Colorteck.com offers great rates but watch your credit card for unauthorized debits. That bargain could turn into a sleepless nightmare.

First, we have said this before. Do not do business with a hosting company that does not provide contact information on each page. And do not do business with a hosting company that does not offer a toll-free number for technical support. Perceived savings usually disappear very quickly when you are calling support or billing on your dime.

We know of three companies that recently contracted for hosting services with Colorteck.com. Each offered opt-in email leads and felt that there would be no problem being hosted at ColorTeck.com because it was already hosting a competitor that did not sell opt-in leads and therefore was actually selling leads which are primarily used for spamming. When the first company reached the section to read the 'terms of agreement' it was not functioning (either by error or intent) but they proceeded with the hosting arrangement assuming that there would be no problem as a competitor was already being hosted by ColorTeck.com.

Screenshot of non-functioning Terms of Service Page at ColorTeck.com (Screenshot taken during signup process on 08/27/03 when client attempted to read tos)

After spending hours doing the usual uploading, configuration for FrontPage Extensions, email boxes, etc. they were soon shut down by ColorTeck.com, who claimed that they were spamming. We checked this ourselves and could not find any evidence of spamming.

So what was the bottom line? That is yet to be determined. ColorTeck.com refuses to issue a refund even though it appears to be in the wrong. And ColorTeck.com has threatened to debit each account an additional $250 for their inconvenience.

ColorTeck.com offers what we would consider to be one of the best pricing structures for Resellers that we have ever seen. But as a reseller you should be aware of what would happen if you were offering ColorTeck.com hosting services to your clients. For instance, you have a thriving business with 100 clients under the one plan. Most Resellers allow clients to access accounts so they can make changes to their sites. If one of your clients were to upload any content that is in violation of ColorTeck's Terms of Services, it would be shut down along with your other client's web sites. Keep looking. This is not the type of Reseller account that you want.

We've seen a lot of scams and this may or may not be one. But you are left to wonder why ColorTech.com had allowed a known spamming company to be hosted, accepted contracts with other companies that provided opt-in leads, did not have a functioning terms of services page, quickly cancelled the accounts, refused to issue refunds and then threatened to debit hundreds of more dollars. Sounds like a new 'get rich quick scheme' to us.

There are hundreds of hosting companies and we have listed dozens of reputable hosting companies that we feel offer legitimate services at fair rates. Check them out at Web Hosting Services.

UPDATE (10/01/02): Well, for the first time ever we had to contact the police and file a report. Sandee at ColorTeck.com didn't like our posting information about their company and sent another email to us. Please note that we had to delete some parts of words because of the language but the readers should be able to figure it out. Words highlighted in blue are explained at the end of Sandee's eloquent comments.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: sandee 
To: 'BUSINESS JUNCTION' 
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 10:04 PM
Subject: RE: colorteck.com

Why don’t you just meet me somewhere so I can kick your fuxxxx ass. I will even by the plane ticket you fuxxxx moron. You have drawn the last straw you are discrace to the human race. Come on take me up on it you worthless piece of shxx. I will beat you to one inch of your life. I am sick in tired of you spammers trying to find away out of your problem you created. You are fullishly stupid if you think for one second that I have given up on you. You are slandering our name all over the internet when you have been cought red handed taking part in illegal activity. One more email from you or your so called worthless business’s that you only succeed in spamming the public.

Once again take me up on the offer so I can send a message to another spammer.

by (Sandee probably means buy)

discrace (Sandee probably means disgrace)

fullishly (Sandee probably means foolishly)

cought (Sandee probably means caught)

We could not have done a better job ourselves if we had tried to come up with a reason to avoid doing business with this company. I think Sandee summed it all up pretty well.

Just for the record, ColorTeck.com was offered a copy of the screenshot of their Terms of Services page that did not display when EmailLeadsForLess signed up with ColorTeck.com but would not supply EmailLeadsForLess with a fax number.

UPDATE (10/02/02): We contacted ev1.net who has a relationship with ColorTeck.com and sent them a copy of the threatening letter. We also sent a copy to Bill at support@colorteck.com . Bill replied claiming that the threatening letter did not come from them. Gee, it's really odd that we received an email from sales@colorteck.com on October 1, 2003 which we replied to later that morning. We then received the threatening letter from Sandee at 10:04 PM which contained the earlier to and from communications between us and ColorTeck.com. Same text and font size and color as the earlier messages from support@colorteck.com . We don't know what kind of medication Bill is on but he should ask his doctor to increase the dosage. It doesn't take a tech geek to figure out that the earlier communications were forwarded to this mysterious Sandee and then sent to us.

All we have seen are accusations, denials and bodily threats come to us from ColorTeck.com. We need not say more and won't. If anyone chooses to do business with a company that operates in this manner after seeing the facts they really need their head examined. 

Great News! Look for our new web site, http://www.colorteck.biz premiering next week. Lots of great deals that you will be able to refuse!