Ripoff Report Needs Your Help!
X  |  CLOSE
Report: #1177592

Complaint Review: Proboards, Inc. - Internet

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Allen Jeff — Durham North Carolina
  • Author Confirmed What's this?
  • Why?
  • Proboards, Inc. Internet USA

Show customers why they should trust your business over your competitors...

Is this
Report about YOU
listed on other sites?
Those sites steal
Ripoff Report's
content.
We can get those
removed for you!
Find out more here.
How to fix
Ripoff Report
If your business is
willing to make a
commitment to
customer satisfaction
Click here now..

For nine years Proboards gave free ad based hosting to the Chirotalk forum (chirotalk.proboards.com/) , the internet's number one ranked discussion forum on the topic of chiropractic.  The forum was special because it was skeptical and aimed a protecting students and patients from abuse at the hand of the chiropractic industry.  On September 16, 2014 proboards deleted the entire forum, giving the administrators no chance to archive content.  This resulted in the irreplaceable loss of thousands of pages of content.  Proboards refused to give any reason for the deletion, citing section 25(a) of its Terms of Service which state: 25. 


"WITHOUT LIMITING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF THIS AGREEMENT, PROBOARDS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO, IN PROBOARDS' SOLE DISCRETION AND WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY, DENY USE OF THE WEBSITE AND/OR SERVICES TO ANY PERSON FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON AT ALL, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION FOR ANY BREACH OR SUSPECTED BREACH OF ANY REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR COVENANT CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT, OR OF ANY APPLICABLE LAW OR REGULATION."

 

My attorney feels that the reason for the delection was that Proboards likely took a bribe from Affordable Management Consultants, a chiropractic practice management firm that was opposed to content on the board.  

chirotalk.hyperboards.com/action/view_topic/topic_id/2/latest/1

 

Not only was the board deleted, but a support thread mentioning the problem was censored to remove a link alerting people to the location of the new board.  I was also banned from the site for complaining.

 

Clearly, deleting a discussion board without any advance notice and without allowing the administrators to respond to charges is gross misconduct by a business.  Proboards is a terrible web host.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 09/18/2014 07:28 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/proboards-inc/internet/proboards-inc-destroyed-nine-year-old-discussion-forum-with-no-notice-and-hearing-inter-1177592. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

Search for additional reports

If you would like to see more Rip-off Reports on this company/individual, search here:

Report & Rebuttal
Respond to this report!
What's this?
Also a victim?
What's this?
Repair Your Reputation!
What's this?

Updates & Rebuttals

REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
4Author
1Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#5 Author of original report

Conclusion

AUTHOR: Allen - ()

POSTED: Thursday, October 30, 2014

Proboards refused to provide copies of the discussion board and left me out in the cold.  They responded to the complaint saying, "ProBoards is within it's rights to terminate access to this forum that we hosted.  Section 25(a) of our Terms of Service located at www.proboards.com/tos, which this customer contractually agreed to, gives us this right."

 

Anyone needing a free discussion forum should avoid this company because they can find their content lost at any time with no recourse.  Was the company within the contract?  Yes.  Did they act in a fair manner giving adequate warning so that we could archive material?  No.  

Proboards showed absolutely no concern for the owners of the board in question.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#4 Author of original report

Clarification

AUTHOR: Allen Botnick - ()

POSTED: Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Proboards has contacted me and firmly denies any bribery.  Regarding my statement about any possibly bribery on Proboards part, I never claimed to have a legal basis for having that information and this was an opinion provided by my attorney.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#3 Author of original report

More negative reviews about Proboards

AUTHOR: Allen - ()

POSTED: Saturday, September 20, 2014

Forum-software.org has many reviews where Proboards did exactly the same thing.  Here are some examples.

ProBoards User Reviews

http://www.forum-software.org/proboards/user-reviews

"Proboards is a terrible hosting company. They delete long standing boards with no warning and when you go to their forum to find out why, they lock your thread so there can be no discussion.

We had a board for five years and they just deleted us without warning. We were a small close knit community and they didn't care. They also kept the dollars we paid to make the board ad free."

  -Missy (?). February 5, 2011 01:55

"Well, they removed our forum without warning because we realised that we had no way to reasonably comply with the ToS, and thus were looking to back up the old content prior to moving, based on the catch-all "we can do whatever the hell we like, and f**k you" clause in their ToS.

So, now, we've lost six years worth of posts, including a lot of fanfics and RPing, just because they suddenly noticed that a forum discussing an adult series might have some adult content, without giving us any chance to move on. It's fair enough that their ToS forbid such things, but they should at least have the decency to allow us to back up our forum before they erase it."

  -Anonymous (?), Fri March 11, 2011 20:18

"What a dickhead........they removed my forum as well...no warning nothing...it was not violating any T&S PROBOARDS ARE THE WORST HOST EVER And have ZERO CUSTOMER SERVICE"

  -Anonymous (?), Mon August 15, 2011 20:56

"Deleting sites without giving them a chance to back up what they contained, not giving the 48 hours they promised in cases like breaking the ToS, and generally being hyporcrites who say they are not "putting the gun on your head and saying: "Do it or else!", while they are, in fact, doing just that...

There are lots of things I could say about ProBoards. And none of them are good. Which is because...? Because ProBoards is a sorry excuse for a hosting company with no respect for it's users whatsoever...Further, not only did they do all of this, but apparently they even spied on our IRC chats, and actually threatened legal action based on a non-serious post made there.

I can understand trying to uphold their ToS, but what we discuss in an off-forum IRC chat is none of their d**n business."

  -Anonymous (?). March 11, 2011 21:12

"This is a terrible service, which appears to be in the habit of arbitrarily deleting long-standing forums. Think twice before you use them."

  -Anonymous (?). March 14, 2011 08:30

"This place likes to make fun of religion! The staff at this place don't even care! People disrespect opinions and beliefs all the time that it's so commonplace that the staff do NOTHING!

If you want your beliefs and/or opinions disrespected and made fun of.... go here. Good luck!

  -Lady (?). July 15, 2011 14:39

"ProBoards is the worst place ever. I was there for quite a few years as a dedicated member. Then, all of a sudden, I'm banned from the entire service for a stupid reason, and they don't even try to work things out with me. Clinger and the rest of his staff are d****es, who discriminate, and I've got the proof to back it up. Aside from their discrimination, V5 has been the main topic for so long, yet there's been nothing of it.

Going back to what some others have said, PB is horrible with backup management. If a forum is deleted for an unspecified reason, PB will act like you're a threat, and not even at least open up the forum long enough to retrieve certain info from posts."

 -Anonymous (?). October 6, 2011 20:54

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#2 Author of original report

That's not useful advice

AUTHOR: Allen - ()

POSTED: Friday, September 19, 2014

This site doesn't have ready backup software so backing up thousands of posts isn't practical.  It would have to be done laborously.  There was no risk of liability to them because the posts in question were four years old, well outside the statute of limitation because I have liability insurance to cover them and because their terms waive any liability on their part.  So it doesn't appear they were being targeted for a lawsuit.  You should read the complaint before speculating and giving useless advice.  Taking down posts without any notice and a hearing for a well regarded, nine year old site is predatory.  If a free discussion board host can't handle the heat of a minor nuisance lawsuit threat they shouldn't be hosting.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#1 Consumer Suggestion

It's a FREE service

AUTHOR: Josh - ()

POSTED: Thursday, September 18, 2014

With most free hosting services, it only takes one or two complaints or a threat of a libel lawsuit to take a hosted site down.  They probably just got a lawyer letter from someone that got disparaged on the forum.  That company has nothing to gain and everything to lose by keeping anything even mildly controversial -- you are not paying them anything.  If you have a popular forum, you should probably scrounge up a couple of bucks and buy an account with a real hosting/VPS provider instead of using some free service.  Oh, and backups are always a good idea.

 

Respond to this report!
What's this?
Featured Reports

Advertisers above have met our
strict standards for business conduct.

X
What do hackers,
questionable attorneys and
fake court orders have in common?
...Dishonest Reputation Management Investigates Reputation Repair
Free speech rights compromised

WATCH News
Segment Now