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Atlantic.Net - WARNING You Decide If You Want To Try Them Or Not
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Atlantic.Net - WARNING You Decide If You Want To Try Them Or Not

tgltgl Member
edited November 2019 in Reviews

A user posted here the great free service they offer (for 1 year) a few days ago, so I decided to give it a try, I know that if its free you are the product, but I said, ok, let me give it a try, I wanted to use it for some tests.

I signed up for the service, added my credit card and billing information, all ok, my big "mistake" was that I forgot to disconnect my VPN so the IP did not match, but well, I did this with many providers and all was sorted out.

Here is what followed:

  1. I am asked to verify my credit card, they took a small amount with a code from my credit card, which I confirmed and the verification process was complete.

  2. I receive an e-mail that its not enough, and I should submit a copy of my drivers license or passport, so I submitted a scan of my national ID and waited.

  3. After waiting for three days for the verification to take place, I decided to contact them, and this was the reply:

Greetings,

Thank you for your interest in Atlantic.net.

After further review we are unable to keep your account active.  The information provided is not valid in our systems or matches previous sign up information.

We cannot provide any additional information at this time.

I never used this company before, so that is just bs, so it must be the information not being valid in their systems :)

I am not upset I did not get the free service, but because I completed those steps, revealed my personal and financial information to them, they should have told me from the start, the signup was invalid.

This is a shady and unprofessional way of handling things, and I would stay away from these people, even if the offer sounds great, but as I said, you decide, and this is just a description of what I have experience, so you will know what to expect.

P.S. They should change their phone number from 888-618-DATA to 888-618-STEALING-YOUR-DATA

Thanked by 1TheLinuxBug

Comments

  • YourID and your billing info were they the same (address/name etc)?

  • @seriesn yes, all was ok except for the IP, which I admit it did not match, but my guess is this is why the extra verification is required, also no answer from them after I submitted my ID, so as I said, very unprofessional.

    Thanked by 1coreflux
  • @tgl said: I am not upset I did not get the free service,

    Hmm, ...

    tgl said: but because I completed those steps, revealed my personal and financial information to them, they should have told me from the start, the signup was invalid.

    How early could they have told you? Before you signed up and tried?

    Thanked by 1ITLabs
  • tgltgl Member
    edited November 2019

    Before asking for my national ID, and credit card verification. "Your signup has been denied because the information did not match or you signed up before", goodbye together.

    I guess I am more upset about them wasting my time!

    As I said, I am not saying its a scam, I will let people know what happened to me and let them decide if they want to go through the same process and maybe get nothing in the end.

    @angstrom said:

    @tgl said: I am not upset I did not get the free service,

    Hmm, ...

    tgl said: but because I completed those steps, revealed my personal and financial information to them, they should have told me from the start, the signup was invalid.

    How early could they have told you? Before you signed up and tried?

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    Well, if you do such a thing, you can expect a high abuse rate.
    So they go and validate each new account.

    But, do you really want to give away a copy of your ID for 12 months free service?
    From my point, no.

    Its not worth the effort + the data you give away.

    Thanked by 1uptime
  • Its a very old company, they had also offers here, so I thought they were professionals, unfortunately it seems they are not, not to mention the document handling procedures, attaching them over emails, I wonder how they handle the rest of the data?

    Anyway, my bad on that.

    @Neoon said:
    Well, if you do such a thing, you can expect a high abuse rate.
    So they go and validate each new account.

    But, do you really want to give away a copy of your ID for 12 months free service?
    From my point, no.

    Its not worth the effort + the data you give away.

  • I did face an issue myself during sign up as well. So I signed up on an overseas IP and they took my credit card for verification. It was flagged as pending and I was told to contact support. Support simply brushed my case aside and told me to sign up again. I explained the situation and have sent multiple chaser e-mails but they were never replied.

    I tried again using another e-mail (original e-mail was flagged as pending verification), this time using my home country IP. I am based overseas so this is a bit of a hassle. Again verification via credit card but it went through in seconds. Spun up an instance and 5mins later it was taken down. I e-mailed support again and provided an ID for verification, and they reinstated my account and services.

    It's a bit of a hit or miss, but at least it seems they are true to their word of giving a free 12 months service. At the end of the day, is it worth the hassle? Well you be the judge.

    Thanked by 1ITLabs
  • @tgl said: Before asking for my national ID, and credit card verification. "Your signup has been denied because the information did not match or you signed up before", goodbye together.

    You're probably in the best position to know or guess what information didn't match.

    Anyway, yes, even if you believe that all of your details are accurate, there's always a risk of a false positive, especially in the case of a freebie

  • at least they gave you a responsive respond. So now, you should ask them to erase your data permanently.

    I tried to sign up that Oracle free tier. I gave everything. And until now, their only response is "we are still waiting from internal team investigation". Imagine have to wait for almost 4 weeks for the same bullshit.

    Thanked by 1tgl
  • tgltgl Member
    edited November 2019

    Actually I asked them to delete my data, but they are not replying anymore, we will see in three days if they comply, but I doubt.

    They seem to not care that much about their free plan customers, it could be there are a lot of sign ups, but this does not justify this behavior. If you plan on rejecting people, you can easily tell them at the start of the process, not make them go through a procedure in order to get 'their account unlocked' and in the end you decide you won't unlock it anyway, providing them with just a template reply after they ask, because I was provided with nothing, they just asked for all this info and did not bother to even confirm they received it or that it was rejected, and when they turn to provide a reason came they said: We cannot provide any additional information at this time.

    They also have servers in Europe I saw, I am in the EU, so I am not sure if they need to stick with GDPR policies considering the service is provided to a EU citizen, still, good luck getting an answer from them other than automated stuff.

    @creep said:
    at least they gave you a responsive respond. So now, you should ask them to erase your data permanently.

    I tried to sign up that Oracle free tier. I gave everything. And until now, their only response is "we are still waiting from internal team investigation". Imagine have to wait for almost 4 weeks for the same bullshit.

  • HostMediaHostMedia Member, Patron Provider

    tgl said: They also have servers in Europe I saw, I am in the EU, so I am not sure if they need to stick with GDPR policies considering the service is provided to a EU citizen, still, good luck getting an answer from them other than automated stuff.

    Even if a company is non-EU as long as you are an EU citizen then GDPR applies. They would need to remove your personal data fully as they can't even use the reason of 'for billing/tax reasons' as your service wasn't even set up. They may say they need some information stored for security reasons but that should be minimal amounts of data.

    Thanked by 1tgl
  • Hey all, I wanted to say thank you for all of your interest in Atlantic.Net and our free server for a year promo! We have had a large volume of signups from this new promo, and this latest spike in signups has helped identify some areas to improve for the signup process.

    We look forward to being able to do more promotions in the future and hope that you will try us out. We take security and privacy very seriously at Atlantic.Net, so if you haven’t heard from us about data removal yet, we are probably still processing through the queue of requests. If you do try us out, we take all the feedback seriously and try to apply it to our roadmap. Thanks!

  • I was able to activate my account ok but I'm not able to use it because it's impossible to log in without solving a recaptcha and my browser blocks those (and anyway they are obnoxious). I did the signup with my phone (pain in the neck but I figured signing up is a one time thing), but unfortunately the recaptcha also gets in the way of regular login. Also their 2FA is apparently SMS only instead of TOTP which is more secure and less hassle. Overall a nice offer but way out of date host.

    Thanked by 1tgl
  • I wanted to try because I knew about you from a long time ago (I even recommended you on another thread), and I was expecting something else, but unfortunately I was unable even if I completed all the steps on my side (an extensive verification procedure), that is fine with me, its your right to select your customers, but the handling was poor in my opinion at least, I explained how above.

    About the data, I will update this once I have a final answer on my request.

    In the future, I would suggest to pay more attention to the freebies because they are the ones that spread the word about your company by providing good feedback, and they can bring you important leads.

    Just my two cents.

    @AtlancticNet_Staffer said:
    Hey all, I wanted to say thank you for all of your interest in Atlantic.Net and our free server for a year promo! We have had a large volume of signups from this new promo, and this latest spike in signups has helped identify some areas to improve for the signup process.

    We look forward to being able to do more promotions in the future and hope that you will try us out. We take security and privacy very seriously at Atlantic.Net, so if you haven’t heard from us about data removal yet, we are probably still processing through the queue of requests. If you do try us out, we take all the feedback seriously and try to apply it to our roadmap. Thanks!

  • UPDATE: They have processed my request and deleted all my information. Thank you @AtlancticNet_Staffer for the prompt action.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited November 2019

    Day 1: "Why don't you stop all of the abuse on your network? YOU SUPPORT CRIMINALS!!!!111111"
    Day 2: "Why can't I sign up with a VPN!? This is UNPROFESSIONAL and YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!!!!!!111111"
    Day 3: Provider stops giving a fuck about your opinions.

    That's how these situations look to a provider, like two passionate people pulling you in the opposite directions. Damned if you please one, damned if you please the other. Best for providers to just do what they can to protect their customers, by protecting their network, based on the variables they deem most likely to be risky based on their own assessments.

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    OP said it himself: if a service is free then probably YOU are the product.

    My guess is that those people looked for and found a way to get at the data of many highly likely potential customers. That kind of information is valuable.

    The funniest part: you even payed to get f_cked. Just a small amount, of course, but still. And btw that fact also is a relevant legal parameter.

    Meanwhile they deleted your personal data? Sure ...

  • Well, a fewa years ago, I registered with Atlantic, paid with paypal,/cc I forgot, flagged and requested to do a verification using national ID. Sent it to them, waiting about 2 or 3 days, and just received an email that they can't activate my service.

    It was ok, it's their business, so they can choose who they want to work to. And I can also choose another provider, so I did choose another provider at that time.

    And at some random time, I still get an email, with such subscribed unsubscribed email. lol

  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    @ErawanArifNugroho said:
    Well, a fewa years ago, I registered with Atlantic, paid with paypal,/cc I forgot, flagged and requested to do a verification using national ID. Sent it to them, waiting about 2 or 3 days, and just received an email that they can't activate my service.

    They denied activation of your service with no reason provided? :)

  • thedp said: They denied activation of your service with no reason provided?

    No at that time. Just stated that they can not provide me the service. :smile:

  • My ID country does not match my sign-up IP country, but I still got it...

  • @tgl So if I was in a traveling to a different country and signed up, they would reject the account? I don't think so. Check with them for the specific reason.

    1. This happens all the time on LET. Usually, it's because of the country you live in. Chinese and Brazilians have been bitching for years.

    2. It's not stealing, by definition, if you freely gave it to them. So your last bit does make you come off as being angry and upset.

  • thanks for the warning. I'll sign up with them and try now!

  • Signed up with them, received the welcoming email, said it will be verified within minutes and I'll get a follow-up that never came.
    Either way, I ain't gonna provide nobody with verification details for a $10 or less purchase.

  • Want countries are you from, I signed up a few days ago I just needed to verify email and enter a valid credit card didn't ask for the code from charge got activated right away.

  • Malin said: ain't gonna provide nobody with verification details for a $10 or less purchase.

    This is a $100+ purchase since it's for a whole year.

  • hanoihanoi Member
    edited November 2019

    i used their free trial cloud server some years ago, maybe 2k15 or 2k16. Their verification required phone call and ID copy. After free trial, i deleted my unused server. Some months later, i come back then surprised, they suspended you if you don't use their server. I think providers like Atlantic never be popular and friendly like DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr.

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