Proboards Inc

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
This company has NOT attempted to contact me in way shape or form.
I do not have a 'real' phone number as they put it.  I have no phone service in any way, shape or form.  E-Mail is the only way I communicate with people.  Gee, this may be due to a medical condition!
I have tried to cancel through their 'proboards' an am referred to a forum.  There is NO help.
Signed up for my dog.  This site had a new site set-up after the announcement of Catster/Dogster demise.  This is not a site I want to be on, nor my dog.  I think their site was something like friendsofcatsteranddogster, something like that.
I just want my account with this site canceled!
Regards,
[redacted]

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.

We will attempt to contact this customer via email.  Unfortunately they have not provided a real phone number or any details about what "subscription" they are trying to cancel with us.  We have numerous ways to contact our support team including 24/7 access via our online support forum at...

http://support.proboards.com.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response...

made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
Proboards is referencing section 25 (a), "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. "
https://www.proboards.com/tos
A close reading of the paragraph shows that it does not apply to termination of an entire discussion forum, only to denying access to individual people so it is not a valid defense.  Proboards operated in bad faith and did breach its contractual agreement by terminating the entire discussion board, and access to all members, for no reason.  Proboards has a page detailing the forum rules showing how individuals are supposed to be banned. This page substantially modifies the agreement by binding Proboards to individually determine a level of banning based on the severity of what the members actually did.  In banning every member of the forum by taking it down, they violated the stated procedure in banning members and in doing so have violated the new contractual agreement.   This deprives members of their contractual right to forum access and destroys the content of the writing on the forum, making Proboards liable for the value of the lost content and for the costs associated with creating a new forum. 
See http://support.proboards.com/page/rules#s-7
 
Proboards has not only done this to [redacted] but is a chronic offender and has done it to several other forums:
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."
 
  -[redacted] (?). 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 [redacted] we like, and [redacted]" 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 [redacted]........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 damn 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!
 
  [redacted] (?). 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. [redacted] and the rest of his staff are [redacted], 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
 
"Proboards is a dreadful service. [redacted]'s post is right on the money. Frankly, the whole proboard experience has put me off posting on the internet. It draws out the very worst in some people and often results in personality clashes that descend into abuse, bullying and intimidation. And while the support board is very good, the ethos of suspending accounts without recourse is so draconian and Un-American and undemocratic that I'm surprised that it is legal. The formatting of the board is such a dog of program that it's hardly worthwhile trying to do it for the amount of time it takes to do. And it is very unforgiving if you make an error.
 Spend your time and brain energy somewhere else. Proboards is a drag with uber-poor administration and crappy formatting. They can do much better and should. The question is, 'Will they?'"
 
  -[redacted] (?).  October 21, 2011 22:48
 
"Everything that [redacted] and [redacted] have posted is dead on the money. Both [redacted] and [redacted] spent many months since 19 March 2011 wrestling a ProBoards forum into excellence, both visually and content=wise, only to see the result of their hard work erased, on 4 October 2011 at approximately 23:15 GMT+1 (18:15 EDT, 15:15 PDT), with neither stated cause nor warning, by [redacted] and his associates. In my opinion, ProBoards is an atrocious service, operated by people who do not care about other people, and who do not understand the concept of conducting business with honor.
 
I recommend that anyone currently operating a ProBoards-hosted forum immediately seek and find another host for their forum, and I also recommend that they do not communicate their intentions to ProBoards."
 
  -[redacted]?). October 23, 2011 05:51
 
 
Regards,
[redacted]

Hello,
 
We did in fact contact this customer, repeatedly we have requested that they provide us a link to the website where they want their account cancelled from.  This person refused to provide us with a link to the website.  It is impossible for us to handle their request without them giving us a link to the website in question and the username on their account.
 
Further, we have emailed them providing a link to our online help guide which outlines in step-by-step manner how they can delete their own account without our assistance.
 
http://www.proboards.com/user-guide/profile-preferences/deleting-account

Review: For nine years Proboards gave free ad based hosting to the [redacted] , 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. 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. 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.Desired Settlement: Reinstatement of the board so members can be mass emailed with the new location and content can be suitably archived. Monetary restitution of $10,000 for loss of use of the board.

Business

Response:

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.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Proboards is referencing section 25 (a), "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. "

Review: Need to cancel my membership. There is no where on this site to do so. There is NO way to contact them, except by snail mail.Desired Settlement: Just want my membership canceled. Take all of my information off of this site, or provide me a way to do it!

Business

Response:

We will attempt to contact this customer via email. Unfortunately they have not provided a real phone number or any details about what "subscription" they are trying to cancel with us. We have numerous ways to contact our support team including 24/7 access via our online support forum at http://support.proboards.com.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

This company has NOT attempted to contact me in way shape or form.

I do not have a 'real' phone number as they put it. I have no phone service in any way, shape or form. E-Mail is the only way I communicate with people. Gee, this may be due to a medical condition!

I have tried to cancel through their 'proboards' an am referred to a forum. There is NO help.

Signed up for my dog. This site had a new site set-up after the announcement of Catster/Dogster demise. This is not a site I want to be on, nor my dog. I think their site was something like friendsofcatsteranddogster, something like that.

I just want my account with this site canceled!

Regards,

Business

Response:

Hello,