[kjaftaedi]

Their fraud system errantly flagged my account because of my name and they deleted all my data.

I got an email saying there was an issue with my account, called them within 10 minutes of the email and was informed they had already deleted all my data.

They reinstated my account which was just a blank shell, nothing remained but my username and password.

You get what you pay for.

If you go with them make sure you back up your data to a separate provider.

[throwaway81523]

That is quite a surprising story, unless your account was deleted immediately or almost immediately after creation. I know of some people kicked out of Hetzner after doing some actual bad stuff, but they had been there for a while. Hetzner took their servers offline and gave them X days to retrieve their data through the rescue system, or alternatively, pay $Y and have the hard drives from the servers physically removed and shipped to them.

I think both of the above cases were normal TOS violations like hosting porn. If more serious crime was involved the response might have been different.

I've had stuff at Hetzner for about 5 years and I'm very happy with them.

[kjaftaedi]

My account was 3 weeks old, but that still means I lost most of my work effort for those weeks.

The email I received said

..the associated IP has been blocked by us.

The IP address can only be unblocked, once all steps have been taken to remedy the situation.

But instead of blocking my IP address as their system suggested they were doing, they immediately put everything in the trash, even though their issue was with my personal information and not my systems.

Barely an apology from them for not following their own procedures or giving me a chance to respond.

[throwaway81523]

If you gave them fake info then it is pretty usual for it to be poorly received, though I don't know what Hetzner's past practice is. If you gave them good info that they had some kind of issue with, then maybe your complaint is valid.

I'd add: 3 weeks may not have been long enough for them to send an invoice and bill your credit card. If they didn't receive any money from you, they may not have felt like they owed you anything.

[kjaftaedi]

It wasn't fake info. I used a shortened version of my last name. This is the name I go by because my last name is difficult to pronounce. They had my full last name via my email address and the credit card I used with them. I did not attempt to hide anything, and gave them the same information I use everywhere else on the internet.

Also you are correct, they may have thought they didn't owe me anything, including an apology. They valued my three weeks worth of effort at nothing and before apologizing at least one person attempted to tell me this was my fault.

3 weeks may not seem like a lot of time, but I was spending 16 hour days sometimes getting things up and running because I was excited about what I was building.

When it all got deleted in the middle of the setup, I didn't have the heart or the energy to rebuild everything. I tried, but I didn't have an extra month that I could spare, and was so disheartened from all of the work that I lost that I was not able to regain the momentum that I had and had to move on to other things to be able to support myself.

I know it doesn't seem like much, and I know to them I was nothing, which will forever cement this in my mind as the worst experience I have had with a company to date.

I was so upset about this I spent several days digging up personal contact information for their executives to voice my displeasure, but in the end decided against it because nobody I had talked to at the company seemed to care, and as both you and I are suggesting, it's just a hard lesson in "you get what you pay for"

I should not have expected quality service when trying to cheap out and go with a low-cost vendor. It was a very difficult lesson to learn, and hopefully someone learns from my mistake.

I'm not suggesting not to use them, only reminding people not to make my mistake and host their backups with a third party from day one.

[throwaway81523]

That is pretty weird. How long ago was it? Do you have a public email, or a Hetzner ticket number? I have sort of a contact at Hetzner so I could ask her to ask someone to take a look at your case.

[numlock86]

I had the same thing there happen twice to me within one year. I seriously don't get how this company still exists. I have been with Contabo for two years now and no issues so far.

[iamtheworstdev]

wth. How is that even considered acceptable from their end?

[dx034]

Was that a new account where you'd already paid money? Never heard of that before, I've been a customer at Hetzner for years with considerable volume. So far their support was always great.

[pas]

Did they offer any compensation at all? How old was your account at the time of deletion?

[kjaftaedi]

No compensation, barely an apology.

It was only about 3 weeks old, but because I was still in the middle of setting up the environment it meant that those three weeks of effort were mostly lost.