Contract problems with Full Control

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This web hosting review was started by Techtime on 2009-01-29 10:53:11:

I have a situation with Full Control that may be of interest to professionals who are considering doing business with this hosting company. As VP of Operations and the head of technologies for a startup firm I chose Full Control Networks after some research to host several virtual machines for the company’s clients. I filled out a contract with them and things proceeded well for some time. They are a bit pricey, but the service and performance were overall good, so I didn’t mind paying a little extra out of our budget. The problem came after the company I was working for started to run into cash flow problems, and after having some paychecks delayed I decided to move on. A few months later I started to receive calls from my former company’s clients saying that they were unable to contact the company and that they were worried about their sites and data hosted on the virtual machines at Full Control. I called Full Control as a courtesy to the former clients, whom I had maintained good relationships with, however I was informed that I was no longer on the ‘authorized contact list’ by request of my former employer and could no longer be given information about the accounts. I asked if I could at least be told if the account was current, and they finally told me that it was up to date. I told the former clients that they were probably ok for the moment, but that was the extent that I could be of assistance. About a month and a half later I receive a call from Full Control asking to be paid for past due balances, and was informed that all servers had been taken off-line. I told them that I was no longer associated with the company and as they were aware had been removed from the ‘authorized contact list’. Their reply was that I had signed the contract and that if I did not pay it, the bill would go into collections, and I would be on the hook. After trying to contact my former employer to no avail, I re-contacted a couple of the former clients that had first contacted me with concerns. They said that they had recently been on their sites but could no longer access them, and what could we do to correct the situation. I asked them if they would be willing to pay for their share of the past due balance, and they both said they would. I called Full Control back and said that if they want to divide the bill into the separate machine accounts, that I could get them paid for those portions of the bill (about a third of outstanding) that the former clients are willing to pay for, that I may be able to bring the other former clients on-board and then they could persue my former employer for the remainder. They demanded payment in full, or it was going to collection. So…

A. It was a contract with a corporation and I was ‘unauthorized’ and taken off of the email list for billing by request of the corporate president, until suddenly there was an unpaid balance whereupon I was ‘re-instated’ as a responsible party because my name was on the contract under the company name.
B. I have been trying to help all involved by getting them partially paid for the balance due and in the process provide them with on-going revenue from those customers for probably years to come. In addition I had already started a new account with Full Control via my own company, which would likely grow to a good number of virtual machines and always be paid on time. Currently an unlikely scenario.
C. Not only will they never collect a penny by going to collections, but there is a real possibility that all parties will have to pay legal expenses to hash it out. (I keep counsel on retainer, and the former clients are attorneys themselves.)

I am still hoping for reason to prevail, and will post the outcome when it is settled. Until then, If you are a technology officer for a company, and are not prepared to pay your company’s bills after you have left the company; Do Not sign a contract with Full Control.

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