antoniomoro.com
itomizer.com
incautoacquisto.com
impredentbuy.com
incautoviaggio.com
itomicreative.com
roomfactor.com

This morning a friend of mine advised me that all my websites were reporting a “Account Suspended” message from Bluehost.com with something like “contact the supporst asap” and nothing else.

So I contacted bluehost.com with their online 24/7 support chat and chatted with an operator (operator 1) that told me that during the last days it seems that my WP MySQL databases got something wrong and flooded the server with DB requests.. slowing down the other websites hosted (it’s not a dedicated one) so they were forced to disable my web, cPanel and FTP access.

I replied something like ok, I’m sorry.. re-enable my web so I can access my WP admins and disable some plugins/etc to fix it.

Operator 1 said something like ok, here it is, you’re reactivated.

So I started to find and fix the problem.. I was thinking that maybe ine aggregator and twitter plugins were causing the problem and I ws going to disable them and test again when my account went “suspended” again.

So there it started the WTF with Operator 2, aka “mbautista”.

mbautista [3:55:03 AM]: Thank you for contacting Live Chat.
Antonio Moro [3:55:03 AM]: account suspended.. itomizer.com
I’m trying to solve/understand the DB problems, but I can’t if I cant access my sites..
mbautista [3:56:07 AM]: Before we can proceed I need to make sure you are an authorized user on the account. I need you to provide me with the either the full cPanel password OR the last four digits of the credit card on the account. If you paid with PayPal, I will need the original invoice number from your purchase.

This chat is secure (https) and all data transfer is encrypted.
Antonio Moro [3:56:22 AM]: my password is ****
[3:56:30 AM]: my password is ****
mbautista [4:01:07 AM]: `it seems your mysql queries are still pounding our server
Antonio Moro [4:01:30 AM]: wich dbs are affected the most? I have many
[4:01:51 AM]: can you help me in adjusting this problem? I have just Wordpress installations with some plugins
[4:02:05 AM]: it’s maybe some plugin?? I’m using an aggregator plugin
mbautista [4:03:30 AM]: possibly a plugin
[4:03:52 AM]: itomizer_itomi was the one last time the admin did not specify this time
Antonio Moro [4:04:03 AM]: I can’t manage plugins or adjust anything if you suspend my host..
mbautista [4:05:11 AM]: you have cpanel and ftp access now
Antonio Moro [4:05:31 AM]: I need web access to access WP Admin..
mbautista [4:05:46 AM]: that we can not do sorry
Antonio Moro [4:06:10 AM]: how I am supposed to solve this? deleting my sites?? comon, this is no sense guys
mbautista [4:08:21 AM]: you will have to remove the database or updated the scripts for it so it will not pound our servers
Antonio Moro [4:08:53 AM]: I have to disable the plugins on Wordpress, I can’t delete my database.
[4:09:19 AM]: let me access my Wordpress admin so I can at least disable the plugins and let’s see if it’s ok then
mbautista [4:10:09 AM]: you can try contacting our abuse department to see if they can do that but they will not be in until 6am
Antonio Moro [4:11:17 AM]: just enable my web access for 10 minutes and I’ll afjust the plugins.. then re check if it’s ok to don’t suspend me again
[4:11:40 AM]: I have 7 wordpress installations, just give me 10 minutes to work on it.. comon
[4:12:22 AM]: the database access flood is caused maybe from my aggregator plugin, I’ll just kill it
[4:13:09 AM]: ok?
chat closed

WTF??

Ok I can maybe just access my MySQL and access the WP tables if each installation by hand and modify the fucking Wp-Options table.. but WTF I asked to re-enable my account for 10 minutes so I can also verify WHAT EXACTLY was..

But no. In other two chats I asked for 10 minutes, but no, they can’t.

Not only they can’t but the operator also told me that I have JUST ONE MORE CHANCE.. if they de-suspend the account again and for some reason I don’t find the solution in like 1 minute and the site continues to flood the server.. I’m out, I will lost my “account status” and my hosting.. Read the fucking “Terms of Service” and that’s it moron, go fuck yourself back to Italy..

Ok.. I understand that my problem slows down (just slows donw, and not “not accessible”..) the others sites hosted by the same server.. but if I can’t even check what’s happening what I’m supposed to do? just delete my databases and put an image on my sites with a “I’m screwed” message?

and then a fantastic new e-mail from Bluehost.com:

Your web hosting account for itomizer.com has been deactivated (reason: site causing performance problems).
Although your web site has been disabled, your data may still be available for
up to 15 days, after which it will be deleted.

If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact customer support as
soon as possible.

Thank you,
BlueHost.Com Support%CODEBREAK http://www.bluehost.com
For support go to http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/
Toll-Free: (888) 401-4678

OH WOW THEY KEEP MY FILES FOR 15 DAYS BEFORE TO DELETE THEM!! THANKS DUDES!

WTF?!?

I’m paying for the service dudes this is not geocities.com, at least help me find the problem or advice me.. I’m now just in the nightmare to loose everything because I will maybe not find the problem in 10 minutes..

So I deleted all my plugins via FTP and put a new index.html on my websites with the “under maintenance” message.. so no more DB access OK?

I then contacted the support chat to ask to reactivate my sites..

Antonio Moro [5:04:46 AM]: Account suspended / itomizer.com
I have deleted all my WP plugins and uploaded a “site under maintenance” index.html on all my websites so there’s no more DB access.
Can you re enable my web access so I can double check every WP installation and put back online my websites as soon as I’ve solved the plugins problems?
Anthony [5:05:36 AM]: you’ll need to contact our abuse team. To contact them, you can e-mailabuse@bluehost.com or create a ticket at? http://helpdesk.bluehost.com in addition they are available from 6 am to 10 pm -7 GMT by phone.
Antonio Moro [5:06:30 AM]: oh comon
[5:06:46 AM]: you can reactivate my online access, there’s nothing wrong now
Anthony [5:07:23 AM]: please read what I just wrote
Antonio Moro [5:07:50 AM]: ok.. THANKS.

So they can’t reactivate me.. even if I disabled my sites with a new index.html!?!?

NO: I have to contect the ABUSE TEAM to ask if please they can de-suspend me.

So I sent an e-mail to the Abuse Team explaining what’s happened and what I’ve done to fix the problems.

After 6 hours here’s the reply:

Thank you for complying with the Terms of Service. Your account has been reactivated and should be fully functional.
If this continues you could risk your account status with us.
If you have any questions, you may refer to our Terms of Service located at:
%CODEBREAK http://www.bluehost.com/terms.html

Abuse Department
1958 South 950 East
Provo, UT 84606
P: 888.401.4678 | F: 801.765.1992

So finally I have my sites back.. and now they have the “under maintenance” message that I’ve placed to block them..

So now I have to find the problem, disable the plugins that MIGHT cause it and test the luck again reactivating the websites..

But I have to be carefull.. if I miss something and new floods will come.. I will lost my “account status” and fuck you moron, you’re out!

We should organize ourselves and do something.

But first, my story; I started a Bluehost account about three years ago because it was one of the few companies I could find that offered an easy way to install Wordpress. Using Bluehost, I kept a blog for about two years (in conjunction with a book I was writing). But the book has since come out and so I’ve stopped blogging. About six months ago I posted my last post to the blog, and have just left it out there since the URL was on the book, but I haven’t been updating it. The site receives a dozen or so hits a day; nothing to write home about and nothing that could be crashing anyone else’s site. Well, about a week ago I got a notice from Bluehost saying that my account was being deactivated and that I had two weeks to remove my files. I went to the site, to see if it was still up, but it was already down (along with two other sites, which are tiny and don’t receive much traffic if any). I wrote to Bluehost saying there must be some mistake. They refused over and over to send any documentation; instead they most recently wrote: “I am sorry but your site was using up the entire servers memory and CPU cycles, it was causing hundreds of other accounts/site to be non-functioning, this is completely unacceptable and we had to shut your site down so that those other sites could run. You will need to find a new host, your files may be available for up to 15 days.” But this makes NO sense. So, either someone hacked my account, and added something weird to it, or…hell, I don’t know; but they certainly weren’t interested in helping me (or keeping me as a customer). I wrote several impassioned emails, and tried copying Matt, their CEO, on them, but so far I’ve only had the most meager of responses, all of them saying the same thing. But what’s really funny is that I threatened to start a website called bluehostsucks.com, on which I’d gather the stories of other disgruntled users. However, I then went to Network Solutions, to see if the URL was availble; it wasn’t. I thought that maybe Bluehost itself had registered it, the way companies register common misspellings in order to forward those to their regular domain. So I then, on a lark, typed in bluehostsucks.com, to see what was there. That’s how I found this site. And while I think this is a really great site, and I’m glad to find it in terms of knowing that I’m not alone, it’s also depressing because this says to me-with so many other similar stories, and people whose sites were nuked just like mine—that I really don’t have much recourse, and my site is now truly dead. So, as I said: mixed feelings that this site is here. It’s like being picked up for speeding in a small town, and thinking that you’re going to be able to be set free by just making the judge see reason, or complaining loud enough, only to be thrown into jail with a whole bunch of other people picked up for the same silly offense. Like, sure, I don’t feel so alone now, but it also shows me that I’m pretty screwed and nothing I’m going to do is going to help. That being said, in addition to the calls for a class action lawsuit, if anyone wants to make a video with the hopes of it going viral (like the video against United Airlines), I’m willing to work on a song called “Bluehost Sucks.” I’m an amateur musician with a recording studio (er, guitars and Garageband) and could whip something up. Let me know.

The exact same thing happened to me this morning! We don;t spam but apparently we do! does this mean that if a competitor of ours is on bluehost i can just accuse them of spamverts and they will be taken down – like we were – apparent so! Anyway i called thier support dept and they said speak to Abuse – when i called them they were kind enough to let me leave a message on an answering machine and that someone would get back to me in about 8 hours!! 8 hours in internet time – do they even know what that means?!!! I cannot believe a company which is providing an internet driven offering can expect people to wait 8 hours to speak to someone to get info on what happened. All our emails , all our domains – our ftp accounts – everything has been taken offline -and without any call or email – totally unbelieveable!!

Regardless, when this happened to you – was it resolved? were you able to get your site /data/emails back up? how long did it take? did you have to do anything in particular?

would be great if you could let me know your experience….

thanks!
Hassan