Email problems Web Mania

Serendipity

Here's an interesting rant - we are not alone!

Israr

LOL..interesting Rant !!
Wish there was more that we can do..surely we have some kind of consumer rights dont we?

stephen0183

Bad news it looks like ladies and gents.

Done a quick Google search for WebMania and Companies House and one of the links took me to the following page...
secure.creditgate.com/search/search.aspx?AP=Full%20Non-Limited&CompanyID=05607555&CompanyType=L&BS=1&BT=Full%20Data

You'll notice a little way down the page that there is a list of documents that have been filed with Companies House, the latest of which was on Sunday 24th April with a description of REGISTERED OFFICE CHANGED.

Going back up to the Registered office, it is listed as:
BEGBIES TRAYNOR (CENTRAL) LLP
11 CLIFTON MOOR BUSINESS VILLAGE
JAMES NICOLSON LINK
YORK
NORTH YORKSHIRE
YO30 4XG

Another Google search of BEGBIES TRAYNOR (CENTRAL) LLP lead me to this site where their main banner kinda gives the game away...
begbies-traynorgroup.com/begbies-traynor/about-us.aspx

As an affected customer of WebMania, I'll be on the phone to Begbies tomorrow to see what the state of play is and whether there are any ways of retrieving the data that is mine.


(as a new user, I can't add links... if a mod wants to edit the necessary, feel free! )

The_Grateful_Ghoul

Same problem here, I'm another server18 victim.
Been offline for nearly a week, all e-mails etc ignored, think it's time to find another host ASAP.

Let me know how you guys get on.

stephen0183

And official documentation of the liquidation of WebMania published yesterday is here... london-gazette.co.uk/issues/59780/notices/1357882/all=web+mania

Serendipity

Thanks for this Steven0183, so my fears have been confirmed!
I suppose it is just possible that they may emerge from liquidation or get bought by some other company, but I am now actively moving my remaining accounts from them to another host...

Serendipity

Got an email from WebMania saying that like !!!!!! Turpin, they are moving from London to York (OK, they didn't mention !!!!!! Turpin, I made that bit up ).
Then I found that when my website was back online, it was a 2009 vintage snapshot of it!
Got another email saying that the hard drive on the server was knackered so they were trying to recover the data.
So I thought I would restore my own backups from Thursday, but couldn't log in via FTP. I sent an email, not expecting a reply, but got one back within a few minutes purporting to be from Nathan Barnes himself! He had reset my password, so I was able to upload my backups of the files and SQL databases, and all seems well for now.

They seem to be re-branding their website as YorHost.net now, so maybe the WebMania problems will disappear along with the old name?

banderanti

Web-Mania is now in administration which has been confirmed to me by The Office of Fair Trading and The Advertising Standards Authority. Nathan barnes is supposedly moving all websites to new servers at no cost to existing customers. Recent renewals of website fees will, apparently, be repaid upon request. Any queries may be sent to:
BEGBIES TRAYNOR (CENTRAL) LLP
11 CLIFTON MOOR BUSINESS VILLAGE
JAMES NICOLSON LINK
YORK
NORTH YORKSHIRE
YO30 4XG

These are the administrators.

Laptop_Matt

I've been using web mania for 10 years (we 'were' on server 2) their service was OK, not brilliant just OK,

The other day I google searched some new sections that i had made to find that they had vanished.

Checked my website and all of my new sections and media have gone. Our contact address is now our old one and our last customer was in 2009!!

Could not log in though my control panel
Could not log in though FTP

An email confirmed that unbelievably that one of the hard disks in RAID set in server 2 failed 2 years ago and since then it has been running on a single hard disk with a massive risk of data loss. This hard disk has now crashed as well and I have lost everything, customer details and product reviews, not to mention new sections which I had spent weeks creating.

I asked for a more recent backup than 2009 and got response "Unfortunately we don’t hold back’s of user data"

Surely that is the minimum I would expect from a web host, I'm amazed.

I have demanded that the disks should be sent for data recovery (as there is 2 there is a good chance of getting mine and everyone else's data back).

I am not recreating the website as from conversations it seems that my data is only being stored on a single disk. Time to go elsewhere...

stephen0183

Do I take regular back ups for my sites...? yes
Have I got lots of accounts on MSE...? no
Do I have a vengance...? no
Will I take lectures on newbie posts from another newbie...? no

What Web-Mania/YorHost have not done is advise their affected customers on server 18 (the worst affected server) as what is going on. One of my sites came back after over 3 weeks of downtime. During that time, I've been in a state of limbo... do I need to get a new webhost or not?

Surely if you were without a mobile phone signal for 3 weeks, you'd complain or ask questions to your service provider as to what was happening?!

When I made my posts, there was no indication whatsoever that Nathan Barnes had bought the assets of WebMania and set up YorHost. All evidence publicly available on the www at the time of my postings pointed to the fact that WebMania had ceased trading. I was only passing on information as I found it to inform people who were in the same boat as me.

However my site is now back up and running and hopefully, the problems of the last month are behind WebMania/YorHost. What affected people decide to do with their sites is entirely up to them.