Watch out for Ben's free teamspeak servers!

[Pio]

There is a group on steam that offers free teamspeak servers: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FreeTeamspeaksEU. My TS server just got removed, because "it wasn't active enough". I didn't get any warning or any chance to copy my data!  Everything is lost - what a waste of time! After I messaged them I was told that my server wasn't the only one and there were 51 of them in total, so I wasn't the only one. When I applied for the server there wasn't any rule saying that my server would be removed.

They also have a paid version of their service and they keep removing features from the free version. For example they don't offer backups in the free version anymore, which means that if you decide to change your teamspeak host you will not be able to copy your channels and permissions, so you will have to pay them to get a copy of everything or you will lose all the data. There is nothing wrong in getting paid for a better version of the service, but removing people's servers without any warning and make them lose their data and removing features to make more people pay for it is not acceptable for me.

I decided to post it here, because they removed my comment on their steam group, so apparently they didn't want people to know.

Don't use their free service, it's a waste of time!

[~Midnight~]

I can host you one if you want lmao

[Ben FreeTS3]

Hello Pio,

First of all I’ll go straight into explaining that comment. I explained the situation in a mature manner and stated all the reasons on why your Teamspeak server was terminated along with the others. Before the removal, we monitored the activity of the servers before the purge initialised. We based our judgement on multiple criteria's.

• Regular high usage on the server ( This means having 2 people on a server with 25 slots or higher doesn’t count)
• The amount of channels on the virtual server.
• The amount of server groups on the virtual server.
• The amount of channel groups on the virtual server.
• The bandwidth usage related to that month.

Now regarding your statement: “They also have a paid version of their service and they keep removing features from the free version. For example they don't offer backups in the free version anymore”. I have personally been hosting Teamspeaks  since the 27th of  August 2015 which is 299 days ago which is 43 weeks which is 9 months in total and I have NEVER offered backups to people ( When we moved provider this was a backup but wasn’t provided to clients). I’ve grown this project from a steam group with 22 members to 3000+ in that 9 months and recently only started to gain moderators to help me along this fantastic journey which we will sure be continuing to provide.

“if you decide to change your Teamspeak host you will not be able to copy your channels and permissions, so you will have to pay them to get a copy of everything or you will lose all the data”  Many Teamspeak providers do provide backups but these backups are for only their service and are rarely given out for you to download and then use on another provider because snapshots are a security risk due to people being able to grant permissions that they shouldn’t be able to use on their server. We also have NEVER accepted payments for free users to get backups unless they are a premium client.

“they keep removing features from the free version”  I want to let you think this logically, why would someone pay for something that you have no benefit from when you can have it for free? Therefore we limited 2 features that are key to a Teamspeak but not life threatening that it's unusable.

“Don't use their free service, it's a waste of time!” I know you're frustrated as I would be if my server was deleted but you’ve also got to consider did you really fill over 50% of the max slots on a regular basis? We host a mass amount of servers and are still continuing to do so and our staff try their best to support free clients and also premium under pressure.

Regarding the comment (You made on the steam group) like I’ve mentioned before I explained it in a mature manner regarding the situation and I took it upon myself to remove the negative comment because we’ve already explained everything to through private messaging. I’ve also spent some of my time replying to this complaint so I hope you acknowledge how sorry we are.

We hope you finally understand why your server was purged.

Regards,
CEO Ben | Free Teamspeak Servers

[Dan the Seagull Chef]

Spoiler

Hello Pio,

First of all I’ll go straight into explaining that comment. I explained the situation in a mature manner and stated all the reasons on why your Teamspeak server was terminated along with the others. Before the removal, we monitored the activity of the servers before the purge initialised. We based our judgement on multiple criteria's.

• Regular high usage on the server ( This means having 2 people on a server with 25 slots or higher doesn’t count)
• The amount of channels on the virtual server.
• The amount of server groups on the virtual server.
• The amount of channel groups on the virtual server.
• The bandwidth usage related to that month.

Now regarding your statement: “They also have a paid version of their service and they keep removing features from the free version. For example they don't offer backups in the free version anymore”. I have personally been hosting Teamspeaks  since the 27th of  August 2015 which is 299 days ago which is 43 weeks which is 9 months in total and I have NEVER offered backups to people ( When we moved provider this was a backup but wasn’t provided to clients). I’ve grown this project from a steam group with 22 members to 3000+ in that 9 months and recently only started to gain moderators to help me along this fantastic journey which we will sure be continuing to provide.

“if you decide to change your Teamspeak host you will not be able to copy your channels and permissions, so you will have to pay them to get a copy of everything or you will lose all the data”  Many Teamspeak providers do provide backups but these backups are for only their service and are rarely given out for you to download and then use on another provider because snapshots are a security risk due to people being able to grant permissions that they shouldn’t be able to use on their server. We also have NEVER accepted payments for free users to get backups unless they are a premium client.

“they keep removing features from the free version”  I want to let you think this logically, why would someone pay for something that you have no benefit from when you can have it for free? Therefore we limited 2 features that are key to a Teamspeak but not life threatening that it's unusable.

“Don't use their free service, it's a waste of time!” I know you're frustrated as I would be if my server was deleted but you’ve also got to consider did you really fill over 50% of the max slots on a regular basis? We host a mass amount of servers and are still continuing to do so and our staff try their best to support free clients and also premium under pressure.

Regarding the comment (You made on the steam group) like I’ve mentioned before I explained it in a mature manner regarding the situation and I took it upon myself to remove the negative comment because we’ve already explained everything to through private messaging. I’ve also spent some of my time replying to this complaint so I hope you acknowledge how sorry we are.

We hope you finally understand why your server was purged.

Regards,
CEO Ben | Free Teamspeak Servers

[close]

I have been using Ben's service since the very beginning and I can assure that what Ben is saying is pretty true.

[mowiegan]

"Oh no, I got something for free, and now it has been taken away, the thing that I did not pay anything for what others have to pay actual money for."

[Pio]

Thank you for your reply. I don't agree with some of the things you have said.

I have personally been hosting Teamspeaks  since the 27th of  August 2015 which is 299 days ago which is 43 weeks which is 9 months in total and I have NEVER offered backups to people ( When we moved provider this was a backup but wasn’t provided to clients).

Many Teamspeak providers do provide backups but these backups are for only their service and are rarely given out for you to download and then use on another provider because snapshots are a security risk due to people being able to grant permissions that they shouldn’t be able to use on their server.

If I remember correctly when I first got a free server from you there was an information in the Steam group or maybe in one of the surveys saying that it wasn't possible for anyone to get an ability to do backups, because it wasn't safe. It also said that people could message you to get the backup done. I know those information and rules have changed since then.

We also have NEVER accepted payments for free users to get backups unless they are a premium client.

If a user of your free service wanted to have a backup done he would have to become a premium member and pay for the service at least for one month. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I know you're frustrated as I would be if my server was deleted but you’ve also got to consider did you really fill over 50% of the max slots on a regular basis? We host a mass amount of servers and are still continuing to do so and our staff try their best to support free clients and also premium under pressure.

We hope you finally understand why your server was purged.

I am only frustrated, because you removed all of my data without giving me any warning. In my opinion a serious company that provides a service (even if it's free) would first let it's users know that the service will not be provided anymore and they will lose their data. Imagine if Dropbox suddenly decided to remove all free users accounts. All those people would lose everything they stored in there. That's exactly what happened to me in this case. I understand that the rules have changed, but I don't understand why I wasn't informed that it would happen.

The only reason I wrote this post is, because I wanted to let people know that in my opinion the free version of your service is not reliable. I only had to do this here, because you have removed my post on your Steam group. I hope you finally understand why I wanted to share my opinion with others.

"Oh no, I got something for free, and now it has been taken away, the thing that I did not pay anything for what others have to pay actual money for."

It looks almost like "Oh no, I don't understand what this is about, so I will just make fun of this guy.". It's not about something free being taken away, it's about losing my data and my free time setting everything up. I'm sure you will understand this situation when you accidentally lose your private data some day.

[Ben FreeTS3]

Hello,

I would just like to make a clear statement of when we say "Backups":

Our version of a backup is where us (The provider) takes a snapshot of your Teamspeak server which copies its current: Permissions, Groups, Channels, Client Database. This snapshot would still not be provided to client to download. The client would be able to use this backup on their server if they ever needed it via the panel. We would never distribute the snapshot raw code out the anyone as this would not only be a security issue for us but also to any other provider who used it (Due to how each provider sets their default permissions when the server was initially created)


"If I remember correctly when I first got a free server from you there was an information in the Steam group or maybe in one of the surveys saying that it wasn't possible for anyone to get an ability to do backups, because it wasn't safe. It also said that people could message you to get the backup done. I know those information and rules have changed since then."

A survey was sent out with options on what people would like to see and like you've said backups was mentioned and was voted although the panel was never finished and has not estimated time.

"If a user of your free service wanted to have a backup done he would have to become a premium member and pay for the service at least for one month. Please correct me if I'm wrong."

Like I've mentioned above our version of a backup, yes backups are available for premium users. We don't accept any one off payments for a downloadable backup.

"I am only frustrated, because you removed all of my data without giving me any warning. In my opinion a serious company that provides a service (even if it's free) would first let it's users know that the service will not be provided anymore and they will lose their data."

We respect your opinion but sadly there is nothing we can do at this moment in time and in future people will be notified, we've only just started to turn into a professional and many people make mistakes and this is our first and most likely won't be our last. People learn as they go on in life so that's why will try our best for things like this not to slip.

"but I don't understand why I wasn't informed that it would happen."

We have over 350+ clients using our service and in the mean time have 3000+ in the group. We don't have the time to contact individuals as the purge took us 3-4 hours to complete which was one long long painful effort to make sure all our resources were cleaned and open to new people.

Regards,
CEO Ben | Free Teamspeak Servers

[Pio]

I think you could have thought about messaging people before you started removing their servers and with so many people in your steam group you could have at least posted some announcements. I know you can't do anything about it now and I am not asking you to.

[Ben FreeTS3]

Hello,

When you say message people... I currently have 356 friends on my steam profile. We don't keep records of who owns which server as we micro manage it through past posts via the steam group. I for one couldn't of spent anymore than 4 hours removing servers and messaging people individually as this would of easily added over 2 more hours onto that time scale. We didn't provide any announcements because people would of simply joined it as a one off and then not use it again as we don't want our service used as a second option. Thank you for understanding we can't do anything at this moment in time and like I said in future we will change the way we purge servers.

Hopefully this is the last response.

Regards,
CEO Ben | Free Teamspeak Servers

[Plora]

toplol how can you even call urself CEO while you use cracked teamspeak license ?
i refused to believe it when I took my server from you, but had the confirmation from ts3 company which is why your IP 92.222.200.121 was grey listed and you changed it for 92.222.200.120
do u realise what u are doing is illegal ?

[Sephira]

https://support.teamspeakusa.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

Easy solution. It's a known fact that free licensing is only for up to 32 Slots and what is offered 64, plus no company could sell the slots listed at the prices given because the ATHP licensing cost would cost £26.50 for 300 slots just to host.

So yes, this is actually illegal and while the idea of offering free teamspeaks is noble, free licensing is 32 slots.

I'm not going to personally jump on a 16 year old trying to make something of his hobbies but I will give a word of advice is you decide you are going to go professional, do it properly, legally and responsibly or you'll be in for one hell of a shitfest when you get caught out

[Vincenzo]

This is not the place for such arguments.

If you get something for free, then don't complain about it.

If you offer free service through cracked licences, please don't do it through our website. thank you.

[World_Edit_XIII]

Just as another word of advice if the hoster (aka Ben) reads this:

Since you do offer monetary options for your hosting aswell, you should not forget that any profit you make this way has to be declared income.

Getting into a tax evasion lawsuit is a ton of fun. 

[Blaze]

Just as another word of advice if the hoster (aka Ben) reads this:

Since you do offer monetary options for your hosting as well, you should not forget that any profit you make this way has to be declared income.

Getting into a tax evasion lawsuit is a ton of fun. 

It is isn't it 
But anyway as Vincenzo said, "Not the place for this argument" So I would suggest like making some group chat or something or dealing with it over steam, Pio I know you were trying to warn people but there you go.

[Shadow]

Locking topic; thanks for the awareness, but please take further discussions off the forums. Will remove in 24hrs or so.

Shadow