I got this email from DH
********************************
Hello,
This is just a note to let you know your DreamHost account has been
disabled for violation of our Terms of Service listed here:
http://www.dreamhost.com/tos.html
Specifically, section 8 of Material Products, "Customer agrees to not
engage in activities pertaining to Black Hat SEO, Spamdexing, and so-
called "Scraper sites." These can all have a severely detrimental
effect on server performance and are not permitted."
As such, we have now closed your account effective immediately and
refunded all your money. It should show back up on your credit card
within 3-4 busines days.
Please do not attempt to sign up for service with DreamHost again in
the future.
I got my first dedicated server, So I'm not sure if this is what typically happens to everyone on every dedicated server setup, or if it's just my bad luck, or if it's a reflection of the guys at FDC.
At this point, I'm not sure if I should stick with them or not, it's been slightly weird, to somewhat humorous to just down right frustrating.
Only good thing is, it's not an actual production server, I was just seeing how FDC was as a company before I comitted. So other than the upfront cost and time spent dealing with this, we haven't thankfully impacted our customers in anyway.
(1) Contact sales, no response for two days. (*) contacted them on friday, so I figure that was probably the delay in the response, quite understandable.
(2) They said they'll have to contact me by phone (*) Sure not a problem, please contact me within these hours...
(3) They contacted me out of the hours specified (*) ugh...maybe I didn't make myself clear in the email, oh well whatever, atleast they did contact me.
(4) Was promised server will be up by tomorrow (*) Oh okay, he sounded nice on the phone
(5) Servers were not up by tomorrow had to email to find out what's going on (*) They just got their shipment in and everything will be setup by the end of the day.
(6) It wasn't set up by the end of the day. Contacted them again.
(7) They got it up the next day, Server finally up, but I can't even ping it. (*) Took them a day but they got that resolved
(8) I can finally ping it but I can't remote into it. (*) I'm guessing someone forgot to enable RDP?
(9) Get another bill, Server 2008 Standard $20 more dollars (*) I've never requested a update from web edition to standard. Maybe with all that reinstalling of the server, someone felt like upgrading me without seeing If I wanted the upgrade or not? Or maybe Remote desktop isn't possible in Web Edition and they upgraded me, if that's the case cool, if not I'm not sure why the upgraded me from Web to Standard.
You figure it's clear sailing from here on out. Grab all my windows updates.
Right click on my computer, left click on properties...Windows not activated, automatic update will be done in 2 days.
(11) Contacted support, can I validate now, or just let it validate in 2 days. (*) Support says it's not a problem and just to validate it now
(12) Validation failed. (*) OMG this can't be happening...opened up a ticket.
(13) It looks like it was the wrong key, and we're waiting for msoft to get us a valid one it'll only take an hour.
3 hours later it's still not validated. They say they'll do it, and they'll email me, weird thing is they closed off the ticket? aren't things done by ticket status, if the ticket is closed then how do they know it needs to be done...
FDC is nice and all, decent response times on tickets, usually within 5 minutes, I've had response times with other companies(registrar) avg time was a day.
Anyhow I must be driving them nuts with all the tickets I've opened up, don't think it's any fault of my own though. Like I said earlier I'm not sure If I should stick with them or not, Is this typical? or is it just my bad luck, or is it just FDC?
Recently I had a "falling out" with DreamHost. I had their downtime and everything everyone else experiences, and I was ok with that. I could look past the small problems and love DreamHost for the good things it offered. The good cheap things(Shared Hosting).
I was running a small video blog(externally hosted videos) with WordPress as my street pimp. Everything was going great. It started out slow, as most sites do, but I was really happy to be seeing 1.5-5K unique hits daily. This went on for a good 2 months lovely. I was very satisfied. Well one day I became "Mr Big" and hit 12K in about 10 hours. DreamHost quickly turned my account off, as I was affecting the other sites on the server that I shared. Understandable. Well they eventually referred me to their VPS (dreamhostps.com)and I quickly signed up, thinking I had just solved all my problems.
Haha, what a lying **** she turned out to be. Promising me love and compassion, but only bringing deceit and pain. Spending an extra $25/mo(250 MB/250 MHz guaranteed) I thought I was golden. Now I cant get 50 uniques an hour without getting a Internal Server Error. WHY DREAMHOST?! WHY MUST YOU HATE ME??
Im currently looking to get away from DH. I cant stand these problems. I need something that can withstand 15K unique hits on a mildly modified WP site serving external videos. What are my options?
I guess I should also include my budget... which isnt much at all. Im not going above $50/mo, but would love to get something around $35-45.
I spent an afternoon completely away from computers, and when I got back, I received this email from the Dreamhost Security Bot: -----
We have noticed your myacct user causing a large amount of load on the webserver. We also noticed that domains under this user are running outdated web software that may be hackable. Often times when domains get hacked the hackers will launch malicious processes that use a great deal of CPU time and thus increase the load on the machine caused by your user. This does not necessarily mean that your sites are hacked, but they could be. To ensure that your user is not compromised and contributing to server load unnecessarily (and, also not engaging in illegal activity typically associated with these types of hacks) we ask that you review the following and act accordingly.
Comment: so far, so good
Most commonly hacking exploits of this nature occur through known vulnerabilities in outdated copies of web software (blogs, galleries, carts, wikis, forums, CMS scripts, etc.) running under your domains. To secure your sites you should:
1) Update all pre-packaged web software to the most recent versions available from the vendor. The following site can help you determine if you're running a vulnerable version: [url]
- WordPress installations need to be updated to the current release of 2.8.5.
- Joomla installations need to be updated to the respective current secure release: 1.0.15 or 1.5.14.
- Any old/outdated/archive installations that you do not intend to maintain need to be deleted from the server.
The (OUTDATED!) domains above have been disabled by renaming the domain directory to end in "_DISABLED_FOR_POSSIBLE_EXPLOIT__CONTACT_DREAMHOST". Please do not reinstate them until you are ready to immediately upgrade them, or until you have already upgraded them. -----
So, nine of my sites were disabled, for a period of four hours, with NO ADVANCE WARNING from Dreamhost.
I send them a response, pointing out that:
1. I run a tripwire program, integrit, on a daily basis. It showed no evidence that any of these sites had been hacked.
2. My access logs showed no increase in activity on this date.
They wrote, "We have noticed your myacct user causing a large amount of load on the webserver." Well, I certainly would like some details on this, but I haven't received any.
Here's part of the response I got: -----
In the case of some of the domains that were disabled your softwares were years out-of-date. ------
no. Wordpress 2.8.4 was released August 12, 2009. Joomla 1.5.12 was released July 1, 2009. The only software that was "years" out of date was on two sites that had been disabled by me six months ago.
It's clear that these people are making things up as they go along. All they really had to do was send me a note saying, "Hey, Bob, could you update these Wordpress and Joomla sites sometime in the next few days?"
All was good until last month, i request to reinstall os 3 days later they told me that server i'm renting will be replaced do to hardware problem. So takes another 1 days to setup another server. Ok server was up with what ever they claim better hardware. Problem is w/tech support! They don't respond on tickets what so ever+ they will close your ticket w/out resolving the issue. now im waiting for past 3 hours for them to reboot my server and so far nobody moved a finger. Im glad this service month to month. This will be my last month with lame tech support company. Advice STAY AWAY or you will lose customers and waste money.
I inquired about this sales. New company good price Good service. WRONG.
So I get on live chat and talk to Mike and tell him all the requirements I ahve He says no problem pay for managed hosting at $25 a month and we will install all of that for you. So i go to check out enter in there coupon code for 20% off for lifetime and when i get to the paypal page to pay whole different story. Says 20% first month then regular price the rest. So I cancel out of that go back to live chat and get Mike I tell him what happened he says no it is 20% for life. So i take his word for it and head back over to checkout. This time it wont let me there site has a problem and wont complet checkout. So back to live chat I go. this time they transfer me to victor. Who informs me they will only install my stuff if I pay $25 a month and pay them $50 and hour. I tell him I have a guy to install it all for one-time fee of $35 can you do it for that no our fee is $50. Plus they want to charge me $25 a month for fully managed. When i can forget the fully managed and only pay one-time $35. Victor found he would rather argue with me and then try and insult me about a typo error.
Stay away they will not be in business for long. See bottom of chat below. ....
About two weeks ago serverbeach null routed one of our servers for over 48 hours with no proof of an attack what so ever. We would randomly see it back online for 5 minutes at a time and the server was perfectly fine. No lag, no attacks, no nothing then boom nullrouted again.
They claimed the traffic the server was receiving was too much for the 10mbit port we were paying for (after we waited 48 hours to receive a useful response) so we were forced to upgrade to a 100mbit port. No big deal, they upgrade us to 100mbit and 10 minutes later the server is online without any issues what so ever. Today we find out the server has been nullrouted once again and we have not had a response from them in hours.
Not to mention when we called support the first time we heard a party in the background and it was impossible to talk due to all of the loud noise and yelling. We were promised an update within 30 minutes, never heard back.
Today.. my account is suspended because they said my .torrent files they found on their site are copyrighted.. Yes.. I mean.. the actual .torrent files.. NOT data files..
Servage is the worst webhosting I have ever hosted with. From continuous cluster problems to stupid billing issues.
When my website is not giving a 404 error there are mysql problems.
This is a hard lesson learnt. I will never recommend or host with them again.
I wired them $90.30 for balance due since July. My banking institution even gave me the reference number and other transaction details. The funds never returned to my account. To this date their dumb billing department cannot locate the payment. When I contact supported they continually gave some cryptic message that is of no help. I forwarded them screenshots of my bank account and even gave the reference numbers provided by my banking instition, still no dice, account suspended.
To add insult to injury they added another period of webhosting to my balance owed so it now totals $180.60 owed and I lost revenue from my search campaigns.
STAY AWAY FROM SERVAGE.NET. THEY ARE NOT WORTH IT.
I have posted before a topic regarding the same issue that Startlogic and her partner/sisters ' Ipower,Ipowerweb and dot5hosting' are very very bad that you should wait 30 days to get ticket resolved but today i found a great website created against startlogic with about 30 bad reviews against it and proofs [url] ....
I went with HostGator based on the number of positive reviews I saw on this site. However I think I need to warn people to stay away.
I am on hostgator server #414. The server is so overloaded that it often has server loads >20. Currently its server load is in the 40's and the administrative cpanel is unusable. My site has been down twice in the past month (due to excessive loads crashing the server).
When contacted, their response is always "we'll boot the person causing these excessive server loads." This is fine, expect I shouldn't have to be the one policing their servers and letting them know that there is a problem.
I'd advise everyone to go with a host (even one that is a bit more expensive, say in the $10-20 range) that doesn't oversell. I know I wish I did. If anyone has recommendations for such a host feel free to send them my way.
how a webhosting compay name PC-core.net troubled me.
If you have forgotten the case; here is brief overview what happened,
I tired ordering new dedicated box (was an offer) but on payment page they had problem. So few days later i told there was problem with payment page and couldn't pay. So they said now its fixed pay now then will setup a DEDICATED boy with PHP/Apache/MySQL configured with required libraries as i had told them. So I even ordered Cpanel/WHM along. Thought was a good deal.
I got an email saying will be setup in FEW HOURS.
Waiting more than 5-6 hours; when enquired about it didn't get any reply. So in haste FILED CHARGEBACK in paypal. As soon as i filed they started responding saying the server was on its way... HAD they told that before clearly I wouldn't have to take such step.
So, I closed the dispute.
When I got my box, It was missing many stuff.
FIRST EXTRA backup HDD that i ordered. SECOND php was not configured to work along with MySQL and other libs were missing.
When asked about the issue; for HDD was told will be added in few hours later. So If i had not checked properly, they would have simply charged for that and would have never installed it.
Now when asked about second case; they told its not their work to install all PHP/MySQL stuff...
Why did they promise in the first place about the thing they were never going to deliver?
Ok, I tried my hands with WHM/Cpanel to get MySQL and Php working but I failed. So i thouhgt of cancelling the whole server itself. After getting rude replies regarding any support.
So I had made payment on 31st may 2008 for server. I cancelled server on 10th June 2008 (both from their client area and sending email to their support also).
I lost $120 bucks. Did get a lesson there are companies who promises BUT DONT DELIVER.
Now today suddenly I get an email from their support THAT I AM OBLIGED to pay another MONTH BILL too....
HERE IS EXACT EMAIL =========================================
Thank you for choosing PC Core for your hosting needs. This email is a reminder that you currently have a balance with PC Core, due to an invoice that is been created. You are currently responsible for paying Invoice #5222 which was generated on 11/06/2008. This invoice is currently due on 25/06/2008. According to our records, you currently pay with PayPal. Please submit this payment using the information below to avoid possible service interruption. Invoice: 5222 Invoice Ammount: $119.90 USD Invoice Due Date: 25/06/2008
================================
Now why am I still obliged to pay. WHEN I HAD paid on 31st may 2008 for SERVER till June 30th, 2008?
Are these guys trying to irritate me first by GIVING NO REFUND to me and sending such email EVEN AFTER I HAVE CANCELLED WITH THEM?
Every day there is downtime. At least 50% of the time. Also, if the site is not down, it is so slow to load that it times out in my browser.
I also asked the administrator (apparently some kid, after doing heavy research on these forums) on their hosting forums if I was allowed to host a certain type of script on his site. He said yes, then 2 days later he edits his post and changes it to "no" after I sign up.
Stay away from this provider! Last months I am down straight for 7 days but they promise to improve they service and I give them a chance, now I am down for 3 days straight with no response from them, here the proof: ....
This thread to make sure no one else falls for IndyaHozting.com
I had a reseller hosting account for hosting as well as domain sales. WHM panel for hosting loads extremely slow, and domains are never activated when i pay the money from my debit account with them. Everytime i have to send a mail to them asking for activation, really frustrating.
Then, last month (August 2007), their server got hacked and someone defaced all websites hosted with them and put up a really pathetic photo there, shame on everyone. When i called them and asked abt it, they didnt care to apologize, instead the guy said that its clients responsibillity to backup sites, and they cant be held responsible for the data loss.
I have hosted around 50 sites with them since January 2007. There was another hack attempt around March, that time someone hacked and hosted a phishing bank site (Canada bank!), and we got a call from Mumbai Cyber crime cell, and Indyahozting cancelled our hosting account!, we made really hard work to get all our hosting plans back. They behaved like some sort of overlords.
There are downtimes everyday, and its normal to be blacked out for a few hours everyday, the reason, they say "Servers need to be restarted once a week, so only this downtime". Havent they ever heard abt Dual processor servers and about hot swapping ?!!!!!!!!
They never respond to your email, and you have to mail atleast 5 times to get a simple one word answer. Please dont call those guys, u will regret it.
And, they sucessfully corrupted the database of my wordpress site i developed for 6 months. I thought wordpress was unbreakable, but, their CPanel and Fantastico itself got broken and SQL server was not working. My site is still offline after a few months this happened, i just lost interest to write everything from start.
And finally, i started to move to Godaddy, i am really fed up with Indyahozting, they are changing their servers after the last hacking (they said so), my old sites are still hosted there, will have to wait and see whether this new server is hack proof.
And, dont worry abt tech support even if they reply, they are clueless abt most modern technologies.
Anyway, stay away from IndyaHozting, i thought of moving to ************, but, they have a worse review on this forum, so, Godaddy and Netffirms are my new hosts...
Beware of WEBSERVE.ca - I opened an account with them 2 weeks ago and it was the worst experience I have ever had with a host. My gripes with them:
-In their advertisement, they say their Windows VPS Starter package comes with a 10-license Plesk installation, however I found out that you have to actually request it to be installed after you order the VPS - it isn't preinstalled. I put in a support ticket through their system for that to be done, but they never replied to it - even after the 72 hour response period stated in their Terms of Service.
-Their technical support is incredibly slow and useless - I had problems getting my mail server setup (port 25 being blocked, could not send outbound mail) so I used their online chat. I got a technician online and explained my problem to her - to their credit this was at 3am in the morning and there was actually someone manning the live chat. However the rep was utterly idiotic...
I asked her if there was a smarthost I could use, since my local connection (Rogers) was probably blocking port 25 on their end, which is why I could not telnet to it....she was clueless....she then told me she will look into the issue and email me back in 20 minutes. 2 hours later I still had no response... I tried searching their FAQs and KB, but there was no information there about smarthosts, and nothing in any of the guides they sent me. I emailed the rep back, asking about the issue but she never replied. I finally got pissed off and cancelled the service after 4 days (still waiting for my refund) and switched to GoDaddy VPS. Funny thing is after I cancelled, the tech support rep emailed me back saying the reason I couldnt send email is because my nameservers were incorrectly pointing to GoDaddy, which is why I could not send email properly LOL!!
I'm now with GoDaddy VPS and so far it's been great - their self-help centre is extensive and has all the info I'm looking for and also when you put in a troubleticket, someone actually RESPONDS to it. Moreso I have 512MB guarenteed ram (up from 256MB from Webserve), have a 30 DOMAIN Plesk license (instad of Webserve's 10 domains) and am paying 15 bux less a month!
Just read about some deal they're having where they're selling you a domain and 2 years of unlimited bandwidth hosting for 24 dollars or so. Is this legit?
Is quality sacrificed for this kind of pricing?
I'm currently with downtownhost and they are amazing by the way but if it's that cheap, I might be forced to switch.
it says domain is already in system. it seems the previous guy was hosting it on dreamhost. basically they said I can't host this domain, and that i have to pay extra to have it added. anyway to circumvent this?
i have decide to buy hosting plan on dreamhost with a discount coupon of 24$ per year, i want to know whether this offer is valid for year or for ever.
I've been a DreamHost customer for a few years now. I like to remain loyal to one brand, but I just can't stand DreamHost's down times (My website is down as I am writing this). I enjoy their cpanel a lot, and I was wondering if anyone can suggest me a few alternatives. I am currently on shared hosting with over 10+ domains. I read about, ANHosting, BlueHost, and HostGator. I want something fast, and I might even settle for a cheap VPS. However, I don't know how much resources do I use, so we will have to work out the details if I choose a VPS.
when you sign up for DreamHost account, the billing page says
Promo codes/referrers are for first time customers only. Therefore, if you use one you may not host a domain ever previously hosted with DreamHost on this account.)
I have already used to for $ 97 off coupon for one year, so if i sign up again with new account,
My account which was hosted for over a year with DreamHost has been disabled on 25th November without any prior notice or reasonable explanation. They only said:
---- Your account has been disabled for Terms of Service violations.
Specifically, the clause you violated is:
Customer agrees to not engage in activities pertaining to Black Hat SEO, Spamdexing, and so-called "Scraper sites." These can all have a severely detrimental effect on server performance and are not permitted. You must find hosting elsewhere. We will not re-enable your account under any circumstances.
Terri H ---- I swear I have never engaged in such activities. I asked them to clarify the action and tell me the problem domain. But they told me nothing about that. Even if I did such things (I swear I didn't), do they have a right to prevent my access to my files and databases? How can I move to a new host without these data?
I have multiple domains on my account and 2 of them is very important to me. One of them have 9000 unique hits per day and brings a good adsense income. I cannot rebuild these websites because they are products of two years effort.
Now I'm begging them to let me access my files and mysql databases but they do not answer my tickets and emails. I lost my bearings and don't know what to do!
I was disturbed by a posting on DreamHosts blog. I try to stay current on hosting news and sometimes it involves looking at others Blogs. This example is not NOT to treat a customer
[url]
Even though the customer contacted the wrong department, this is NOT the way to handle these issues. I have personally received calls on my personal cell phone because they found it on one of the domains I own (whois I assume). I still take the call and work with the customer to resolve. I will never even think about doing this. Your Thoughts?
some largeish download file links to test my download speed with. I need some from Bluehost and Dreamhost. If you have a link for another host on the west coast feel free to post it.
I have use 2 years in dreamhost and feel good until This month!
Some of my websites becoming slow when visit. some are not!
I write to them and they said they can move my 1 website to another apache, they think maybe problems on apache. BUT after they moved sucessfull, my website is not reachable! and said: bad http-conff etc.
These days are very bad experience with them, today i found they start their unlimited ALL hositng package, i am not sure if this is related with my website was slow.
Acturally, I do not need so big and traffic hosting on DH, i rather to choose a good performance and speed hosting, NOT a oversell hosting company!
I must say: i feel it is ok in past years, but recent i am not happy with their hosting service.
My question: Is there a better hosting company than dreamhost? i need 10g spaces,200-400gb month traffic,can host 3-5 domains.
