CI Host saying goodbye to Bedford, customers

Who will play host to the next iteration of CI Host?

The company is apparently moving out of its longtime Bedford home, some of its phones have been disconnected and many of its customers have been transferred to another company, X7 Webhosting. A wave of customer complaints has accompanied the sometimes not-so-smooth Web-site transfers to X7.

CI enjoyed fast growth in the late 1990s but has been hit with lawsuits, complaints of outages and other customer service problems in recent years.

Co-owner Erin Bullock said Thursday that the company had had "a good run" in Bedford but declined to provide details about a new location other than to say the company now has offices in Dallas. She spoke with our correspondent beside a moving truck at the low-rise that the company has occupied on Central Drive at Airport Freeway for a decade.

On Thursday, the only electricity in the building was provided by a sputtering portable generator outside.

"I’ve been very busy the last couple of days, but I can talk to you about the changes in a month," Bullock said. She and the other majority owner, Chris Faulkner, canceled a Friday meeting to discuss developments.

Striving for four

Classic Chevrolet of Grapevine has been the top-selling Chevy dealer in the U.S. for three consecutive years and is making a strong push to make it four straight.

Classic has trailed Paddock Chevrolet of Kenmore, N.Y., near Buffalo, for much of the year, but with a strong sales month in October — 472 cars and trucks — owner Tom Durant’s staff closed the gap to 11 vehicles. By Friday, Paddock led 3,263 to 3,259 vehicles.

Hagen Durant, Classic’s general manager, has taken to posting scoreboard updates on Classic’s Facebook page as part of his campaign to market the dealership through social networking sites. General Motors delivers daily, weekly and monthly sales reports to its dealers.

Hagen Durant said Paddock historically gets off to a fast start each year.

"Classic Chevrolet has outperformed Paddock in the last quarter every year we have competed," Durant said. "As we begin November . . . there is no doubt in my mind that we will be working on our own lead up till the end of December."

Falling behind

Mortgage delinquency rates in the Fort Worth-Arlington area are on the rise.

In September, nearly 5.1 percent of mortgage holders were at least 90 days behind on payments, compared with a 3.5 percent delinquency rate in September 2008, according to First American Corelogic.

In Texas, the September rate was 4.6 percent, a 1.4 percentage point increase from a year ago.

And nationally, 7.3 percent of all mortgage holders were at least three months behind, up 2.9 percentage points from September 2008, Corelogic said.

The increase coincides with a rise in the Fort Worth-Arlington foreclosure rate, figures show.

In September, the rate of foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans was 1.3 percent, an increase of 0.44 percentage point from September 2008.

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