ISPreview investigate the fraud @ VisualDepth

After waiting two weeks we gave up and as warned in the E-Mail we published the preliminary findings to our readers in news form. In under 24hours we had a reply. This reply was NOT going to be publicly announced until the end of September, for reasons we're about to explain. However when EzeSurf extinguished their network connection with Planet Online (Energis) on the 24th August the situation changed.

FINAL Evaluation

ISPreview (more specifically, me) found itself buried knee deep in E-Mails from VD subscribers that pointed out VD had died along with EzeSurf. Remembering the last update on VD and our conclusion, these intelligent readers didn't have trouble putting two and two together.

As such we have chosen to reveal key parts of the E-Mail originally sent to us nearly a month ago just after the investigation concluded. We agreed with VD to give them time to sort their own system out, however this has now become invalid after people learned the truth when EzeSurf lost their network connection:

"Ezesurf currently do 'supply' our dial up service, this is a fact we cannot avoid. However, our other services are our own services and we would like to make that very clear. To begin with we were an 0845 VISP and provided Company Web Hosting and Domain Registration Services. However, launching an Unmetered service really did 'boost' our company reputation and popularity etc.

The findings you have made were inevitable to us and we knew these had to come out eventually, however hopefully not so soon. But as the event became more and more closer we have been looking for ways to continue the service without using Ezesurf. Our first contact... Planet On-line - now known as Energis Squared. Discussions are still taking place with Energis Squared but we are becoming closer to a solution which will allow us to sell our own package with Energis acting as our backbone, obviously this will be a similar service to the Ezesurf and Freeserve package. This will mean over £***,*** of initial investment to this service which we are willing to produce. We are now pushing these negotiations as fast as possible to get some sort of service in place and ALL customers with us will be transferred to this service. Should negotiations break, we are in discussion with several other Telecommunication and Solution Providers to provide our service.

We hope that we are able to use the Ezesurf accounts until this service is in place. Although these negotiations are not immediate, we hope a service will be in place sometime in August/September. We are fighting with all of our contacts to provide no cut off period and we will certainly not use dial up software and the prices of the service are unlikely to change. Therefore we feel this will be a better solution to customers and we shall make sure that the actual access it self is nothing far from excellent meaning high speed connections and no busy tones.

Again, I would appreciate these details are not released to the public or Ezesurf until we have discussed this matter further. I will be happy to go into more depth with you regarding the service and the future of Visual Depth. I look forward to your response."

So there you have it, that E-Mail was made by the Managing Director @ VisualDepth. Quite simply they wanted to earn money for a service that had already been set-up by somebody else for far cheaper. Right now all ISPr can think of is the people that claimed our accusations were false and how they have been proved wrong.

[Print Page | Next Page (8)]>>