I am a victim of an internet crime perpetrated by Global Internet Solutions (GISOL).

GISOL had been hosting my website for a couple of years. Since availability of the site seemed OK, I never asked for support so I was not aware of any problems until March 25, 2008 when my site suddenly became unavailable.

I contacted GISOL tech support the same day via their website’s support ticket feature and was told that “Your domain is expired its in a redemption period you need to wait till the redemption period gets over …and also you need to e-mail this issue to admin@gisol.com”.

I checked my records and found that GISOL had billed my PayPal account for a pre-authorized annual subscription renewal $71.40 on February 8, 2008. However, GISOL neglected to advise me that they had allowed my site's domain name to expire on the same day.

I also found that my domain was registered to GISOL, not in my name as I was led to believe when I signed up for their service. As a result, GISOL has a lock on my domain name so I cannot simply move my site to another host and GISOL is completely unresponsive to my requests for assistance.

I have sent numerous emails to GISOL admin with no response. I have called all the phone numbers on their website plus others that I found on the web but the numbers are either disconnected, never answered or connect me to an outsourced technical support representative that claims to know nothing. I have generated additional tech support tickets only to receive the same advice to wait for GISOL admin to get back to me.

The BBB gives GISOL an F rating per the following review: “Complaints allege unauthorized credit card charges, dissatisfaction with services, and difficulty implementing cancellation and refund policies. Most complainants are unsatisfied with the company’s response and most complaints go unanswered.”

Most of the complaints against GISOL go far beyond dissatisfaction with their services. In my case GISOL committed fraud by accepting payment to host my website even though they had allowed my domain to expire thereby making their offer an empty promise.

I guess I am lucky as many other GISOL customers (and there are literally hundreds of similar reports on the web) have been defrauded of thousands of dollars via a calculated scheme to extort money from customers with "valuable" domain names to insure that GISOL keeps them current.

Others. (like myself) without a valuable domain name (and protected by PayPal) are simply ripped off and then dispatched with the expectation that we will go away to make room for more lucrative “customers”.

It is depressing to have learned that Global Internet Solutions has been committing such fraud on unwary consumers for several years. While my immediate monetary losses are relatively small, I have spent hours attempting to contact GISOL.

Later, when I finally realized that my attempts were futile and that my domain name was not going to be restored, I was forced to register my site under a different name and move it to a new host which cost me additional time and money.

However, my out of pocket losses pale in comparison to the goodwill losses suffered because my customers can no longer reach me under my old domain name, links on other sites referring to my site are now broken and my former search position has been forfeited.

If you need additional evidence I strongly advise you to simply search the internet for "GISOL". You will be surprised at the number of complaints that this search term reveals and the extent of GISOL's fraudulent conduct.

Jesse Lerma