[al2o3cr]

Marketing page copy: "Unlimited 1GB servers"

FAQ when signed in: "Each plan has a maximum capacity for the amount of servers its allowed to create. Due to the significant amount of dedicated resources we provide, we can't literally give you unlimited servers. However, you could upgrade your plan whenever you'd like."

So your marketing page is LITERALLY a lie. Good job.

[frik]

It's a carbon copy of this template: http://themes.getbootstrap.com/products/marketing

Even the pricing area and the footer text are 100% just a copy.

There is certainly not functional hosting service behind that, but maybe it a vehicle to test the water and collect emails of potential customers...

[pavornyoh]

It's a carbon copy of this template: http://themes.getbootstrap.com/products/marketing Even the pricing area and the footer text are 100% just a copy.

This is why I love HN. If it is not authentic, you quickly get found out. OP, why didn't you at least edit the page and make it your own?

[autotune]

This isn't specific to HN, you get the same thing on various subreddits on reddit (e.g. /r/science and /r/technology), and probably the same thing on any technically-oriented community forum that discusses new or any tech. HN is great but let's not start a circlejerk around a common feature of any strong community.

[nkozyra]

Yikes. Yeah, stay away.

[GordonS]

I fail to see how using a pre-made Bootstrap template means 'stay away'?

[RIMR]

If they can't put any effort into their brand, what makes you think they'll put any effort into their service?

[keehun]

How about making the counter-argument that maybe all the energy is being spent on making the service good? If you had 50 hours to do something, and you either had the choice of spending 10 of it making your own marketing materials, or 1 of it for making a good looking page with a preexisting work, why not go with 1, if you want to spend 9 more hours perfecting the engineering side?

[dmarlow]

LOL, even the copyright link... which goes to a 404.

[destroyer998]

When you click the refund link in the footer, you are presented with a page not found error: https://ramgrid.com/legal/refunds

Is this supposed to be scam or a joke?

[smt88]

Edit: I take it back. It seems to be serious and not just a test. I found the creator's LinkedIn.[1]

Previous comment: Probably a landing page to test a concept before the concept is developed. It's done frequently, but this person has done it rather sloppily.

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondecastro

[USNetizen]

From a self-written description of his previous project:

"I know what you're thinking. FkPaying is a brand new way to watch movies, download books, and download music. I built out a really nice website that's very intuitive and user friendly. Yeah... if you're reading this, the website might have been taken down by the FBI. It was a good run, folks. I hope I don't get taken to jail for this."

Yeah, seems proud of being taken down by the FBI. I'm not really comfortable with people that take such pride in pushing the limits of the law and it doesn't bode well for the reputation of this current venture.

[RIMR]

Wow, really? I might need to report my card "lost" so that I can get a new number. Stripe protects that information from the vendor, right?

Though I doubt this kid is going to try to be that brazen, especially since he is using his real name to do this (assuming this isn't a fake identity).

Might request a new number just in case. I really don't trust this asshole anymore.

[smt88]

I wouldn't be too hasty to call him an asshole. Based on his LinkedIn, I think he's just a kid without any work experience and, consequently, without much understanding of professionalism. "FuckPaying" seem to be not that different from one of us wanting to start some kind of Napster when we were young, and I think a lot of grown HN users are probably PopcornTime users...

[USNetizen]

He's an "assistant instructor" at at least one school/program, and others. This isn't a "kid" if he's teaching other people.

We can't and shouldn't blame potential fraud on simple "youth" for someone who is obviously of an age that he is teaching other people to do these things.

[RIMR]

There's a service behind this, I can confirm it. I just wasted $9 on a broken VPS.

I am not worried about that $9 because I spent that expecting this to be a bust. I've spent far more on stupider things. It'll certainly be the last $9 I spend on this though.

[ogsharkman]

Not surprising. I'd be more concerned with handing over card details tbh.

[RIMR]

Payments were handled with Stripe, so it's my understanding that RamGrid won't have the card details.

[ogsharkman]

Well that's good!

[mcintyre1994]

Also both pages under "For those who may sue us". Actually, just all of that section - you need a ramgrid account to view their refund policy (apparently different to the 404 footer one), or "FOR THE FEDS & CO" law enforcement guide/copyright policy. Also the search bar doesn't work.

[AdamSC1]

I don't think it is a lie I think it is poor wording.

He mentions it is aimed at dev teams to easily allocate resources. I think the packages are you pay for a certain amount of RAM (i.e. 1GB, 12 GB, 100 GB, etc) and you can divide that on to an unlimited number of servers.

So lets say I have a team of 6 people and I buy the 12 GB I can create 12 1GB servers, or I can create 6 2GB servers, or I can create 4 2GB servers and 3 1GB servers.

If I have a team of 10 and I buy the "customize anyway plan" I could have instances that were 1GB, some that were 4GB and others that were 2GB.

You buy the resources but can divvy it up into other instances that make sense for your team (at least that is what I gather).

[al2o3cr]

Nope. I signed up (there's $9 I'm not seeing again) and you can only make 1GB servers. After you make two on the "Personal" plan, you get a message that you can't create any more:

    Stop right there!

    You have created all of the servers your Personal tier
    allows you to create. If you would like to upgrade your
    plan, please create a support ticket under the Billing
    section or send an e-mail anytime you're ready to
    [e-mail].

[JangoSteve]

But if there is a minimum of 1GB RAM per server, and the plan allows for up to 2GB total, then you can literally only create two 1GB servers. I'm not sure how a limit of two equates to unlimited. I was really confused by that on the pricing page.

[totalrobe]

To further the confusion, under the 'Personal' option it says you can have either one 2GB or two 1GB servers...so is it two or unlimited?

edit I'm assuming they are trying to convey that you quickly can spin instances up and down?

[BorisMelnik]

but isn't it the same with Amazon and all these other "unlimited backup" solutions? They are all literally a lie if you dig deep enough...some cases more deep than others.

[CM30]

Yep. It's a hosting cliche at this point, it's never really unlimited, it's almost almost overselling with a small note in the terms and conditions saying that some nebulous resource limit applies.

It's pretty well known over at Web Hosting Talk. It's one of the reasons services by a certain notorious company called EIG have a poor reputation.

Doesn't make it any more ethical to do it here though. The hosting business may be filled to the brim with sleazy companies and dodgy deals, but you don't need to do likewise in order to become successful.

[Cyberdog]

Oh, well, if Amazon's marketing is lying too, then it must be okay then.

[al2o3cr]

Some additional info, for those who are curious. I can't provide any interpretation, but I figured my $9 could help somebody. :)

MotD: Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.13.0-32-generic i686)

     * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com/

      System information as of Mon Feb  1 14:14:55 EST 2016

      System load:  0.0               Processes:           86
      Usage of /:   4.5% of 18.32GB   Users logged in:     1
      Memory usage: 7%                IP address for eth0: 158.69.xxx.xxx
      Swap usage:   0%

      Graph this data and manage this system at:
        https://landscape.canonical.com/

    108 packages can be updated.
    95 updates are security updates.


    Your Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is supported until April 2017.

    Last login: Fri Jan 29 22:49:53 2016

---

/proc/cpuinfo:

    processor  : 0
    vendor_id  : GenuineIntel
    cpu family  : 6
    model    : 86
    model name  : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU D-1540 @ 2.00GHz
    stepping  : 2
    microcode  : 0xffffffff
    cpu MHz    : 1999.936
    cache size  : 12288 KB
    physical id  : 0
    siblings  : 1
    core id    : 0
    cpu cores  : 1
    apicid    : 0
    initial apicid  : 0
    fdiv_bug  : no
    f00f_bug  : no
    coma_bug  : no
    fpu    : yes
    fpu_exception  : yes
    cpuid level  : 13
    wp    : yes
    flags    : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx lm constant_tsc eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe 
    popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch xsaveopt fsgsbase bmi1 hle avx2 smep bmi2 erms rtm
    bogomips  : 3999.87
    clflush size  : 64
    cache_alignment  : 64
    address sizes  : 42 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
    power management:

output of top:

    top - 14:16:49 up 2 days, 15:27,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
    Tasks:  85 total,   1 running,  84 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
    Cpu(s):  0.0%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.7%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.3%si,  0.0%st
    Mem:   1025276k total,   327124k used,   698152k free,    57376k buffers
    Swap:  1044476k total,        0k used,  1044476k free,   197292k cached

output of df:

    Filesystem                  1K-blocks   Used Available Use% Mounted on
    /dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-root  19213004 878460  17335532   5% /
    udev                           502876      4    502872   1% /dev
    tmpfs                          102528    256    102272   1% /run
    none                             5120      0      5120   0% /run/lock
    none                           512636      0    512636   0% /run/shm
    /dev/sda1                      240972  32534    195997  15% /boot

Ownership info from nslookup for the IP range:

    RamGrid OVH-CUST-2158206 (NET-158-69-17-144-1) 158.69.17.144 - 158.69.17.159
    OVH Hosting, Inc. HO-2 (NET-158-69-0-0-1) 158.69.0.0 - 158.69.255.255

[tyingq]

So, a VPS on OVH hardware? You could save a little money by skipping the middleman :)

https://www.ovh.com/us/vps/vps-ssd.xml