Good fellows at a crossroads or what to do if there is no longer a DC, and a lot of money is paid in advance

For renting a dedicated server 2xIntel Xeon E5405 2.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 4x146 GB SAS SC40Ge SAS RAID, we paid 7200 rubles a month and made an advance payment a year in advance.

DC has ceased to provide services (of course, violating the terms of the contract). There are no serious hopes for continuing relations according to the old rules, and options are possible:
- the dissolution and return of unused money (abut, they say only in court)
- continuation on the new conditions offered by the Operator.

The DC was located in Moscow, but now we are being offered to move to Holland with compensation for losses and the offer to help with moving to a new piece of iron.
The main problem is that the proposed servers are either much worse or significantly more expensive. Traffic is also considered inconvenient (it was 2000 per month for 100 Mbit, now, if I understand correctly, 100 rubles for 1 Mbit).
')
But in order.

When the DC after a series of adventures still stopped working and we were left without a server, we first solved the issue of moving to another. Good people gave a server on good conditions and transferred data overnight, for which we are extremely grateful to them. Brazen advertising will not do, just say that this is DC Fiord.

In the second case, I wrote a complaint to our non-respected Operator.

Director General of Operator LLC
##############
From the CEO
LLC "Subscriber"
##############
On the issue of improper provision of services under the contract number #### of ############## year

Claim

According to the terms of contract No. ############## of ##############, concluded between Operator LLC (Operator) and Subscriber LLC (Subscriber ) Operator:
• provides connection of the Subscriber’s equipment with the data exchange center;
• undertakes to “ensure access to the Subscriber’s resource by third parties on the Internet”.
According to clause 5.9 of the Agreement No. ############## from #############,
5.9. The Administration may suspend the provision of the Services for the time required for carrying out routine maintenance on the equipment, having notified the Subscriber in advance at least one day before the start of work on the equipment. The total time of server unavailability associated with maintenance work should not exceed 10 (ten) hours per month.

However, from 22:00 on April 6, 2010 to 03:00 on April 8, 2010 and from 12:00 on April 16, 2010 to the present, the Operator, in violation of the requirements of the Agreement, did not ensure availability of equipment with data exchange nodes, did not ensure access to the Subscriber's resource of third parties on the Internet.
The total duration of the period exceeds the stipulated 10 hours, moreover, the Operator did not send any prior notification, which violates the requirements of the Agreement.
Services are currently not provided in violation of the requirements of the Agreement.
At 12:00 on April 16, 2010 LLC Subscriber paid LLC Operator ############## rubles.
Actually services rendered for ############## rubles

Based on the above, I require:
1. Return to Subscriber LLC (Subscriber) signed by Operator LLC (Operator) copy of Contract No. ############## of ############### ,
2. Resume the provision of services under the Contract No. ############## of ############## within 1 day from the date of receipt of the claim and compensate for the period of improper provision services by the Operator, and in the event of the impossibility of such renewal, to return in the same period the amount of funds in the amount of ###### rubles paid by the Subscriber as an advance payment minus the cost of the services actually rendered.
3. Otherwise, we will be forced to go to court demanding the recovery of the debt, interest for using other people's money, expenses for the services of a representative and payment of the state fee

General Director LLC "Subscriber"
__________________
Mn

The claim went away by registered mail with a list of attachments and a return receipt, and the week was quiet.

Then, an offer came to the e-mail to settle the issue by moving to Holland with the provision of an adequate server, relocation compensation and high-quality support. "Wow" - we thought, maybe not so bad? “Hoo-hoo,” said the Operator, and rolled out conditions that, in our opinion, were unacceptable.

The following was suggested:
0. 2. Core Xeon (2.13Ghz) / 2GB RAM / 4 x 750GB SATA - this was where the negotiations began, and it was probably about our price at 7200.
1. DELL 1950/2 * Dual Xeon 5110 (1.6Ghz / 2x2MB) / 4GB RAM 2x 73GB + 4Gb - 11,000 rubles. per month
2. 2 Xeon 5110 / 4GB / 2x 300GB SAS / RAID / 2PSU + 4Gb - 10500 rub. per month

I am not an expert on server hardware, but, afaik, the proposed deliberately worsens our situation.

We tried to figure out the position:

Hello!

Unfortunately, the proposed configuration is worse than we need. RAM
and the disk is fine. But the processor is obviously worse than the minimum requirements,
which we need. I wrote below, or 8 cores of 1.6 each; either 4 cores by
2.6. These are the minimum requirements for the operation of our server under that load
which will be on it.

Also, the configurations offered by you are obviously more expensive than what we had
previously and that we have been fully paid. We are not offered all the options
satisfied.

We paid 9200 rubles per month with a channel of 100 mb. Server rental was
paid for one year in advance (until February 2011) and during this period
price has been fixed. We also incurred expenses by paying a lump sum.
for installing two hard drives (which cost us $ rubles), which
we planned to use at least until February 2011.

There are two ways out of the situation:
1. Either you offer us an adequate server (suitable for our
requirements) and at an adequate price (not much different from the old, taking into account
fees for the Internet channel), and also compensate us # rub (in the form of
accounting for payment of services) that we were forced to incur upon termination
provision of services
2. Either return the money in the amount of # rub paid for
unused services, including # rub - balance on April 16
2010 (Payment for the server for a year and the amount in the account of the personal account for
Internet channel payments at the rate of 2000 rubles per month), as well as a fee for
installation of additional hard drives - rub.

The end is a bit predictable:

We will be able to return your funds only through the court.

Actually what I want and why I write. It is clear that we ourselves are to blame for everything and the risk led to such an ambush. It is clear that the Operator sometimes behaves extremely ugly, and this is not worth discussing, on the contrary, I am glad that there is at least some kind of constructive.

I want to consult.
Questions :
1. What to do in this situation? The court will undoubtedly be fascinating and I will be able to write five articles on Habré, but the money will most likely not be obtained.
I don't want to accept the proposals voiced above, because we don’t need them, but given point 1, maybe this is the way out
2. As shown by a cursory review of the rental market for dedicated servers, the conditions we used were very comfortable in price and power of iron. If this is the case and the conditions were cheaper than the market, then you probably should not rest now.
3. I can offer this option to anyone: we accept these conditions and for a few months ahead our server. Since we don’t need it, we have other needs, then it becomes yours on the terms of sublease (at cost, naturally or on other discussed conditions). At the end of the prepaid period, we decide what to do.

ps. No, this is not about Makhost :)