I've had quite the ordeal with this company, and thought I should pass along this information, so others don't get burned...

I signed up with SuperbServers.net on SATURDAY (June 22, 2003), that was the beginning of this rediculous ordeal..

Reasons why I choose SuperbServers:
-Location: East Coast (VA)
-Price: special $130/month Free Setup
-OS: FreeBSD
-Month-to-Month Payment
-Cpanel/WHM

What I signed up for (server specs):
Intel Celeron 1.7GHz
FreeBSD
Cpanel/WHM
512MB Memory
80GB Hard Drive
500GB Monthly Transfer
5 IP's

I recieved my order confirmation the same day as placing my order, 2-emails stating that my payment had been recieved and my order was being processed.. Since I ordered on the weekend I expected it to be setup by about Tuesday, 1 business day..
well, low and behold I get an e-mail on Sunday stating that my server was good to go and that I could start using it.. I was pretty impressed that It was setup within 24hrs.. considering it was a weekend...

(SUNDAY)
the e-mail I recieved that said my server was ready was extremely vague, and didn't contain any of the information I needed to connect to my server except its IP address.. no username/password nothing.. I had put these in when I signed up and was supposed to just remember them.. (usally they include them in the e-mail as reference..)

I then proceded to connect to my server through Cpanel, using port 2086 (ie. IP:2086), I was getting "page cannot be displayed," I thought that was odd, and wondered if they might have setup Cpanel on a different port.. I also tried 2082 (cpanel user port) and still got page cannot be displayed... I tried using SSH, still no connect.. I then tried to ping my server.. yes, it was pinging fine... I also tried a tracert and it worked fine also, no loss..

So I was exteremly confused.. I used the Support Ticket system and asked them why I could not access my server, what port Cpanel was installed on, and if it wasn't setup yet, why send me an e-mail saying it was..

(MONDAY)
they responded the next day, saying that it was setup, and they would look into why it wasn't working.. so later that day they told me there was some "confusion" at the Datacenter, and now it had been fixed.. well I was finally able to access my server.. for a while... I tried to access it again that evening and i was getting "page cannot be displayed" again, so I added a reply to the ticket

(TUESDAY)
they got back to me the next day saying that I probably messed something up, and they would have to charge me to fix it.. I told them, I didn't do anything, All I did was LOGIN.. so they said they would look into, but I would have to pay, if it was something I messed up (which it wasn't)... it was the same problem as when I got the first e-mail.. so they get back to me later that day and say they rebooted the machine and everything "seems" to be working fine.. which it was for about another couple hours, then it was down again.. (anybody see a trend here?)

(WEDNESDAY)
by wednesday i was very angry, not only were they rude, and inconsiderate but they accsued me of messing the server up, when it was clearly there fault, and wanted to charge me for there incompetence.. on top of it.. So I decided to call them and see if i could resolve this once and for all... I talked to the support people and all they keep asking me was if I had updated my support ticket because if I hadn't they couldn't help me.. I asked them, how they could even say that the server not working was somehow something I needed to pay them to fix, WHEN IT WASN'T WORKING IN THE FIRST PLACE!!.. he told me he couldn't help me till I updated my ticket. !! So I updated my ticket, and waited a couple hours, and they updated the ticket saying... they had the tech at the Datacenter look at it, and it appears to be a problem with Cpanel/FreeBSD, he told me that they are new to Cpanel and FreeBSD and they're might be some "issues" that are causing problems, but that It "appeared" to be working now... so again, I was able to access it, but hours later.. IT WAS DOWN, AGAIN!!!! I then sent them an e-mail saying that they could just REFUND my money and cancel my account, and that they don't deserve my business..

(THURSDAY) - TODAY
So now, I currently have NO access to my server, I called them again and told them to Cancel my account and give me a full refund, and they tell me they can't DO THAT over the phone due to "security" issues, WHAT??? but to e-mail thier billing department and they will get back to me within 24hrs.. I told him I already sent the e-mail and have not heard back from them yet, he said there is nothing he could do over the phone..

Can someone tell me why a company would sell you something, when they can't support it?

Why they would try to charge me for thier INCOMPETENCE..

They wouldn't even admit the server wasn't working.. they kept saying.. well It can ping and tracert just fine...

They are blaming me for the server not working, when It hasn't even been up for me to access!!

I'm extremely angry and frustrated with this company and would tell others to not deal with them.. there customer service is almost non-exsistent.. unless you want to pay them $80/hr.. and then mabey they will help you..

the funny part, is on thier support tickets.. they have a mandatory option for selecting how much you want to pay them for thier time.. OMG!!!

I can't comment on what their network is like, the latency, etc.. cause my server is never up long enough for me to FIND OUT!

Dr Cool
:cool:

I tried setting up colo with them a number of weeks ago and endured a lot of frustration myself.

The one good thing I can say is that after I e-mailed billing, they processed my refund quickly.

They seem to have serious communication issues within the company. As you said, the "tech" guys won't help you unless you're paying them $90/hour, and they do not seem to have any authority nor desire to work around the $90/hour policy under special circumstances like yours.

hmm this is the first negative thread i read about superbservers.net. lots of other people seem to give them high praise and their network does seem 2b rock solid. now here comes the customer service issue... anyone else care to share their experience?

I just wanted to make a quick post to let everyone know that we are working to address Dr.Cools concerns. One of our technicians, is as I type, setting up a new server for him so that we can all start again fresh.

I won't suggest that Superb doesn't occasionally make mistakes, or bungle communication with a client from time to time. We do our best to avoid it, but it does happen. I will say that we are committed to doing what it takes to make a client happy and meet his or her expectations. We're not always perfect - but we always want to solve the problem. In this case there were some communication issues and apparently some technical issues, but we will ensure that Dr. Cool is up and running and happy with his service.

WRT to the email welcome message, we never transmit root passwords in plain text. Clients provide us with their desired passwords securely over SSL and we assume that people will keep their own records of the passwords they indicated. This is merely a security measure to protect our clients.

The SLS servers are an unmanaged service, and we do charge for technical support. We always ask a client to authorize a support fee before we do any work, so there are no misunderstandings later on. If it is determined to be something on our end the customer is never be charged. If the problem is determined to have been caused by some kind of client activity, we do bill for the support. However, the support staff can not work on any problem with out authorization from the customer so that we have a clear record that the client understands that there is a fee for such service/support if the problem is not hardware/network/installation related. I confess that in this case we were not as clear as we should have been about the support fee and under what circumstances it is charged.

atr - please feel free to contact me directly if there is anything I can do to assist you. I'm happy to help in any way I can.

Regards,

Sasha Wilson

Operations Manager, Superb Servers

swilson@superb.net

UPDATE:

Sarah at SuperbServers.net is making an effort to rectify the situation, although again, I'm disappointed it took a post on these forums to secure such a resolution..

they will be re-installing the server from scratch with RH Linux as they say they are having "issues" with FreeBSD and WHM/Cpanel.

I hope Superb can learn from this mistake, and make up for it in the future.. I will keep this post updated and let everyone know how it turns out..

Again, to re-iterate.. I never said anything negative about thier network, I haven't had the opportunity to throughly test it..

Dr Cool
:cool:

Originally posted by swilson

atr - please feel free to contact me directly if there is anything I can do to assist you. I'm happy to help in any way I can.


Thanks for the offer, but Superb has lost my confidence. My salesman at Superb (David Mow) was understanding and helpful, but he was the only person that I could get in touch with. The trouble with having multiple points of contact is that some people are reliable and others are not, and it just takes one unhelpful or out of reach employee to mess up service.

After trying Superb, I tried ezzi.net, whom I wasn't able to contact via e-mail or phone for three hours on the Friday afternoon that my server was supposed to be ready.

After that, I signed up with Rackshack, who has made me quite happy thus far.

It looks like they don't have that much experience.:P

Sounds like Superb is doing what they can.
By the way, how is cPanel in that FreeBSD operating system?

cpanel is a witch to install on fbsd. when i installed it last, i had to edit the installer script and install a bunch of stuff by hand afterwards (such as mysql) as well as recompile apache.

after that, it seemed to kind of work, with a few little annoyances. with that said, it was a clients server (he insisted on fbsd) and i did not run it day to day. it is possible that those annoynaces were quite major.

my advice on cpanel+fbsd=dont.

paul

rusko

I have no doubt that FreeBSD and Cpanel my be difficult to setup together.. that is why in my search for a new FreeBSD/CPanel host, I made sure they specialized in FreeBSD.. and could handle whatever difficulties that could arise..

I'm now looking at two setups, one with RH Linux 7.3 /WHM & Cpanel , and FreeBSD/WHM & Cpanel.. they are essentially the same but have a couple different features...

I have noticed 1 major issue that people tend to have with Cpanel and FreeBSD.. Quotas! The kernel has to be complied with Quota support before you enable quotas in Cpanel.. also an apache recompile might also be necessary...

Dr Cool
:cool:

Well, yea, freebsd + cpanel = buggy. cpanel was developed and optimized for redhat i believe. all their released are based on redhat.

well, superbservers never had any experience with cpanel, they just started offering it, so no doubt they have not master it completely. however, they shouldn't point finger at dr.cool that it was his fault. client is always correct!

anyway, since they have apologized for their mistake, why not just give them a try .. or you are still eligible to call them for a refund? :P

My experiences with them have been nothing short of fustrating.

First of all, they have no real "mont-to-month" contracts since on their order form in the "fine print" your reequired to notify them 30 days in advance of a server cancellation. This means your with them from day one for a minimum of 2 months. I lucky got out of this over some easy legal persuasian with one of there bassic support people which I'll get to in a moment. So I promptly put in my 30 day cancellation notice on my last months payment for both my servers and they cancelled one a little ahead of time to help me avoid another rebill for a service I didn't want nor need.

Their support is near the classification of a joke. You can call support and get through - somtimes - but they don't always answer. When I was put through it was usually to this asian woman who could speak english as well as she knew what a trace route was. Lets just say she heard of one, but it wouldn't make sense to her if you hit her in the face with a "Trace route for Dummies" book. No offense to asian people, I'm simply explaining a detailed situation here. I was once put through to a man, not David, who told me they "were so overloaded in tech support they were going to make it mandatory for anyone with ANY issues to pay the $90.00 minimum". Of course that might have changed but be aware it was indeed said.

They had major issues for three weeks with their router between HopOne, their datacenter, and ATT and neglected to fully look into it. The nerve their managment had to say was for me to "upgrade to a better ISP". Yes, I'm serious. By the way, I'm using ATT/Comcast 1.5/1.5 with no issues to any other servers at that time. ATT also looked into it and replied it was not on their end. A simple trace route proved it was indeed on their end yet they did nothing to resolve the issue. Twice I tried submitting a support ticket, first time no answer in 2 weeks even after calling them up and letting them know of my ticket. 3rd week the manage ment, sasha I believe, replied telling me to upgrade my ISP.

Another issue is on my second month they did not give me my ensim subscription I DID pay for for 3 days!!!! Insane, consider all the pissed of clients of mine I had to deal with due to it. I even had it the month before so it's not like it was somthign unusual.

Last but not least - paying for IP's. Really now, shouldn't justification be enough????

I honestly cannot wait to move out of their datacenter to my new providers this next week. I'll report on them later.

I'm truly sorry to hear about your ordeal DrCool =/ It sounds like they still have a few kinks to work out with CPanel (I think they just added it last week). It's good to hear that they're taking care of the situation.

Thankfully, my experience with their support has always been pleasant. When I ordered, my win2k server was up the same day with all the services patches applied, etc. All my service requests since then have been answered same day. I think they have good support and genuinely try to do whatever possible to help.

Paying for support is ludicrous. Sure, you get your newbie know-nothings who sign up, but thats what outsourcing support to india is all about :)

Cheers!

Thanks for all the sharings. This thread is a real eye-opener for me :D

I was particularly impressed with the network speed of SuperbServers.net but IMHO the tech support part seems to be the most serious issue in this company and is the source of all the problems shared here. Having to pay $90/hour for basic tech support is ridiculous especially when you can get it free on many other providers (DedicatedNow, ThePlanet, etc).

Just a note on AliasJoe's thread, i agree with whats said except:


Last but not least - paying for IP's. Really now, shouldn't justification be enough????
.

:laugh: "Last but not least, Paying for Gas. Really now, Shouldn't buying the car be enough???" :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:. IP's aren't free for the provider, why should they give 'em away? :rolleyes: :eek:, couldn't help but chuckle at that thought.

Originally posted by seg fault
Paying for support is ludicrous. Sure, you get your newbie know-nothings who sign up, but thats what outsourcing support to india is all about :)

I think that you are confusing unmanaged services here (basic support included) vs managed services (full support included). If a customer wants full managed dedicated server, they can choose such a service as per http://services.superb.net/ded/

Not sure what does our India support (9pm-6am PST) have to do specifically with either, though (BTW, outsourcing anything to India is more expensive than doing that in Canada anyway - the wages and costs there are sky-high).

Originally posted by twrs
Thanks for all the sharings. This thread is a real eye-opener for me :D

I was particularly impressed with the network speed of SuperbServers.net but IMHO the tech support part seems to be the most serious issue in this company and is the source of all the problems shared here. Having to pay $90/hour for basic tech support is ridiculous especially when you can get it free on many other providers (DedicatedNow, ThePlanet, etc).

Support is "free" if one pays for managed services (oh wait, but then it's not free, one is paying for it then - just that it's prepaid). One who needs more than basic support can also get our Superb Servers Premium line of servers which do include support, or our customized top-of-the-line servers from http://services.superb.net/ded/

So, it is really up to the customer to choose what level of support past basic (reboots, network, etc.) do they need, and then pick the appropriate service. We provide a wide spectrum of such services.

Our main focus has been and still remains on large, complex, high traffic and/or highly secure clusters and multiple racks of servers of customized services included and such for major organizations, where they may have a few dedicated support staff assigned just to them. Every week our management get some very positive comments on support from customers, while negative comments are more rare. For every 5+ positive comments that a customer takes an extra effort to send to management (and keep in mind, that people usually put in the effort to send negative comments, but not so much positive ones), where may be only one negative one, which, in most cases, is a minor misunderstanding or such issue (e.g. customer wanted their root password to be sent via E-mail insecurely), that can be quickly and easily resolved.

Anyhow, my point is, it's not always the best to look at the minority/exception cases. Sometimes it's better to look at the overall general trends and the experience of the vast majority of customers with a company.

Originally posted by aliasjoe
Their support is near the classification of a joke. You can call support and get through - somtimes - but they don't always answer. When I was put through it was usually to this asian woman who could speak english as well as she knew what a trace route was. Lets just say she heard of one, but it wouldn't make sense to her if you hit her in the face with a "Trace route for Dummies" book. No offense to asian people, I'm simply explaining a detailed situation here. I was once put through to a man, not David, who told me they "were so overloaded in tech support they were going to make it mandatory for anyone with ANY issues to pay the $90.00 minimum". Of course that might have changed but be aware it was indeed said.

They had major issues for three weeks with their router between HopOne, their datacenter, and ATT and neglected to fully look into it. The nerve their managment had to say was for me to "upgrade to a better ISP". Yes, I'm serious. By the way, I'm using ATT/Comcast 1.5/1.5 with no issues to any other servers at that time. ATT also looked into it and replied it was not on their end. A simple trace route proved it was indeed on their end yet they did nothing to resolve the issue. Twice I tried submitting a support ticket, first time no answer in 2 weeks even after calling them up and letting them know of my ticket. 3rd week the manage ment, sasha I believe, replied telling me to upgrade my ISP.

Hmm, this is interesting, esp. given that we don't have any Asian women in support (or in any capacity, for that matter)... this just doesn't make sense whatsoever.

As for phone support, looking at call statistics for June so far (as I did yesterday with our Support Operations Manager), we see that over 80% of calls are answered right away and for the <20% where there is a queue, the average wait time is 43 seconds. So, yes, may be for one out of five calls you may have to wait half a minute to a minute in queue, but, that is still a lot better than almost anywhere else calling for support. (And besides, next week we have four new support staff starting, to ensure that 99%+ of calls are answered right away, with no hold queue times. The moment we notice any hold queue times for phone support, we always add new support staff.)

Also, there haven't been any problems with our connection to AT&T for... oh, I think some 2.5 if not 3+ years.

If there were some problems, then such problems would be evident as high load on the circuit (which it's not, it's always at under 40% load), high latency, packet loss, or any other such issues. However, there isn't and hasn't been a single problem with that. Also, if there were some issues, then some other customers would have pointed that out. No one has. Also, it's important to keep in mind that outgoing traffic does not go via AT&T for the value transit customers, such as non-Premium Superb Server customers. So if this is such a customer, then it makes even less sense, as no out route could go via AT&T, so how could it have a problem in the first place? Here it really does seem like a case of problems on the user's end or just lack of understanding of the asymetrical round-trip nature of Internet routes.

On an aside note (nothing to do with this specifically), there have been cases when a user has a firewall on their computer that denies them access to their own server, and then they complain to us about the server "being down." We can keep rebooting the server and pinging it and showing that it's up all we want, if a customer has denied access to their server's IP to themselves on their computer/firewall, it won't help until they fix it on their end.

hjass

I've never heard of such a policy, on not sending usernames and passwords via e-mail.. you obviously don't understand how the e-mail protocols work, or you wouldn't be making such a in-accurate statement..

are you trying to tell us that every company that sends e-mails with usernames/passwords, is not doing the right thing? (Microsoft, Yahoo, umm.. almost every company I can think off..)

How would the user ever know what thier username and passwords were, if they aren't sent via e-mail? or what If they foget them, cause they are human and not perfect.. are they just SOL, cause you don't understand how e-mail is sent?

Please don't just regergatate was has already been said..

Dr Cool
:cool:

Originally posted by DrCool
hjass

I notice you didn't mention that you work for superbservers.net?



Well, he actually founded it and owns it. ;)


Also, I am really not sure of many points here. It seems like a lot of BS just to bash Superb. Except for a few posters, how many really have experience? And about support policies, if you do not like them. go elsewhere. I absolutely hate misleading sites in web hosting. People who see me post here will tell you this. I have seen nothing misleading on their site. Anyone signing up should get a clear understanding of what is included. Especially in terms of support.

Originally posted by DrCool
I've never heard of such a policy, on not sending usernames and passwords via e-mail.. you obviously don't understand how the e-mail protocols work, or you wouldn't be making such a in-accurate statement..

are you trying to tell us that every company that sends e-mails with usernames/passwords, is not doing the right thing? (Microsoft, Yahoo, umm.. almost every company I can think off..)

How would the user ever know what thier username and passwords were, if they aren't sent via e-mail? or what If they foget them, cause they are human and not perfect.. are they just SOL, cause you don't understand how e-mail is sent?

We have virtually never (never as far as I know, at least) since 1996 until now, servicing 100,000s of customers and setting up millions of accounts in that time frame, have had a problem where a customer does not remember (hasn't written down) the password they noted on the order form.

In the cases when a password is sent via E-mail, that is a new, reset, temporary password, but not the actual one that the customer set. Only very few amateur sites, usually where there is no sensitive information stored, transmit the actual password via E-mail.

Why do you think the password field is usually displayed as *****s and not actual characters? That is so that someone couldn't watch over your shoulder and find out what it is. Then why send it back to you via plan text E-mail?

Sending a password via E-mail and it going to the wrong person (e.g. someone else having access to your E-mail account, may be it's shared - many people do, do that) could mean the compromise of multiple accounts of the same person, as most people use the same password everywhere.

A server root password is something to safeguard. Not something to give away to anyone easily. After all, if the server is hacked, it is the customer's responsibility. One should be responsible in safeguarding it. We are.

Also, a threat just as big as hacking is social engineering. Anyone can call and pretend to be a customer and obtain a password and other information by "sweet talking" the person on the other end (or do the same online via E-mail or ticket systems). We try to prevent that as best as we can, but still, I have to admit, we have had some (though very few) cases where a fraudster was able to emulate a customer so well that we believed that it was the actual customer. It seems that you are not familiar with this principle. To read more on that, this may be a good starting resource: http://packetstormsecurity.nl/docs/social-engineering/aaatalk.html

We simply do the best we can to safeguard our customers and our customers' server security.

We have been using superbservers for some of our customers and so far so good. You should really understand some Unix before you go ahead with unmanaged services - from time to time it's always helpful to do and fix some things using shell. This is where you need experience

Originally posted by acegamer
It looks like they don't have that much experience.:P

That is a gross misstatement.

As I am sure you and most others know, we have been in business since June of 1996. We have won more awards and press acclaim than any other web hosting company in existence (now or ever), especially for our customer support.

There are very few companies who have as much experience as we do.

Keep in mind that it is us who invented Virtual DNS servers -- we were the first company ever to deploy that service (develop the methods to do that), in the mid 1990s. Likewise, we were the first company to introduce name-based hosting, back in the mid-1990s, too. We were also the first company to deploy Ensim and their first partner. Those are just three of many firsts in innovation and leading-edge service introduction by us.

Here's an interesting statistic: all our technical staff combined, we have over 400 years of hosting and over a 1000 years of related technology experience.

Haralds,

Don't let the few naysayers get you down. Your company is a pioneer in the field, you have a great reputation, and it seems you learn from your mistakes. We started around the same time you did, but could only wish we grew at the same rate. :)

Superb is a first rate company. Just realize that if you get an unmanaged dedicated server with them, it is just that. In this particular case, communication was not in place to avoid having the customer upset about something they did not do, but the company has made amends. The only negative thing I see out of this is the "maze" effect that comes with a larger company, where a customer that is actually right cannot reach the correct people at the top to bring it to their attention.

- John C.

Originally posted by JohnCrowley
Haralds,

Don't let the few naysayers get you down. Your company is a pioneer in the field, you have a great reputation, and it seems you learn from your mistakes. We started around the same time you did, but could only wish we grew at the same rate. :)

Superb is a first rate company. Just realize that if you get an unmanaged dedicated server with them, it is just that. In this particular case, communication was not in place to avoid having the customer upset about something they did not do, but the company has made amends. The only negative thing I see out of this is the "maze" effect that comes with a larger company, where a customer that is actually right cannot reach the correct people at the top to bring it to their attention.

- John C.

Hate to be a naysayer, but how are they a pioneer in the field of unmanaged dedicated servers? I didn't understand that part...

Sorry, shoulda been more specific (or less if you like) - The field of "web hosting". Superb has done many things ahead of the rest of the hosting companies out there. They have pushed the envelope on services offered, reseller programs, low cost shared hosting, and high end managed hosting.

I have watched them since they were a small shop, and have been impressed with their growth and reputation as a solid hosting company.

- John C.

Likewise, we were the first company to introduce name-based hosting, back in the mid-1990s, too

well, im impressed. :)

Originally posted by JohnCrowley
Haralds,

Don't let the few naysayers get you down. Your company is a pioneer in the field, you have a great reputation, and it seems you learn from your mistakes. We started around the same time you did, but could only wish we grew at the same rate.

Superb is a first rate company. Just realize that if you get an unmanaged dedicated server with them, it is just that. In this particular case, communication was not in place to avoid having the customer upset about something they did not do, but the company has made amends. The only negative thing I see out of this is the "maze" effect that comes with a larger company, where a customer that is actually right cannot reach the correct people at the top to bring it to their attention.

- John C.

Thanks for your kind words. :-)

Regarding comments by porcupine, we were indeed rather - in fact, I'd say very - slow to jump on the sub-$100 servers bandwagon, only doing so this January. We wanted to make sure to do things right and to finish the build out of our new much larger DCA2 facility in Tyson's Corner, VA, before we offered the service. So, that's a case where we simply took the time to do things right, both facility and procedures/automation wise (but of course, not everything is perfect and we are still working on further improving things, automating things more, implementing 15 minute billing increments for support, etc.). But still, we were slow. Too slow at introducing that. I'll be the first to admit that.

You are right regarding the "maze" effect. That is something that we do try to minimize as we let people as close to the customers as possible make the decisions that matter and do empower our staff, but still, things don't always work out perfectly (wouldn't life be easy if things always would?).

But still, less than 10% of support tickets ever get billed. In most cases even when a customer authorizes charges, in the end, if we can accomplish the request in a few minutes, they are not charged... I think that we are quite generous in that respect and something that's just a few minutes we'd never charge for (we just get charges authorized by the customer "just in case," but actually billing is a whole different matter that's a matter of 1 in 5 or 1 in 4 of authorized billable tickets actually getting billed). Before being billed, all potential billable work is reviewed by a manger, first, and then selectively approved based on the time and effort that the particular issue took.

We are not perfect. We never have been, nor ever will be. (No one is.) But, we do strive for perfection and always do our very best. That reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: "The journey to perfection is filled with excellence." That's the journey that we have been on for the last seven years.

In case of any problems, any customers are always free to E-mail me or one of our management, like Lu, Curtis, Sasha, Ken, Tamara, etc. directly, and the issue will be immediately addressed. (We are also adding a new Superb Servers Service Manager, four more support staff, a new Support Team Leader, etc. all in the coming 1-2 months. So, we are consistently increasing our staffing to support our growing client base and services, too.)

UPDATE: 08/03/2003

I said I would let everyone know how things worked out, so I thought I would post some final comments..

Sarah (of superbservers.net) offered me a Month of Free Hosting for my initial troubles and reinstalled my server with RH Linux and Cpanel/WHM instead of my original FreeBSD & Cpanel/WHM config.

The server was up and running within 8hrs. from the time they started the reinstall, I was impressed, and thankfull..

was able to CONTINUALLY access my server, and used it for the remainder of the month..

During the month I did my usual install and file downloads and network tests.. Uptime was good, don't recall server being down at all during the time period.. Network was decent, but not as speedy as other servers I have on the East Coast, I tested the downloads and uploads from over 10 different physical locations and different ISPs, networks..

During this Month - 45 day time period, I also started business relationships with some other companies.. I found a few that were meeting my needs at a higher level then superb was at a LOWER cost..

I decided not to continue my relationship with superb for this reason..

It did not end badly, just didn't end on a High note.. I told Sarah I appreciated the offer of a month of free service, but did not believe it was neccessary, as I had already had enough information to make my decision, but she didn't take back her promise and my server continues to be up at this time.. although I'm not using it, and not expecting them to keep it up..

Some things to learn from this experience:

1) A continual customer service and customer appreciation is always necessary, when a company makes it seem as though it cares about my business, i'm more likely to stick around and give them the chance they deserve..

2) Don't default to blaming the customer... investigate the problem first, and don't assume a customer is stupid or ignorant..

3) Find ways to make it up, when you make a mistake (which superb did very well, and shows that they do value thier customers)

4) Constantly find new ways you can improve your services and seek the advice of your customers and don't discredit them..

5) be willing to change and make adjustments when neccessary.... sometimes it's the customers fault, but don't alienate them for making mistakes.. help them and make them trust you, so that in the future, they will be much more understanding..

looking at my experience with superbservers.net I wouldn't tell anyone to "stay away," rather.. take care in ANY provider you choose and realize that you may run into some difficulties but to give the company a chance to make it right.. and be understanding..

for me superbservers.net didn't meet my needs as other providers have.. but that doesn't mean that couldn't change in the future.. I would be happy to come back or give them another opportunity for my business if they're customer service and technical expertise were to improve in the future..

hope this thread can be of benefit to others int he future..

Dr Cool
:cool:

Some things to learn from this experience: Under things to learn everything you listed was things that the provider could do better....did you not learn anything that you could have done better?

Just seems like a one-way street, when I would have thought both sides could have learned and could have handled things better. Of course, we never learn as long as we place 100% of the blame on the other party.

Very well put Incognito! Companies should always do their best to make the customer happy BUT those should at least be aware and understand that the company is also in business to try and make a profit. These two ideals do not always go hand in hand but the best companies are willing to sacrifice profits to keep their reputation in good regard (they are still thinking of themselves and rightfully so, the consumer is also only looking out for number one) by keeping the customer happy. Customers that do learn this or already know it are much easier to work with and can generally work something out no matter if it is an Internet based company, a bank teller, the person working the register at your favorite fast food restaurant or anywhere else. I think everyone should always look at any issue from the other side of the fence and let the other party know you understand their side but still expect X, Y and/or Z. Just a newbies two cents (if it is worth that much in today's economy). :)

Just to be fair to superb I feel the need to reply to this thread.

I have been with superb since spring of this year. With the exception of those few weeks dealing with the DDoS attacks I have had nothing but good experiences with them.

I host a number of gaming servers on their network. I generally get many compliments on the ping and lack of loss players experience. I host servers out of the VA data center for clans in Canada, California and some local guys.

Rarely do I see high pings on my servers. Uptime has been great and support has been on time. Granted my only real needs from support were due to network issues and the time I flubbed my iptables up . Always I get a response within an hour and a detailed description from them about what is/was wrong.

I have recommended and will continue to recommend them to anyone seeking a high quality host on a great network. Rarely have I come across a host who offers everything they do for the price.

To end I will only say Thank You superb. Job well done.

We have had a high bandwidth server with them for 10 months now and are very happy. They can be a little sloppy with things, and their support via email is a joke (from my experience), but overall we are very happy.

We do not offer support via E-mail. Support is provided via myCP(R) online 24x7x365 or our 888 phone number, also 24x7x365.

All support requests are properly tracked and quality is assured, hence why we can't do it via E-mail (esp. given the volumes of support we handle and the fact that there are three separate support offices: Washington DC, McLean VA and Vancouver BC). If you are trying to E-mail some staff member personally, of course that will not be 24x7 support, as they are not online 24x7 (people have to have some days off and time to sleep :-). To ensure prompt support, always use myCP(R) or call us - and you'll always get a near-instant response, as all three support offices/NOCs are staffed 24x7.