Hello,

Just wanted to talk my concerns with jumpline.com away...

I've been with them for almost 3 years now. They were ok, although in the rare cases I needed support their answer lagged several hours. And two occassions when my site was highlighted and many visitors came, the site was down. Blamed on my bad luck.

About a month ago they moved my site to an other server without notifying me. Some perl scripts that used the GD.pm perl module did not work. It turned out that GD is not installed properly on their new server. I've had several emails with them. First they told me that it is probably my fault, then acknowledged that the error was due to their misconfiguration.

Yesterday I did not receive any email to my pop3 box. Weird. Logged on and learnt that my quota was full. Well, I'm on the 100 mb plan with them, and I used only 77mb. Also, I've lost my guestbook's contents :(: the script could not write it, and it became 0 byte in size.

Well, this was the final ring to move on to another host.

rdx.

Most Psychologist's say talking about your problems, helps you rid of your anger.
Originally posted by rdx
Hello,

Just wanted to talk my concerns with jumpline.com away...

I've been with them for almost 3 years now. They were ok, although in the rare cases I needed support their answer lagged several hours. And two occassions when my site was highlighted and many visitors came, the site was down. Blamed on my bad luck.

About a month ago they moved my site to an other server without notifying me. Some perl scripts that used the GD.pm perl module did not work. It turned out that GD is not installed properly on their new server. I've had several emails with them. First they told me that it is probably my fault, then acknowledged that the error was due to their misconfiguration.

Yesterday I did not receive any email to my pop3 box. Weird. Logged on and learnt that my quota was full. Well, I'm on the 100 mb plan with them, and I used only 77mb. Also, I've lost my guestbook's contents :(: the script could not write it, and it became 0 byte in size.

Well, this was the final ring to move on to another host.

rdx.

Hostexp,

Yup, usually that helps. It appears though I haven't talked enough. I am still angry.

6 hours gone since my support ticket, no reply.

I discovered that this current problem came from the fact that jumpline changed my quota to 15mb. Why? I do not know. I've been on the 100 mb plan for quite some time, and I am paying for it. Actually files, including the guestbook and some minor log files, that were opened for addition could not be written back, and they are now 0 byte long. Awful :OOO

Stay away from jumpline.

rdx.

when alabanza based hosts move sites from one server to another, sometimes the quotas do not get set correctly. in their DSM they have the option to set up what the default quota would be. in jumpline's case it appears that # would be 15mb. that is why you got your initial quota set at 15 instead of what it should have been.

as far as the 6 hours for a support answer.... that is not all that terrible. typically if a support request is completed in less then 24 hours then most people are happy. (unless you are just sitting there clicking refresh on your email hoping that it will show up in a few minutes)

--> that is bogus about your scripts & guest book though! i would be pissed to :angry:

not defending them necessarily, just letting you know about a couple of things...

Nate,

Thanks for your message. Ok, I admit, I am not a professor of cgi sciences. The guestbook, however, was the one that is/was? available from Matt's script archives back in 1997.

Let me follow up with my Jumpline story.

Some 8 hours after my support request Jumpline's support guy responded. No word of apology, he simply wrote that he adjusted my quota back to 100 mb. :o

I then asked to restore my lost file from their backup. He told me that this would involve the NOC, and the time needed to do this is 72 hours.

Yesterday I wanted to login using ssh. Brick wall. Checking their serverstatus: http://serverstatus.jumpline.net -> my server's ssh service is out of order.

This morning I again wanted to login, now I get the message:
Sorry, you are not allowed to connect.

Wonder what comes next.

Better for you,

rdx.

I hope you paid monthly (and not annually) so there's no financial loss involved. :)

Jumpline saga continues...

I received a response to my support ticket asking why I could not login to ssh.

"We have changed our policy for SSH to better our security on all the servers."...
see http://support.jumpline.com/RSA.shtml

Using RSA could be better, ok, I do not know.

But why on earth did not they inform customers. Not a mention of it on their main server, newsline or the support server's frontpage.

....

rdx.

If you were to go to Jumpline's support page and got to fill out a support request form, you would notice the bright red lettering stating that this changed has happened.

http://support.jumpline.com/Support_Request_Interface/home.php3

They also have it listed in there special announcements section.;)

One more tidbit here, anyone? This might be the last one from me about jumpline. Although I still have one account with them, I'll move as soon as possible. Enough is enough.

jumpline.com has decided to change the way they host virtual clients. They've put us on VDS servers. It is not too bad in itself, but the way they do/did it, argh.

The first thing that hit me was that I could not login with ftp. Thought jumpline shot me down, or my password was hacked.

Then checking my website I realized parts of it worked, other parts did not, and there were pages that were obsolete.

Let's check what the control panel says. Oops, a new panel.

K, checking www.jumpline.com. What a surprise, they were upgrading things :o. They did not even send emails to their customers, they thought customers would figure out things.

I realized I could connect via ftp using my old password, which was abandoned some 6 or 7 months ago. The file structure has changed, files that contained the distribution lists of my mailing lists gone.

Fast email to support asking for the recovery of at least the mailing lists data. Ok, support response was fast, received it within an hour or so (the only good point for jumpline). They informed me that the old ip could still be used.

Then looking around my website:
- realized some cgi-s did not work - due to the changes in directories
- they copied files to the new server somewhen around 25 February. Uhh. A couple of files were modified since then. These changes are not present on the new server.

All in all, I'm very angry. I know the switch to the new model is not easy, but shouldn't they inform and instruct customers before they started this whole thing?

I have an account at venturesonline, too. Every time there was a planned downtime or change, they informed me well before. What a difference.

Is there a forum where jumpline.com customers can talk about things?

rdx.

I host epock.com with Jumpline ...

I share your pain.

Their 800 # is busy ... you can't even have a catch-all addy anymore ... and I can't shell in to get a db dump ...

I'm out as soon as I have that data ... which is several days old as it is ...

IMHO Jumpline have ballsed it up so spectacularly for two reasons :- (a) wanting to maximise their short-term profit by rushing off Alabanza as quick as they could; (b) no matter how quickly or slowly they'd 'upgraded', quite frankly, from the kind of schoolboy mistakes they've made in the process (both technical and commercial), they simply aren't up to the job.

I had http://www.vasting.com hosted on Jumpline, the forum from which I have now rebirthed on http://schwob.******** ; though it wasn't originally intended to be a forum for Jumpline complaints, I have no objection to it becoming so. ;)

You may be interested in http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.jumpline.com
OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.jumpline.com
OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
Linux Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) PHP/4.0.4pl1 3-Mar-2002 66.84.4.33 Jumpline.com, Inc.
Linux Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 Rewrit/1.1a ApacheJServ/1.0b5 PHP/3.0.12 24-Oct-2001 208.56.37.231 Alabanza, Inc.
Linux unknown 23-Oct-2001 208.56.37.231 Alabanza, Inc.
Linux Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 Rewrit/1.1a ApacheJServ/1.0b5 PHP/3.0.12 1-Nov-2000 208.56.37.231 Alabanza, Inc.
**sigh** outdated system software. also look at those 'uptime charts'

Jumpline is killing me...

Jumpline did the exact same thing with my website files.

See the message I just posted "Jumpline Class Action Lawsuit ?"

And if you feel Jumpline should be held accountable - please vote so on the new poll.

Good luck in your recovery efforts.

John B.
:angry:

I STILL have not yet been able to get them to restore my mySQL db...

My whole website is based around it...

Since THURSDAY my site has been without it...

Sent about 10 emails to Jumpline...

They told me to add the mhPHPadmin ...(THIS IS NOT MY PROBLEM! NOT HAVING MY DB IS!!!)

then one of the techs had the nerve to say, "Well, you do have a backup of the db?"

I should not have to do SQUAT....THEY screwed up royally and now are in deep trouble...

Wow, what a mess.

In Jumpline's defense, they did send out a snail mail dated 02/26/2002 that attempted to describe what they were trying to do....but....I have to admit that when I read it, something was not smelling very sweet.

I have known the Jumpline guys (Jason, Chris, Mark) since 1997 and I can tell you that they would never intentionally screw over any customer.

This screams of rushed migration to a different platform and, as a byproduct, not being able to access database / file backups is a HUGE problem.

It seems like to me anyways, that they should have done this migration a little at a time, in chunks small enough that they could easily handle all related problems within a few hours.

-Brendan

Did anyone else get a call from Alabanza?

I am a Jumpline reseller and I admit, I was not happy at all about the 'upgrade'. And in the midst of the confusion of trying to sort out things with my domains, I get a call from Alabanza saying that they heard the Jumpline upgrade wasn't going to well. This got me thinking, because I thought Jumpline was with Alabanza.

So I emailed one of the guys at Jumpline and told him that Alabanza called me and that I was thinking about going with them if I couldn't get everything fixed immediately. He called me and told me that Alabanza kicked them off their servers because they found out that Jumpline was going with Sphera (leaving Alabanza). he said that they got a 30 day notice befre their contract was being terminated.

After thinking about it for awhile, i think that I would rather stay with a company that can atleast be honest with me, rather than one that takes advantage of a ****ty situation (which they caused). This is poor way to do business, and I hope that you are all smart enough to stay away from Alabanza, or any of its other companies. Whoever they are.

Originally posted by armyman
Did anyone else get a call from Alabanza?

I am a Jumpline reseller and I admit, I was not happy at all about the 'upgrade'. And in the midst of the confusion of trying to sort out things with my domains, I get a call from Alabanza saying that they heard the Jumpline upgrade wasn't going to well.

Just like that, Alabanza calls you out of the blue? Mind if I ask what their reason was?


After thinking about it for awhile, i think that I would rather stay with a company that can atleast be honest with me, rather than one that takes advantage of a ****ty situation (which they caused).

I sincerely doubt that you know the full story. Not that I do either, but it's unlikely that Alabanza would just up and boot a customer the size of Jumpline on a whim.

FWIW, after experiencing Jumpline's service (or lack of) as a customer, all I can say is that this screwup of theirs doesn't surprize me a bit.

-Bob

Bob,

I agree with your reasoning on this. It's unlikely that Alabanza would just up and boot a customer the size of Jumpline on a whim.

I believe Alabanza is much larger than Jumpline. They know how many customers Jumpline has (or had) and what such a thing would do to Jumpline's customers. Alabanza have a reputation to protect in the industry - with their other clients, existing and potential etc.

What does Jumpline do to their clients that exceed limits or don't pay their bill? They just flip the switch and shut them down with very little notice. However, I can't imagine Alabanza doing that to Jumpline without having gone along with them for several months to get right. In this scenario if Alabanza learned Jumpline intended to switch providers (which Jumpline did), they may have given Jumpline 30 days notice and pulled their plug when the 30 days where up. But I suspect there's months of history behind this fiasco.

Alabanza booting Jumpline for no good apparent reason and with very little notice just doesn't make good business sense. Alabanza does not have to defend themselves. If Jumpline had a leg to stand on - they would come out and explain the truth to their customers or ex-customers I should say.

We will probably never know what happened for sure. But the fact remains, many people were hurt by what Jumpline did and they are still suffering, including me.

John B.

Here's the letter I just got from Jumpline. Check out the Feb. 7 post, I think you'll find this very interesting.
Here is the link to the letter on their site http://upgrade.jumpline.com/upgrade_information.phtml

Dear Jumpline.com Customers,


I understand that you have many questions about the upgrade, why we decided to upgrade and why it happened when it did. In this letter I will try to address all of your questions and concerns.


As you may or may not be aware, we had been exploring the possibility of changing our hosting platform since late last summer. There were a few reasons that led us to begin looking at other options, with the main focus being on a better connection (more available through-put), improved server reliability (new hardware, built specifically for hosting) and the ability to offer additional features and services to you, our customers. With our previous provider (Alabanza), we did not feel that these focus reasons could be resolved Therefore, it became apparent that a new solution had to be implemented.


Here is a Timeline of Events


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 2001

We finalized our partnership with Sphera to offer the Hosting Director as our platform.


December 2001

Beth Boy was hired as Director of Technical Operations. Because of her extensive experience in data center upgrades, Beth’s primary responsibility was to plan and implement the process of upgrading all of Jumpline.com’s hosted domains.

Read the Press Release: http://jumpline.com/press_releases/01_2002_2.htm


January 2002

Jumpline.com makes public our intentions to begin offering the Hosting Director as our new hosting platform through a press release located on both Jumpline.com and Sphera.com’s websites.

Read the Press Release: http://jumpline.com/press_releases/01_2002.htm


After much planning, we upgraded several hundred websites to the new hosting platform. This upgrade allowed us to uncover potential issues and set a realistic timeline for the entire upgrade process. At this time, we planned to begin the upgrade process with 10% of our hosted domains being upgraded on March 9, 2002, and continue with approx. 10-15% per week until the process is completed. This plan would allow us to address issues as we became aware of them, improving the support process for each upgrade.


February 7, 2002

We received notification from our previous network provider (Alabanza) that our contract would be terminated on or before March 7, 2002. This news was very unexpected, forcing us to expedite our schedule to ensure that all of our hosted accounts were moved before our servers were ‘unplugged’.

Read the Letter: http://jumpline.com/press_releases/letter.htm


March 5- March 7, 2002

The upgrade of all of our hosted accounts began on the evening of March 5th and concluded on March 7th.


Due to the timeline for this entire process, we were not able to do everything as we would have liked. We realize that some of you may still have technical issues which need to be resolved due to the upgrade. I want to assure you that we have been, and will continue to be working around the clock to resolve any and all outstanding technical issues as quickly as possible.


Our entire staff at Jumpline.com, along with the numerous consultants we have on site from Sphera, would like to thank you for your continued support and patience as we continue our efforts to improve your hosting experience. I personally apologize for not contacting you earlier with information relating to the upgrade, but with the possibility of having our service disrupted before we were ready with an alternative solution, we had to keep all correspondence related to the upgrade very quiet until we were ready to make the move.


I hope that this will help to address many of your questions regarding the upgrade process. I apologize for not providing this information to you earlier. Hopefully you will see this as our desire to openly communicate the current situation with you, and will allow you to feel more comfortable knowing that we are still here, and working harder than ever to assist you in resolving any outstanding issues.


I thank you for your time,


Sincerely,


Jason A. Beyke
Director of Operations
Jumpline.com

I am going to say one more thing on this:

Alabanza did not dump Jumpline randomly. The separation of the two companies was a long time coming and was certainly anticipated on both sides.

Period.

Coran, are you on Alabanza's payroll? If not, what are you thinking? Obviously because Jumpline was looking for a better solution, Alabanza had every right to terminate them.....is that what you are saying, if so, then you must be high,
I can't believe that anyone in this forum would think that this is cool. And if you do, what is wrong with you.

ArmyMan, I am not on Alabanza's payroll and I am not high. I also think that you are not hearing what I am saying.

If you really read my post, you would understand that Jumpline did not get a "seeya later" letter from Alabanza. I know for a fact that these two companies have been working on "going their separate ways" since last Fall.

There are always two sides to every story.

And as and aside....Who are you with 3 posts on WHT?

Originally posted by armyman
January 2002

Jumpline.com makes public our intentions to begin offering the Hosting Director as our new hosting platform through a press release located on both Jumpline.com and Sphera.com’s websites.

Read the Press Release: http://jumpline.com/press_releases/01_2002.htm


After much planning, we upgraded several hundred websites to the new hosting platform. This upgrade allowed us to uncover potential issues and set a realistic timeline for the entire upgrade process. At this time, we planned to begin the upgrade process with 10% of our hosted domains being upgraded on March 9, 2002, and continue with approx. 10-15% per week until the process is completed. This plan would allow us to address issues as we became aware of them, improving the support process for each upgrade.


February 7, 2002

We received notification from our previous network provider (Alabanza) that our contract would be terminated on or before March 7, 2002. This news was very unexpected, forcing us to expedite our schedule to ensure that all of our hosted accounts were moved before our servers were ‘unplugged’.

Read the Letter: http://jumpline.com/press_releases/letter.htm
It may have been a long time coming, but by Alabanza terminating their customer, not the other way around, I see it as basically an attempt to screw jumpline. There may have been other factors that I don't know about (example: jumpline didn't pay, etc.). I don't know anything about their business relationship and that example is just that, an example.

None of it was illegal, nor against any contracts (I presume), it is just bad business. At one time I was looking at alabanza. Since then, they've done things that have shown me where their interests lie. I'm just glad I abandoned the idea a long time ago.

As for the report of alabanza contacting resellers directly, it will be interesting if that message is echoed again here or elsewhere.

Originally posted by Chicken
None of it was illegal, nor against any contracts (I presume), it is just bad business. At one time I was looking at alabanza. Since then, they've done things that have shown me where their interests lie. I'm just glad I abandoned the idea a long time ago.

As for the report of alabanza contacting resellers directly, it will be interesting if that message is echoed again here or elsewhere. I feel the same way, with having had a bad experience with Alabanza almost being my provider practically three years ago.. I can say that I am glad that never panned out. I've read numerous discussions to back up that their business practices aren't very nice, and have had many friends who once used them move on to greener pastures.

As for Alabanza contacting individuals in the industry, I don't think this was targeted. Alabanza contacts many people to try to gain partnerships, for instance I recieved a call from an Alabanza sales person on March 8th.. did I call back? nope :D

Chicken - Elena I have a different view on this.

I don’t care about Alabanza. They deal with host, and host - resellers should be concerned with them, not host customers.

The fact is that Alabanza gave their customer - Jumpline 30 day’s written notice. Save the arguments about not enough time for Jumpline to do an orderly plarform migration etc., I don’t want to hear about it. This was going on for months and months before it actually happened.

Jumpline, on the other hand gave their customer(s) i.e. me Zero-0 notice. They just did it – made their provider-platform move knowing full well that there would certainly be problems because of the migration. Did they give any serious thought to customers? After 3 years, I would have appreciated them saying to me: we are going to migrate your account to a new platform soon, and its going to be great for you. We don’t expect any major or serious problems. But as a precaution we suggest that you back your site up daily for the next week or so until the migration is complete. Would I have left Jumpline if they sent me this kind of message? Come on – after 3 years I don’t think so. Save the lectures about you ought to back your site up daily anyway. I don’t do it and suspect many others don’t either. Jumpline was very good and dependable-reliable for all those (3) years, I guess I came to trust them. Apparently, under pressure, and perhaps in a panic of urgency, - in an instant of bad judgement-decision making they blew it. I attribute this mess to Jumpline’s lack of faith in their customers, leading to lack of communication with customers, most likely due to pressure (caused by Alabanza) and panic at Jumpline as a result of that pressure which threw their well made plans into chaos. That’s my opinion which is not based on many facts, only those that are available to me.

Now for lessons to be learned by hosting companies from all this. Host should have a little more faith in their customers, especially those customers that have been around a while. I read in these forums where host stated that they expected to lose 15 to 20% of their customers during a (their) platform migrations. If this is an accepted fact by host, then why not be up front about it. If a host has a good record and reputation, I believe being honest with their customers would help them preserve their reputations (and retain customers). And in the equation, host jumpers are just that, they are going to jump to another host anyway for one reason or another.

As for Jumpline, I will never forget or forgive them for the way they handled their platform migration and the problems-losses they caused me unnecessarily. As for my next host, as long as they deliver what I sign up for and are honest with me when they have problems – I’ll stick with them for years. Everything can’t always be 100%, most reasonable people realize this.

I hope this makes sense to hosting companies. Have a little faith in your customers and their judgement-decision making abilities. I believe if host give their customers a chance, most will find that their customers will work with them, and both parties will be protected and benefit from your honesty.

John B.
Almex

I am just reading the Jumpline thread. However, I am leaving my reseller account (different host btw) because of the same reason. I am floored the -lack- of communication that exists between hosts and clients. Hosts just seem to think they can do whatever they want and pray nothing ***ks up. And, if it does they will find some sort of twist to put the blame on the client.

Several years ago I had a single site hosted by Interland. Regardless what has happened in the recent past, one thing they did an excellent job at (IMO and your mileage may vary) is keeping me informed. They had a monthly newsletter, they had spotlighted sites of the month, they emailed whenever they were going to have maintanence problems. They kept me informed and I gladly overpaid for the privledge. There were NO surprises.

Hosts--- keep your clients and resellers informed on what is going on. Even if it is only a weekly email that says 'life is a beach, enjoy it'. If you inspect the successful MLM's you will find they have -one- thing in common...... communication with their customers and downline. Learn from it.

DR

John B., you are absolutely correct and the Alabanza/Jumpline issue is secondary to you, the customer. It is your choice whether to give them a bit of a break based on the things that happened, but of course, you are the one paying for the service, and you are the one with the site that doesn't work (I presume).

Ohh and please don't post the same message more than once. The other threas have been locked/removed.

Okay,
Since I have experience on some of this, I will post what I know about Alabanza contacting customers. I have had 'few' not many but a few customers of mine contacted and it seems like it was shortly after I complained about something being wrong with a 'BIG' resellers account. Then all of a sudden this 'BIG' reseller would either say they want to move to their own server and they have set up everything with Alabanza who will move their accounts of my servers for them. Okay, I guess it could be a coincidence, but I have some doubts about that. I had a reseller account on my own server just for a friend and he was contacted once about hosting with Alabanza as well. :rolleyes: It is terribly simple for them to see who my customers are and how many accounts they have. They are now loosing customers <based on what I read on these forums>

<opinion> Now, I do not know if they would stoop as low as to can a customer who is moving away, but they may have tried to keep this customer by working out a 'deal' and when they found this customer was leaving anyways they decided to cancel the contract earlier than expected when they tried to move his clients accounts as well. Regardless of the reason, it 'appears' to me that they did not have the migration plan ready and tested enough or else they would have know about any potential problems and fixed or warned customers about them. So perhaps there was short notice from Alabanza about ending their contract, which is really poor business, and I would like to see the truth come out.</opinion>

I personally have moved about 200 accounts over to CPanel so far. I had only about 2 problems which were easily fixed, and the customers are now quite happy. But I am really VERY careful about how this is done. We actually let the customers see the files and test their new site and only then when they say it's good will we close the old account. It has worked out quite well. Will I move more of my customers? ABSOLUTELY, I don't mind saving about $600 per server per month. But ONLY if they want to move. I just offer the added features and a little more disk space and they usually go without hesitation. Of course a few clients will always want to stay on Alabanza 'why fix what is working?' We will continue to support our customers on their servers as well, I just cannot see paying what I do to them and getting what I can get/offer elsewhere for about 50% less dough.

I guess we can all learn at least one thing about migrations, they are not easy, and if not well planned and even more well communicated, they can make quite a few unhappy clients.

For those who have considered Alabanza, past present or future. They offer a good product and IMHO there is no system easier to learn for a new host, or easier to operate from a billing->server manage->client manage-> control panel aspect. It does it all. The problems started a few years back when they decided to:
a. offer servers on a huge promo, got too many customers, support started to lack.
b. network problems started more and more frequently, no honest explanation, no permanent fix, kept coming back
c. they think they are the god of automated hosting an no one can tell them different, they will hold that opinion until there are two servers left in their NOC, and they will treat you like that as a customer. Well, they could be like than a few years ago, but times have changed


<posted anonymously so someone does not try to terminate my contract> :-)

Originally posted by Coran
ArmyMan, I am not on Alabanza's payroll and I am not high. I also think that you are not hearing what I am saying.

If you really read my post, you would understand that Jumpline did not get a "seeya later" letter from Alabanza. I know for a fact that these two companies have been working on "going their separate ways" since last Fall.

There are always two sides to every story.

Well if you have "facts", lets see them. armyman is probably just wanting to see your facts. I am sure others here would love to see these so-called facts too. Facts without proof are rumour or opinion.

Period.

whether to give them a bit of a break based on the things that happened, but of course, you are the one paying for the service, and you are the one with the site that doesn't work (I presume).

Chicken,

I will give Jumpline as much of a break as they gave me – that’s 0. As for paying for the service – that’s irrelevant to me at this point. No, my sites are definitely not working right now. My sites are not a hobby, or personal homepages. I am not a web guru either, but over a six year period I have managed to survive on the Internet and slowly build my web business to where I scrape a living from it each month. Now, most reading this will know what I mean when I say scrape a living from the web. As I said, I am not a guru so tuning my pages, getting listed on SE’s, ranking etc, etc. are hard work for me. I have some very basic-simple cgi scripts running on my sites. Yet I don’t even know how to install them, I have to job that type of stuff out. Yes a lot of this is simple stuff, but I’m not one to learn it all. I do my own site maintenance and simple changes only. I spend most of my time concentrating on my customers and the services I offer them. So for me the web, just like the computer I use is a tool to get work done and market my services – I don’t want to learn all the technical workings or aspects of what makes all the web tick or work. I do not want to be an expert in this area - there are a lot of good ones out there already. When I need a job done that I don’t know how to do, I pay someone knowledgeable to do it for me. This makes good business sense to me, and that’s what I do.

At this point, I estimate I’ve lost 4-5K in profit from lost sales so far this month because of this fiasco. But that will most likely prove to be the tip of the iceberg. How long it takes to rebuild my traffic and regain my customers etc. will be the real test. So I do not look at this as a one time loss, it’s long term – it will take months to rebuild and recover.

For one of my sites I’ve gone with DellHost. Why, well I don’t think they’re likely to sellout, go under etc. But most of all because I believe they understand that a web business’s livelihood depends on being on line. I’m hosted at the same center Dell is. Dell does 35 Million a day in sales over the Internet. I believe their operations people, above all else know when a server is down it’s costing money. For example, when Dell's offline it potentially cost them 1-1/2 Million dollars an hour. Dell’s retail and other sales are worldwide and are going on 24 hours a day. So I believe they have a full crew monitoring and tending the Op center 24 hours a day. This is not a sales pitch for Dell – I have no interest in them other than the hosting service they provide to me. Time will tell if they prove themselves worthy of my tiny account. For many companies that’s how they profit – from many tiny accounts.

This may seem cruelly unforgiving, but I would not let Jumpline host another one of my sites if they offered me unlimited free lifetime everything. The point is that hosting cost is a very small factor in my choosing a host. My most important concerns are dependability, reliability, stability etc. Cost is at about the bottom of my check off list for choosing a host, as long as it’s fair and not ridicules it’s not an issue.

I suspect that many people that read this will say – this guy is crazy. He says he makes a living off the Internet and doesn’t know or want to know anything about it – wow. I believe many people have tried this, most probably have failed. However, some, like me, hung in there, and well they’re making a living out of it. I’m a one man operation – no help from anyone. Yet I believe there are probably quite a few people like me out there. All we want is a good dependable host, then we pretty much want to forget about it. Like when I walk into my office and flip the light switch – I don’t even think about it, but I expect the lights to come on. I don’t want to think about the Turbines, Generators, Boilers, Pumps, and Transformers etc. I do not need to be an expert on power generation to get and have light.

The point of all this is, like one of the other post said J------e is killing me. Yes a host can kill you (almost)!

So there, I have all that off my mind now, I’m over my rage and anger at Jumpline. But as far as I’m concerned they are history with me. Most likely this will be my last post about Jumpline. I’ll just check back to see if any of the wise guys have anything to say about this post. And Chicken, I understand what you said about posting more than once, won’t happen again. Thanks.

John B.

Another very mad customer of jumpline after one week of recieving no emails and my web sites being down for most of the week, their standard copied and pasted support answers suck to say the least, I will never be able to estimate the actual amount lost by this bungled fiasco. I recieved this reply after 3 days without all the companies email accounts working at allYour problem has been resolved only to have my emails accounts stop working for a further 3 days, This is my first post here as i just stumbled on this message board by searching for other people efected by jumplines bad business support, and needed to let off some steam,

Thanks,


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jumpline Support Dept" <fault@supportmail.jumpline.com>
To:
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 11:26 PM
Subject: Jumpline Support Request


IMPORTANT: To respond follow the link below:
https://supportmail.jumpline.com/jsm/srr.php3?s_track=0854854328

Your question was:

since several days our website www.rayadivers.com in not available !!!
also all the email accounts running under user@rayadiver.com cannot use
their email address ... rayadivers.com is a peked domain at rayadan.com ...
lookup:
Official name: www.rayadivers.com
IP address: 64.176.236.12

ping:
1 www.rayadivers.com 56 4,227 Failure - Host Unreachable
2 www.rayadivers.com 56 Failure - Timed Out
3 www.rayadivers.com 56 Failure - Timed Out
4 www.rayadivers.com 56 Failure - Timed Out
5 www.rayadivers.com 56 4,591 Failure - Host Unreachable

www.rayadan.com does display the website that is meant to viewed at
www.rayadivers.com
... the problem of not getting our emails at mail.rayadivers.com for
users@rayadivers.com is causing losses in our income and cannot be tolerated
any longer ...
... please park the domainname raydivers in rayadan as it used to be !!!
--------------------------------------------------
Dear valued customer:

your problem has been resolved

Jumpline Support Dept

We apologize for the delay in responding to your request. Do to the large
number of requests, we are experiencing higher than normal reply times. We
appreciate your continued patience as we work to resolve all outstanding
issues.

Sincerely, Igal Harel
jumpline
:angry:

Have you guys had any luck accessing your DB. I couldn't...then spoke to Jason at Jumpline...the problem was fixed for about 3 days, and now the problem has come up again. Also, see the thread
located here. (http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40340)

Originally posted by almex

For one of my sites I’ve gone with DellHost. Why, well I don’t think they’re likely to sellout, go under etc. But most of all because I believe they understand that a web business’s livelihood depends on being on line. I’m hosted at the same center Dell is.


Did they tell you that, or are you just assuming it? Because DellHost was originally setup with Interliant, and then last summer was sold off to Sprint. I don't believe DellHost ever used the same facilities as the Dell.Com site itself; it was more of a brandname ploy (which is fine of course).

Kevin

...and I'll add that while I have no personal experience with DellHost, several poeple have posted before that that service and Interliant/Sprint was a tad bit disappointing. I don't think it is as rock solid as you think it is.

If you have something online that you depend on for your living. I think we could offer you some more stable choices. http://www.rackspace.com comes to mind, but I'm sure others could offer some equally good choices. I'll only say that if it were me, and I had mission critical sites, I wouldn't choose Dell Host. I like Dell servers and computers, but their hosting end of things is (or at least was) outsourced, so you have to determine if it is right for you based on who the actual provider is.

I believe a Dell man did tell me that in a phone conversation. However, I wouldn’t swear to it in court. He was in Dell’s NOC in Atlanta, GA. when I spoke with him. But if Dell.com is not operated at that NOC it wouldn’t devastate me. I know Dellhost is partnered with Sprint and Interliant among others. I'm beginning to suspect that most of this from all host is probably just sales hype anyway.

Here’s a quote from Dellhost Data Center Tour web page.
You need a safe, reliable, secure data center to house your mission-critical Website. Our state-of-the art data facility is located in a subterranean facility in a "Class A" office building. The facility features high security, climate-control, raised flooring, uninterruptible power supply, a sophisticated fire suppression system, redundant, high speed Internet connections (multiple OC3s), backup batteries and diesel generators, Cisco routers and switches, and the latest in automated backup systems.
At the heart of our facility is the network operations center (NOC), staffed 24x7 by DellHostTM administrators and engineers.

Dellhost’s Data Center Tour web page
http://www.dellhost.com/html/tour.asp[/URL]

As I said, I’m over the Jumpline fiasco (emotionally that is). But now I’m suffering from host information overload. Seems like there’s 2 horror stories on the next page for every good one I find on this page.

So what I decided to do, and I’m in the process of doing, is to not put all of my eggs into one basket right now. I’m going to put 3 or 4 of my websites with each of the 3 host listed below. Later I’ll reevaluate their performance and my needs. At least this way if one of them goes to bed and has a nightmare, then wakes up in the morning to go make it come true (with his server platform’s etc.) I won’t be totally out of business. I’m hoping none of the 3 listed below live together, and that they wouldn’t all have the same nightmare simultaneously. At least that’s what I’m betting on.

DellHost.com

Site5.com

Venturesonline.com

I appreciate the suggestion about rackspace.com. But I wouldn’t even know where to begin with something like that, with server size, cpu, memory, disk drives, software requirements, software maintenance etc. While I have a number of websites, taking out all the sever-admin files etc, all of my sites files put together wouldn’t even be 100MB. My sites are not fancy – their just practical, informative and functional.

It’s going to take me a while to get Jumpline to change my domain contact and Nameserver information. I registered several of my sites through them and they use BulkRegister.com. Everything is listed as Jumpline and seems must be changed by them. I'm sure they are quite busy over there at Jumpline and I'll just be waiting in the queue until they get around to my request.

I've learned some lessons out of all this, but I'm sure that I'll be in for some new surprises and lessons what ever I do.

I don’t know – what do you guys think about all this.

John B.

Re. Alabanza contacting hosts' customers>

Right after (like the next day) I signed up with a host, a long time ago... I can't remember if it was when I started with nomonthly.com (I think it was) or AITCOM... Alabanza called me several times. I didn't know who they were then, and so when I saw the name on caller ID, I just didn't answer the phone. So they got no answer.

I certainly hadn't signed up with them, but I did figure out they were my new host's upstream. I finally wrote a rather irate e-mail to my host that said to stop the harrassing phone calls from Alabanza or I was LEAVING! (Because I got tired of my phone waking me up at odd hours, with it being Alabanza, it was rather odd)

Later that day the calls stopped. Never heard a peep since.

??? I never did figure out what to make of it.

:confused: Bailey

I am amazed to see that a thread about Jumpline's screw-up has turned on Alabanza, as if it is some how Alabanza's fault. Jumpline was given plenty of chances by Alabanza. There were negotiations on a buy-out that lasted more than a year. Jumpline held out for more money than they were worth. Jumpline was offered payment plans, which in the end, they did not take advantage of. Jumpline started secretly moving data to their new servers. When Alabanza realized this, Jumpline was given an ultimatum. Jumpline has always had a problem with defining a clear business plan. Just look to their all inclusive reseller solution project that never got out of the box (the name of it escapes me at the moment), and the "Reggie" project that also never flew.
As far as Alabanza contacting the Jumpline resellers, the truth is, more of the resellers were calling Alabanza, and several of Jumpline's largest resellers have gone with them. Sure they called others--so what? They were offering a viable solution. I am so sick of hearing about the cost. The fact that the Alabanza software is probably the best for total automation and administration justifies the cost.
Alabanza has made great progress over the last year and continues to improve. I guess every one here has never marketed to another provider's client? All of your sign-up's are virgin hosting customers? C'mon, some of you are on some pretty high horses.

Alabanza had contacted me awhile back to. I reached a certain number of resold accounts with Jumpline. I chose to stay with Jumpline at the time. I was anxious for Jumpline to leave Alabanza, and was all for the upgrade (when I was assured that it would be a smooth transition). With our Alabanza hosted sites, there was a considerable amount of downtime. Customers of mine on several occasions had Front Page issues, that jumpline was unable to fix, and the issues were sent to Alabanza. I never blamed Jumpline for those problems, and they did what they could to get the issues straightened out. When a sales person from Alabanza contacted me, I informed him of the problems. I was told that it was Jumplines fault that 'their' servers were down. I never understood that response, since the servers were at Alabanza.

@Maverick...there is a difference (in my opinion) when you go to somebody who currently has a website trying get them to come on board, and going to your customers customer to take them away. How can it be ethical for Alabanza to call Jumplines customers trying to take them away? My phone call was quite some time ago, well before this fiasco.

Wow.. I do not know about you guys, but if I found out that my upstream was using my customer contact list for cherry-picking I would be ticked! :eek:

Originally posted by Maverick
I am amazed to see that a thread about Jumpline's screw-up has turned on Alabanza, as if it is some how Alabanza's fault. Jumpline was given plenty of chances by Alabanza. There were negotiations on a buy-out that lasted more than a year. Jumpline held out for more money than they were worth. Jumpline was offered payment plans, which in the end, they did not take advantage of. Jumpline started secretly moving data to their new servers. When Alabanza realized this, Jumpline was given an ultimatum. Jumpline has always had a problem with defining a clear business plan. Just look to their all inclusive reseller solution project that never got out of the box (the name of it escapes me at the moment), and the "Reggie" project that also never flew.
As far as Alabanza contacting the Jumpline resellers, the truth is, more of the resellers were calling Alabanza, and several of Jumpline's largest resellers have gone with them. Sure they called others--so what? They were offering a viable solution. I am so sick of hearing about the cost. The fact that the Alabanza software is probably the best for total automation and administration justifies the cost.
Alabanza has made great progress over the last year and continues to improve. I guess every one here has never marketed to another provider's client? All of your sign-up's are virgin hosting customers? C'mon, some of you are on some pretty high horses.

Maverick, you've claimed not to be employed by Alabanza, and to be merely a consultant who deals with clients who advises them on hosting solutions. Either you aren't being honest or Alabanza is *the* most loose-lipped organization I've run across. If you are merely a consultant, and not employed by them (as you claim) then they've told you details about their clients such as:

(Below from other threads posted by you)
1) Exact dollar amounts that hosts have owed Alabanza for services.
2) Actions taken by Alabanza against clients.
3) Details of negotiations between Alabanza and their client.

(Posted above)
4) Details of negotiations between Alabanza and their client.
5) Knowledge of Alabanza contacting their client's clients.


They were given plenty of chances? What? To be bought out at a price they didn't agree with? To spend their money at a provider?

"I guess every one here has never marketed to another provider's client?"

It is not an issue of a provider marketing to another provider's customer. It is an issue with a provider marketing services to their own customer's clients (just a slight technical difference there). How nice of Alabanza to provide services and gather names and numbers of clients to call and try to sell direct to. I'd secretly move my clients to another data center too.

So from what you posted, (Jumpline was offered payment plans, which in the end, they did not take advantage of), this indicates Jumpline was not paying their bills? Again, I can't even fathom how you'd know this (if this is what you're implying???).

Their pricing? Well, considering everything else, I think the point is moot. The fact is, this is absolutely the last company I'd ever do business with. Calling your client's clients is simply unacceptable. Blabbing about your clients to anyone unrelated to anything is nothing short of amazing (in a, "can you believe they are *that* pathetic?" way).

I didn't realize Jumpline was trying to keep it a secret and don't quite believe that they were. If they were, they did a pretty poor job of it, since it seems like everyone knew they were moving away from Alabanza for many, many months beforehand. I don't know what precipitated Alabanza terminating Jumpline's contract and really don't care, but the language of the letter leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's akin to people who report here that they told their host they were leaving and the host closed them down before they were ready or did something equally as mean-spirited. I am not saying that Jumpline is without responsibility in whatever it is that occurred between them and Alabanza. From outside, it looks like Alabanza played the heavy in this one and Jumpline wasn't as prepared as they might have been.

As to the parallel topic being discussed, I also know from experience that Alabanza does contact existing clients' clients, since one of our resellers reported spam from Alabanza to us. Even though our rep apologized, it doesn't excuse them for doing it. It would be akin to us contacting our resellers' clients asking them if they want to come directly to us. At worst, it's unethical. At best, it's just plain rude. Either way, it isn't the type of company that garners trust when things like this get out in the open.