IWeb8 Technologies - A Flat Out Nightmare

I warn you, there is not a single good thing to be said about iWeb8 after our vast experience with them so if you want cliffnotes, picture a man shuffling through around 100 emails, invoices and chat logs while screaming in frustration. I�m attempting to piece together a structured account of our experience at iWeb8 Technologies through all that so bear with me here.

We run a non-commercial website that receives around 20 million page views per month. The problem is we quickly outgrew our technical know-how and had a pickle on our hands once our dedicated server at HostGator started buckling under the pressure. Friday is our most active day, as that�s when we have new content for our members � it�s also the day when our server became virtually inaccessible due to the traffic. We needed a solution, because HostGator basically told us to upgrade our machine or stop bothering them, [click here] for that story.

We narrowed our choices down to 2, SoftLayer or iWeb8 Technologies. We called them both up and learned about their datacenters and what direction we should go with our situation. SoftLayer�s salesman misunderstood a bit (as we later learned, more on that later) and offered us an overwhelmingly costly setup (upwards of $1500+ per month). iWeb8 �s sales representative �Brian� reeled us in with a couple promises �
1)The solution they outlined to us (2 web servers, 1 database server) would work.
2)If we opted for Level 5 management ($149/month) they would �treat our servers as if they were their own� (word for word)

We were very excited and worked out the details with them. We were convinced to go with a 12 month plan which would save us money in the long run. Our server manager suddenly switched from �Brian� to �Patrick Bertrand� at that point. And then the problems started.

The very first Friday we were fully set up on their servers, we crashed. We crashed under less traffic than our single cheap dedicated server at HostGator handled. It took iWeb8 1 hour to reboot our server. The next Friday, we crashed. We were down for 3 hours before we were rebooted. On 11/08/07 We asked for a hardware diagnostic and an inquiry into why we were crashing with pretty much twice the power we previously had � they told us we should add 2GB more ram to our servers for $50/month each.

We had them install the 2GB on one server to do them in phases, and thus minimize downtime. After the installation of ram that server performed far worse than it ever did before, and shot up to 100% CPU usage with 1 user online. This was my first experience with the post 6 PM Janitors who man their support staff. Apparently after that timeframe all the knowledgeable techs go home. After hours of waiting and talking on live chat / phone (to the same person every time, the only person who answered�) I was basically told that nobody there could do anything and I would have to wait until 8 AM EST for a senior technician to look at it. OTHERWISE, I could pay $180/hour or some ridiculously high number to get it immediately looked at. That Level 5 support really pays for itself huh?

I hired an emergency outsource administrator to look at it, he quoted me at $200 until the problem is resolved which was a steal. He found that I didn�t need ram at all. It was in fact my faulty motherboard that was causing the problems on that server. Ooooooh! Thanks for doing your �hardware diagnostic� properly and telling us to upgrade our ram for $50/month iWeb8, you�re really looking out for your customers. Finally at 12:15PM EST noon the next day it was looked at and replaced.

Exactly 1 week later on 11/15/07 all of our servers went offline for an hour or two. We were told it was a network issue and it was resolved. Nice.

Now here�s where the monster problems started. On the evening of Tuesday 12/01/07 all of our servers went offline. We opened an emergency ticket and the Janitor responded saying 3 apache modules were missing (huh?) and that it was fixed. Thing is, it wasn�t fixed at all. All 3 servers were still offline and unreachable. Finally our outsourced server admin gets into one of them and sees the load at 150+ with a ton of httpd threads open. He runs netstat and concludes we�re being DDoS attacked. Swing and a miss again, iWeb.

After exchanging pleasantries with the Janitor all night the senior staff finally got in at 8AM. His conclusion was to shut down apache and wait it out, since iWeb8 has no DDoS mitigation systems. Great. 2 days pass and nothing improves. We talk with our server manager to find out if we can terminate our contract and take our business elsewhere due to the pile of [expletive deleted] they�ve dumped on us ever since signing us, and the uselessness of �Level 5� support. He responds saying, and I quote

�Concerning level 5 support, have you requested the monitoring service alerts to be sent to our sysadmin cell phones ? if you did please provide the original RT number so that i can investigate to see why it has not been done on our side�

Wonderful. So you�re basically paying for nothing until you use your psychic powers to determine that you need to request something you thought was assumed with your $149/month. Nowhere when we signed up were we told we had to submit a ticket to request that our Level 5 support is useful. He also mentioned that the original salesman was �wrong� in offering us the phrase �we treat your servers like they�re our own�.

He responds again saying the website is working from his side. We test from 3 ISPs and proxies and we can�t connect, so no, it�s not working. Our server admin determined that their solution involved blocking pretty much all incoming traffic except their own range. We once again requested that the contract be terminated, as we were blatantly lied to on multiple occasions and they�re threatening our website with their poor level of service. He says he needs to discuss it with the higher ups.

At this point I�d already moved my sites to a 2 web server 1 database setup at SoftLayer, they put my site under their Cisco Guard and their team actively worked against my DDoS attack, ending it within a few hours. I�ve been happily at SoftLayer ever since 12/5/07 without any issues on this setup. See my review of them by [clicking here].

Anyway, on 12/17/07 iWeb sends a global email to all their customers informing them that �Improvements will be made to night and weekend customer service�, thus admitting that they were actually manning their Janitors � too little too late though.

On 01/15/07 we still hadn�t heard from them (except for a couple dozen invoices that failed because we weren�t going to send them anything until this was finalized), so we talked to our lawyer and threatened legal measures on iWeb8 if we didn�t hear from them so that we could terminate the contract. On 01/16/07 we got an email from Patrick Bertrand confirming that the contract could be ended, they would send us the details later.

Turns out the details was they wanted 20% of the remaining contract value to terminate, which he ensured me was a �good deal� because �he knows his company and this is the lowest they�ll go�. Is he trying to sell me a car or what? At this point it�s whatever, if we can pay $1,495.26 (20% of the remaining contract) to make the iWeb8 nightmare end, let�s do it. So we did, on 01/25/08 we paid the entire amount and our contract was effectively terminated.

Now in March the nightmare returns. We receive an email from them demanding that we pay $740.00 for �services� rendered from the period of when he said he�d talk to the higher ups till we were waiting for them to do virtually nothing until we called them up in January.

At this point we�re weighing the option of paying off these swindlers and being done with it once and for all (even though they�ll probably come back to us in June with �interest� invoices on this current one) against fighting it. That�s where we�re at now� I hope this was enlightening for you if you�re considering falling for iWeb�s lies, random surcharges and all in all horrible service.