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First off, apologies if this is the wrong place for this question - feel free to post a more suitable url.

I'm a freelance web developer, and I'm trying to help someone in dire straits with their web hosting. I'm hoping someone here can suggest a strategy for retrieving files in the following scenario. My only apparant option is assist in rebuilding his web presence from scratch.

The trader in question has/had a website designed, implemented and maintained by a third party. This third party used hosting with heart internet (as indicated by whois).

The situation now is that both my trader friend and the third party company's websites are down and the company is not responding to any attempts at communication. Also, he can no longer send or receive email. While its possible this is problem with hosting or the third party's management, I'm much more inclined to think they've ceased trading.

I tracked the hosting via whois to heart internet who could not tell us anything as my friend has no login details, except that they had no current server issues - although I've known their general server status reports to be inaccrute. The only other things I could suggest where to keep trying to contact the company and to contact fair trading and ask if the company is filing for administration or similar.

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This is why you should always have your own company listed as the primary contact and have the third party listed as the technical contact. – MDMarra Sep 11 '10 at 19:41
This is the first contact I've had with any of his business dealings – YsoL8 Sep 11 '10 at 19:46
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There are several approaches available:

Make contact with management at Heart Internet and explain the situation and try to get access to the files. Perhaps they would be more responsive to this request if you were also willing to open a new webhosting account with them so you could pay them directly to host the website.

Retrieve what you can from archive.org.

Hire a lawyer to contact the third party and/or Heart Internet on your behalf, emphasizing the damage to your business if they don't allow access to your data, etc.

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Thanks, I'll defiantly be able to offer some options now! – YsoL8 Sep 11 '10 at 21:07
If I could double vote this post, I would. +1 for the informative post, and +1 for the lawyer comment. If this is hurting your friend's business then your friend should seek legal representation. I would also emphasize that your friend open the hosting account himself and have his own access to it to avoid this situation in the future. – Cypher Sep 11 '10 at 21:37
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