Support Ticket SLA? Site Suspended

Hosting Support
1

My website:
https://tscs.rf.gd/

Issue:
Your account is Suspended For Abuse
Your account was suspended for a violation of our terms of service. Reasons for this may include harmful or illegal content, or because your account overloaded our servers.

Other info:
I submitted a support ticket 2 days ago, and no response yet. FAQs said someone would look at it within a few hours.

The site is a personal fan project where I review Simpsons comics and share my thoughts.

Could someone please clarify what triggered the suspension?

2

Have you tried bumping the ticket?
We can’t really help you on this forum about this

3

Copyrighted material shouldn’t be shared without owner’s permission. You may have violated the ToS.

4

Thanks, didn’t think I can do that.

5

It’s a review site, not a site to download the comics. Like every other review site in existence.

6

Did you get permission from the owner to review the comics? Did you get permission to use any cover art/graphics? If not, you would still be violating ToS.

7

Yes, I’m the original owner of the Simpsons Comics Site.
Over a decade ago, I even contacted Bongo via email to confirm I could use the content for review purposes, which clearly falls under fair use.

I’ve had no issues with any other host for the past 15 years… until now. This one suspended me for “abuse” in under 3 months.

All I want is a clear explanation of what exactly they think is abusive about a review and fan site. Unless you’re paying for every license on your site, technically everyone’s infringing on something.

Anyway, people here seem quick to assume. I’ll be sure to leave a 1-star review on Trustpilot based on this experience.

8

I apologize for my assumptions. As a forum helper, I’m used to seeing pirates and ToS violators. I’m not used to seeing users that have the rights to do what they do from the copyrighted materials’ owners.

It’s saddening to hear that you will be leaving a 1-star review on InfinityFree’s Trustpilot. Please consider that you are on a Free Hosting site, and mishaps can occur.

If @iFastNet (the company behind the ticket system) isn’t responding, try bumping the ticket with evidence that you were allowed to do what you do. They may reconsider, and allow you to have your account back.

If you are leaving for a different host, we’re sorry to see you go. And again, I apologize for my assumptions and behavior.

9

Thank you, and I appreciate you taking your time to help.

If they respond to me letting me know what that reason is, I would gladly show them. They’re just silent.

But getting onto 3 days, doesn’t seem like they care. Their own docs say within a few hours.

Anyway, thanks guys for helping me.

10

I don’t think IfastNet is associated with InfinityFree, and that IfastNet only sponsors them. Pretty sure InfinityFree is not in control of support tickets nor do they have access to them, and that support response time isn’t within anybody’s control here.

11

I don’t care who’s running the show, but the SLAs don’t reflect my experience at all.

They shut down my site without warning, absolutely unacceptable, and I haven’t heard a thing in over four days. The forum post that’s pinned says support should respond within a few hours, clearly not the case.

Now I’m forced to rebuild all my links and rankings from scratch. Lesson learned.

I’m avoiding InfinityFree from now on. Completely unreliable, zero transparency, and no support. I’ve left a 1-star review. In over 15 years of managing websites, I’ve never encountered something like this.

Go after spammers and scammers, not a long-standing fan site that simply reviews comics and has been around for over 20 years.

I’m done. Not associating with a provider that treats users this way.

12

Again like I had said it wouldn’t be Infinityfree’s fault of support, it’s handled by IfastNet, and they were the ones who terminated it as said by @Jri-Creator. The support forum provides as much support as possible, but only @Admin and @ifastnet could actually provide support or un-terminate accounts, etc. Take note that not the people here knew it was a large platform. Did the site have disclaimers saying how you had gotten permission? If so, then that could definitely back up your support ticket a ton.

13

If you do decide to stay with IF, you could await the response of @admin who can provide much more support & insight.

14

In the Terms of Service - InfinityFree, it does say

“InfinityFree reserves the right to suspend service at any time without prior notice”

If you just awaited for the issue to be resolved (hopefully within 24 hours, considering you have posted and both Admin and IfastNet were pinged), then you would be all set for future use.

15

You should have a local backup, especially if you’ve been doing this for 15+ years.

Note that most permanent suspensions are trigged automatically by automated systems, hundreds of new sites are added every day and it is impossible for humans to review them.

Support for suspended accounts is based out of Europe, and the weekend is probably preventing you from receiving an immediate reply, please have patience.

16

Like all Simpsons sites, we have disclaimers, but I go one step further, I had terms, privacy policies, etc. You name it. FOX, Bongo or Disney never shut me down in over two decades, but they shut many other sites down. I review their comics, like IGN etc. It’s one of the top Simpsons site too. But IFastNet LTD shuts it down within 3 months moving here?

Thanks, although I did read, “InfinityFree reserves the right to suspend service at any time without prior notice”, it’s still a shock, I don’t need that level of stress, but it’s a great lesson for me to not be cheap and buy my domain name.

17

I do have a local backup, of course. Since moving here, I managed to rebuild the site and regain its position as the #1 stop for Simpsons comics on search engines with a new domain. I’ve also communicated the new site to the wider Simpsons community and leading related websites.

That said, this experience has been a clear lesson; owning my own domain is essential, and I will be securing one shortly to avoid such disruptions in the future. I never needed to with xtreemhost or Brinkster. They were AMAZING in retrospect.

Thank you for the explanation, but fully automated permanent suspensions without timely human review are frustrating and unfair to genuine sites like mine. Hundreds of new sites may be created daily, but that shouldn’t mean established fan sites that follow the terms are penalised without proper investigation.

Also, a four-day delay in support response, even over a weekend, is excessive. Clear communication and timely human intervention are essential to maintain trust and fairness.

They need to reconsider automated policies and improve response times to avoid unjustly impacting users. Don’t suspend sites if you cannot support the real ones that get caught in the firing line, and it does seem very common with IF.

18

Wow, you have gone quite far with your legal works. Amazing to hear that.

iFastNet’s automated filters may falsely detect legitimate sites. Yeah, I know iFastNet’s filters are poor, but it’s hard to combat abuse on a Free Hosting platform. Free hosting gets abused a lot, and it’s kinda hard to easily sort out the bad from the good.

That was quick, and amazing!

That is the disadvantage of Free Hosting - Once a Free subdomain is suspended, it’s suspended until investigated.

Since you shared your subdomain everywhere, maybe you can get that domain unsuspended quicker by upgrading to premium hosting? Premium hosting allows you to continue to host your subdomain without the constant risk of false suspensions, and it helps support the traffic you may get from your site.

19

Tickets are handled by iFastNet. But seeing how they are handled by the client area, I can see the same messages you see. But of course, I cannot see what’s happening inside the iFastNet support team, let alone see inside the head of an individual support agent, so I don’t always know how soon they can reply or why they respond how they do.

Also, since you keep throwing the word SLA around: we do not provide any SLA with our hosting. Everything is provided best-effort and as-is. Usually support is pretty fast, but it depends on the time, day and how busy things are for support.

20

Thanks for checking and explaining.

Yes, I did use the term SLA because there’s a pinned post that specifically states, in cases of “abuse” related to illegal activity:

“After submitting your request, staff will review your account (typically within a few hours).”

It’s now been 6 days, and realistically, I don’t expect a response at all from iFastNet.

So if I’m being accused of “throwing around” words, I’d argue I’m doing so based on your own wording. At least when I use those terms, I mean them.

I originally signed up because your platform claimed to offer reliable hosting services, a robust platform that supports a wide range of user needs without the restrictions commonly found on other free hosting services, and 24/7 service availability.

Unfortunately, none of that has held true in my case:

  • My account was suspended within 3 months, something that didn’t happen once in 15 years with XtremeHost.
  • My website has now been inaccessible for 6 days, far from 24/7 availability.
  • And iFastNet support system has gone silent.

So yes, I used one word, “SLA”, drawn from your own stated commitments, so I was asking what it was. If that’s out of line, then I suppose we’re all expected to meet standards that don’t apply in return.

You guys have been great to me, you have responded so fast, and I have felt like I have been cared for. So please, this is not aimed at you, but aimed at iFastNet.

Thanks for your help, guys. I suggest changing the wording, because a response from iFastNet in a few hours is not right; it has been more than 150 hours.