Hello,

Someone reported my ad listing website to registrars claiming that he had being defrauded by another user. The website had several prominent warnings warning against paying before receiving and inspecting goods as this is the current best way to prevent scams on online listing services. The user decided to go against the warning and is now trying to blame us for not verifying the user.

Instead of contacting me to clarify the issue and to get facts from both parties, the webhost and the registrar (Utiware) have decided to suspend the service which is a strange and outrageous. No warning, no attempt to get verification, nothing.

In fact, the registrar listed by NIRA (upperlink) is telling me to contact my utiware who on the other hand have stopped responding to my messages and have put my support ticket on hold.

Is this how business is done in Nigeria? I paid for the service and my side of the story was not requested or considered. Utiware even claimed without proof that they got reports that my site has been sending out spam mails. I can state with 100% certainty that we have not done so. We only send out mails after registration and those mails carry warnings and advice on dealing with strangers during transactions.

The fact of the matter is that we are not party to the transaction after a user contacts a seller on the site. We also do not take a share of the proceeds of any sale. We do not even have ads on the site which means we are currently in beta and are not generating any revenue at the moment.

Please who can I contact to get this issue resolved? I tried to mail NIRA but I kept getting an error message that their mailbox quota has been exceeded! HELP O!

When there is a disagreement or perceived breach of contract and the parties involved are no longer responding I think it is best to seek legal advice from a legal practitioner in this particular field. The terms of service document is a legally binding agreement between you and your host service provider so read through that document well with a legal practitioner.

Regarding the issue of your site sending SPAM. The fact that you are not aware of any such practices on your site does not mean it is not being done. A malicious attacker could use your SMTP details to send mails out or could just upload a script on your site and send mails using the PHP mail() if this function is not disabled.

@DualCore1 Thanks, I was hoping an institution or known process exists for issues like this. If I have to lawyer up however, I'm hoping the costs will be something I'll be able to handle. I'll look through the t & c as a start.

The issue is also strange given that the complainant claims to be the ceo of an ecommerce solutions company. How can such a person not be aware of how p2p listings work and how can such a person ignore warnings against paying before they receive the goods they are buying from strangers?

On the issue of spam, I'll look through the server for anything suspicious and change all passwords. But couldn't utiware have given me an heads up as to the spam report they claimed to have received earlier? That would have been good hosting practice, I think.

Your help is much appreciated, thank you.

You cannot blame the web host. The ignorant victim has probably reported the case to an equally ill informed police. So failure to shut down your site might land the web host in trouble.

You need to understand that a majority of web users in Nigeria would not pass a simply English comprehension test so do not even bother arguing with them. If not for the Financial Muscle that the likes of OLX possess, they would not be able to survive a terrain like Nigeria for that Nature of business.

@abhosts: I can understand the webhost acting too fast in this situation but the fact that they are not even responding to my ticket is what hurts. The ticket has been on hold since yesterday's evening.

The only response I got was that I should resolve the issue. How? With whom? The user has being informed (with utiware and upperlink cc'd) of the reasons why we cannot help with a refund, we are neither the police nor the bank he paid to. We are not even party to the contract he entered with the seller since we have no record of their phone calls and do not take a percentage of the sale value.

The worst thing is that it isn't even clear who our registrars are. NIRA and our whois lookup says its upperlink, upperlink says its utiware, utiware isn't responding and thus hasn't claimed to own the responsibility.

this is not cool,why don't u visit their office which I think is on the island ?the address is on the website

They've posted a reply and we are in the process of reaching a resolution with the complainant. Hopefully, I won't have to bear any unnecessary burden. Thanks.

Mynaijahost.com is worth trying out. We have been in business since 2006 and there has not been any bad review whatsoever from our clients all of them like our services. We are not too popular because we only sell normal web hosting we are not selling VPS, Dedicated server or even reseller hosting. The reason is because we don't want our server jam packed. Our server is located in Los-Angeles. Our office is in Lagos and our Hotline is 07030595653. We respond to customer's request immediately. We are hosting many good websites in Nigeria and Ghana.

Does anyone have any idea on how much getting a lawyer will cost? The person remains adamant that we have to share the burden with him despite the fact that he disregarded our instructions on the site. We're also trying to get as much proof from him to ascertain that he is not in fact trying to scam us.

I'm considering several factors;

1. The amount he is asking us to pay is about N16,000. If getting a lawyer is more expensive, it might be better to pay.

2. If the court can ask him to pay our litigation costs when we win, we can proceed regardless of the cost of hiring a lawyer.

The major problem here is that there is no sort of process or body to resolve issues like this in the sector and thus, he is using the fact that Utiware won't re-activate the site till they get confirmation from him that the issue is resolved to hold us to ransom.

Gameaddict, can you send me full details of this case?
Basically I want to see

1. The terms of service on your site that every user of your site agrees to before using it.
2. Utiware's terms of service (I think I can get this directly from their website)
3. The kind of hosting plan you have presently with Utiware.
4. The email correspondences between you, the complainant and Utiware

I'm not a lawyer but I may be of some little help in a bid to your solving this issue if I can get the requested details.

My email is sawyerrken@gmail.com

listing business is a bad business. Because that is the house of scammers.
You could have opted for ecommance. And help members to sell thier phone and property like affilate marketing not allowing them selling it themselve which is one big hole that encourage fraud.

@DualCore1: I've sent you a mail. Thanks for helping out.

@Juel3: Yeah, I've learnt it can be quite difficult to keep scammers and spam out. I've thought about implementing an identity and item verification system but every plan has fallen flat since it is undeniable that whether or not a person actually has something to sell in their possession, they can still choose to defraud others especially if the person makes the mistake of sending them money beforehand. The only sure way is public face to face exchanges which is recommended all over the internet. I even put up a warning on every ad regarding paying before service. I don't know what the person was thinking.

Your idea is solid. It requires a bit of work/capital (brick and mortar inspection/collection centres, security for example) though but it will surely scale if one can settle down to focus on it.