SiliconHouse.net Chennai has the worst customer service in the world, fumes an angry Arshi Khan as models' website goes down

Bollywood actress and model Arshi Khan is livid and visibly angry. And the firebrand model has every right to be so. The actress who is about to leave in a few days’ time for Pakistan to shoot a reality show titled "Arshi Ka Swayamvar" woke up on Tuesday morning to find her video links on Facebook and other social media networking sites linking to a suspended website.  The suspended website concerned was the portal www.indianewsnetwork.in which also hosts all of Arshi Khan’s digital content.

Says fashion designer and media personality Flynn Remedios, who is the Editor and Publisher of the concerned news portal IndiaNewsnetwork.IN, "We had uploaded some exclusive selfies of Arshi Khan on Monday night which we found on the internet. The same selfies and post links were shared on our Facebook page as well as Arshi Khan's official page. This generated a spike in traffic with lots of hits to the server, resulting in an increased load on the server CPU. This is very normal for a news website and the hosting company Chennai-based SiliconHouse.net should not have suspended the website completely. They did not give us any intimation or did not contact us at all, instead directly suspended the portal in the middle of the night, says the senior journalist.

“In fact we had contacted Siliconhouse.net recently to upgrade to a dedicated VPS hosting service, but they gave us ridiculously priced hosting plans which were much higher than the market rate. We also found that their service levels and response time to our support queries was pathetic and hence we did not go in for a dedicated VPS hosting and were considering other service providers. In the meanwhile, without giving us any prior notice or intimation, Siliconhouse.net suspended the news portal www.indianewsnetwork.in in the middle of the night. In spite of contacting customer service in the afternoon, they kept on directing and re-directing us to different customer service staff. We asked them to transfer our call to a senior executive or company director or company CEO, but our calls just kept going back and forth between 2-3 CSEs who even refused to give us their full names. This is a blackmail tactic to force us to upgrade to a VPS hosting, but given our bad experience with SiliconHouse.net, we did not want to continue doing business with them. We however requested them to re-start the website for the time being as we had already paid them for one year's service and the spike in traffic was not a regular affair. news websites do experience such spikes in traffic now and then and the hosting provider must be equipped to handle such traffic bursts. Suddenly we received an email from them stating that our website would be activated within 45 minutes if we upgraded to a semi dedicated corporate hosting plan which costs Rs 59,000 annually. This is evidence enough to prove that the company SiliconHouse.net was trying to blackmail us into paying more by suspending our website and denying us hosting services for which we had already paid in advance for one year. We even agreed to pay extra, but we received an email saying, 'we are speaking with the concerned team and we will update you". We had paid for one year in advance for a basic hosting plan with 100 GB of bandwidth transfer per month or 1200 GB per year. Instead of re-activating the website immediately, they kept forcing us to upgrade and even when we were ready to pay extra there was no proper response from the company, explains senior scribe and fashion designer Flynn Remedios.

Arshi Khan says, "The company Siliconhouse.net should have at least given us a prior notice 24 to 48 hours before suspending the website. There was no warning email, nothing. And even after contacting them to re-start the website, the only gave us one line, cryptic responses. We were ready to pay more, but there was no professional response from the company. They would not even give us the names of their senior management. They have no complaint or grievance escalation process. And their customer service is horribly pathetic. All my photographs, videos and other digital content is hosted on www.indianewsnetwork.in and if the hosting provider suspends the website without notice, it is a matter of grave concern for me," said Arshi Khan.

Arshi Khan has planned to take the hosting company SiliconHouse.net to court for suspending her website without giving any notice. "I am going to file a civil case for damages worth Rs 10 crore against SiliconHouse.net for suspending the website without giving us any advance notice or intimation and not responding to our requests to restart the website, in spite of explaining the urgency to their staff,” said Arshi Khan.

Ms Bikini Online 2014 right on track, asserts Flynn Remedios

Dispelling rumours and a fake and fraudulent press release circulated anonymously and clandestinely to some websites which have auto posting enabled – that permits automated publication of content without human intervention, Editor, Publisher and CEO of Newz66.com, Flynn Remedios in a press note circulated to media persons in Mumbai on 4^th March 2014, said, “We are right on track with the Indian edition or version of Ms Bikini Online 2014. I have been associated with Ms Bikini India since 2007 and it is incorrect, misleading and scandalous at the least to say that this is a fake event and that too just one day after it’s announced. As a businessman I have every right to promote and publicize a proposed event and most producers announce films even before they have a script ready or have signed on even one actor.  For various reasons including legal and regulatory we have had to hold the event only in its online format and the actual physical event – Ms Bikini India, had to be deferred. We are committed to hold the online version this year as well and are also trying our best to make the physical event happen too. The winners are judged by a combination of online votes and Facebook “likes’ and other criterion include a panel of experts.”

Clarifying about fake media releases against him and his company newz66.com, Remedios said, “The write up has been circulated by a competitor who has done such things in the past. In the past, I have overlooked and ignored such misleading press releases about me circulated by jealous and frustrated competitors. This time I am not taking things lying down. I will hit back with all I have got and everything I can lay my hands on. I have written to the Cyber Crime Cell of the Mumbai police today as well as the Mumbai Police Commissioner complaining about such defamatory articles or news items circulated or published to defame me and discredit my website as well as cause me financial and pecuniary  losses and also indirect loss of reputation to my clients and business associates. I will also file private civil and criminal complaints in the appropriate magistrate’s court in Mumbai against the perpetrator or perpetrators and bring them to task.”