from a company (and person) to another but they are usually the same. Do you accept that your client does sexual harassment to one of your employees?

I work as a freelance communicating with people with Skype. If someone has a bad tone, I'll politely tell him to change. If he doesn't, I'll refuse to work with him. I'll pull a refund for him, but that's only in the case I did no work.

This and similar PR nightmares show how little smaller companies understand PR and the right way to handle these situations. Responses should be apologetic and serious in tone, even when the customer was not completely in the right (but is perceived that way by the public). They should clearly state the corrective actions taken. Regarding the employee in question, you can defend the person, but be careful how you address their actions. The corrective action for that employee should go way beyond "that naughty boy won't get to talk with customers any more, ha ha!" The public perceives you have an unstable employee with power over their data (read: livelihood), so counseling/training at minimum (if you don't think the lost business is grounds for termination; probably easy to estimate that, and a smart mgmt. team will do that).

And - holy cow! - you don't have a customer service rep writing the response, you have the CEO or owner do it. That it wasn't goes back to my original point - they don't (yet) recognize this as a PR disaster.

They had me at the exclamation point, and kept me rolling all the way to "this is why comments have been disabled".

> I assume everyone will agree with this statement, but I'll state it anyway: You can't cancel valid accounts! If the account is paid in full, and assuming the account isn't being used for nefarious purposes, you cannot cancel valid accounts for any reason.

I'd agree on ethical grounds, but legally, just about every TOS I have read states that they can cancel an account at any time, for any reason. I don't know if this would hold up in court, though.