I was going to wait on this until I heard back from HostNine about my backups, but I'll go ahead and review them. By the way for anyone interested, you can view their F rating for yourself at the Better Business Bureau: [url]
I have used 6 hosts during my 9 years on the internet. Of those 6, HostNine is the 3rd longest at 9 months. It did seem to be the answer to what I was looking for. Back then the price was only $3.95 a month with no contracts. I could pay by the month, and I was a bit gun shy back then after going through 2 back to back bad situations, so I didn't want to pay for another year in advance and fear not getting my money back if I needed to leave.
I'm sure you've all heard the phrases, Don't judge a book by its cover and/or If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Well, HostNine fits both of those. You can't assume the company is reputable because they seem to be what you want and need. True, they have a very good uptime. I only had one problem in the first month, but my site was only down for a few hours, and I've had no problems since then (until I was suspended that is). I was assured it was another user that was taken care of. Well, I now know what they mean by "taken care of." My site has grown a little bit during those 9 months, but I never got even close to the max storage space or bandwidth allowed.
This host will suspend you after one thing that they feel violates their TOS. They don't care if it's fair. They don't care if the problem is easy to fix. They don't care if it's never happened before or that it won't happen again. Hostnine is a One Strike You're Out company. They act like it's to protect their other customers, but they wouldn't delay suspending any of those customers for the slightest reason. Is this what you would want to trust with your business?
They have a community forum that is comprised of their friends and loyal followers. If you dare post anything even slightly negative on that forum, a member will tell you that it's wrong...or your post will be deleted. HostNine expects all their members to visit this forum on a daily basis to read about any maintenance or server downtimes. Unless you join that community and become friends with the staff, they show you no loyalty if a problem arises. I don't want to be friends with my host. I just expect them to run in the background and provide the service I pay for.
I would never go back to HostNine, since I cannot trust them. BUT they promised me a backup, which I have in an email:
> From: HostNine Abuse <abuse@hostnine.com>
> Subject: [#ITH-505861]: Account Suspended: judelb
> Date: Monday, April 13, 2009, 7:02 AM
>
> We can provide a backup and please stop emailing support for
> a restore.
> Regards,
> Alex Jankuv
> Hostnine Support
I have waited and still have not received the backup. I have emailed and asked, but they are now ignoring me. Well, I won't be ignored. It doesn't hurt my feelings that they don't want me to be a customer anymore. I have a feeling I know why. They recently raised their prices to $6.95 a month to be prepaid for a full year. They are probably trying to weed out those of us that were paying $3 less on a monthly basis. Whether or not this is true is moot, though. I don't care what their reasons are, but I do care about not having received the backups they have promised me...and believe it or not, this could happen to you as well. I read all the negative reviews for HostNine out there, but I felt I would give them a chance. Until someone has burnt me, I try not to judge, but I'm here to try to save anyone else from this. My website is currently running on an old backup. I've had a lot of personal issues the last year, so I haven't downloaded any backups in awhile. It hurts my site and online business to be running on an old backup. How hard would it be for HostNine to give me the promised backups? I wouldn't think it that hard...would you?
Just thought I would share some the experiences I've had with hosts that I've been with over the last 6 years:
Bluehost/Hostmonster: Decent host and cheap. If you're looking for a single page site or a site that doesn't have much traffic, this is for you. I moved my sites off their servers (they are sister companies and I was with both) because I wanted a reseller account which they didn't offer. I also thought they slightly oversold the servers.
HostNine: This was a great host for me. Their support was great and hosting was perfect for what I needed. I was with them for 3 years. Highly recommend if you're looking for a reseller host.
HostGator: After I realized that I didn't need a reseller host anymore I tried HostGator. I got suckered into the unlimited features and signed up. After figuring out that I had unlimited space but not unlimited inodes(files) I went back to hostnine shared account.
thePeakHost.net: So I was cruising around some forums and came across a cheap offer for the Peak Host.net. I signed up for their offshore server and haven't had problems since. I'm not going to say how much I paid for a years worth of hosting, but it was less then a big mac meal. Always been up and support has been quick. Great Host.
HostLatch: Stay away. Far away. They had serious downtime because they combined VPS and shared accounts on the same server. After having a VPS that was effected by this I requested a refund (was only 2 days into service) and was denied.
Underhost.us: Great host. Great for offshore and onshore. I had them for a few months and purchased a years worth of reseller service. Great service and never noticed downtime.
Pluthost: Great new host. I had a VPS from them(offshore) and it seemed ok. Dropped service because I realized I didn't need offshore VPS when I had already purchased offshore from peakhost.
Enoch.com: Just started a VPS from this host. Great uptime, fast servers and support seems to be quick.
bluewaveservers.com: Bought this off a special I found on DP. Good shared hosting, although a little slow. Could just be my side though.
Not a question exactly related to HostNines hosting ability (have read a bunch of reviews, most seem good - and we all know that the pleased people rarely speak compared to the not so pleased), but how is their affiliate program? I've seen a few worried reviews on here concerning getting paid, but seems like they were updating their system and the people did infact get paid.
They seem to be one of the only hosts (if not only?) that offer such a nice payout on referrals that may only pay $4/month. I've sent in a few tickets about the program (and received fast responses) so I'm inclined to think they're a good host as well. Every other affiliate I've looked at will pay nice comissions but only after the referral pays large upfront fees (usually yearly accounts). So, hows HostNine guys?
I know the title of this thread seems a little hokey, but it's true and this is why: Ben (operations manager) basically dropped everything to help me downgrade my account.
Here's the long story:
I have been with HostNine (h9) for about 18 months. I have hosted everything from ecommerce sites to forums and static sites. Recently, I needed to make a change to my account and downgrade from reseller account to a 'regular' account. Anytime I need to upgrade/downgrade my account I always do a little host shopping.
Sometimes I even just 'host shop' to see what else is out there.
A few months ago I tried media temple. What the heck right? I mean all the 'trendy' sites I went to seemed to have the {mt} badge on the site, plus the 'grid server' seemed to make sense to me. So I tried it. While it might have been ok for some people, the MySQL response time seemed slow. I also didn't seem to get the service I was used to at HostNine, so I went back.
Recently, when I needed to downsize my account from reseller to regular hosting, I decided to go host shopping. My criteria for a new host was cost, support, and the ability to host a good number of domains (around 20). I also wanted a solid host that wasn't going to go belly-up during this crappy economy. Unknowingly that HostNine changed their hosting packages, and after a couple of days looking, I went with HostGator.
Now, Hostgator and Hostnine both offer 'Unlimited' space, domains, and bandwidth. I'm smart enough to know that nothing is unlimited and also aware of hosts overselling server resources (which is why I left hostmonster to go to h9 18 months ago). I knew that on a good day my sites might take up a total of 3-4 gigs and I've never had bandwidth issues. But I get 'inspiration' frequently to buy a domain and start a new website.
I canceled my account with HostNine and went with HostGator.
Here's the kicker with HostGator and why I went back to HostNine: While Hostgator says 'Unlimited Space' they do keep a count on how many files you have. After 50,000 files they will remove your account from backups (and hence not back-up your site). At 250,000 files on the server they could suspend your account. It was no big deal at first. But then I started moving over my wordpress, expression engine, phpbb, and custom sites and realized that with the files in these scripts, plus e-mail, temp files, cache files, and images (even little icons), I could hit the 50,000 mark rather quickly. CRAP! Even if I stay at 3 gigs, I could still go over the file limits.
Realize that I moved all my sites to hostgator and all propagation had been completed. At this time I did some more research on hosts and realized that HostNine changed their hosting packages and offers what Hostgator does without the limitations.
So (watch the order of events as I screwed this up) I submitted a cancellation request to HostGator. I THEN went to HostNine and started a live chat with Ben. I explained to him that I needed to downgrade my old account and not cancel it. I also explained to him that I needed to open up my new account ASAP because I was scared that because I canceled my account at HostGator I would miss any cancelation verification or any support tickets at either place.
Ben (HostNine operations manager), at that moment, took the time to personally downgrade my account and make sure I had all the information I needed to transfer my domains back to HostNine before I lost any important emails. My hosting issues were resolved in 10 minutes.
And, to look back, it's been like that with support since I started with hostnine. Unless I step away from the computer, support requests were responded to quickly and usually resolved painlessly.
Once I get more clients, I will go back to reseller hosting with H9. I just wanted to write a positive review for a great experience. If anyone is looking for a great host, try hostnine.com.
Like I said to Ben - after being with bluehost, dreamhost, hostmonster, hostgator, and media temple, I think hostnine is the best for what I need.
I've been with Hostnine for over a year now. Overall comment: service is good and support is OK but needs some work. HOWEVER, today I was threatened that my reseller account will be terminated in 72 hours. An unknown person, at the time, ddosed my website. I never even heard of the attacker until recently after the attack was made when other members from my community told me who he was. I run a gaming community, and the attacker apparently ddosed my website because I'm "stealing his players and reputation". Our community is bigger than his and perhaps he was a bit jealous, I'm not sure, but back on topic...
Hostnine claimed that "I am a danger to other clients and I'm putting them at risk".
This was their reason for shutting down my main account (the one that was ddosed). I contacted support via phone explaining the issue and I was inquiring why my account should be terminated over something I was completely innocent in and a victim of. They claimed it wasn't their decision to cancel the account and that is was strictly up to the abuse department. Text may sound louder than words, but all I said to the technician was it was "bs" (edited to bypass filter, sorry admins). I didn't say it in an angered voice nor was I yelling, cussing at, or being rude or insulting anyone. I said it in a calm voice and the next thing I hear is "You know what, you have a good day" and he hung up on me. Understandable I suppose, he took my words offensively even though I wasn't being rude about it.
Anyways, another technician replied to an open ticket I had open previously about the attack. He stated that I was completely rude and insulting the tech, and that they feel my entire reseller account should be terminated. They said they are here to give me support, not to be abused and insulted. I understand that, but I wasn't being insulting to the guy. The tech had no right to hang up on me, the other tech had no right to accuse me of "insulting and being rude to another tech", and he also had no right to completely remove my account for something so stupid. It seems they take everything offensively and just flip out over the slightest thing.
I can verify that as well. There was an earlier incident where a tech was being completely rude to me and he got fired because he randomly snapped at me. Anyways, putting aside the phone call, they completely misunderstood that I was the victim of a serious attack. They're basically taking it out on me for being a major risk to other clients and they're going to terminate my account, when what they should be doing is leaving me alone and pursuing the attacker. After all, I was the victim and the attacker was the one doing wrong.
I feel like I'm being punished for something I didn't do. What could I have done to prevent this? I tried explaining that to the host but they don't care -at all-. They have no sympathy and have been completely rude during the entire issue. And during the phone call, even if the tech did take offensively to what I said, that still doesn't give them a reason to completely terminate my account. My payments are usually always made on time, I'm patient when having issues, and I'm just an overall average good client, in my eyes.
So to sum it all up, I WOULD NOT recommend this host. If you're looking for good servers, go ahead and go with Hostnine. But the support can be terrible at times because some of the techs are really moody and have short tempers. And if you get ddosed by a random person, forget it, you might as well just think you did the attack yourself, because either way your account will be terminated because you'll become a risk to other clients.
Hostnine has A LOT of negative reviews. Some good too, but the majority of all reviews, I'd say, are negative. Search for yourself, there are dozens of topics on this forum about them.
Received the following letter of the account I was completely stopped, without any warning, there is no opportunity for improvement
More absurd is that they contain is not my CPU log files is fantastic! My site daily maximum 160,000 views (Google Analytics)
Been two months this way, and there is no problem. Today, the issue of a sudden, but the number of only 10 million,
My site is composed of very simple php content html not more than eight, and almost static!
Hello,
This message is to inform you that a domain under your account had to be suspended due to excessive CPU usage. We regret that this action was necessary, however, it had to be done for the greater good of the other users on that server. We have included the relevant server logs below for your perusal.
Regretfully, due to the severity of this case, we will not be able to reactivate this account. However, we can allow you the option of upgrading to a Virtual Dedicated Server, Dedicated Server, or provide backups.
*** IMPORTANT NOTE: Abuse issues are ONLY handled via email. Please do NOT call or chat regarding an abuse matter as you will only be directed to email us. ***
Domain Suspended: narutotw.com This domain is located on: node66
NOTE: This account continually violates our defined Resource Limits and is not suitable for a shared hosting environment.
Please review the logs of abuse listed below for assistance in resolving this issue:
GET /SpryAssets/SpryCollapsiblePanel01.css HTTP/1.1 149-0 24219 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 0 13.2 0.01 0.01 124.11.193.12 nroa.narutotw.com GET /SpryAssets/SpryCollapsiblePanel.js HTTP/1.1 150-0 24220 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 114.43.202.249 nroa.narutotw.com GET /images/ol-mu.gif HTTP/1.1 151-0 24221 2/2/2 K 0.00 2 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 118.161.182.49 nroa.narutotw.com GET /flash-player/player.swf HTTP/1.1 152-0 24222 1/1/1 K 0.00 2 828 37.2 0.04 0.04 114.40.134.176 nroa.narutotw.com GET /comic.htm HTTP/1.1 153-0 24223 2/2/2 K 0.00 1 479 103.2 0.10 0.10 219.69.55.177 nroa.narutotw.com GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1 154-0 24224 0/0/0 W 0.00 3 1862214900 0.0 0.00 0.00 59.116.135.39 nroa.narutotw.com GET / HTTP/1.1 155-0 24225 2/2/2 K 0.00 3 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 163.29.165.236 nroa.narutotw.com GET /mu-test-08.swf HTTP/1.1 156-0 24226 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 1 0.5 0.00 0.00 125.27.193.53 hominhome.tui-dong.com GET /forum/style.css HTTP/1.1 157-0 24227 0/0/0 W 0.00 3 1862214892 0.0 0.00 0.00 125.163.10.4 usa-4-2.hostingforge.info GET /flv/DC162.flv HTTP/1.1 158-0 24228 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 14 0.3 0.00 0.00 125.27.193.53 hominhome.tui-dong.com GET /forum/style_images/n.gif HTTP/1.1 159-0 24229 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 1 0.0 0.00 0.00 78.54.73.143 nakliyatportal.net GET /gold.gif HTTP/1.1 160-0 24230 2/2/2 K 0.00 2 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 218.172.193.12 nroa.narutotw.com GET /mu-test-08.swf HTTP/1.1 161-0 24231 1/1/1 K 0.00 3 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 115.81.168.184 nroa.narutotw.com GET /SpryAssets/SpryEffects.js HTTP/1.1 162-0 24232 7/7/7 K 0.00 1 0 0.0 0.00 0.00 221.127.67.62 nroa.narutotw.com GET /mu-test-08.swf HTTP/1.1 163-0 24233 6/6/6 K 0.00 0 0 49.5 0.05 0.05 118.168.106.51 nroa.narutotw.com
We have already too many servers in ThePlanet and CyberCon datacenter. So i want to change my mouth taste and looking a Managed dedicated server with Linux Based etc.
So i know these two companies last few years (HostGator, Hostnine). Can anybody tell us which company is better for dedicated server then i will signup them.
I have found Hostnine hosting company! These guys seems to provide the most suitable conditions for my future website, could you please leave your opinions about this company if you have ever had a deal with them!
On Thursday, I posted a review (on anther host review site)* of H9 which was not very complimentary to say the least. To my surprise on Friday morning I had an email from Ben Gabler the Operations Manager with H9 and his email expressed some concerns about what I had written. He asked if he could call me to discuss my problems and to cut a long story short, we spent 45 minutes on the phone on Friday afternoon and he gave me the impression that he is a guy who is really concerned that all H9 customers get what they want in terms of both price and service.
Ben's call came at a very opportune moment as on Friday morning I had spent several hours with my new hosting company trying to get tech support from a supposedly 24/7 tech support team - it just didn't happen - and 48 hours later, it still hasn't!
He gave me several good reasons to have another go with H9 - none of them monetary! One of the things we discussed at length was tech support. Ben explained to me why they were trying to get customers to use tickets rather than the telephone, the reasons are to long to go into here but I do now believe that for 99% of everyday problems it is actually better to use a ticket system rather than the phone. I am surprised at my own reaction here because I far prefer to pick the phone up than tap away at the keyboard, but as Ben pointed out, with a ticket system, you have a full trail of what was said by by yourself and the person dealing with the ticket - ain't no arguing with that!
I have to say that I was very impressed that he looks at the reviews posted here and he was concerned enough about my complaint to actually do something about it personally.
So, I decided to give H9 another try. During the early hours of Saturday morning, H9 transferred several accounts from the other web hosting company to my H9 account, For the most part the transfers went without a hitch and the one problem there was was sorted within 10 minutes of my seeing and reporting it to H9.
So from a good start to a patchy week, I have come back to being a very satisfied customer.
If no one objects, I'll post regular updates here.
Tim
*I have since tried to add a correction to the review that I wrote but is seems that it can’t be done and I have had no reply to the email I sent to the site’s admins asking to add to the review. That is why this is being posted here.
I have $100 in affiliate payments showing in my affilate panel with hostnine.com but they wont pay me. I logged tickets which they ignore, I posted on their forum and they told me to email an address that doesnt exist then locked the thread. I posted another thread which they deleted. I PM'd a guy called Ben there as one of the agents told me that only he can deal with it, he never replied.
I chatted online and as soon as I tell them what I want they dont reply to me.
They owe me money from August 2007 and wont pay me.
What do I do? How do I get them to pay.
They provide a great service in ALL other areas but how do you get money from them?
I'm thinking of hosting a bunch of domains with hostnine.com, I'd hate to set them all up and have to transfer later to another host. I'd appreciate some feedback on them, either positive or negative.
I've tried to contact twice now, the first time I waited over 15 minutes and the system hung up on me. The second time I'm on the phone for over 20 minutes as I type this and all I hear is music. Man their phone support really sucks. Anybody else experience this? I'm cancelling my subscription.
Just in case you missed it, Hostnine is no longer offering live support. Live chat is sales only, and I was inform that support was only being provided by ticket
I'd just like to tell you about my experience with HostNine.com from a web development point of view.
I have recently coded their new website from PSD to HTML files, for the agreed fee of £177. 50% has been paid upfront, and a further 50% paid upon completion.
The work was completed 6 days ago, and since this I have been in contact with the company on a daily basis. I have been ignored and shunned away. I have been blocked from viewing their website (prooven), blocked from their AIM accounts (proven) and their online and telephone supports have been highly dismissive.
Only today, when I put pressure on the Operations Manager (whom I was dealing with - Ben Gabler), by ringing him directly, did I get a proper email response:
Quote:
At this point we are not satisfied with your work and have no need for the layout. We have had several professional coders look at the code and have said it's not professional at all. I'm sorry things did not work out and we wish you the best.
I'd like to point out two things - my code is of the utmost excellence as many of you will know. I'm awaiting to hear what his professional coders have to say. Also, a deadline was never set in any of the E-Mail correspondance or MSN correspondance, all of which I have logs for. I completed the work in 3 days - timely enough one should think.
This company is rude, obnoxious and does not operate in a professional manner. Their telephone support answer the phone as "Hey, whats up?" and end the conversations with "Alright Jonny, see ya.." when I introduced myself as Jonathan Nathanson. Overall, I wouldn't reccomend them to anyone, and I am currently seeking guidance as to what I can do from here.
Does anyone know the proper avenue for cancelling an account with HostNine? They are giving me the run around and ignoring my requests for a cancellation. I originally tried to cancel my account a couple of months ago by e-mail. They informed me that I had to submit a cancellation request through their website. I have submitted a cancellation request through their website SEVERAL TIMES since then. They never sent me any kind of response or confirmation, so I assumed (wrongly, I guess) that the account was cancelled, but they keep charging my credit card over and over.
I have requested again that the account be cancelled and told them that I would simply perform a chargeback since they are basically billing me for a service that I have continually requested be cancelled via their own online cancellation form using their own process for cancelling accounts. Nick Hudson @ HostNine's response to this was to threaten that they would send attorneys and collection agencies after me. All while claiming that it is "NOT hard" to cancel an account. I agree with them; cancelling your account when the company will actually deal with you should not be hard.
I have been with HostNine for almost a year now and have had reasonably decent service, until now.
They recently suspended one of my client's accounts. Understandable, the account had some very old PHP files on them. Let me preface this by stating that I am very sympathetic to hosts who have to deal with problem clients who have sites that slow down shared servers for everyone else on them.
I have tried my hardest to work with HostNine to get these files back and ensure that this account is not a problem on their server. I have never once asked for them to restore the account "as is", all have I have asked is that they backup the files and the database for me (I would do it myself, but they locked me out of the account), so that I can investigate the problem and do testing to ensure that it doesn't cause them problems again.
All in all, getting anyone to co-operate has been unsuccessful. Getting a hold of them has been a hassle (from the time I e-mailed them about the issue to the time I received my first response was a span of over 6 hours). Getting them to co-operate has been impossible. Their "Support Manager", Alex, in broken English has told me next to nothing, aside to accuse me of trying to "get around this" and that I would need to move the account to one of their dedicated plans. I have asked that the account simply be backed up, but have not received any response so far, as time ticks away and the client whose account this was becomes more and more frustrated as their files are effectively being "held hostage".
My last complaint is that they never notified myself, nor the client that they had suspended the account.
Has anyone else had problems with trying to get their files back after a host has locked you out of your account? What are my options? Does the hosting company technically "own" the files, simply because they are being hosted on their server?
I joined Hostnine.com affiliates program and within the first two months of pushing their services I had made over 2800 dollars in commissions. Whats the problem you might ask. They don’t pay. They don’t answer their phones and when I went to their forum to ask a question about the affiliate program I was banned in 1 min after asking. I tried online help but the guy who works for online help has alot of excuses. I will make sure everyone knows about this rip off scam so people like me can avoid this company altogether. I’m not the only one who was taken. After I couldn’t get him to answer me in repeated emails i googled hostnine scam and many other ways to see if their we others.
Of course their are, someone he owes 6500 dollars and even employees of his company begging to get paid so they can pay their bills. Their were also customers saying how hostning had canceled their accounts after three months for no reason. Even customers who had canceled and were still being charged via credit card. at the last ticket Ben gabler the owner of the company said that the check has been sent out to my country..
But i didn't send any address for my country. So, how did he get it?
I've been hosting my personal sites with MonkeyWrench Hosting for around three years now (coming up in January I believe), and I figured I'd share my experiences with them!
I've gone through a few hosts in my time, and some of them have been pretty rough. After using paid hosts, a niche free host started up that I stayed with for around a year before they eventually closed down.
I switched to MonkeyWrench Hosting at that point as a place to host my sites and store my files, and I have to say that I've been impressed throughout the time I've been with them.
Uptime/speed: Fantastic! The sites have been perfectly reliable and speedy whenever I've gone to access them, and I haven't had any complaints from users. I did come across MySQL going down on one of the servers (I have two accounts for different purposes that are on seperate servers) in the past, but it was resolved quickly before I even needed to get help.
Support: I've used the support a few times, but not for anything critical since there's not been the need. However, everything that I have asked was answered promptly in a professional manner.
Pricing: Again, no complaints here. The pricing is pretty cheap, especially for the quality of service receieved. They aren't the cheapest on the Internet by any means, but you generally get what you pay for. I'm aware of what my realistic space/bandwidth needs are anyway, and I'd rather pick a host that clearly advertises what you'll receive over an 'unlimited' host.
All in all, MWH have been a fantastic choice and I couldn't have hoped for anything better.
So, thumbs up to Jonathan, and keep up the good work!
I'll report my domains for the moderators to check them out. =)
I've been very happy with Virpus since I joined. There was 1 issue that has plagued me since the beginning and that was that I was not receiving e-mails on my ISP e-mail, my main e-mail. Not to big of an issue except that I didn't get any news updates or know when my tickets were replied to, or even when I was past due on my bill. 3 tickets later and their solution was for me to use another e-mail address, which was kind of a pain for me since each of my e-mail addresses has a specific reason which only specific e-mail get sent there for organizational reasons.
First off I have to say the VPS I was using was top notch. It easily outperformed my LiquidWeb VPSs and quickly became my primary VPS instead of my backup like was intended. I took advantage of one of their specials a while back which was a 512MB RAM cPanel VPS for $19.50/month which is a steal since the cPanel license alone is $15/month!
So now to why this is probably my final review of this company. Communication is lacking greatly. It was good at first, but now it's non-existant.
Over the weekend all my sites went down and I had no idea why... because I never got the e-mail saying they were moving data centers (if it weren't for a small thread on WHT I would never have known). I also did not receive any updates on extending their ETA so yet again I had nothing to tell my clients. The only good thing was that I run a free hosting company (Host2x.com for reference) and I offer no uptime guarantee since it's a non-paid service.
Ok, so the sites are back online and everything is working nicely... well I recently hit the 70% mark on my disk space usage so time to start looking for an upgrade. I created a ticket on April 23rd asking if they would allow me to upgrade my plan to their biggest VPS plan and to my surprise I never got a reply. I would think that a billing ticket asking to upgrade to a plan that costs more without the transfer of the discount I'm receiving would be a welcome ticket for them to reply to, but I was incorrect in thinking this. So I ended up purchasing a dedicated server last night because I cannot wait to see if they will assist me with upgrading my account or not.
What seemed to be a good company quickly turned to nightmares. I purchased a couple domains. All went well. Then paypal emailed me saying they are high risk and wanted me to confirm I made the payment and service was given. So until I did the payment was held. They blame the held on me and threatened me to release it or they will cancel my account.
So they finally gave them the money and all was well. Well I did a stupid thing and decided to get a VPS from them, they have good deals so I thought, whats the worse that can happen. Well shortly after, I get a email saying because your payments are unreliable, we are waiting a week to setup your vps which is complete udder crap.
So I just said screw it and said give me a refund then and about 2 hours ago I try logging into my client center and my account is gone.
I am hoping one of them see this so we can get this worked out. In the mean time I opened disputes on all of the payments.
I just want to take the time and review Hivelocity. Boy oh boy, where to start. I am just so pleased with the customer support they offer and I don't even own a single product with them.
I currently own a server with another comapny and I am always looking at other options for cheaper prices, better services and etc.
I found Hivelocity through WHT and I took the time to start up a live chat which was answered quickly from Kevin. Kevin was very nice and welcoming. I was asking about discounts they could provide and etc. Kevin showed me their reseller program which seemed to be something I may be interested in. After a 15-20 minute chat with Kevin, he offered to add me on MSN if I ever wanted to chat which I thought was pretty nice.
After I got off live chat with Kevin, I decided to keep researching Hivelocity. I immediately signed up on Twitter (I never had a Twitter Account). I saw they had some awesome deals. They were offering an awesome deal today it looks like this:
"The next person to go to our site, open a live chat and say "I just got your TWEET" gets a Core2Duo 3.0Ghz e8400 for $5 the first month."
By time I even got onto Twitter, I noticed that this was already taken. I kept browsing their Twitter and hey what do you know, another great deal it followed like this: "The 1st $5 Core2Duo sold in about 20 seconds so lets do it again. The next person to open a live chat saying "Give me a $5 Server" gets it."
I decided I was going to be late as the last one sold in 20 seconds. Well, it turned out it did get sold but, I got into a Live Chat with David from Hivelocity.
David informed me that the server was sold and I was a bit too late. What do you know, more great discounts! He offered me the same server for $5 on the first month. I decided not to take advantage of the offer as I wouldn't be able to put much use to the offer. I will be moving to Hivelocity within the next 1-3 months.
Overall I am very pleased with the great offers they provide and the support is just amazing!
Based on the sales support and the deals they provide, I did a bit of a rating on Hivelocity.
Sales Support:5/5 Deals:5/5 Overall:5/5
Also, if you decide your interested in Hivelocity's awesome offers, I would follow them on Twitter! They are constantly updating their Twitter and offering great deals. Their Twitter deals are 100% and it's pretty awesome a company like Hivelocity offers products and support so great!
I joined Limestonenetworks back in 2008 when it was a small company. At the time they offered the best price on the server I was looking for, so I took the plunge. The first 2 months were great, I enjoyed the stable network, and responses from the support team were fairly quick (1-2 hours response time). From there on it was all downhill, my servers were constantly down, and the support team took longer to answer my tickets. I didn't think this was a big problem, so I stayed with Limestonenetworks even though it was having problems with their network. Near December an incident occurred that really pushed me over the edge. My servers had been down for hours, so I opened a support ticket, and one of the agents replied and told me that the downtime was due to an upgrade in their network.
Again, I came to conclude that it could be far worst, so I stayed, one of the reasons was that I didn't want to switch my game servers over. It's important to keep in mind when you are running game servers, IPs play an important part because that's where you get your traffic. Near January the network upgrade at Limestonenetworks was still taking place which caused my bandwidth meter to stop working. This really scared me because I didn't want to get charged for overages due to the fact that my servers were receiving DDOS attacks, and I wouldn't know when to close the ports.
This incident actually turned out to be positive for me because even though I went over my bandwidth quota they didn't charge me for overages. I was very happy because this was like a late Christmas present, so now I was even more happy to give my money to Limestonenetworks. Now you might ask the question, how is this going downhill? Even though they didn't charge me for the overages, I still lost many clients who were angry at the fact that their game server were down.
In the end this network upgrade actually cost me 3 clients who were paying ~$60 per month. I let this slide because at this point I already had two servers with Limestonenetworks and I really didn't want to switch over due to the fact I would lose my IPs. The next month, February, was no different, I had more issues with Limestonenetworks. Starting of this month I was getting large DDOS attacks, which kept pushing my bandwidth over the quota, and I ended up paying close to $200 dollars just for bandwidth overages.
At this point they started to nickel and dime me for every single penny they could get of me. I don't know if they were having financial problems, or if it was due to another reason. Again in March I went over the quota, but at this time they told me that I had to pay per gigabyte which would result in a $500+ charge in bandwidth, and after talking with multiple agents, I was finally able to reach an agreement. They had changed a policy all of the sudden due to the fact that they knew I was a good customer and would keep paying for the overages.
The problem I had here was that I didn't mind upgrading to plan after I knew how much bandwidth was going to be used, since they don't offer any sort of DDOS protection, and game servers result in large DDOS attacks occasionally. I understand that Limestonenetworks was not at fault, but by making me pay per gigabyte was a bit harsh, since I had never been late on a payment, and had multiple servers. Try to remember that I stayed with this company even though I lost multiple clients because of their network outages, but they didn't care about this, all the care about is nickling and diming customers.
From that point on I have been living on the edge because I don't want to pay for an upgrade before hand due to the fact I don't know how much bandwidth my server will be using. Even if I upgrade to a different package it does not offer an insurance due to the fact that if I receieve a large DDOS than I orignally predicted, I would still end up paying per gigabyte.
This company has turned from having potential to just making their customers run away. Now the other problems I had with Limestonenetwork is the support they offer, which has been declining since I joined. The associates are very rude and don't really care about the customer's experience. I didn't include every problem I had with Limestonenetwork because it would make it a very long read.
Network - 10/10 Downtime - 5/10 Customer Service - 2/10 Overall Experience - 4/10 Would I recommend this company? NO, I urge everyone to stay away, unless they like to deal with problems on a daily basis.
Also from reading other topics on this forum, I personally believe that Limestonenetwork is overselling and their network can not handle the load.
I've got high end server from WholeSaleinternet.I've been with Wholesaleinternet for 4 months now and I am extremely happy with them.Got an awesome server for a cheap price, a Quad-Core Xeon 8 Processor (3.0GHZ), 32GB RAM, 100mbit port link. Support:
Sales support is slow but tech support is fast!
That you very much Aaron/Wholesaleinternet!, keep up the good work!
I have posted an review earlier as well for 2 month : 2 month review
Let me summarize my experience so far,
Technical Support - 10/10 Really fab. even though I was on semi-managed plan, they never made me feel I was on a semi it always felt as if I was under complete management, they did every task I had asked them to do, which I didn't get on any other semi-managed host earlier.
I have no sort of complaints about their technical team, they tried to solve some problems which were due to the billing dept.
The minimum response for a ticket generally around 10-15mins and the completion with in an hr.
Billing Dept - This is some dept. that has kept me in wonder-land. Some times the replies were so pleasing and most other times the tickets are ignored. From, almost 2nd r 3rd month, the billing dept. tickets don't get regularly replied and used to bump the tickets in order to get a response to the query. Which I got some how, in a apologizing manner (no complaints for that :p)
Now, for the past 1 month we have been having some serious problems.
First, I had recd. some black-listed ip's when we joined virpus, we failed to check them (mistake on our end agreed 100%), which probably even they might not have been aware of.. As, we had a minor mis-understanding with godaddy during domain registration, my friend registered the domain using one of our partner address who resides in Singapore, where as the registration was done from India. Godaddy, assumed this was a spam registration and refunded the amount. So, we had to register the domain through another partner who resided in India. Godaddy was cool after we gave them the complete details, where they wanted some ID proof, and we provided them.
Our ip was on the black-list, we thought since our domain was spam-listed for a day, (until godaddy took it off) it made the hosts to assume the domain was black-listed, so we had manually submitted forms and proofs to most of the anti-spam agencies and mail providers, where they took the ban off the ip with in 15-20 days after we joined virpus.
Our domain was no longer under black-list, but ip was still under black-listed in some sites, such as rediff, it took more than 2 months to set the things straight at rediff, where we did some config added from the tech.dept. such as setting up spf record, and did a few tweaks here and there.
Even after making all these efforts, our ip was still under black-list of some ISP's. Our main domain (the domain which was under bl list earlier) loads well for every user, but our child domains where we have blogs and other activities do not load for lots of users. The ping results in the internet gives 100% but on their particular systems it gives no ping. Some times, the site loads wierdly such as,[url] might load but [url]might not load, and vice-versa, some times local ping fails but site loads, its all wierd and we found the reason to the problem to be ip after some minor confirmation from our end. We were losing our revenue of more than 60% just because of the failure of loading on the site, the tech. dept used to ask the ips which are facing prob to check if they are blocked, but its not possible to give ips of users who visit as guests and others, we have noted reports on other sites that our site wasn't loading for them. We still were able to give few ips for check and found them not-blocked on the ip. The sites are able to be viewed for all from proxy sites such as stage6.info but we can't ask each viewer to go to proxy site to view if they are unable to load, it will become ridiculous and we might lose our entire traffic some day.
We had shifted our domains temporarily to other vps where we noted none of the users had a single complaint, we were there for more than a week, which ensured the problem was not the domains but the ips, again after returning to the virpus hosts, we had created 3 tickets to sales/billing dept. to issue fresh ip's, got 0 reply and mailed to mr.Ken using : kenneth.odem@virpusnetworks.net got no reply after 48hrs.
We have to agreee, Earlier,mr.Ken was so helpful he helped us when we didn't have any funds to issue, since we had an dispute with an item where our payment was delayed by paypal. So, we had paid them almost 10 days later than the due date where mr.Ken was so helpful and saw to it our VPS could stay online despite the payments not been released.
In thanks, we had directly mailed our check we got from an ad-agency, which again made around 5-10 days in the payment, which made our balance stand in the positive note, we have our balance in the account for the past 3 months so that there are no dues left.
But, in the past 1 -2 months the replies have been disappointing.
We planned to leave virpus and join other host, where we burnt our hands, we looked for other reputed VPS and had a few in mind after our staff suggested few good organizations(don't prefer to name them here as it would be mis-leading).
Since, virpus wasn't ready to refund the amount in the credits we decided to continue with virpus atleast as a sideby host. Later, some how our members suggested we used virpus as a main host, so we wanted fresh ip's to get rid of the damn problem we are having but we have recd. no response for the past 1 week.
Now, lately after the maintenance our VPS was down for approx. 26-27hrs on april 25th Saturday, where our traffic is usually on the weekends. We lost the compelete traffic and revenue. When we asked if it come under credits, we got response as : This was the result of scheduled maintenance we cannot, it would not qualify under our SLA. (just giving the main result statment off the entire reply recd. from sales). Its some thing we would like to regret but for sure this isn't some issue, which could make us think to get to a new host.
The reply from the sales dept. has made our staff making funny betting, as one would win if we get a reply and other would if its not replied with in 48hrs, lately the first one is winning () due to lack of communication.
This might be our last month. Our next due date major amount would be taken from the credits, so a very little amount would exist in the account. We will stay with them until our amount with them is spent.
We had enjoyed really good with the tech. dept but the sales dept has been really poor in the recent past. I am forced to say this as even after mailing we haven't got response where, mr.Ken stated if our tickets were lost or some thing, mail to him but either didn't work so far.
Once, earlier when we requested for change of ips we were said some $7 or some thing would be charged for the swap, when we made other enquiries about it we didn't get a response till date
My tickets which lay un-responded: 203497 509467 385781
509467 and 385781 are double-post of the ticket, but got reply for none of the above tickets. Was expecting a reply for 1 atleast.
I was ready to pay excess charge for the new ips as there some mistake from my end in failure to check the ips before getting them but I wanted some concession as the major mistake was from their end while dispatching ips. I am not refusing to pay but I wanted the concession, got no reply and the above tickets are a proof of them.
Our staff online time and their live chat time don't tally, so we can't make any contact to them on live as well.
I am not sure if this is mis-understanding or what, but it has been a mixed experience for me. For sure, their sales crew have to be increased that's some suggestion I would strongly do.
I can recommend this host to any one for the tech. support they provide but can't guarantee them for the sales dept. replies based on my past/recent experiences.
Totally my site down for around ~30hrs including all the maintanence and other reasons, it could be a bit less but I am rounding it off, for sure its more than 28hrs
My over all rating: 7.5/10 Tech. Dept - 10/10 Sales/Billing Dept - 5/10
my site submitted for review via report feature I tried to give all my experience on virpus and I am not against any one for joining virpus nor have any fights with virpus team.
May be if we get response from sales we might still consider continuing with virpus but that stands low at the moment.
First off they did not setup my server for nearly 2 days. I bitched and was apologized about that. They said I would get 10% off my next month.
I proceed to get everything running and start setting up my domains and then blamo its gone! It was reset they said even though I did not have a remote switch. I asked them why they did that and they insisted it was me. Whatever. So I setup everything again and was getting horrible speeds for my photography site. The hell???? They promised me the world when I signed up with them. I also got to deal with "outsourced tech support" from india that was not helpful.
I finally get things running but its still a slow *** server and they try to tell me I needed to upgrade to a much faster plan and get a better processor and memory. I tell them screw that they are throttling my bandwidth. Like memory and processor are gonna make a difference for 3 websites 1 with forums and 1 for photography then my personal site.
Can you share with me about your experience with WBS as a provider? Including account management, support and of course quality of the network, Also I am interested whether they really have a good South America connectivity.
I have been using 1 and 1 web hosting for almost 3 months now. In that time my site has never been down. I use them to host my website but i use google App for my email server.
In the three months that i have been hosting with them i have only had to put in one ticket due to a mysql database issue. Which then turns out something that i have done.
I would recommend 1 and 1 to my friends and family.
Since I've been noticing a thread about how this company is a scam and a fraud and will take your money and run.... I wanted to post my review of them.
Super VPS #2 ($9.95) was bought on 11/21 at 5:42 PM. I received the VPS login information about 4 hours later.
I have this VPS for a VPN server that I run for my personal use. I have so far had 100% uptime and nothing has been wrong. Everything is working great.
I have sent in a number of ticket with things that I need to be enabled for the VPN to work. All of my tickets were responded to within a reasonable time limit. I say reasonable for the following reasons:
1) I used to work in the hosting business and it's almost impossible to give a hour resolution unless you have a big time staff
2) this VPS in UNMANAGED so I didn't expect support to be online waiting for my ticket Andy has been a great person and I truly thank you for everything you've done on my VPS for me.
The VPS has great connections to the internet. Although I ALWAYS prefer that Cogent be left out when I buy a server or VPS, this one came with it but most of my routes take Level 3 and Internap so I am perfectly fine with it. They also setup rDNS for me in a matter of minutes.
I have pushed 4GB so far and am not having any problems with any one else's VPS affecting mine.
So to sum it up:
Support = 8/10 (If you offered a guaranteed response in xx minutes that would be great)
Network = 9/10 (I prefer not to have Cogent since they send you all over the USA unlike other carriers)
Price = 10/10 (Find me a $10 VPS that offers all this on a stable NOT OVERSOLD node)
Uptime = 10/10 (So far so good!)
Overall Experience = 9/10
If you are looking at a VPS and just want to try this out, you really can't lose anything with this $10 plan. I would highly recommend The NY NOC.
Note to mods: I have submitted my IP and info through the ticket system.
Package offered to WHT: Unmanaged 128MB RAM 10GB Space 300GB Transfer HyperVM / LxAdmin Root Access 2 IP Addresses $9.95/mo US 10mbit/s (true)
I have been a customer of this provider for almost two months now. They have provided great support (especially concerning their response time). Uptime has been 99%+ as advertised - very reliable.
The package they offer above is one of the cheaptest I have found on these forums or on the net. Most others offer similar packages but only provide 1 IP and 150GB/mo transfer. If this company continues with well managed servers and customer support, I believe they will be well worth the investment a customer makes.
