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	<title>itsCURT.com</title>
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	<link>http://itscurt.com</link>
	<description>Personal blog with reviews, rants, information, and the greatest deals on the internet.</description>
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		<title>CPAlead.com &#8211; Incentive CPA Network + How I got $9,600 in a month!</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2010/04/25/cpalead-com-incentive-cpa-network-how-i-got-9600-in-a-month/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2010/04/25/cpalead-com-incentive-cpa-network-how-i-got-9600-in-a-month/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:56:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Affiliate Talk]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=385</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been working with affiliate marketing for over four years now, and have just discovered the innovation of CPA marketing. CPA stands for &#8220;Cost per Action&#8221; or &#8220;Pay per Performance&#8221;. This is great for advertisers as well as publishers like ourselves because it guarantees the advertisers successful conversions and publishers a way to get incentivized [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/affiliates/cpalead" target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-386" title="cpaleadlogo" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cpaleadlogo.jpg" alt="" width="174" height="61" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been working with affiliate marketing for over four years now, and have just discovered the innovation of CPA marketing. CPA stands for &#8220;Cost per Action&#8221; or &#8220;Pay per Performance&#8221;. This is great for advertisers as well as publishers like ourselves because it guarantees the advertisers successful conversions and publishers a way to get incentivized for their content.</p>
<p>I have been monetizing one of my websites with <a href="http://itscurt.com/affiliates/cpalead" target="_blank">CPAlead.com</a> for the past few months, and have earned hundreds of dollars per month for my first 4 months. However, I have discovered the potential of incentivized CPA marketing and made up to $9,600 in as little as a few days! After being a member of CPAlead for so many months now, I have chatted with many other publishers from CPAlead and they also make several thousands of dollars per day! I knew that the possibilities of generating income online were endless, but the statistics of income from CPAlead is extreme! Below are some of the many reasons why I use and recommend <a href="../affiliates/cpalead" target="_blank">CPAlead</a> for incentive based marketing.</p>
<p>Now there are many reasons to why <a href="../affiliates/cpalead" target="_blank">CPAlead</a> is the leader in CPA solutions for publishers. Below are some reasons why I personally find CPAlead to be the best.</p>
<ol>
<li>One of the reasons is because CPAlead is not just a CPA advertising company, but an <span style="text-decoration: underline;">INCENTIVE</span> CPA advertising company. Normally, advertisers do not allow incentive based traffic because the visitors just complete their offers or &#8216;convert&#8217; because they are receiving a reward for completing it. However, with CPAlead , the network encourages incentive based traffic, meaning you can reward your users with content, benefits, and even real prizes! Any other CPA company would not allow you to offer incentives and you would basically be using them as just related banner or link ads on your web pages.</li>
<li>Offer conversions are instantaneous! This feature is one that sets CPAlead aside from the rest. The fact that the business for publishers are incentive based, it is of high demand for instantaneous responses to let the website, admin, or visitor know as soon an offer has been completed. Other competition in the business do not report the conversions of it&#8217;s visitors until a few hours after the end of the day.</li>
<li>Content-Lock Gateway, Feeds, PostBack and Ease of integration. As CPAlead is an incentive based company, they strive to work hard to giving the publishers the necessary tools to make the most out of the offers. CPAlead offers a user-friendly control panel for a publisher to develop a &#8216;widget&#8217;, which would lock down the pages on their websites to their visitors until they complete an offer. All that is needed to implement this &#8216;widget&#8217; to your website is a line of code provided from CPAlead.  An example page would be found <a href="http://itscurt.com/portfolio/cpaleaddemo.php" target="_blank">here</a>. CPAlead also offers many other integration methods without the use of widgets, for implementing onto your website. These features such as instant feeds of offer listings in RSS or CSV format, providing information (offer name, offer id,offer description, country, payrate, paytype(freesurvey,trial,purchase), conversion rate, ) on each offer. CPAlead also offers POSTback for all your offers, so each offer completed could have it&#8217;s data sent to your server URL. CPAlead admins have also provided many example codes which allows many novice users to make use of integrating POSTback code like a professional.</li>
<li>Simple registration and easy approval! Unlike other affiliate companies, affiliate managers would have to call you in person to confirm the information on your website and how you intend to monetize it for CPA based marketing. However, with CPAlead, they just require your personal information to know where to send the checks to. They do not call you to get more information on what you are using them for but instead just approve you within 12 hours! With CPAlead there is no fear in wasting your time to get rejected for applying to the company as a publisher.</li>
<li>Availability and prices of offers. As CPAlead is one of the top incentive affiliate companies in the industry, advertisers come to CPAlead with the most and highest paying offers and campaigns on the internet. CPAlead also works with hundreds of international (Non-US) Publishers, and strives to find the best offers for international users. As many websites have visitors from other countries, CPAlead finds it a priority to get offers available for other countries to be able to access their client&#8217;s (publishers) content. As CPAlead works so hard to find it&#8217;s publishers the highest paying offers, there have been many surveys available paying $7-9 per completion which does not require any cell phone number or credit card! Imagine if ten thousand users were to visit a page to watch your youtube video, and had to complete a free 3-minute survey to watch it. You&#8217;d be making $70-90 for only 10 thousand users while it costs them nothing!</li>
<li>CPAlead does not scrub earnings! Scrubbing is basically retracting earnings from publishers because advertisers claim that the offers that were marked as completed are in fact fraudulent, and will not pay for them. Any CPA company would side with the advertisers and reverse the earnings from a publisher  in a 30-day window if offers completed look  fraudulent.</li>
<li>User Friendly Control Panel: I have worked with many other affiliate companies, such as Google Adsense, Clicksor, ClickBank, Commision Junction, InstantProfitz and more. CPAlead in my opinion has the most user-friendly admin panel with only all of the features you would need in a control panel, with customizable color themes, instant sounds as soon as an offer completes, and AJAX powered chatbox and statistics you would need.</li>
<li>Availability of support! The affiliate managers of CPAlead are in the business strictly for their customers. You can find them anytime during their standard hours via the publishers chatroom, email, toll-free number, and even chat handle! The affiliate managers uses chat protocols such as AIM, ICQ and MSN to give their publishers the availability of free support whenever they have a question or problem with their service. This is something many businesses fail to provide, but CPAlead has not failed. I have had a personal problem with my account and earnings that my affiliate manager was unable to resolve, but he actually took the time to contact his boss, or the CEO of CPAlead to resolve the problem for me. Needless to say, unbelievable positive outcomes were met!</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>How I implemented CPAlead on my website and earned $9600 in the matter of days:</strong></p>
<p>My website originally a community forum which generated income from Google Adsense (PPC Advertising) and Paid Subscriptions (PayPal). The website itself was free to use, but the paid subscriptions cost merely ~$5/month per user who wished to have the secret benefits of a premium user. The website is a pretty successful forum, with thousands of users and over a hundred thousand discussion topics and posts. I have then decided that I wanted to offer my users the ability to earn a paid subscription without actually having to spend money from their wallets. This would be a great feature for my website as many of my users are minors and do not hold a credit card to take payment information. I have then discovered CPAlead and have implemented to my website on the very next day, due to it&#8217;s super simple integration and example codes that helped me develop the addition to my website. How I implemented CPAlead on my website is simple. It is just used as an alternative to earn a subscription on my forum. There were no additional ads on my website which would distract or discourage my users from their experience on the website. There would be a sub section on the website where users would be able to earn &#8220;virtual currency&#8221; for my website by completing offers and surveys. Just a day after I&#8217;ve coded the CPAlead part of my website, my website has been receiving a lot more subscribers just due to the alternative payment option I&#8217;ve implemented from CPAlead. After seeing how easy it is for users to get a subscription now, I have had to increase the value of subscriptions via the survey portion of the site to evenly balance the ratio of subscribers from regular free users. As I&#8217;ve seen users still earning a good amount of virtual currency from the new service implemented with CPAlead, I&#8217;ve thought of offering more than just subscriptions, as CPAlead was an incentive based CPA company. I have then started to offer more than just forum subscriptions, but added incentives to the program to earn digital or virtual rewards, such as gift cards, rapidshare accounts, and really just rewards what people would usually have to pay money to get. There have been a week on CPAlead where the value of offers from their advertisers have spiked to be 4-5 times their original worth, and users have taken advantage of that. They have been completing offers non stop and earned hundreds of dollars in virtual currency redeemable for prizes which I exchange to them for 50% of the virtual currency they&#8217;ve earned. Due to the ease of completing surveys from CPAlead and the high pay rates for their offers, this has allowed my users and me to earn quick and easy revenue through CPAlead and it&#8217;s advertisers.</p>
<p><strong>TIP: Types of websites that implement CPAlead and how they are used.</strong></p>
<p>As of today there are thousands of websites that are monetized using CPAlead. Many of these websites use the gateway-unlocker widget which requires surveys to be filled to see such content. You would find this gateway on sites such as: Movies and Streams, downloads, tv shows, e-books, single page files, redeemable codes, etc. Many of these sites can use deceptive practices to get you to complete an offering thus earning the webmaster income. Some sites such as advertising &#8216;Get a Starcraft 2 Beta Key&#8217; for completing an offer, which would lure many users into completing an offer, though no key would be returned. The movie sites however could start to play a movie for a few seconds until the CPAlead Gateway lock comes up and blacks out the page until you complete its offers. These types of site actually guarantee content as the widget is set to allow a preview period before the widget actually comes up. Now there are many different websites and even facebook applications that implements CPAlead on their products. Users would have to complete an offer to activate a prize or to earn virtual currency. You can see this as an alternative method of payment such as what was implemented on my site, or those on the latest MMORPG facebook games.</p>
<p>Now that I have introduced CPAlead and CPA marketing to you, I will show you my earnings from CPAlead compared to others from CPAlead earning much more than what I am making! or have made! Just this preview alone shows you the potential of income from internet marketing especially from just CPAlead alone!</p>
<p>My Earnings:</p>
<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/CPAlead_February_Earnings.png" target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-387" title="CPAlead_February_Earnings" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/CPAlead_February_Earnings.png" alt="" width="1047" height="542" /></a></p>
<p>My Check:</p>
<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cpalead_check.png" target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-388" title="cpalead_check" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cpalead_check.png" alt="" width="827" height="595" /></a></p>
<p>Other publishers on the CPAlead chatroom bragging their earnings from the time I decided to screenshot proof (~&gt;$100/day, some even $600/day!):</p>
<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/generalcpalead-earnings3.png" target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-392" title="generalcpalead earnings" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/generalcpalead-earnings3.png" alt="" width="884" height="733" /></a></p>
<p>People earn so much money online and CPAlead is just one company that gives users the potential to. I have shown you proof on earnings of just every day CPAlead users and even proof of a check I&#8217;ve received from CPAlead. I hope this post can be a motivational tool for users around the world to get started in internet marketing and making the most of their time spent online. If you support me or this post in influencing or motivating you to start with CPAlead, please sign up for the site through any of the links on this page or my referral link located here: <a href="http://www.cpalead.com/apply.php?ref=31367" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1b8b00;">http://www.cpalead.com/apply.php?ref=31367</span></a>. Since the time of this post I have sold my last internet website, and am now looking forward to developing more sites and monetizing them using CPAlead.</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.cpalead.com/apply.php?ref=31367" target="_blank">here</a> to get started now!</p>
<p><span style="color: #c0c0c0;">If you&#8217;re looking to implement CPAlead with an Adult site, you may only use their other company site, AdultAccessNow, <span style="color: #808080;"><a href="http://itscurt.com/affiliates/adultaccessnow" target="_self">here</a></span>.</span></p>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>JustHost.com Webhosting &#8211; My unbiased review, horrible support!</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/11/18/justhost-com-webhosting-my-unbiased-review-horrible-support/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/11/18/justhost-com-webhosting-my-unbiased-review-horrible-support/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Rants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=367</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, I&#8217;ve been hosting my websites on the internet for over 5 years, I&#8217;ve even ran a web hosting business myself for 2 years. Me being the frugal internet shopper I am, I switch hosts from time to time, looking for the best deals. Of course, when looking for deals for a web host, you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/links/merchants/justhost " target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-368" title="justhost" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/justhost.jpg" alt="justhost" width="200" height="81" /></a></p>
<p>Well, I&#8217;ve been hosting my websites on the internet for over 5 years, I&#8217;ve even ran a web hosting business myself for 2 years. Me being the frugal internet shopper I am, I switch hosts from time to time, looking for the best deals. Of course, when looking for deals for a web host, you must be careful. There is always the factor of reliability, uptime, speed, support, and pricing. However, when searching for reviews on JustHost, I was unable to find negative reviews. That&#8217;s the thing about web hosting reviews, if the webhost offers an affiliate program, the only results you see on google will be biased results, promoting JustHost due to personal gain. JustHost offers over $65 per signup to it&#8217;s affiliates, for referring people to it&#8217;s hosting, that&#8217;s why the top results are full of positives about JustHost. Well, everybody&#8217;s going to make money somehow, so I&#8217;ll put their affiliate link on my post too. At least this review isn&#8217;t going to be PRO-JustHost, all my posts are unbiased!</p>
<p>Been a customer for less than 24 hours and have none of my 4 support requests fulfilled in a timely manner. What&#8217;s the point of having different support departments, such as billing, and technical when the departments take hours to answer a ticket, with hours switching issues from department to department. They are also not there to help you, most of their services which are free for them, are charged to you as upgrades, such as priority support and SSH access.</p>
<p>JustHost&#8217;s Affiliate program with CJ also didn&#8217;t credit me for my signup, I was hoping to be a loyal customer but their support and service is way too slow. Especially their live support.</p>
<p>Website Features: 3 of 5 stars<br />
Reliability / Uptime: N/A<br />
Hosting Software: 4 of 5 stars<br />
Live Support: 1 of 5 stars<br />
24/7: Support: 1 of 5 stars</p>
<p><span id="more-367"></span></p>
<p>Well when I first ordered the hosting, I was prompted with a 50% off code, bringing my total down to $2.95 a month. I received the 50% discount code because I was annoyingly prompted to stay, when I tried to exit the site. The order page however, made it seem like $2.95 was the regular price for hosting. There were dead order links on their site, and I had to edit the URL to remove the junk to make it accessible. The front page of JustHost.com says hosting is $3.95, so I didn&#8217;t think $2.95 was the price at 50% off. Before I purchased the plan, I contacted JustHost using their live support, and inquired about this. The support representative asked me for some time so she could look into it for me, and ten minutes later she referred me to email billing@justhost.com. I just went along to order the hosting, and left a note on the PayPal payment to refund me 50%. This is what i put on PayPal comment:</p>
<blockquote><p>I have used a JustHost Coupon: 50-OFF for 50 percent off, however, it does<br />
not seem as if it&#8217;s taken off the discount. Please pro-rate a 50% off refund<br />
to this PayPal account before provisioning the hosting account. If you are<br />
unable to offer the 50% refund, please skip the account activation and offer<br />
a full refund.</p></blockquote>
<p>After I&#8217;ve sent the payment, I&#8217;ve noticed that their systems set up the account instantly, so I&#8217;ve had my account set up and ready to go. This is not a problem, but the PayPal note has totally been disregarded. So I&#8217;ve opened up a customer support to support@justhost.com, and billing@justhost.com.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Received</strong> on <strong>Nov/17/2009 9:53:52PM</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong>Hi, I&#8217;ve left a note on the PayPal payment hoping a staff would look through<br />
it, but was unaware accounts were instantly set-up. Here is the issue I<br />
have, and I would like the 50% discount I&#8217;ve signed up with refunded to my<br />
PayPal. Thanks for understanding.</p>
<p>Regards,<br />
Curt W.</p>
<p>PayPal Note:<br />
I have used a JustHost Coupon: 50-OFF for 50 percent off, however, it does<br />
not seem as if it&#8217;s taken off the discount. Please pro-rate a 50% off refund<br />
to this PayPal account before provisioning the hosting account. If you are<br />
unable to offer the 50% refund, please skip the account activation and offer<br />
a full refund.</p>
<p>Regards,<br />
Curt W.</p></blockquote>
<p>After that ticket, I&#8217;ve received a response pretty quickly! Two responses in just under 10 minutes, I received a response from support@justhost.com stating that my ticket to support is closed.</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/17/2009 10:02:19PM</strong></p>
<p>Hi  Curtis,</p>
<p>I am forwarding this ticket to the Billing Department.<br />
They will assist you a bit later.</p>
<p>Thank you for your patience.<br />
&#8211;<br />
Kind regards,<br />
Donald Bray,<br />
Just Host<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/17/2009 10:04:45PM</strong></p>
<p>Hi  Curtis,</p>
<p>You already have another ticket on the same issue. The manager will reply you<br />
soon via the ticket.<br />
I am closing this one.<br />
&#8211;<br />
Kind regards,<br />
Donald Bray,<br />
Just Host<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Alright, so my ticket is now in the hands of billing, okay. I&#8217;m starting to get annoyed by the different departments of customer service. But since I needed to get my site up, I couldn&#8217;t keep waiting on a single issue, so I&#8217;ve replied with more questions:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Received</strong> on <strong>Nov/17/2009 10:07:03PM</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong>Thanks for the quick reply.</p>
<p>Before I change the nameservers of my domain name, can you update the DNS<br />
settings for me?</p>
<p>I&#8217;d need a CNAME record for irc.thebotnet.com to point to irc.botsites.net</p>
<p>Also, I might need you to restore a mysql backup for me or grant me SSH<br />
access in the upcoming days.</p>
<p>Looking forward to hosting with you guys.</p>
<p>Regards,<br />
Curtis W.</p></blockquote>
<p>Two hours later, I get a response from a billing representative:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/18/2009 12:10:03AM<br />
</strong>Hi Curtis,</p>
<p>Thank you for your email.<br />
Please can you advise me of your paypal email address so that I can look into this for you.</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>Lee<br />
&#8211;<br />
Lee Garrett<br />
Billing Representative<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Now I&#8217;ve worked in webhosting to know that a billing representative could easily track down my payment if they wanted to, unless they were lazy. Their website advertises support requests answered in under an hour, while priorty support for $20/month is in under 30 minutes. Instead of a one hour wait, it took two, with my problem still being unresolved. I reply only two minutes later:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Received</strong> on <strong>Nov/18/2009 12:12:22AM</strong></p>
<p>Hi Lee, my PayPal Address is: xx@itscurt.com</p></blockquote>
<p>And I receive a simple reply an hour and thirty minutes later..</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/18/2009 1:33:39AM</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong>Hi Curtis</p>
<p>Thank you for your email</p>
<p>$70.80 is the correct price for the 50% off plan. I am sorry for any mixups</p>
<p>Kind regards<br />
&#8211;<br />
Ben Moore<br />
Billing Representative<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Quite understanding, about the 50%, however, the response time it takes them is just way too long for these types of questions and answers.</p>
<p>After this response, I&#8217;ve decided to just forget about support, and to set-up my website and let them keep the money. After loading my site content, on their server, I would like to preview it before bringing it live. I did not update my nameservers, but wanted a temporary URL to preview my site. Knowing that the server is hosted through cPanel software, I&#8217;ve attempted to preview my site through this URL: http://cl68.justhost.com/~username/ . Unfortunately their cPanel software is configured differently, which I was unable to preview my URL. However, I contacted their live support representative through online chat! I&#8217;ve stated the problem, and the other representative asked me again to hold. Another 5 minutes later, the representative suggested that I just point my domain to their nameservers, thus blowing off the entire reason why I wanted a preview URL. The support representative was not too helpful, then advised me to contact support@justhost.com. I asked the support representative if he could open a ticket for me, then he said sure, and two minutes later he said he did. However, no other ticket was opened regarding that issue.. Now back to me working on my own!</p>
<p>Are we forgetting something? Oh yes, an unanswered question from the previous support ticket! I&#8217;ve sent them another reply:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/18/2009 1:59:14AM</strong></p>
<p>I guess you&#8217;re right, but I also need another issue fixed from the technical<br />
support department, which was previously asked, but  unanswered on this ticket..</p>
<p>It turns out my DB is over 100MB and would take a while to transfer, and may be<br />
difficult to import without SSH capabilities. I would like to request temporary<br />
SSH access and DNS adjustments on my accounts, as requested from my last<br />
message.</p></blockquote>
<p>I received a response 22 minutes later.. 22 minutes, is that quick to you? Maybe, but is it helpful? Maybe not.</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/18/2009 2:21:41AM</strong></p>
<p>Hi, Curtis</p>
<p>Thank you for your email.</p>
<p>We have looked into your request and feel that you would be better assisted by<br />
our technical support team. I have now transferred this ticket to them, they<br />
will respond to you shortly.</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>Kerry<br />
&#8211;<br />
Kerry Brown<br />
Billing Representative<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Now I guess you understand why I am so arrogant and against the multiple support departments.. 50 minutes later..</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Sent</strong> on <strong>Nov/18/2009 3:09:50AM</strong></p>
<p>Hi  Curtis,</p>
<p>We cannot set temporary access for your account.<br />
Please upload your database dump to our server, provide us with the name of<br />
database and we will import it.<br />
And also provide us with DNS adjustments so we will set it for you.</p>
<p>Waiting for reply.<br />
&#8211;</p>
<p>Kind regards,<br />
Alexander Zander<br />
Just Host<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Now, it costs them nothing at all to enable SSH access for me, but they charge $20 a year for SSH access, and they refuse to give me 1 day of access to I can import my databases. I usually wouldn&#8217;t mind just letting them restore it for me, but since I am transfering a website where thousands of users access in a day, I cannot risk the downtime. The time it would take me shut down my current site to download and re-upload the database to the new server, and the unknowing response time of the customer support, plus the time it would take me to restore and re-configure the site for the new database would be too much downtime for my users to consume. Being frustrated, I remind them of my other task that I required, only 3 minutes later.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Received</strong> on <strong>Nov/18/2009 3:12:15AM</strong></p>
<p>Set the CNAME records of irc.thebotnet.com to point to irc.botsites.net.</p></blockquote>
<p>From then on, I just went to bed and hoped the next day would be better. About 30 minutes later I get a response:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Sent</strong> on <strong>Nov/18/2009 3:44:34AM</strong></p>
<p>Hi  Curtis,</p>
<p>Sorry, but thebotnet.com is not pointed to our hosting.<br />
Therefore, we are unable to point its subdomain.</p>
<p>Please let us know if you need more help.<br />
&#8211;</p>
<p>Kind regards,<br />
Alexander Zander<br />
Just Host<br />
<a href="http://www.justhost.com/" target="_blank">www.justhost.com</a></p></blockquote>
<p>I guess that&#8217;s true, but to this point, none of my support questions, and tasks have completed the way I planned it would. Maybe it is just me being snobby, but it&#8217;s for you to decide. The next morning I wake up and decide to cancel my hosting, as I&#8217;m going to find another host which would give me free SSH access for cheaper.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Received</strong> on <strong>Nov/18/2009 10:42:52AM</strong></p>
<p>Domain: thebotnet.com</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve been a customer for under 24 hours, and request a full refund and account<br />
cancellation. I have not ordered or transferred a domain.</p></blockquote>
<p>Their billing support seems faster, I wonder why.. Anyways, 20-30 minutes later, I get the canned cancellation message:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sent on <strong>Nov/18/2009 11:07:51AM</strong></p>
<p>Hi Curtis</p>
<p>Thank you for your email.</p>
<p>I can confirm that your account – including any upgrades has now been fully<br />
cancelled and a pro rata refund issued. This may take 7 working days to<br />
process.</p>
<p>If you would like to transfer your domain to a new registrar, please email<br />
<a href="mailto:support@justhost.com">support@justhost.com</a> and we can release it 60 days after it was registered.<br />
This is as a result of regulations set by ICANN regarding the transferral of<br />
domains. For more information please visit &#8211; <a href="http://www.icann.org./" target="_blank">http://www.icann.org.</a></p>
<p>If you have paid for your account via a PayPal subscription please remember to<br />
cancel this to avoid further PayPal payments being sent to us.</p>
<p>If you have any questions regarding your cancellation or refund please do not<br />
hesitate to contact us on 1 -888 755 -7585 (USA) 0871 &#8211; 311 &#8211; 0813 (UK) 1 &#8211; 888<br />
1 229 &#8211; 654 (AU)</p>
<p>We hope you enjoyed your Just Host experience, and look forward to maybe seeing<br />
you again soon. Thank you for considering us as your web hosting provider.</p>
<p>Have a great day!</p>
<p>Kind regards,</p>
<p>Jamie</p>
<p>Jamie Irish<br />
Customer Support Manager<br />
Just Host</p></blockquote>
<p>Funny thing is, they wish to pro-rate my refund, and I haven&#8217;t even been a customer for a day. So for the $70 I&#8217;ve spent on the two years; they get to keep $0.095. Whatever; I still think it&#8217;d be easier for them to just refund the payment in full. However, they&#8217;ve stated that the pro rata refund has been issued, and they&#8217;ve also stated it may take 7 working days to process. My refund has not been issued, but would probably be issued in the next 7 days. They should fix their wording on that statement. I&#8217;ve opened a dispute for a full refund via PayPal and cancelled my subscription with them. Their support desk is horrible, and their live support is useless. Their live support just refers you to their billing or support email, and doesn&#8217;t open tickets for you when prompted. This is the second time I&#8217;ve ranted about a webhost on my blog, and I&#8217;m not a picky person.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve never really been the guy to use or rely on support, but I at least expect them to help me out somewhat when I need it. Now I can&#8217;t really give a review based on reliability and site performance as I&#8217;ve been a customer for under 24 hours, but I wouldn&#8217;t recommend them if you&#8217;re a customer that needs support for your sites.</p>
<p>Update: I just realized I&#8217;m not the only one with bad reviews; there are TONS of them for JustHost! Just read all the horror studies about them!</p>
<ol>
<li>http://www.webhostingreviews.com/just-host-reviews.htm</li>
<li>http://www.webhostingreviews.com/just-host-reviews-page5.htm</li>
</ol>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="overflow: hidden; position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 2712px; width: 1px; height: 1px;"><a href="http://cl68.justhost.com/cpanel/">http://cl68.justhost.com/cpanel/</a></div>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://itscurt.com/2009/11/18/justhost-com-webhosting-my-unbiased-review-horrible-support/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Make $10 from cashing in $40 at CoinStar!</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/11/10/make-10-from-cashing-in-40-at-coinstar/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/11/10/make-10-from-cashing-in-40-at-coinstar/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:43:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Freebies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hot Deals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Story]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=347</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sure most of you shop in one of the following stores: Amazon.com, Borders, Starbucks Coffee, Cabela&#8217;s, CVS Pharmacy, Eddie Bauer, ITunes, JCPenny, Lowes, Overstock.com, Regal, Rixty. Now you can basically get a $10 rebate from CoinStar for redeeming a gift card valued at $40 or greater at the above retailers! I was shopping at [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-348" title="cstarpromo" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/cstarpromo.jpg" alt="cstarpromo" width="153" height="290" /></p>
<p>I&#8217;m sure most of you shop in one of the following stores: Amazon.com, Borders, Starbucks Coffee, Cabela&#8217;s, CVS Pharmacy, Eddie Bauer, ITunes, JCPenny, Lowes, Overstock.com, Regal, Rixty. Now you can basically get a $10 rebate from CoinStar for redeeming a gift card valued at $40 or greater at the above retailers! I was shopping at Old Navy today and decided to take advantage of this discount! If you shop at the above stores, you should take some coins out the bank and get yourself some gift cards!</p>
<p>Rebate Limited to one per name or household, US residents ages 18 or older. <strong>Promotion Valid from 11/09/2009 &#8211; 12/06/2009</strong></p>
<p><span id="more-347"></span></p>
<p><img title="More..." src="http://forsale.itscurt.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" alt="" />So here&#8217;s the story of how I made $10 from an average day of spending! I originally had a $65 off $100 coupon for Old Navy from <a href="http://oldnavyweekly.com" target="_blank">OldNavyWeekly.com</a>. I&#8217;ve seen an ad from a deal site about CoinStar, and how they offer a free $10 rebate for cashing in $40 or more in coins. Since my local supermarket has Bank of America inside, it was pretty convenient for me to withdraw $40 in coins. I&#8217;ve received $40 in quarters, and put them all in the CoinStar machine, and requested an Old Navy Gift Card valued at $40. The CoinStar machine spit out my Old Navy Gift card, with a receipt with a form where I can send in for $10! I&#8217;ve basically went into Old Navy, got $100 worth of mechandise, and used my coupon + $40 gift card to get my merchandise. Not only did I have the convenience of having a gift card to pay for my purchases, I&#8217;m going to get $10 in the mail! With this nifty deal, you can save 20% by purchasing gift cards for stores where you no doubt will shop at in the future!</p>
<p>The stores again are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Amazon.com</li>
<li>Borders</li>
<li>Cabela&#8217;s</li>
<li>CVS / Pharmacy</li>
<li>Eddie Bauer</li>
<li>iTunes</li>
<li>JC Penny</li>
<li>Lowes</li>
<li>Old Navy</li>
<li>Overstock.com</li>
<li>Regal Entertainment Group</li>
<li>Rixty</li>
<li>Starbucks Coffee</li>
</ol>
<p>I might go back to get $10 for a $40 GC to Amazon!</p>
<p>Remember to get the coins from a bank to make sure it&#8217;s $40!</p>
<p>Rebate Limited to one per name or household, US residents ages 18 or older. Promotion Valid from 11/09/2009 &#8211; 12/06/2009</p>
<p>Click here to view the promotion detail specifics: <a href="http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/2009Promo" target="_blank">http://www.coinstar.com/us/html/2009Promo</a></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-350" title="on" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/on.jpeg" alt="on" width="509" height="343" /><a rel="attachment wp-att-357" href="http://itscurt.com/2009/11/10/make-10-from-cashing-in-40-at-coinstar/coinstar-2/"></a></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-357" title="coinstar" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/coinstar1.jpeg" alt="coinstar" width="461" height="2337" /></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Lockerz &#8211; A new GPT?</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/09/24/lockerz-a-new-gpt/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/09/24/lockerz-a-new-gpt/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:54:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=342</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well I&#8217;ve heard about Lockerz about two to three months ago, but was really hesitant to sign up for it. It took me quite a while to finally sign up for it, where I wish I&#8217;ve done when it first started. I originally didn&#8217;t believe in another GPT site to give away free products and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://thebottingnetwork.com/promos/lockerzinvite/"><img class="alignnone" title="Lockerz" src="http://thebottingnetwork.com/promos/lockerzinvite/logo.png" alt="" width="240" height="77" /></a></p>
<p>Well I&#8217;ve heard about Lockerz about two to three months ago, but was really hesitant to sign up for it. It took me quite a while to finally sign up for it, where I wish I&#8217;ve done when it first started. I originally didn&#8217;t believe in another GPT site to give away free products and electronics, but after seeing many people on my forum who have received hundreds of items already, I&#8217;ve decided to give it a shot. The reason I haven&#8217;t signed up Lockerz is because the methods of redeeming a prize are TOO EASY. It seems as if the company is losing money at a rapid speed; but after finding out the CEO is an ex-executive of Amazon and American Eagle, and also invested by Liberty Media, we know this site has good intentions. There is no way this site is a scam, because it is free. You don&#8217;t have to fill out surveys; enter your personal information, but just answer 1 daily question a day, and you&#8217;re on your way to fortune! Click the link below to get an instant invitation sent to your email address, or read on for pictures of winnings!</p>
<p><a href="http://thebottingnetwork.com/promos/lockerzinvite/">CLICK HERE TO REQUEST AN INSTANT LOCKERZ INVITE</a></p>
<p><span id="more-342"></span></p>
<p><img class="alignnone" title="Lockerz Warehouse" src="http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs206.snc1/7330_137811078596_80976158596_2665473_4708701_n.jpg" alt="" width="604" height="453" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/339/lockerz2.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="480" /></p>
<p>People getting stuff:<br />
<a href="http://thebotnet.com/what-i-got-today/8496-lockerz-apple-tv.html" target="_blank">Lockerz Apple TV</a><br />
<a href="http://thebotnet.com/what-i-got-today/8584-lockerz-shirt-some-cologne.html" target="_blank">Lockerz shirt and some cologne</a><br />
<a href="http://thebotnet.com/what-i-got-today/8342-lockerz-loot.htm" target="_blank">Lockerz Loot</a><br />
<a href="http://thebotnet.com/what-i-got-today/9607-my-lockerz-tshirt.html" target="_blank">My Lockerz Tshirt</a><br />
<a href="http://thebotnet.com/what-i-got-today/9754-lockerz-gta-iv.html" target="_blank">Lockerz &#8211; GTA IV</a></p>
<p>You get the picture. Feel free to review and discuss this site in the comments below!</p>
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		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Bank of America&#8217;s Online Portfolio Manager: &#8220;My Portfolio&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/09/17/bank-of-americas-online-portfolio-manager/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/09/17/bank-of-americas-online-portfolio-manager/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=337</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;ve probably seen my last post about a great feature from Bank of America, but now I&#8217;ve found one even sweeter! Introducing &#8216;My Portfolio&#8217; from Bank of America. What this service does for you is manages all your accounts on one page. For every account you have in the world where you hold assets, or [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone" title="Bank of America" src="http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8714/bankamericalogo.jpg" alt="" width="175" height="131" /></p>
<p>You&#8217;ve probably seen my last post about a <a title="Make money with Bank of America “Keep the Change” Program!" href="http://itscurt.com/2009/02/04/make-money-with-bank-of-america-keep-the-change-program/" target="_blank">great feature</a> from Bank of America, but now I&#8217;ve found one even sweeter!</p>
<p>Introducing &#8216;My Portfolio&#8217; from Bank of America. What this service does for you is manages all your accounts on one page. For every account you have in the world where you hold assets, or have bills to pay, you would likely be able to manage this account through Bank of America! You can manage all of your bank accounts, investment accounts, mortgages, paypal accounts, credit card and insurance bills, phone and utility bills, air mileage accounts, email accounts, and basically anything you can think of!</p>
<p><span id="more-337"></span></p>
<p>Right now I use this service to manage the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Checking account from Bank of America</li>
<li>Savings account from Bank of America</li>
<li>Checking account from Wells Fargo</li>
<li>Checking account from Chase / Washington Mutual</li>
<li>Personal PayPal.com account</li>
<li>Business PayPal.com account</li>
<li>Investment / Brokerage account from Scottrade</li>
<li>Cell Phone Bill from Sprint PCS</li>
<li>Credit Card Account from Bank of America</li>
<li>Auto Insurance from Progressive</li>
<li>Air Mileage from Delta Skymiles</li>
</ol>
<p>As you can see, you can add any account with assets or debts you can think of. This makes it so much easier to manage your accounts rather than having to remember all the websites you visit with your user information. Currently I can see all the recent transactions posted on all of my accounts, stock that I currently hold, emails, and bills due through a single page. This service can be compared to Mint.com , and is free to anyone using Bank of America Online Banking.</p>
<p>I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if my next blog post would be another post about the awesome features from Bank of America.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://itscurt.com/2009/09/17/bank-of-americas-online-portfolio-manager/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>New Semester, new books.</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/08/15/new-semester-new-books/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/08/15/new-semester-new-books/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:40:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=305</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well it&#8217;s always great to finish a college semester, but if you&#8217;re not a senior, there are going to be more semesters ahead of you. What&#8217;s different about college and general education, is that college isn&#8217;t exactly free, neither is it government funded. They charge you for everything that high school would have let you [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Well it&#8217;s always great to finish a college semester, but if you&#8217;re not a senior, there are going to be more semesters ahead of you. What&#8217;s different about college and general education, is that college isn&#8217;t exactly free, neither is it government funded. They charge you for everything that high school would have let you use for free, such as tuition, paper, scantron forms, tests, and books. We all hated books, and in college is even worst. We have to buy the books. Sure, we may think books are cheap, only like ten bucks or so. But college textbooks and required material on the otherhand are not cheap. The average price of a USED condition textbook costs over $25 dollars. Please remember that there are multiple required books per course, and multiple courses per semester. A new book can cost up to $100.</p>
<p>I have found a website that offers books at prices cheaper than Amazon and eBay combined. All the people are surprised at how I get these books so cheap. I&#8217;ve actually got a textbook for a total of $5 delivered. The secret it <a href="http://itscurt.com/links/merchants/biblio" target="_blank">Biblio</a>. <a href="http://itscurt.com/links/merchants/biblio" target="_blank">Biblio</a> is the world&#8217;s largest independent marketplace for used, rare, and out of print books! Shipping is only $3.75 and has very prompt delivery. Check out <a href="http://itscurt.com/links/merchants/biblio" target="_blank">Biblio</a> today!</p>
<p>You can also use coupon code: <strong>BACKTOGRIND5 </strong>to save $1 on a total purchase of $25 or more!</p>
<p><a href="http://itscurt.com/links/merchants/biblio" target="_top"><br />
<img src="http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5176/imagenotavailableft7.gif" border="0" alt="Find books at Biblio.com" width="234" height="60" /></a></p>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Make money with Bank of America &#8220;Keep the Change&#8221; Program!</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/02/04/make-money-with-bank-of-america-keep-the-change-program/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/02/04/make-money-with-bank-of-america-keep-the-change-program/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:12:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you don&#8217;t yet know what &#8220;Keep the Change&#8221; is, it&#8217;s a service from Bank of America for Debit Card holders where payments are deducted by the entire dollar amount, and change will be transferred to the savings account with Bank of America. For Instance, if I were to buy McValue fries from McDonalds, the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone" src="https://www.bankofamerica.com/www/en_US/global/mvc_objects/images/mhd_reg_logo.gif" alt="" width="250" height="69" /></p>
<p>If you don&#8217;t yet know what &#8220;Keep the Change&#8221; is, it&#8217;s a service from Bank of America for Debit Card holders where payments are deducted by the entire dollar amount, and change will be transferred to the savings account with Bank of America. For Instance, if I were to buy McValue fries from McDonalds, the total would be $1.09 after taxes. My debit card would be charged $2.00 to my debit card, and 91 cents will be transferred to the savings account, you get the point.</p>
<p>Anyways; there&#8217;s a promotion for people who signs up for this deal. You literally get to keep the change. You would get charged $1.09 instead of $2.00 on your checkings / debit account, and have 91 cents automatically deposited to your savings account. This is a promotion for new customers who signs up for the keep the change program. You get to keep all the change for the first three months of service. The promotion gives you a maximum of $250 in bonuses, then will revert to the originating Keep the Change plan. Great promotion even when the three month promo ends, because transferring change to your savings account still earns interest!</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what my banker told me, and that&#8217;s how I heard it. I looked in my account after a day, and it works!</p>
<p>This deal actually works! It doesn&#8217;t charge your debit for absolute value for the first 3 months, and automatically sends the remaining change to your savings account!</p>
<p>Proof!: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://clipboard.itscurt.com/2009-02-04_1405.png" target="_blank">http://clipboard.itscurt.com/2009-02-04_1405.png</a></p>
<p>Made $1.91 from 2 purchases totaling $1.10 in one day. <img class="inlineimg" title="Big Grin" src="http://i.slickdeals.net/images/smilies/biggrin.gif" border="0" alt="" /></p>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Save 50% off on your ATT DSL bill!</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/30/save-50-off-on-your-att-dsl-bill/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/30/save-50-off-on-your-att-dsl-bill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:45:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=317</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s a secret promotion going on right now that gives you 50% off to any of the DSL plans. The regular rep doesn&#8217;t know about it, but you need them to transfer you. I now have a faster internet connection for almost half the price I was paying. I also did the same for my [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6749/logosmallys8.png" alt="" width="93" height="43" /></p>
<p>There&#8217;s a secret promotion going on right now that gives you 50% off to any of the DSL plans. The regular rep doesn&#8217;t know about it, but you need them to transfer you.</p>
<p>I now have a faster internet connection for almost half the price I was paying. I also did the same for my cousin and got friends to do this too. Every single one of them were successful.</p>
<p>This is how to do it. You can do it for your parents, and save them $$ on bill <img src='http://itscurt.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Follow the following instructions and you&#8217;d be on this deal too!</p>
<p><span id="more-317"></span></p>
<p>You Need:</p>
<p>1. ATT Bill<br />
1. Name on Account<br />
2. Account Number (Should be 3 digits after the existing home telephone number.)<br />
2. Patience (The hold between reps, and the wait for rep adjusting your account)</p>
<p>Now, go ahead and call ATT.</p>
<p>1. Call 1-800-288-2020<br />
2. At the prompt, try to speak to an agent. (Billing &gt; None of those &gt; None of those)<br />
3. When you talk to the first agent, just tell them to transfer you to the DSL retentions department.<br />
4. After being transferred to retentions, ask them if they are the DSL retentions department. If they are, tell them you&#8217;re interested in the 50% off promotion. They will ask you which package you&#8217;re interested in. You can either stick with your current plan, or see if you&#8217;re area has the higher plans available.</p>
<p>The plans are:</p>
<p>1. DSL Basic 0.75Mbps, $14.99/mo or $7.50/mo after promo<br />
2. DSL Express 1.5Mbps, $25.00/mo or $12.50/mo after promo<br />
3. DSL Pro 3.0Mbps, $30.00/mo or $15.00/mo after promo<br />
4. DSL Elite 6.0Mbps, $35.00/mo or $17.50/mo after promo</p>
<p>The highest plan available for me is the Pro plan, I got it at $15 a month. I switched from the express plan at $25 a month to pro plan at $15 a month. Saved $10/ month and got 2x the speed!</p>
<p>Please note that the promotional pricing is only for 6 months. This is not a contract neither! You&#8217;re guarenteed the 50% off pricing for 6 months, on a month-to-month basis, and free to call to cancel whenever. After 6 months, the prices will be reverted to the regular cost of the package. You can call back on your last month to grab the promotion they will have at that time.</p>
<p>If the retention representative says they don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re talking about, you are not in the retentions department! Be sure to ask if it is the DSL retentions department. If they ARE the retentions department, and don&#8217;t let you, tell them your friend got it, or make up an excuse. If they still don&#8217;t let you, hang up, call back, and try again. It doesn&#8217;t hurt to save tens of dollars a month <img src='http://itscurt.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/30/save-50-off-on-your-att-dsl-bill/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Beware of exushost.com! Horrible support and lies.</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/07/beware-of-exushostcom-horrible-support-and-lies/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/07/beware-of-exushostcom-horrible-support-and-lies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:13:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Website Reviews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=272</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t usually publicize my rants on small businesses because it really destroys their reputation. But this is the first time, where I am concerned for the potential customers that may order from them. This rant will focus on http://www.exushost.com .  I switch webhosting from host to host, and have even ran successful webhosting businesses [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-275" href="http://itscurt.com/2009/01/07/beware-of-exushostcom-horrible-support-and-lies/exushost/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-275" title="exushost" src="http://itscurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/exushost.png" alt="exushost" width="200" height="80" /></a></p>
<p>I don&#8217;t usually publicize my rants on small businesses because it really destroys their reputation. But this is the first time, where I am concerned for the potential customers that may order from them. This rant will focus on <a href="http://www.exushost.com" target="_blank">http://www.exushost.com</a> .  I switch webhosting from host to host, and have even ran successful webhosting businesses for years, and have never seen anything like this. Just from dealing with some live support operators with pre-sale questions have turned the operators against me, resorting to questioning me and promising lies. The easiest thing a web-host operator can do, is provide quality assistance in order to earn a sale. It wasn&#8217;t even technical or anything. Their actions has given me every reason to publicize a rant about them.</p>
<p>All I wanted was answers to simple questions, not even technical. They questioned me for why I gave them negative feedback and did not send me a transcript of my chat because I may not purchase their hosting. They first tried to convince me their servers and reliability are great and reliable, then they started to change their words and are holding answers from me. They promised a transcript emailed to me, which was never sent. I was put on hold on chat for 5 straight minutes, and when I asked about the delay, they told me they had other clients in line, and would get back to me in 10 minutes. The quality of the support given was unacceptable, it&#8217;s like living in an apartment where the landlord just wants you to leave.</p>
<p>Please do read on to hear the whole story.<br />
<span id="more-272"></span></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s what happened:</p>
<p>Well, I first saw a startup web hosting business, and this reminded me of the businesses when I first started.I was connected with an operator (Jesse), and asked if they offered reseller hosting.<br />
I was prompted to hang on one moment, and then told that I will be transferred to another representative (Alex). (Great, I may be talking to the owner now!)<br />
Now with the new representative, he asks me how he can help me. Shouldn&#8217;t he already know my question?<br />
I asked him if the previous representative forwarded the issue, or question to him.<br />
He responded Yes he did.<br />
Fifteen seconds later, I reply, &#8220;ok..&#8221;<br />
He then tells me that he can create a custom plan for me, and tells me it would be perfect to start a hosting company with their amazing uptime and speeds.<br />
Great, nice to know, really.<br />
I ask them how long they&#8217;ve been in business, and he ignores my question. He tells me they&#8217;ve once owned a previous site, and moved to this new one keeping all their old clients.<br />
I ask for the name and age of this old site, and he tells me it was broadhost.net and was  in business for roughly 4 months. The domain wasn&#8217;t even registered 3 months ago. Exushost wasn&#8217;t even registered for more than 2 weeks.<br />
He tells me that they own their servers, and Colocate in Texas, but when I reverse the DNS of the IP address of the business, it&#8217;s hostname is hostnoc.net, and is located in Pennsylvania.<br />
When I ask him about the sites, he then corrects himself and tells me he&#8217;s worked for another company before. Would you even consider Exushost a company?<br />
I ask him if he is the owner of Exushost.<br />
He tells me that he is the joint owner, and specializes in server management and account creation.<br />
The display picture on the chat looked as if the operator was a minor under the age of 18, so I asked him for his age.<br />
He tells me he does not need to answer that question.<br />
I tell him that I wasn&#8217;t trying to be rude, then he tells me he&#8217;s in college.<br />
I asked him who the owner was, and he tells me it was the first operator I was talking to.<br />
So the first guy I was talking to, transferred me to the tech guy to negotiate prices on reseller services.<br />
I question him about that, and he tells me that is because he does account creation and server management.<br />
This is what has made me start my rant. I asked him if he can email me a transcript of our chat.<br />
He then tells me that he can do that if I&#8217;m looking to purchase a package.<br />
I tell him that I may come back, but I would like the transcript for reference.<br />
He tells me that he will save the chat, and give it to me when I purchase the package.<br />
This tells me that they want you to leave immediately if I&#8217;m not going to pay. I was a potential customer..<br />
I ask him again to send me the chat.<br />
After waiting, I noticed some features on the chat window, so I rate the operator 1 out of 5 stars, with the comment of being rude and impolite.<br />
He then replies almost instantly, &#8220;Why did you give me a bad rating, when i was helping you and answering your questions.&#8221;.<br />
I tell him that he is giving me lousy service, and should not even be criticizing me for the feedback I leave. I ask to be transferred to the owner.<br />
I ask the owner if he can send me the transcript.<br />
The owner says sure, and doesn&#8217;t ask for an email.<br />
For another minute, I then ask if he would like my email.<br />
I give him my email and tell him to tell me when my emails been dispatched.<br />
He tells me he will, but after five minutes of no response, I ask him what&#8217;s going on.<br />
He tells me that he is currently talking to other customers, and will help me in ten minutes.<br />
That&#8217;s just perfect, I tell him to send the email anyways, and I&#8217;m going to leave.<br />
He tells me he will send it ASAP.<br />
An hour and a half later, with no transcript in my inbox, I wrote my rant.<br />
I have printed a copy of the transcript, and have it available for the public.</p>
<p>It may not have been enough information to sham a host, but it&#8217;s enough to know from the support of these operators that their business is unprofessional and should not be relied on. Their website slogan is &#8220;When size really does matter.&#8221; Penis joke or not, it&#8217;s really support and reliability in a webhost that matters. You can find a webhost that offers un-metered packages anywhere, it&#8217;s support that&#8217;s hard to find. A website like this being ran by unprofessional kids should give consumers a second look at how web hosting businesses run these days.</p>
<p>They did not send me a transcript because they think I would rant about them, or because they believe I&#8217;m not going to purchase a plan. They probably thought I wouldn&#8217;t have logs or proof of their sham if they didn&#8217;t send me the transcript, but I printed one for the hell of it. Below is the raw log of the transcript. It cut off the part where he told me to wait 10 minutes to send my transcript. That&#8217;s what really ticked me off.</p>
<p>The nickname I used in the chat was Stephen, I replaced the instances with &#8216;Curt&#8217;.</p>
<blockquote><p>System<br />
3:53:53 AM<br />
System is getting started. [Wednesday, December 31, 2008 3:53:53 AM]<br />
System<br />
3:53:53 AM<br />
A representative will be connected, please be patient.<br />
System<br />
3:54:05 AM<br />
Jesse enters the chatroom.<br />
Jesse<br />
3:54:05 AM<br />
Hello Curt, my name is Jesse, how may I help you?<br />
Curt<br />
3:54:28 AM<br />
Hi Jesse, I was wondering if you offer reseller hosting.<br />
Jesse<br />
3:54:54 AM<br />
One moment, Curt.<br />
Curt<br />
3:54:59 AM<br />
Sure.<br />
Jesse<br />
3:56:08 AM<br />
I&#8217;ll forward you to another of our agents, one moment.<br />
System<br />
3:56:16 AM<br />
You will be forwarded to another representative, please be patient.<br />
System<br />
3:56:16 AM<br />
A representative will be connected, please be patient.<br />
System<br />
3:56:25 AM<br />
Alex enters the chatroom.<br />
Alex<br />
3:56:25 AM<br />
Hello Curt, my name is Alex, how may I help you?<br />
Curt<br />
3:56:52 AM<br />
Did Jesse forward my issue to you?<br />
Alex<br />
3:57:03 AM<br />
Yes<br />
Curt<br />
3:57:17 AM<br />
ok<br />
Alex<br />
3:57:27 AM<br />
We dont offer it as a fixed plan, but we can create a custom plan for you.<br />
Curt<br />
3:57:49 AM<br />
And are your hosting accounts running off cPanel software?<br />
Alex<br />
3:58:00 AM<br />
cPanel/WHM<br />
Curt<br />
3:58:09 AM<br />
Alright, that sounds good.<br />
Alex<br />
3:58:31 AM<br />
Its perfect for anyone starting a hosting company, as we have amazing uptime and speeds<br />
Curt<br />
3:58:41 AM<br />
How much would 10gb / 20gb cost? May I ask where you guys are hosted?<br />
Alex<br />
3:59:08 AM<br />
A datacenter in texa Texas*<br />
Curt<br />
3:59:24 AM<br />
Do you own the server?<br />
Alex<br />
3:59:26 AM<br />
10Gb bandwidth 20gb space? yes<br />
Curt<br />
3:59:34 AM<br />
10gb space / bandwidth<br />
1 of 312/31/2008 4:24 AM<br />
ExusHost.com &#8211; Support</p>
<p>http://exushost.com/support/livezilla.php?template=lz_chat_frame.3.2.chat.4.0</p>
<p>Alex<br />
3:59:34 AM<br />
Its fully owned 20 bandwidth<br />
Curt<br />
4:00:01 AM<br />
So you colocate? Who manages the box? 10gb storage and 20gb bandwidth.<br />
Alex<br />
4:00:26 AM<br />
We have people in Texas, but the datacenter fix local problems<br />
We dont have any though, I can set that package of for you at about, 12.99 monthly<br />
Curt<br />
4:01:20 AM<br />
Is this the first time you guys have been in business? It shows that the site&#8217;s only been up for 15 days.<br />
Alex<br />
4:02:04 AM<br />
We owned a previous site but moved server, all of our previous customers cam with us.<br />
Curt<br />
4:02:17 AM<br />
What was the name of this site?<br />
Alex<br />
4:02:24 AM<br />
broadhost.net<br />
Curt<br />
4:02:29 AM<br />
One second please. How long has that site been up?<br />
Alex<br />
4:04:25 AM<br />
Roughly, 4 months But it points to null now, i also am pretty experienced in server management. As i worked for another company before<br />
Curt<br />
4:05:01 AM<br />
For Broadhost and Exushost? It says Broadhost was registered in October..<br />
Alex<br />
4:05:17 AM<br />
And a company before that i didnt own<br />
Curt<br />
4:05:34 AM<br />
Okay, so I&#8217;m speaking with the owner of ExusHost?<br />
Alex<br />
4:06:04 AM<br />
Joint owner, but i do mostly server management. And account creation<br />
Curt<br />
4:06:17 AM<br />
How old are you, Alex?<br />
Alex<br />
4:06:59 AM<br />
I don&#8217;t need to answer that question.<br />
Curt<br />
4:07:23 AM<br />
I wasn&#8217;t trying to be rude, but to have more knowledge of this business.<br />
Alex<br />
4:07:45 AM<br />
Im in colledge<br />
Curt<br />
4:07:47 AM<br />
Is the owner of this site online right now?<br />
Alex<br />
4:08:12 AM<br />
Jesse is online yes.<br />
Curt<br />
4:08:44 AM<br />
Jesse was the owner, and he transferred me to you for a quote on a reseller plan?<br />
Alex<br />
4:09:12 AM<br />
Yes, as i doaccount creation and server management<br />
Curt<br />
4:09:22 AM<br />
And package pricing? Can I have a email copy of this transcript?<br />
Alex<br />
4:09:43 AM<br />
Yes?<br />
2 of 312/31/2008 4:24 AM<br />
ExusHost.com &#8211; Support</p>
<p>http://exushost.com/support/livezilla.php?template=lz_chat_frame.3.2.chat.4.0</p>
<p>Curt<br />
4:10:29 AM<br />
Hello?<br />
Alex<br />
4:10:53 AM<br />
Hello, if your looking to purchase a package, i can do so.<br />
Curt<br />
4:11:18 AM<br />
I may come back, I just need this transcript for reference.<br />
Alex<br />
4:11:44 AM<br />
I will save it, when you need it i wil give it to you.<br />
Curt<br />
4:12:04 AM<br />
Can you forward it to my email?<br />
Alex<br />
4:12:27 AM<br />
Why did you give me a bad rating, when i was helping you and answering your questions.<br />
Curt<br />
4:13:20 AM<br />
I asked you to email me a transcript of this chat, you responded with negligence if I do not purchase your hosting. It makes me think twice about support after I pay for the service. You also shouldn&#8217;t be criticizing me based on my rating against you. Can you transfer me back to Jesse please?<br />
Alex<br />
4:14:20 AM<br />
I can do<br />
System<br />
4:14:32 AM<br />
You will be forwarded to another representative, please be patient.<br />
System<br />
4:14:32 AM<br />
A representative will be connected, please be patient.<br />
System<br />
4:14:35 AM<br />
Jesse enters the chatroom.<br />
Curt<br />
4:14:54 AM<br />
Hi Jesse.<br />
Jesse<br />
4:15:06 AM<br />
Hello Curt.<br />
Curt<br />
4:15:33 AM<br />
I was just talking with Alex, then realized you were the owner of Exushost. Can you read through our previous conversation? Hello?<br />
Jesse<br />
4:16:55 AM<br />
Yes, Alex deals with technical issues, plans, and account creations.<br />
Curt<br />
4:17:55 AM<br />
Is there any way you can send a transcript of this chat to my email? Or must I purchase a plan first? I need references while looking around for a decent reseller hosting provider.<br />
Jesse<br />
4:19:34 AM<br />
Yes, of course we can.<br />
Curt<br />
4:19:58 AM<br />
Thank you, Alex was quite hesitant about sending the transcript. Would you like my email?<br />
Jesse<br />
4:21:05 AM<br />
Yes, of course.<br />
Curt<br />
4:21:14 AM<br />
webmaster@motoq.org Please tell me when the email has been dispatched.<br />
Jesse<br />
4:21:57 AM<br />
Not a problem.</p></blockquote>
<p>If you would like to read in a nicer format, I have the XPS file ready for you to download and view in Internet Explorer.</p>
<p>I may repost this on webhostingtalk and digitalpoint when deemed necessary.</p>
<p>Raw Log Download Link: <a rel="attachment wp-att-276" href="http://itscurt.com/2009/01/07/beware-of-exushostcom-horrible-support-and-lies/exushost-log/">exushost-log</a></p>
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		<title>theBOTNET.com &#8211; Automate free stuff.</title>
		<link>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/04/thebotnetcom-automate-free-stuff/</link>
		<comments>http://itscurt.com/2009/01/04/thebotnetcom-automate-free-stuff/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:19:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Curt</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://itscurt.com/?p=324</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you don&#8217;t know yet, I&#8217;ve developed a new community based on exploiting and automating human tasks to obtain the best freebies the internet has to offer. The website consists of bots, macros, and executables which performs the task of ordering multiple submissions of single samples and freebies on the internet. This technique uses tricks [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you don&#8217;t know yet, I&#8217;ve developed a new community based on exploiting and automating human tasks to obtain the best freebies the internet has to offer. The website consists of bots, macros, and executables which performs the task of ordering multiple submissions of single samples and freebies on the internet. This technique uses tricks to get around the duplicate address restrictions that some websites may have. The site also consists of automating get paid to, or prize redemption websites to make it easier for the end user to achieve their goal in points and redeem prizes.</p>
<p><a href="http://thebotnet.com"><img class="alignnone" src="http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/3407/thebottingnetwork2wi2.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="62" /></a></p>
<p>Read on for the entire article.</p>
<blockquote><p><span id="more-324"></span></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>1&#8230; 12&#8230; 345&#8230; You see the boxes pile up outside your door. The mailman gives you a quizzical look, and you respond &#8220;I just got lucky&#8221;.</p>
<p>Weeks prior you sat behind your computer screen wondering &#8220;What can I do?&#8221;. Shortly after, a new message notification shows in your lower right hand corner: &#8220;Your Free Sample Subscription&#8221;. Another SPAM message, but boredom directs you to click. Suddenly, you find yourself in a world of free samples! Websites offering you t-shirts, coffee mugs, coupons, hot chocolate, lotions, shampoo, MONEY!, and more just to get their product name out. A marketing technique often used in convenience stores, websites just giving things away, simply so you&#8217;ll buy their product.</p>
<p>You fill out as many offers as you can, excited to get 1&#8242;s and 2&#8242;s of whatever new offer pops-up. The risk free sites put your heart and mind at ease, and your eagerness grows. You begin pushing for more, your favorite search engine opens, and you browse for ways to get as much as you can, in as little as time possible.</p>
<p>And there, there it is&#8230; The one thing you&#8217;ve been looking for. All the time spent filling out the needless forms just to get 1 tea bag, or 1 tiny hotel bottle of lotion. &#8220;No more.&#8221; You think to yourself. There, shining in its fantastic potential&#8230;</p>
<p>The Botting Network, the internet&#8217;s home for its smartest to come together for a common reason: To Bot. A group of highly motivated individuals whose ground is shaped by their desires to help, to create, to learn, and to grow. The Botting Network shows home to many of great diversity, great talent, and fantastic potential!</p>
<p>We&#8217;ve all heard the marketing gimmick on our T.V.: &#8220;Try our product, risk free for 30 days, or your money back.&#8221; It&#8217;s a clever little scheme, and works quite well. However, you don&#8217;t even need to pay for their product! Companies give out thousands upon thousands of free items DAILY to consumers, just to convince them to buy their product, or try out something they just released. The value of free for them is so close to zero, that they make more money by giving stuff away as an advertisement, than they do charging people for the product! Free samples almost always bring in new customers, and creates potential for a base of clientele beyond any imaginable!</p>
<p>That&#8217;s where The Botting Network comes in! We find these free sample offers, or these deals for users, and we write scripts that fill out the deal however many times the user desires. A slight change, and a little time later, and the user could be receiving everything they botted in the mail!</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve had it happen to me! Just a few weeks ago, my mailman knocked on my door. This was a &#8216;never before&#8217; occurrence, but I was excited because I knew just why he was knocking. So I rush to the door, fling it open, and sure enough, my mailman stood there holding a box with my name on it! I was so excited, that I cut open the box, and lost the top layer of product! Granted, there was enough to make up for it, but my thrill exceeded anything I had ever felt before in my life!</p>
<p>We&#8217;re not all about just botting free samples, however, we also enjoy those &#8220;Get Paid To&#8221; sites, or &#8220;GPT&#8221; as we like to call them. Basically, you perform an action, such as search or play a game, and you get points. These points can then be redeemed for products. Well naturally, it&#8217;s quite difficult to get points, otherwise these companies would be losing things like xbox 360&#8242;s, IPODs, and even Money!</p>
<p>But that doesn&#8217;t stop us, we still develop, and our bots top the rest of the competition! Recently, we had a release for Future Game, an amazing game where you predict stock market changes, and receive streaks. These streaks can make you money, depending on how many you have. Run this bot and you&#8217;ll find yourself rolling in the dough!</p>
<p>There&#8217;s no reason for you not to try out our services, in reality, everything we offer is risk free, virus scanned, and legal. You have nothing to lose, but can gain so much that it&#8217;s just too good of an offer to pass up. I must admit, as I write this <span class="highlight">article</span>, I am a bit tired. However, the more I talk of our fantastic website, the more excited and awake I become to get something else in the mail! Just this morning I ran downstairs to find another packet of dietary supplement in my mail, and it was a hefty amount too!</p>
<p>When you arrive at The Botting Network, don&#8217;t be surprised if it&#8217;s a little confusing at first. Just ask a few questions, and you&#8217;ll find that the system is a whole lot easier to understand. The efficient layout provides ease of access, and users can easily download whatever bot they desire. We also offer paid 5$ a month subscriptions to users, which gives you access to every bot on the website, and even some extra, particularly advanced bots that can make you even more Moola!</p>
<p>From our bots, to our free-sample feed&#8230; From our status, to our growing member base&#8230; From our ability, to our talents&#8230; The Botting Network is your one stop web automated free shop! So come and join us as we push the boundaries, grind the limitations, and develop for the future.</p></blockquote>
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