(Prior to the post, here is a shameless plug for a real server host!)

Well folks, here it is at last - what you’ve all been waiting for, the next installment of “Just how unprofessional IS DRG Servers anyway?” Below is (likely) the last email conversation I will ever have with DRG, as these emails are from many, many months ago and they have sent nothing since. Looks like our $25 will never be refunded - hopefully we can at least let prospective customers know the sort of business geniuses they are dealing with before they rent a server from DRG.

In case I am not being clear enough:

Attention all computer gamers thinking of renting a game server from the company known as “DRG Servers” - DO NOT. They are not a “fly-by-night” company in the traditional sense of ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ … but I believe that they are unprofessional, incompetent, and unwilling to follow ethical business practices.

If you wonder why I say such things, it is more fully explained in my first post on the subject, along with a second brief follow up. Sorry for taking so long getting this third installment posted, I know a lot of folks have been waiting for it.

I waited a couple of weeks after the email exchange detailed here, then sent the following to the same customer service email address I had always been contacted from:

Mook to DRG Servers, June 03, 2006

Still waiting on that refund … or have you decided to simply keep our money without having provided anything in return?

[with full quote of all previous emails attached]

I got the following reply:

DRG Customer Service to Mook, June 03, 2006

ok now i know who tht was from i will look atnd see what is up with that

Hmm…okay, horrible spelling and no punctuation at all, but at least it was a response, and one that promised to look into the situation.

After 3 weeks of hearing nothing at all (shocker), I sent another email:

Mook to DRG Servers, June 26, 2006

Yet another 3 weeks have passed - does it always take this long for a simple refund? Seriously, it’s at most two mouse clicks. I’m also curious as to why DRG never responded to the BBB’s complaint, and chose instead to be listed as ‘unresponsive’?

And another, 3 weeks after that:

Mook to DRG Servers, July 19, 2006

DRG, seriously - could you at least let us know if you ever plan on refunding this money, responding to the BBB complaint, doing *anything*? Is the $25 you owe our clan really that big a hit to your budget you have to drag this thing on for years?

A response would be nice (and professional, if you care).

Thanks,

And yet another, a full month after that:

Mook to DRG Servers, August 17, 2006

Hello,

We have been attempting to get a refund from DRG Servers in the amount of $25.00 for the past 3 months at least, for complete lack of any services rendered. You should be able to track the details by referencing Order #449117 and Support Ticket #171 - if this is not convenient, I can also provide the complete transcripts of the dozen or so emails that have been exchanged on the topic in the last 90+ days.

We look forward to hearing from you with details of our refund, or at the very least, with an explanation of why you are refusing our request.

Finally I got a response, this one from Lee himself (one of the “brains” behind DRG). From a customer service point of view, it was about the dumbest email I’ve ever seen:

Lee to Mook, August 17, 2006

Hello sir

I have no problem refunding your money at all i just wish you removed them post’s of your site first once i see that the posts have gone, you will be refunded.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Here was my response:
Mook to Lee, August 17, 2006

I think you are confused - our clan is legitimately owed this refund, it isn’t a fee to remove opinions you disagree with. Should you choose to fulfill your responsibilities, I will likely update my public thoughts on the matter; but should you choose not to, I will likely do the same. One has nothing to do with the other - my personal opinions, published on a personal home page, have no bearing whatsoever on the legitimacy of our right to a refund from your company.

I honestly can’t believe it has taken this long for resolution - truly ridiculous, and every day that goes by just makes your company look worse and worse.

All of this nonsense should be ancient history by now.

Is my exasperation showing yet? This was the first reply:

Lee to Mook, August 18, 2006

Ok send me your paypal

“No WAY,” I was thinking to myself. Are we actually going to get the refund we’re owed? Nope - apparently Lee had a change of heart (sounds like after chatting with some armchair attorney in the office):

Lee to Mook, August 18, 2006

Hello sir

I just wanted to bring this to a level of where everything is fair, i understand you may have had problem in the past, I also understand that thing’s may have been unfair.

We did not recive any complaint form from the BBB which you have stated on your website, i also understand that Slandering on your website is against World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) terms of running a website.

On this email i would like to form a truce so to speak, i am not here to fight i am also not here to be slandered on a website, i just wish everything in the past could be forgoten, not for my sake just general terms.

The actual reason for you not being able to recive a refund was becasue of the stated terms of services granted by the BBB and the California state business authority, which we have to stick to otherwise we lose our business licence.

Here is the stated terms of service you accepted to when you ordered a services.

. Refunds Customers of Drgservers.com are eligible for an 80% refund if Drgservers.com does not maintain 99.5% hardware and or network uptime based on a 30 day period. If the customer has an actual service related issue that was not the result of his/her action and that Drgservers.com was not able to resolve, the customer will be refunded. Drgservers.com does not give refunds on unused portions of service contracts or any act’s of god.

There is the refund term of service.

I also wanted to add the following in this email we recived alot of Abuse threads from our security system with the refferal of themook.net for the abuse of CLIKE worms, this is an internal security system that the datacenter inform us of any attack on the injection of a mysql database. I am not saying that this was due to you in any way shape or form, i am simply stating that to try and come to a conclusion on why you never recived a refund.

I am not here to take money off people i am also not here to argue against any past issues i just want to start a fresh start sir.

As i have said i was quite alarmed by your problems i tryed to fix the issues at the time unfortunately i was unable to solve the issues you where having. as i have said we had no network or hardware related issues at that time so i could not solve any issues with service related problems plue to add to the situation at that time we remember that you where the only person with thoes problems.

So i just wanted to express my information to you and i pleed to you on taking the post’s on your website down i understand that you speak freely to the public i am one person who is for the public so i would do the same if i was in your shoes i just wish we could bring this to an end please sir.

I do not wish to have any more problems sir all i am asking is that the thread’s on your website to be removed, i will speak to the California state business authority and get you refund processed.

Please email me back on your thaughts i would really like to hear that this situation can now be forgoten about and all bad stuff which has been stated be removed.

I’ll admit, it’s not a badly-written email - legible, few typos, and at least the appearance of logic. Nearly a first! But Lee hammers home the point again and again that he just wants to start fresh, wipe the slate clean, etc. Well duh - of course DRG wants to start over, they’re not the injured party, the ones seeking redress!

Anyway, here is my response - I haven’t heard from them since, nor do I expect to. Haven’t decided yet whether it’s even worth the bother of continuing to follow up, they are clearly not interested in truly resolving things.

Mook to Lee, August 18, 2006:

Hello Lee,

I understand you wish me to remove MY opinions, from MY website - however, that isn’t going to happen. The content of MY personal home page has nothing whatsoever to do with the business relationship between myself and DRG.

When the Better Business Bureau accepts a consumer complaint, it becomes permanent - it is never removed. Later, positive actions by the company in question will be added to the complaint, to show that the company did at least at some point in time choose to respond, but the original complaint remains. Am I, a private citizen, to be held to a higher standard than the Better Business Bureau?

Clearly from your email you just want “a fresh start” - of course you do! I don’t believe you are upset because we were wronged by your company, and you have concern for your customers; on the contrary, the only reason we are having this conversation is because I won’t just shut up and go away. It reminds me of a child caught stealing a cookie - is the child truly sorry for stealing the cookie, or only sorry that he was caught?

As for “slandering” DRG on my website - that, also, is untrue. First off, I believe the term you’re looking for is “libel” … slander is exclusively a verbal defamation, libel is for published comments. However, I have libelled no one - everything I have posted is either 100% true and verifiable (email excerpts, order numbers, case numbers, etc.), or clearly my personal opinion based on those truths. There is no actionable content there, sorry. You must remember, just because you disagree with an opinion does not make it libelous - there is a strict legal definition of what is defamation and what is not, and my entire site falls well on the side of the law.

Regarding this supposed inability to offer a refund without somehow clearing it through other organizations? Ridiculous. Why has this information only now come to light, after nearly 4 months of back and forth? The BBB does not grant any sort of authority to any business, either for refund policies or anything else - they are strictly a neutral organization dealing with disputes between consumer and corporation. The ‘California State Business Authority’ you mention does not exist as far as I can tell, at least under that name. If we’re to have a productive discussion of your licensing body’s policies, it would be helpful for me to have the correct name of that body.

The bottom line here remains - you are trying to use our legitimately owed refund as some kind of ‘payoff’ to get me to remove opinions from the web that you disagree with. That will not happen.

That is our money. $25.00, not exactly a fortune, but it is rightfully ours and we want it returned. Then I can, FINALLY, post an update on my website to let people know that, at the very least, DRG did refund our money, after only having to fight for it for 90+ days.

I don’t believe we are being unreasonable in the least. In fact, I think we have been more than patient while waiting for your company to do what is right. The comments and opinions you so vehemently disagree with and want to see removed are only there because of DRG’s prior shameful conduct and inability to issue a refund.

Our paypal email is the same as the one you have been receiving these emails from - [address snipped].

Thank you,

Truly insane the energy spent in pursuit of something so simple!

P.S.

By the way, in case you’re looking for their website, DRG has blocked traffic to their site from this site. If you type “www.drgservers.com” directly into your browser’s address bar, you’ll reach them, but if you try to follow a link from TheMook.Net, you won’t:

http://www.drgservers.com

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