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Old 08-04-2008, 05:02 PM  
ladida
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Milan's answer (if it's Milan)

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Hello, my name is Milan (Ilan Mishan), and I am the owner and President of OC3 Networks and Pacific Rack. This will be my only post on this subject. We DO NOT engage in shady business practices and I would like to focus on the TRUTH. There have been many exaggerations and complete untruths stated which have been assumed to be facts, which need to be addressed.

Alex Ferrier IS Chris Gotzmann

When I hired Chris a year ago solely as a sales rep for Pacific Rack, he explained two things to me, what actually happened 5 years ago, and what the WHT perception of what happened was.

Before I hired Chris, I looked all through Google and Web Hosting Talk for instances of him being a scammer. I simply could not find anyone who got scammed and I made the choice to let him operate from an alias rather than try to explain the entire issues to WHT which as I can see now is fed by mob mentality.

Chris definitely made some mistakes when he was 16, but after listening to what actually happened and doing my own research, I decided to trust him and give him his second chance. We have all made mistakes in business, I for example grew too quickly in 2003 without paying attention to who my customers were and what customers a company I purchased had, and ended up hosting some spammers through a corporate acquisition. Upon learning about this, I spent the next year cleaning the base from spammers and I in no way support or host spammers.

When I hired Chris it was under very specific rules and guidelines. Chris knows his employment (as with all of my staff) is dependent on his continual adherence to our ethical guidelines. We absolutely do not condone unethical business practices, and for his entire time with me he has not shown any deviation from my guidelines.

There have been many ASSUMPTIONS and RUMORS that have been perceived as truth! We need to clear these up and prevent false information from spreading.

When Chris was 15 years old, he attempted to run his first internet venture “racksmart”, his partner - a 30 something year old had some shady business dealings with Tina before he and Chris were involved and are completely unrelated to Chris. The company didn’t succeed and folded after just a few months.

This is where Foundry NAP started. FNAP eventually made its way to be colocated with Karl at Steadfast, and was hosted on a single rack.

FNAP’s History:
FNAP was started by Chris when he was 15/16, when he was 17 he suddenly dropped off the internet as he was hospitalized for radiation therapy and surgery related to colon cancer. During this time he was unable to pay his colo bill and manage FNAP. Karl shut off service upon non-payment, thus resulting in the end of FNAP. FNAP was nothing more than a very small kiddy host that went under.

From all the research I did, I concluded that there were no scams!

There are only a few unsubstantiated internet claims I could find of him being a “scammer:”

1) A customer hosting Warez had his account terminated with no refund as per ToS. Just like any other host.

2) A package bought from EBAY shipped via UPS. The package was never received and as such a paypal complaint was filed and awarded in Chris’s favor. There was never a delivery confirmation or signature – the sellers "friend" chose to spam the internet rather than file the paperwork with UPS for insurance reimbursement.

3) A host by the name of Visionary who attempted to scam Racksmart and who’s thread was jumped in by Poundhost confirming that this Visionary person had pulled the same scam on them and attempted to sully their name.

4) A single managed customer was put on the webserver for FNAP as Chris, 16 or 17 at the time, had a failing business and couldn’t afford to buy another server. THIS WAS WRONG AND UNACCEPTABLE ACTION OF A 16 YEAR OLD.

Chris DOES owe Karl a past due hosting bill accrued as his company went out of business, same as any other host. While normally these are normally thrown out while the LLC is dissolved, in the interest of doing what is right, I would personally like to work with Karl on resolving any past due balance.

Alpha Red:
Chris, needing a job and wanting to utilize his skills in the industry went to work for Alpha Red. WHT simply continued to snowball his tiny companies closure and without the ability to defend himself (he was banned from WHT) the issue just continued on from a small host going out of business with Steadfast taking over all the equipment on the rack, to the COMPLETELY false claim that he “scammed people” stealing “hundreds of thousands of dollars”.
Because of his inability to defend him self and the mass amount of rumors and assumptions that were perceived as facts, I assume the decision was made to use an alias. Chris was never an executive at AlphaRed and was only a sales rep.

To reiterate:

Chris HAS NEVER scammed people out of “hundreds of thousands of dollars”. The claims you see today have grown over a period of FIVE years that have gone from a small kiddy host going out of business to a “notorious” internet legend that now belongs on Snopes.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE; NO ONE ON THIS THREAD OTHER THAN KARL HAD ANY INVOLVEMENT OR HAD ANY DAMAGES TO THEM OR THEIR COMPANIES BY THE SHUTTING DOWN OF HIS ONE RACK. THE MAJORITY OF THE POSTERS IN THIS THREAD ARE SIMPLY LOOKING FOR A BIT OF FUN AND DRAMA AS MOST HAVE ADMITTED.

Chris is simply a sales rep for Pacific Rack, and has provided fantastic service to all the customers he has worked with. He has been stand up, and an asset to our company. He is NOT going to be let go, and he will continue to be one of the sales reps here. We have 2 other sales reps (Jordan and Adam), that work with Pacific Rack clients that you can speak with if you’d rather.

I am willing to back Chris fully, and will cover any past due bill that he has with Karl/Steadfast in order to ensure a fair resolution.

In Conclusion:
Look though webhosting talk, look at our reviews, we provide fantastic service to our customers and everyone has been very happy. We have absolutely nothing to hide and the only reason it was chosen to use the name Alex was to avoid the completely untrue allegations by this community and the stigma that follows him from self-admitted drama seekers.
Not only has Chris been attacked in this thread, but you have also attacked a bystander (Kate) and made some borderline sexually harassing statements regarding her transition from Kevin to Kate. This in itself is disturbing to me and you should be ashamed.

Chris did break the rules of WHT by having another account. Because of this, we fully respect WHT’s choice to disable his account.


Ilan Mishan
President
OC3 Networks and Web Solutions, LLC
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agentGFY *at* gmail.com

Last edited by Ice; 08-04-2008 at 05:31 PM..
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