Pay for Free backups?

[KaiserSoze]

So for no reason one of my databases just dissapeared into thin air. So I decided take up JaguarPC's offer of "FREE daily backups" as advertised on their VPS Enterprise package. Turns out I have to pay $15 to get the data back. So whats exactly is free? The whole point of backup is you get your data back if something goes wrong. So if nothing goes wrong its free but as long as something goes wrong its $15. Doesnt make sense to me.

[Vin DSL]

Doesnt make sense to me.

It could be worse...

Download Backup

[KaiserSoze]

I will pay the charge but I dont like the wording of their package. Its misleading and I'm sure JPC wouldnt like to be known as a host who dupes their customers.

[Ron]

I had to pay the $15 charge for a restore, and I was thrilled they were able to do it for me. Of course I was completely aware of the charge before hand.

I don't mean to sound insensitive, but
KEEP YOUR OWN BACKUPS OF YOUR DATABASES! DO NOT RELY ON ANYONE ELSE'S BACKUP TO BE AVAILABLE!

[EuroNut]

I will pay the charge but I dont like the wording of their package. Its misleading and I'm sure JPC wouldnt like to be known as a host who dupes their customers.

They haven't duped you, you duped yourself dude.

If you bought a car and it broke down 8 months down the line, would you expect the garage to send a tow truck out to you for free?

When you sign up for a VPS, you confirm that you've read the Ts and Cs, which are worded just about the same as 99% of the other hosts out there .......

Back-ups and Data Loss:
We perform daily backups on all of our servers to ensure critical files are never lost. Our server software does create daily backups for users sites that you may download on your own, we do not restore a file any user has accidentally deleted or modified. The back-up restoration is for emergency procedures only. You are advised to backup all of your own files to your local drive. We are not responsible for lost data, time, income or any other resource due to faulty backups or non-existent back-ups.

In other words, if you want Jag to send the tow-truck, there's a charge for that. But they do supply you with a control panel which has an option to create your own FREE backups, just as often as you like. You DO use that option, right?

[KaiserSoze]

I had to pay the $15 charge for a restore, and I was thrilled they were able to do it for me. Of course I was completely aware of the charge before hand.

I don't mean to sound insensitive, but
KEEP YOUR OWN BACKUPS OF YOUR DATABASES! DO NOT RELY ON ANYONE ELSE'S BACKUP TO BE AVAILABLE!

Is there anywhere on the JPC website where it talks about the $15 charge?

I do keep backups of my own databases but the last one I have is a couple of weeks old. But thats beside the point. The point is why mention FREE when its not FREE.

[KaiserSoze]

They haven't duped you, you duped yourself dude.

If you bought a car and it broke down 8 months down the line, would you expect the garage to send a tow truck out to you for free?

Are you serious? I did not pay a one-off payment to JPC, its a regular payment for a regular service. They have duty of care to the customer during that service.

When you sign up for a VPS, you confirm that you've read the Ts and Cs, which are worded just about the same as 99% of the other hosts out there .......

Whats that got to do with this? I think you have your wires crossed. Where in the T&C does it say there is an extra charge to restore backups?

[EuroNut]

Yes I'm serious and no I don't have my wires crossed. All too often we see unfortunates in here getting angry at Jag for doing exactly what they say they'll do, and what you agreed to when you signed up - They back up their servers (that's the entire server, not just a VPS on a server) so that, in the event of a serious hardware failure, they can reload the whole job lot onto new hardware. That's the free service.

In the same sections of the Ts and Cs they remind you that you should take your own backups, and that this is real easy to do using the tools they provide you with. I don't know what control panel software you use but, for example, WHM has a backup option within it that lets you send daily/weekly/monthly backups via FTP to "another place" - Jag will even sell you some secure FTP space to use if you don't have anywhere else to send it to.

If I remember right (I'd have to go looking) Jag's charge is $15 per file for a restoration from their backups (of the entire server you're on), because it involves a fair amount of work for one of their staff to find the little piece you want of a huge backup they have.

So my tow-truck analogy holds good. Your choices are:

1) Take the car, hope it never breaks down, and pay whatever tow-in fee applies when it does.

2) Take out some form of monthly insurance to cover you for the inevitable day the car breaks down.

Clear now?

[KaiserSoze]

Yes I'm serious and no I don't have my wires crossed. All too often we see unfortunates in here getting angry at Jag for doing exactly what they say they'll do, and what you agreed to when you signed up - They back up their servers (that's the entire server, not just a VPS on a server) so that, in the event of a serious hardware failure, they can reload the whole job lot onto new hardware. That's the free service.

In the same sections of the Ts and Cs they remind you that you should take your own backups, and that this is real easy to do using the tools they provide you with. I don't know what control panel software you use but, for example, WHM has a backup option within it that lets you send daily/weekly/monthly backups via FTP to "another place" - Jag will even sell you some secure FTP space to use if you don't have anywhere else to send it to.

If I remember right (I'd have to go looking) Jag's charge is $15 per file for a restoration from their backups (of the entire server you're on), because it involves a fair amount of work for one of their staff to find the little piece you want of a huge backup they have.

So my tow-truck analogy holds good. Your choices are:

1) Take the car, hope it never breaks down, and pay whatever tow-in fee applies when it does.

2) Take out some form of monthly insurance to cover you for the inevitable day the car breaks down.

Clear now?

Yup its clear you have your wires crossed. Firstly your analogy about the tow truck doesnt hold up. There is a distinct difference between Purchase of Goods and Purchase of Services. When you Purchase goods your warranty/guarantee runs out after a certain period of time. What JPC are providing are is a Service. They have completely different set of laws to the first one. During a Service they have a duty of care towards you throughout the service.

Again, you're going off topic with your rant. No one is debating their T&C or that one should back stuff up. What I was saying is why mention "FREE Daily Backups" when there is no such thing. They could easily say "Daily Backups". And I have yet to find anywhere on their site that mentions a $15 charge to restore a backup.

[Ron]

I don't know.

If you're unhappy, PM JPC-Greg and let him know, I'm sure he'd want to hear about it.

[EuroNut]

During a Service they have a duty of care towards you throughout the service.

Yep.

Again, you're going off topic with your rant.

HUH??? So because my replies are not what you want to read, I'm off-topic and ranting? How sweet of you to say, so I'll make this reply my last as I have no time for people who can't even act with common civility. OK, forget the analogy if it doesn't work for you, and try looking at another thread that is running right now regarding a server problem.

JPC-Robert started it off, by saying ....

We need to restore this server from the backup due to the raid problem. As there have been issues with this server in the last week as well so to eliminate any possible hardware issues we are now doing the restore of the data to a complete new hardware.

There is your free backup, and a free restore thrown in for good measure, and Jag honouring their "duty of care" as you put it.

Anything over and above that, as most people would expect, incurs a charge for the time and effort required.

[KaiserSoze]

You talk about common civility while the tone in your original replies was anything but. I called your reply off topic because it was, that was not the issue being talked about. I call it a rant because you went on about T&C and backups which again seemed like something you wanted to blurt out without actually understanding the subject being discussed. I apologise if i hurt your feelings.

Thats good that JPC restore data, I'm not disputing that. It would be good to know what you will be charged for and what is included in the package you buy.

[jason]

According to the Terms of Service, JPC doesn't restore individual files for users:

Back-ups and Data Loss:
We perform daily backups on all of our servers to ensure critical files are never lost. Our server software does create daily backups for users sites that you may download on your own, we do not restore a file any user has accidentally deleted or modified. The back-up restoration is for emergency procedures only. You are advised to backup all of your own files to your local drive. We are not responsible for lost data, time, income or any other resource due to faulty backups or non-existent back-ups.

The fact that they were willing to do this for you is a testament to the level of service provided here. Contractually they are not required to provide that service. I don't think the fee they charge is unreasonable. I believe at one time is was actually $75/hour with a one hour minimum for this service.

As for the "free daily backups" wording, they are doing daily backups as part of your hosting package. They are not charging you extra for that service. Note that they are not saying "free file restoration" which is the service they are providing to you for $15.

While the phrasing is a bit confusing, it is not misleading, and it is common language used by almost all hosting companies in a similar context. One time I met a DWI attorney at an event I was at. I had seen the guy on TV before and my first impression was that he was your typical schister TV lawyer (though his commercials were much classier than some of his competition). As we spoke I got a entirely different impression of the man--he seemed like an honest, caring person who had a sincere interest in ensuring that people who made bad decisions were treated fairly. At some point in the conversation he mentioned how much he hates having to advertise but, since every other DWI lawyer in town does TV ads that's the only way he can attract business. (For the record, no, I have never been this guy's client.) I'm sure Jag feels the same way--the cutthroat business of web hosting, the market dictates some of what he must advertise. If he doesn't say "free backups" he'll lose customers to someone who does, even if the service he offers is, once you read the fine print, several times better than the other guy.

I don't know the circumstances behind your lost database. You mention that it "disappeared into thin air," but from my experience as both a hosting client and as a system administrator that generally doesn't happen without good reason. It is possible that software under Jag's control caused the problem and, if you can prove that to be the case, you should be entitled to a refund. More likely, though (and I say this based on experience and the fact that if it was a server problem it would probably be seen more often, not as an attack at you) it is probably due to either a bad script on your site or simply because of user error.

I would recommend that you restore the file, investigate the cause of the loss (by checking logs for suspicious activity and/or when errors started to occur so that you can pinpoint when and hopefully how the loss occurred), and that you take regular backups from here out (the frequency that is best of course depends on how often the site changes and how important those changes are). If you do find that a JPC error somehow caused the loss, I am sure that management will willingly hear your case and reimburse you. Good luck.

--Jason

[JPC-Greg]

They are free, we arent charging anyone extra addon fees for the massive amounts of hardware, software licensing (and r1soft isnt cheap) and man power required to maintain, update, and setup, etc. Our costs to backup client data are probably more in a month than most people make in a year.

If you like we can remove the "free" and do not backups for any machines, charging an addon fee if you want them.

[Ron]

Greg,
I think the OP doesn't have an issue with the 15 bucks charge, I think the OP was surprised to find there was a restoral fee at all because of the wording of "Free Daily Backups" which seems to imply that access to the backups is also free, which it isn't.

I don't particularly care for that phrase either, as I do feel that it might be misleading to newbie webmasters. Maybe the phrase "Free Disaster Recovery services" is better, I'm not sure. Somewhere a sentence about "A nominal fee for file restoration will be charged" would be nice.

In fact, maybe just
"FREE Daily Backups!*
*A nominal fee will be charged for customer requested file restoration."

Or maybe it's fine the way it is. Maybe not enough folks find this to be an issue tio warrant even thinking about it.