Note from Ron Newman: The author of the following, Rob Freundlich, gave me permission to post this e-mail on the Web. If you'd like to write to Rob, his e-mail address is now: rsf@tiac.net . ------------- Date: Wed, 21 May 97 13:41:19 -04 From: Rob Freundlich Subject: CyberHell^H^H^H^Hcom To: rnewman@thecia.net Ron, I read your posting about your experience at Cyber Access's office. It pushed me from the "I might leave cybercom" right over the edge into "I'm outta here." As you can see from my email address, I've switched to tiac (the eclipsys.com address forwards there - we don't have our domain completely set up at work yet), and so I've been trying to get my files from cybercom. Especially the my public_html stuff. FTP has been abominally slow (0.21 Kb/s earlier today), and I couldn't even get bloody ZIP running in a telnet session to compress my stuff down. So I tried dialling in, figuring that'd be faster. Nope. Processor was at a crawl. So I called them. Talked with Augustine. Said I wanted my files zipped up and e-mailed to me. He said I could dial in and have no speed problems. I told him I'd just done that, and there were, in fact, speed problems. So he said he'd reboot the machine sometime before tomorrow and that should clear the processor problem. yeah, right. So now I'm back to e-mailing me the files Me: I can't wait until tomorrow. I need them now. Him: Uh, that's 20 Meg. Physically Impossible. Me: No it isn't. If you can e-mail me, then you can e-mail me a 20M Zip file Him: ... uh, we won't do that. Me: Then don't tell me it's physically impossible - be honest and tell me you won't do it. [repeat ad nauseam until he gets it] Me: Thank you for your honesty. Zip them up, put them on floppies, and mail them to me. Him: ... duh duh duh duh duh Me: Look, I need these files. At least put the public_html stuff on floppies. Mail them to me Return Receipt Requested. Him: uh, allright. So now I'm thinking I want them immediately - I don't trust this guy. Me: Hey, how about if you just zip it all up and put it on floppies, and I'll come by your office this afternoon and pick them up. Him: We don't allow customers in the office. [thud] <-------- The sound of my jaw hitting the floor We argued about that for a while ("May I speak to your supervisor?" "I don't have one. We've only got five employees, and 1500 customers, and we can't handle them coming in like that" "That's reprehensible." "huh?") and I told him: 1. I'm leaving cybercom. Those are my files, and I *will* retreive them, even if I have to come in and get them. 2. I'm not paying for May (he agreed to this one!) 3. I'm calling the Better Business Bureau 4. What's up with Ron Newman, anyway? He claimed you were in there harassing them, but "can't talk about that now." I told him that if all I had was your side of the story, then I had no choice but to believe everything you say about the situation (fyi, I believed you anyway, I just wanted to hear him come up with some feeble attempt at an explanation). I closed by reminding him I expect my files in the mail, and hung up. So why am I telling you this? Well, I still want to file with the BBB, but I was also curious what steps you are taking, and wonder if you and I might pool our resources. Or even send a mailing to some (all? dunno. I *hate* spam, but this wouldn't really be spam. I think) of the cybercom users, asking for others' tales, and putting it all together into one big file for the BBB (or whatever). Whaddya think? Rob Freundlich http://www.tiac.net/users/rsf ---------------------- Date: Wed, 28 May 97 10:10:25 -04 From: Rob Freundlich Subject: Re: CyberHell^H^H^H^Hcom To: rnewman@theCIA.net On 5/24/97 3:32:11 PM, Ron Newman wrote: >Have you been able to recover your files yet? Yup. I was able to FTP them last Friday, at 0.4K per sec. I think that's KBits, not KBytes ... ---------------------- Date: Fri, 06 Jun 97 13:45:03 -04 From: Rob Freundlich Subject: Re: May I add your CyberHell story to my web page? To: rnewman@theCIA.net; By all means, use it! I don't mind your putting my name (or a mailto or link to my home page, for that matter). The only change is the addition that I have not yet received my floppies. [snip] Please mention that people should e-mail me if they have any comments or want to discuss it further. Rob Freundlich, rsf@tiac.net http://www.tiac.net/users/rsf "Males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes." - Newt Gingrich "Some folks you don't have to satirize, you just quote em." - Tom Paxton