Written By: Patrick Grote
Date: July 20, 2003 (Previously Published)
Section: Viewpoints

I've held off writing another installment in the ongoing Cyberwings drama for lack of information. Dates have now come and gone and it looks like the Cyberwings drama is coming to an end. A Titanic type of end.

When we last left you Cyberwings was on life support sucking cyber air from a dead tank. Since then they have made a blip on the monitor and have a web site up. From what can be verified there are two servers online at this time. One for billing/help desk and another for user accounts.

At this moment no one, including Cyberwings paid staff and volunteers, know the location of Shawn J. White or the true current status of the rebuild efforts. This isn't a complete surprise as this is Shawn's pattern of handling things. Missed deadlines, poor communication and broken promises litter the Shawn J. White highway of life.

The unsavory details of Shawn's past have been documented through Google Groups postings, but more information came to light this past week. Former associates who have experienced the same pain in dealing with Shawn stepped up to document their experience. The links below paint a picture of someone who is skilled in the art of ingratiation and who has a flair for intimidation.

Shawn's Prior History

Threats to Use Non-Existant Lawyers

Failure to Follow State Regulations

None of this comes as a surprise to the hundreds of Cyberwings customers owed money or services. What is surprising about this is the same pattern of disingenuous business practices and vitriolic manipulation of people.

Don't count the customers out yet. Many sites have popped up to help document the efforts of the shafted folks. One site is a daily log of the quest to obtain a refund. There is also a well documented path for people to complain to law enforcement and fraud departments. Another site documents the number of refunds and amount of money owed. This has truly become a customer's worst nightmare, but the customers are fighting back.

And really that is the only option Shawn J. White has left his customers. His refusal to communicate, his inability to meet deadlines and his hostile attitude forced even the most patient and understanding person into attack mode.

For example, Shawn indicated in a chat that there were 18 servers at the new collocation center, Cogent, ready to go

Unfortunately that's either a lie or Shawn has the worst luck in the world. According to a phone call received by a staff member the current reason the additional servers aren't online is due to a cable issue:

Illegal possession of hardware, mysterious customer service issues, bad media converters, customers who stalk and now a cable issue. Next it'll be Godzilla and black helicopters. Anyone who has worked anywhere near a computer room understands that you will have occasional cable problems, but they can be fixed quickly. Even if you have to re-cable an entire rack of servers you're looking at 8 hours tops. That is with beer breaks and tape ball wars.

After all this you still have Shawn not addressing what happened to the servers at Lightship or RackShack. Customers with data at those two sites may have lost it all. Imagine someone coming in and taking your hard drive? That's what happened to them. Yes, they should have been backing up their sites, but someone who pays $10 for a lifetime hosting account can't be expected to know that.

Robert Marsh, the owner of RackShack, did something that Shawn J. White should have done in the beginning. He stood up and helped the customers. For a 24 hour period the Cyberwings' servers at RackShack were turned on and Cyberwings customers could retrieve their data. It was a stroke of marketing genius with a touch of goodwill. You can bet that a few Cyberwings customers purchased dedicated servers based on this show of good customer service.

The two deliverables Shawn has promised in the last two weeks haven't materialized as he said they would. Account activations and refunds. No one has been able to verify just how many of the accounts have been set up. Cyberwings isn't saying, so customers have been forced to play "guess the highest ticket number completed" game. It's amusing to see junior Sherlocks hacking away trying to find the number. I haven't seen so much blind figuring since the first day of trigonometry class in high school.

The refunds is where it gets really interesting. Through IRC and message boards I have been able to determine that people have been receiving refunds. 2Checkout customers have received most of the refunds they have requested, while only two PayPal customers have received their refunds. One was only a partial refund due to lack of funds in the Cyberwings account.

You should note that the PayPal refunds were initiated by PayPal and not by Shawn J. White. This means that PayPal determined there was an issue and refunded the money out of the account.

I haven't been able to determine where the 2Checkout money is coming from. I have attempted to e-mail Shawn J. White and 2Checkout to verify, but haven't received a response. The money could be coming from 1) A set aside account used by transaction companies to cover charge backs, 2) Existing Cyberwings funds or 3) Additional money Shawn deposited after the issues started. It's important to find this out to determine whether Shawn is actively handling the issues or if 2Checkout is handling this under dispute resolution processes.

The deadline for refund checks is August 9th and the current feeling among people owed money is that they have a better chance of witnessing the next coming of a deity than seeing their money.

So where does this leave the Cyberwings mess? A little closer to conclusion if you consider jumping off the ground a little closer to the moon.

Shawn is MIA. The staff hasn't been paid in a while and several are in serious talks to join or start other hosting services. The customers, whom we really should start calling victims, have found other hosting services. What's left? Quite possibly a shell of an attention craving, manipulative, irresponsible person living in a reality he has created and maintained on the goodwill and trust of others. Or it could all be a complete and utter scam.

You can look at it Shawn's way, hook arms, sing Kumbaya while the emperor dances in the middle with no clothes or you can look at it the victim's way. No service, no refunds equals rip off.

Read the Second Cyberwings Article

Read the First Cyberwings Article

Read the Interview with Shawn. J. White

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