If you had an account on Shard Gaming (formerly known as DaddyCheese) you likely received a cryptic email from an accountancy firm today, 20131012 at about 20:00 (UT) or thereabout.
It read something like this...
Baverstocks is an accountancy firm which appears to specialize in tax compliance not a hosting company.
Exactly why an accountancy firm is handling this is a matter of conjecture.
The disconnect notice came just minutes before access died rendering the notice futile... There was insufficient time to offload backups if you had any. If ColoCrossing didn't pull the plug, then the email makes an assertion that might be seen as reflecting poorly upon the reputation of ColoCrossing. It seems unlikely that an accountancy firm would make such an assertion without some reason for it, but at this point exactly who pulled the plug and why remains a mystery. It is possible that ColoCrossing might have done so and there might be a communication failure, or Baverstocks was simply told that this was the case and has simply repeated in good faith, a misrepresentation of the matter.
At about 3PM (GMT - 5) Shard Gaming has in close order, shut or privated their Facebook account, their Twitter, and have locked their thread on Minecraftforums.net. Their history has been expunged on Archive.org and their parent company Shardhost.com has also fallen from the face of the earth with the exception that the Whois is still available for this domain.
Since they are making such an effort to vanish, I think it might be wise to post that information here before that too disappears.
...just in case there are other folks out there trying to find out who just danced off stage with their money.
Registration information for Shardhost.com
Their collocation host claims that in spite of Shard's assertion, that they did not terminate or suspend their account.
ColoCrossing is reluctant to speak to this matter, as the email sent by Shard Gaming lays the matter at their feet which appears to be a misrepresentation. It would appear that someone is being less than truthful here. We have not yet determined who, or to what extent.
We've contacted ColoCrossing to see if they can just get us download access to our files. It will take significantly longer than the about 15 minutes we were given to grab our current backup.
So far, we have received sympathy and tentatively optimistic semi-assurances from ColoCrossing that the files should still be intact and sitting on their services. They have not responded yet to our email requesting download access.
Shard Gaming was actively soliciting business just last week.
If they had solvency issues, they knew or should have known they had issues at the time they took our year subscription.
They represented their network as being their own hardware, where it appears that it was just leased boxs.
They have made significant misrepresentation of their facilities and their condition and it appears that they have simply buggered off with everyone's cash.
We have also filed a complaint with Paypal. Since our account is less than two weeks old, we expect that Paypal may be able to help. As there appears to be evidence of deception here, we suggest that others also file. At the very least there should be some sort of investigation.
I would recommend based upon the nature of these events that none EVER use this service again, under whatever name they may resurface. There simply isn't a word for this level of failure. At least not a word I'm willing to post here.
It read something like this...
Exactly why an accountancy firm is handling this is a matter of conjecture.
We contacted ColoCrossing and we've been assured that they did not disconnect Shard Gaming.The disconnect notice came just minutes before access died rendering the notice futile... There was insufficient time to offload backups if you had any. If ColoCrossing didn't pull the plug, then the email makes an assertion that might be seen as reflecting poorly upon the reputation of ColoCrossing. It seems unlikely that an accountancy firm would make such an assertion without some reason for it, but at this point exactly who pulled the plug and why remains a mystery. It is possible that ColoCrossing might have done so and there might be a communication failure, or Baverstocks was simply told that this was the case and has simply repeated in good faith, a misrepresentation of the matter.
At about 3PM (GMT - 5) Shard Gaming has in close order, shut or privated their Facebook account, their Twitter, and have locked their thread on Minecraftforums.net. Their history has been expunged on Archive.org and their parent company Shardhost.com has also fallen from the face of the earth with the exception that the Whois is still available for this domain.
Since they are making such an effort to vanish, I think it might be wise to post that information here before that too disappears.
...just in case there are other folks out there trying to find out who just danced off stage with their money.
Registration information for Shardhost.com
Their collocation host claims that in spite of Shard's assertion, that they did not terminate or suspend their account.
ColoCrossing is reluctant to speak to this matter, as the email sent by Shard Gaming lays the matter at their feet which appears to be a misrepresentation. It would appear that someone is being less than truthful here. We have not yet determined who, or to what extent.
We've contacted ColoCrossing to see if they can just get us download access to our files. It will take significantly longer than the about 15 minutes we were given to grab our current backup.
So far, we have received sympathy and tentatively optimistic semi-assurances from ColoCrossing that the files should still be intact and sitting on their services. They have not responded yet to our email requesting download access.
Shard Gaming was actively soliciting business just last week.
If they had solvency issues, they knew or should have known they had issues at the time they took our year subscription.
They represented their network as being their own hardware, where it appears that it was just leased boxs.
They have made significant misrepresentation of their facilities and their condition and it appears that they have simply buggered off with everyone's cash.
We have also filed a complaint with Paypal. Since our account is less than two weeks old, we expect that Paypal may be able to help. As there appears to be evidence of deception here, we suggest that others also file. At the very least there should be some sort of investigation.
I would recommend based upon the nature of these events that none EVER use this service again, under whatever name they may resurface. There simply isn't a word for this level of failure. At least not a word I'm willing to post here.
