Insane Cyberwings Hosting Sales *OVER*

[Devistater]

Newest info is that all the purchased reseller accounts are setup and emails are being sent out today, accounts that were won will be setup later, probably next week. I got the setup email today from one of the reseller accounts I purchased. Hopefully everything will continue to go smoothly.

You can also join the chat to get the latest up to date info on IRC. Server is irc.cyberwings.com and the channel is #cyberwings. Some of us ATers are at #anandtech or #anandtech2 talking about it.

A couple of prices from the website:
I5, Normally $7.00/year, Only $5.00/year
The I5 account has 220 megs of space, 12 gigs bandwidth a month.
Lifetime RESELLER1 - $100.00
The R1 account has 1 gig of disk space and 25 gigs of bandwidth.

Details on what plans have what are here:
http://www.cyberwings.com/hosting/index.html

Giveaways over.

HOWEVER you now must be a CW customer to win. I'm not sure if that's just to win the accounts, or just for the cash givaways or both. Anyway, its pretty easy and cheap to become a customer, the cheapest I1 account is only $1 a year. You dont even have to have the account fully setup yet.

 

[worms]

This is bad, really bad.

 

[StayPuff]

This is bad, really bad.

Here we go again..... :disgust:

 

[johto]

i'd like to know who actually believes a company has 13000 customers... and doesn't even have a merchant account. yeah...

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: johto
i'd like to know who actually believes a company has 13000 customers... and doesn't even have a merchant account. yeah...

Actuallly he said 14,000 WEBSITES, not customers. I'm not sure about customers but it's probably not 14k, because many people who have talked about having accounts there have multiple domains and websites hosted there.

 

[whitelight]

i have 3 websites hosted there, soon to be 5. this hosting company has been better than the places i've hosted for more money. and why bag people who are being nice and not out there to make a profit? maybe he's like a mark cuban and wants to give back to the community. let this be.

 

[SinMen]

Just like the CEO at CYBERREBATES (what's that guy's name?), he had the great intention of giving people free laptops through rebates. There was a lot of people in this same forum that said the business model would work. How he could use interest to cover cost, how he banked on people not sending in $3000 rebates, and etc. Shawn might have the same good intention, but first was the $4 individual accounts, then $100 reseller accounts, and the $5 to upgrade. What's next? Give him $1000 to have profit sharing? He is trying to get everyone excited and go deeper and deeper.
By the way, I got an email from Bill Gate last night saying he would send me $241 for forwarding that email.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: SinMen
Just like the CEO at CYBERREBATES (what's that guy's name?), he had the great intention of giving people free laptops through rebates. There was a lot of people in this same forum that said the business model would work. How he could use interest to cover cost, how he banked on people not sending in $3000 rebates, and etc. Shawn might have the same good intention, but first was the $4 individual accounts, then $100 reseller accounts, and the $5 to upgrade. What's next? Give him $1000 to have profit sharing? He is trying to get everyone excited and go deeper and deeper.
By the way, I got an email from Bill Gate last night saying he would send me $241 for forwarding that email.

Well we know it wasn't from Gates then don't we? He doesn't ever give away money

BTW, I missed most of the cyberrebates saga, how long were they around? Cyberwings has been around about a year now.

 

[yddadnarg]

Yeah, I have 4 sites on there and they've been fine so far, but I'm getting really suspicious. What is the point of giving away prizes to people who are already your customers and on such a odd place as an IRC channel. That's not much publicity so really what is the point of all of this? Why can't he just run a quality web hosting company and not need everyone to like him for giving away free stuff? I will buy his services based on their quality, not the chance to win prizes. If he's hired all of these new people he must be doing all right, why can't he just stop expanding so fast with these ridiculous sales and make money off of his existing customer base?
I recommended some people to cyberwings after I initially signed up, but after all of this giveaway and lifetime reseller nonsense I've warned them away. This all reminds me of the stock market of the 20's and 90's. It seems too good to be true, but everyone wants to believe the fantasy and is afraid to miss out. I'm glad I've only got about $20 invested or else I would be worrying.

 

[SinMen]

Cyberrebates was around for over a year, may be up to 2 years. I still had several $10 book, 2 $50 laser pointer, an $80 56-k modem from them, all for free after rebate. But people who came in at the tail end were seriously burnt.

 

[bit]

i have some bad feelings about this too.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: yddadnarg
Yeah, I have 4 sites on there and they've been fine so far, but I'm getting really suspicious. What is the point of giving away prizes to people who are already your customers and on such a odd place as an IRC channel. That's not much publicity so really what is the point of all of this? Why can't he just run a quality web hosting company and not need everyone to like him for giving away free stuff? I will buy his services based on their quality, not the chance to win prizes. If he's hired all of these new people he must be doing all right, why can't he just stop expanding so fast with these ridiculous sales and make money off of his existing customer base?
I recommended some people to cyberwings after I initially signed up, but after all of this giveaway and lifetime reseller nonsense I've warned them away. This all reminds me of the stock market of the 20's and 90's. It seems too good to be true, but everyone wants to believe the fantasy and is afraid to miss out. I'm glad I've only got about $20 invested or else I would be worrying.

Its on IRC because its an instantaneous feedback enviroment I think.
Prizes are only given to customers NOW. It wasn't before some lame script kiddies flooded out the channel with attacks and it got really insane in there. Basically when he offered the cash prices everyone went crazy. Had people been a little more well behaved I think he would have kept giving it out to random people with OR without accounts.

 

[labgeek]

Originally posted by: Devistater


Well we know it wasn't from Gates then don't we? He doesn't ever give away money

I like bashing Bill as much as the next guy (more than some actually). But this is one area you can't really say much bad about him - unless of course you personally have given away more than 23 BILLION (yes with a B) dollars to various causes.

 

[volfan]

I have a site with CW, and I tuned into the craziness last night. But I am still concerned by their practices. Here are my questions/concerns:

1. He works these crowds into a frenzy offering up confusing deals.
2. None of these IRC deals are posted anywhere, so it's kind of your word against there since you have no receipt or posted price sheet.
3. People get so excited they are just sending in money to him via PayPal, and I know a few who have sent their money and not gotten anything. So these sales are giving him tons of money in his PayPal account.
4. The sales are so confusing that after the sales are all said and done, how the hell does his staff knows who's got what.
5. If we're not filling up the 100+ MB of space we have now, why would we pay more to have it 5Xed?
6. How many sites setup through them are going to generate 30GB of bandwidth?
7. You pay $100 for Lifetime hosting. Who knows how long they'll be in business?
8. Most people (including me) get a web site up and running...it's fun for a while...nobody goes to it...we stop working on it...we forget it's there.
9. It's almost like the Office Space scheme to get rich. He gives people what they think is an incredible deal, and everyone says, "hey, if I get screwed, I'm only out $5". We take $5 from everyone that is saying that and Shawn White will be sitting Phat in the Bahamas pretty soon.
10. He only likes to do transactions in PayPal and discourages the use of credit-cards. Why?

Maybe it's not that bad, but I could not believe the madness last night for something that most people will never use. Maybe I'm just jealous of all the money he'll be making out of us idiots. But let's please chill out on the new threads about this. One thread is fine...just update the title.

 

[XFreebie]

buying a "lifetime" plan guarantees they lose money, because if they manage to stay in business long enuff, eventually they will be losing money over that lifetime. i dont get why he is giving out $$ in irc chatrooms, that makes no sense.

the hindenburg was a big successful blimp, that is until the end. u cant expect him to make money by hosting ur website for literally about a penny per day.

im happy with my $3.90 website so far, maybe when i get it built ill post it in my sig

 

[DrKatz]

To be fair, cyberwings has been excellent so far-and-to be honest-this business model is more sound than cyberrebates as long as most of the pages are simply mom and pop ones.

However-while I'd be willing to risk 10 or 20 bucks on them (for me 22.50 to be exact) I wouldn't spend alot until they had MORE than a few years behind them-Lifetime plans may be cheap, but, even if Shawn is an awesome dude, who can really know what will happen?

Let the buyer beware.....

 

[MoFunk]

I bought a plan from them last month, have been happy so far. Was much more than I had before for less money. I won a free individual plan which I will be using for a friends little site, and went in last night for a while. I kind of agree, it made me worry. Is this guy going to sell a ton of lifetimes and then bail? All the lifetimes he sold were to existing customers ONLY! Meaning they are already paid up for the year and the money he got from them was extra. What's to say he wont close up shop in 6 months. Hmm. I better keep my eyes open in case I need to fix a dead site!

 

[frastini]

*** You have been kicked from #cyberwings by cw-omegax (You are frightening our customers, we must ask you to leave ·20·)

i was afk when kicked, and idling in #anandtech2 and #cyberwings.. I've always supported c/w in the past, but now... I don't know.

If you're willing to gamble a bit, 3-4 bux for a personal account isn't a big deal.. I'd stay away from lifetime memberships tho, it's a bigger risk.. Especially since most people talking about lifetime membership haven't even tested their service yet.

Frost

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: frastini
*** You have been kicked from #cyberwings by cw-omegax (You are frightening our customers, we must ask you to leave ·20·)

i was afk when kicked, and idling in #anandtech2 and #cyberwings.. I've always supported c/w in the past, but now... I don't know.

If you're willing to gamble a bit, 3-4 bux for a personal account isn't a big deal.. I'd stay away from lifetime memberships tho, it's a bigger risk.. Especially since most people talking about lifetime membership haven't even tested their service yet.

Frost

That kick was when they kicked out about 150 people out of the channel after the floods happened. You were kick #20 (the number there) and that reason was part of a kick script. There were about 20 reasons in the script that rotated. Feel free to look through the logs Anyway, that text was all automatic, they weren't saying you personally were doing anything, they were just kicking most people out to try and control the floods. I have a 3.6 meg log from about 36 hours, and at LEAST 500k was from the floods, and that was in like 2 mins.

 

[slycat]

as always, like all deals, assimilate with a pinch of salt...
and make a backup of your websites often!

i have an 80meg website that i will transfer to them but i will keep
updated copies on my HD too just in case they plunk, i'm still in good shape
albeit a few bucks.

i'd advise from getting greedy over this.
get in on a good deal(coz it is) but don't put all your eggs in 1 basket.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: volfan
I have a site with CW, and I tuned into the craziness last night. But I am still concerned by their practices. Here are my questions/concerns:

2. None of these IRC deals are posted anywhere, so it's kind of your word against there since you have no receipt or posted price sheet.
4. The sales are so confusing that after the sales are all said and done, how the hell does his staff knows who's got what.
5. If we're not filling up the 100+ MB of space we have now, why would we pay more to have it 5Xed?
6. How many sites setup through them are going to generate 30GB of bandwidth?
8. Most people (including me) get a web site up and running...it's fun for a while...nobody goes to it...we stop working on it...we forget it's there.
10. He only likes to do transactions in PayPal and discourages the use of credit-cards. Why?

Maybe it's not that bad, but I could not believe the madness last night for something that most people will never use. Maybe I'm just jealous of all the money he'll be making out of us idiots. But let's please chill out on the new threads about this. One thread is fine...just update the title.

I'll throw out a few things that I know. The rest you will have to ask cyberwings.
2: They do, I posted the link in the first post. Its a list of all the deals. And as far as I've seen only the best ones are there.
4: I'm guessing they dont They probably check the time of your paypal transaction and the time he started offering the deal, but I'm guessing they are pretty flexable. Like if a customer was arguing that he should have 5x instead of 4x I'm guessing they will do it. But feel free to ask them.
6&8: That's part of the business idea, if no one uses the bandwidth he's doing good. Same way banks work, they rely on most people to leave the money in. Now hopefully he's properly planned for how much he really needs (i.e. how much "reserve" he needs to keep at the "bank"). If not then everyone will slow down. If he properly handles the situation he will be monitoring it and increasing his upstream bandwidth as needed. If not, yes there's potential for problems.
5: From what I've seen, a lot of people go ahead and do it since its a one time charge. They figure its cheaper to get it now when they dont need it then when they do. Are they right? Only time will tell.
10: I made a long post in my previous thread on my ideas on paypal. Let me know what you think about it, and if I'm totally off, or partially on or what.

And finally, as for new threads. This is my 2nd thread on it. That's all. My first one was locked. I'm guessing because it got to crazy with personal attacks and trolls posting in it. Probably also because I had been keeping the title updated as you mentioned and the last update said the deal was temporarily stopped. Perhaps the mod figured if it was a dead deal why not lock. I'm trying to keep this thread more on topic, and the posts more concise. I'll be trying to keep the title up to date also. Any suggestions welcome.

BTW, if the mods dont like threads on this, all they have to do is say so and I wont post any more threads about it. If they dont like anything about the posts on it, I'll be happy to change it if anything isn't in accordance with the rules or anything, just let me know if anything is wrong. The ONLY reason I posted this is because I got in on the $3.90 deal a while back and figured some other people might like to get in on these sales. I only found out about it a couple days ago, but apparently he was doing these crasy sales for at least a day earlier before I find out from what I heard. I'm fairly convinced that he's legit, my only question is, will he last very long using these kinda marketshare getting tactics that Microsoft and amazon.com have used? I hope so, it would be nice to have great priced hosting and more competition in the hosting market.

 

[Insomniac]

Originally posted by: labgeek

Originally posted by: Devistater


Well we know it wasn't from Gates then don't we? He doesn't ever give away money

I like bashing Bill as much as the next guy (more than some actually). But this is one area you can't really say much bad about him - unless of course you personally have given away more than 23 BILLION (yes with a B) dollars to various causes.

I just want to clarify they set aside 23 $billion (assuming that's the right number) for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They have not given away anywhere close to all of it yet.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: Insomniac

Originally posted by: labgeek

Originally posted by: Devistater


Well we know it wasn't from Gates then don't we? He doesn't ever give away money

I like bashing Bill as much as the next guy (more than some actually). But this is one area you can't really say much bad about him - unless of course you personally have given away more than 23 BILLION (yes with a B) dollars to various causes.

I just want to clarify they set aside 23 $billion (assuming that's the right number) for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They have not given away anywhere close to all of it yet.

Ok, I forgot about that. But man, sometimes it seems with some of MS tactics that they are REAL stingy. What about where they threatened like 20 school districts with audits if they didn't buy new site liscenses? That was only last month or so ago if I remember right. They even had the GALL to claim it was random audits across country. A lot of those school districts were right next to each other! Quite a number of schools immediatly began looking into linux, especially since a lot of them were in the poorer areas and were real short on funding. So MS immediatly turned around and said oops we didn't mean that, but we still reserve the right to audit you if you dont upgrade.
There are articles about this if anyone needs details, I'm just quoting from memory so I might be wrong in some of the details, but I think that's what the overall situation was.

 

[SupermanCK]

Enough is enough...

 

[dlaw]

Well, I signed up with them few nights ago. I signed up not because of free money or whatsoever, just because they are really cheap. For $5 a YEAR... can't hurt much.

For the lifttime account, I don't think they will lose money on it. For a account costs $5 a year, will cost $70 for lifttime. That's 14 YEARS...not to mention the time value of money. So you are paying like 20 years of hosting fee at once maybe? If they can last for $5 an account, they can last for $70 lift time.

I don't know how long will they last, but well, for $5, it last for several months, it is worth the money. And by the way, I have a free account too, I don't know why.