Dear MorphOS users,

I really hate to make this statement as I promised to port the new ScummVM to MorphOS by Easter, but I'm sorry to say I am fed up with all the crap resulting from my butterflyvale Domain ownership.

You may have heard that the Butterfly Vale went away because my old hoster did go bancrupt. Another hoster bought the old one and re-registered my domain and thus became the new Tech-C without my knowledge/permission. They sent me a bill of €29 for just one year domain registration (which was 150% of what I used to pay for the entire webhosting previously!).

I sent them a note saying I'd terminate any contract I might still have with them (even though I am not aware there'd be one ...). Didn't hear anything from them since then ... until shortly before Easter when I got a letter from a debt collecting agency asking me to pay €110 now. Meanwhile, they're at €136 and threaten to call in the lawyers if I haven't paid until Monday while I still can't see on which legal facts the bill is based.

Since both the hoster and debt collecting agency refuse to cooperate with me, I spent most of my spare time trying to figure out whether their bill is correct and having sleepless nights.

So much about the trouble because of the butterflyvale.de Domain. As you can guess from the last paragraph, there was little else I could do in the last time.

The problem is that the owners of the new hoster are people who have a long history in illegal domain practices. It would be too long to go into detail. That's why I really do refuse to give such people my money because I have the strong feeling that they're just trying to rip people off (e.g. the debt collecting agency is listed as one of the hoster's list of references, figure that ...). After all, there's been quite some attempts to rip off domain owners recently. OTOH, internet law is quite complex and you never know whether they are trying to exploit a legal sliphole (I have already consulted two friends who studied law, called up the legal advise from the DeNIC, went to the consumer protection bureau, but the situation is still unclear). Other people hired lawyers who have written them and asked for the details regarding the legality of the bill, but silence answers back .....

OTOH, I want to have peace and quietness again here. Heck, I don't know what to do now.

Anyway, that's the end of the story. Don't want to take me a lawyer now as I have all crap insurances but none for legal costs; don't want to bother any more with this. Guess I'll this matter won't go off my mind for quite some time and eat up *all* of my time, not just the piece I could devote to bringing Butterfly Vale back somehow, or even porting ScummVM.

So that's the story ... let it be a lesson for you. Don't go for cheap ISPs. I tried to save every penny I could on butterflyvale.de since I didn't make any money with the site, and now I probably end up paying tons more than it would have cost me to go to a "proper" ISP.