We recently purchased a site hosted by InetU and ran into a billing issue this morning. They said the account wasn't paid for the last two months. So we told them we would pay for it and they said we couldn't do it. Then the guy in charge says he would contact us within the hour. Come to find out the guy went into a 2 hour meeting and couldn't be bothered with us. So, low and behold the site has been down for over three hours now and they are still giving us a headache. It is so frustrating because they just are not willing to work with us. So, my advice is to never deal with these people. I am switching to venturesonline.com as soon as the 30 day cancellation is given today. I can't wait to get out of that mess!!!!! I just wanted to share my experience and warn you about their customer service. I AM SO FRUSTRATED!!!!!

I presume you DID actually pay for the site over the last 2 months and that it was a billing error of theirs?

If you didnt pay then... well you know what id say ;)

The guy who we bought it from did. But somehow the check wasn't there by the day it was due. So, we called and tried to pay for it until his check got there. It was just a big hassle because they wouldn't let us pay for him which made no sense. I think we might have things in order now though...at least for a bit. Hopefully my server will be back up within the hour! It just sucks to have your site go down because of something and then have someone tell you that you can't do anything about it. I was just venting...its been a long frustrating morning here.

To be fair on your host, is TWO MONTHS not a reasonable time to pay?

If you were my customer (if i were to be a host) I would have been reluctant to talk to you also, since that company has had to pay for TWO MONTHS of your hosting without getting a single penny from yourself.

Im glad you see the error of your ways and maybe an apology is in order?

We literally just got the site last week. We had done a change of contact and were never made aware of any outstanding bills. There was no way for us to know and they never even bothered to contact us before shutting it down. We had to get in touch with the old owner to do anything....

a lot of times billing problems due to "no contact from vendor" or "i didn't know our contract is due" is partly due to customer himself. check email everyday and look for "NEW ORDER" only emails if you're a small-hosting company. never bother about "PROBLEM WITH DNS" from your customers.. or "CONTRACT DUE - RENEWAL INFO" email from your ISP.

take for example, a bank.. if you've issued some post-dated cheques to some people and you don't have enough money inside the account, the bank will "bouce" or decline payment. if you go ahead and SHOUT at the bank.. what they'll say is that "you've to keep track on your account, we've thousands of accounts in our bank.. if every account need to be taken-care like not enough money we'll call the customers.. we'll have thousands of workers in stand-by just for this service. If you don't mind to pay for the service, we'll debit $250 from you account monthly for the service."

if you want to make sure your server contract is well kept up-to-date.. hire someone who'll check domain-name, server-downtime and payment. or better still, sign-up with the ISP yourself, provide them with a good-standing credit-card. don't use another vendor using another host and another ISP for a "mission-critical" website.



:eek:

Since I am new ... and I wasn't on here in June of 2001 when this thread started .. I will add my 2-cents now. I'm only a year late.

I use INETU services and have since they went into business .. I am one of their first customers - I don't remember how long it has been but I am guessing over 5 years ... I still have three dedicated machines there.

Overall, the service they have provided is outstanding. I think their prices are a little high (and included bandwidth offerings are very low) considering others in the market, but they do support their customers. And like everyone else, they seem to have some technical support people that are better than others ... but at least you always know their name so you can make sure NOT to work with them in the future (contrast that to Rackshack).

Their server packages are managed servers. You can call on their 888 number from ?7a to 11p or something and always reach a tech. I've also required emergency service in the middle of the night, on the weekend of a major holiday and was able to get through to a tech.

If they billed me for everything they actually did each month for me, I wouldn't be able to afford it ... but that is the difference with managed servers -- and inetu doesn't nickel and dime you.

My complaints? They don't use any instant messenger services which we have complained about for the last two years; script installation and/or troubleshooting pricing gets very expensive if you don't get a firm quote in advance; and some techs are substantially better than others (ok, they have had a few that were just plain bad, but I'm sure many companies have had that problem!); They have also had some growing pains which they seem to have addressed and they have tried hard to work with me.

I have never used virtual hosting so I don't know anything about that ... all I am familiar with is dedicated.

I used to tell the owner that I never talked about his service and didn't give referrals because I didn't want him to grow! Not very nice of me I guess! :)

Yes, I would suggest them for a managed solution.