Has anyone received an email from Donhost about the increase of their resellers plan. I did not receive any email but they said they did send one.

The only email I did not receive from them !!!

Pricing
The reseller plan is available on monthly, quarterly and annual billing cycles. See the pricing page for more information on our fees and pricing policy.
Monthly £35.99
Quarterly £98.99
Annually £359.99

This is whats on the donhost site.

Originally posted by sysweb
Pricing
The reseller plan is available on monthly, quarterly and annual billing cycles. See the pricing page for more information on our fees and pricing policy.
Monthly £35.99
Quarterly £98.99
Annually £359.99

This is whats on the donhost site.

YES ... but it was £34.00 and was not informed of the increase.

I've just checked in the control panel for my reseller account, and the new price is there too.

Not only no notice, but no option to buy a year now before the price hike ! - you just get the PRICE HIKE !

Guess which reseller account I'll be closing ! :angry:

I'd always planned to move, but not for a mth or so, because I'm still getting to know my new host and its systems.

but ......

How do you expect to have a good name in business if you don't lookafter the customers you already have.....:mad: - There won't allways be 'NEW' customers :bawling:

Hmm...

That's interesting because when I signed up with them 2 months or so ago (and subsequently left) those were the prices I was paying...

I know I've not got an issue with that so much because the pricing information was on the web site when I signed up...

... but... ah heck, I think it's pretty plain that I'm not a fan :eek:

yep,,

originally it was 39.99

then it seemed to drop to 35.99 however you have to pay VAT on that price which bumped it up to 42.00

Donhost is just to unpredictable and restrictive to operate a decent business with

rikmartin you are correct to say "Donhost is just to unpredictable and restrictive to operate a decent business with"

A decent company would inform all members of the increase one month in advance.

Hi,

We are closing our reseller account with Donhost today after a bumpy 5 months with them.

Instead of just critisising them completely I am going to post their good points as well

Good Points

1. Email support is very good and requests are carried out promptly

2. Control Panel is very good and shall be missed

3. Connectivity is now very good

4. Price is still quite reasonably

Bad Points

1. Email support is unpredictable and at times you can get very blunt responses

2. Frequent Downtime. While this is getting less, it has been a very unreliable service especially in the first few months, partly attributed to changes of suppliers and now locations, however this was only a small part of it, frequent hardware failures and problems with individual services such as password authentication servers not working made using the reseller account very difficult. (It was annoying to find i could not manage the account for 12 hours at a time)

3. Lack of communication regarding changes in service (I know descriptive emails are sent, however always after the event)

Such occurences such as

a)Price Increase that looked like a decrease except VAT was now be charged on stated amount
b)Removal of 0800 number due to increased costs and phone and email support is only available between 9-5 which is probably a pain for non UK customers
c)Relocation of hardware to new center

The only email before the event we had was regarding a change of CGI-BIN variables, which probably caused a lot of headaches for many people

4. Further to above there are also things changed that have not been communicated. An example of this is the manual authorising of new accounts. It was very confusing when a new account was created to find then that the FTP part of it would not work for at least 2 hours.

5. Restrictiveness of the reseller account

a) Donhost would not install any perl/php modules, this was annoying as i requested a module found on CPAN.org to be installed yet i came back with the response that no custom modules would be installed.
b) It became impossible to remove some directorys or files if a script created them as it set the owner as nobody
c) It is been moentioned that the servers are running in their safest mode possible, I dont understand fully what this means but it doesnt sound very flexible


Does anyone have anything to add as i am sure this is not a complete list of donhosts bad points or even good points but it is what we have found in our short time with them.

We are now co-locating with our own server, which should give us the flexibility and unrestrictiveness we need to operate a serious business

Im not going to advertise our product here but PM me with any questions about our move

Many Thanks

RM

Originally posted by rikmartin
(Snip)Does anyone have anything to add as i am sure this is not a complete list of donhosts bad points or even good points but it is what we have found in our short time with them.I think you've actually covered it all pretty well and I've only one addition...

Actually a good point...

In a word "Adam Tinsley" => Professional, helpful and willing to take the time to cover not just your current issue but also to go back through all your previous emails and deal with those as well... ON HIS OWN INITIATIVE!

Definitely a plus.

I agree with you WebSnail.net and the support is excellent but don't like the way they increase the fee without a prior notice.

Originally posted by Dedicated
I agree with you WebSnail.net and the support is excellent but don't like the way they increase the fee without a prior notice. Whoa... don't get me wrong here...

Adam Tinsley is excellent... BUT!!.. other support was terse to the point of rudeness.

I've avoided making negative comments re: individuals because frankly it's not particularly professional but my point is that Adam was the exception, NOT the rule!

Just thought I'd best clarify that and the fact that rikmartins other comments were 100% on the ball. Not flaming ya BTW.. just wanted to be sure my point wasn't misunderstood.

I am getting my server and hope to move all accounts within the next month.

Seriously...I wonder just how much some of you guys/girls want to milk out of a host for your money. And I hope your own clients treat some of you with the same contempt, publicly, should you ever decide to change your pricing or move your servers to a more stable environment.

Those of you who, as alot of us do, venture off onto your own servers after reselling...I certainly hope you take a look back sometime at what you got from Donhost for your money.

The only other host that I have seen who has offered a comparable plan, is DPN. But unlike Donhost, they simply refuse to answer emails. Period. There are plenty who promote themselves as "unlimited this" and "unlimited that", yet sit as a reseller on someone elses network and then cry foul when their poorly planned strategies fall over.

We received ample warning about the price *change* ages ago. It was not a price *hike*. The monthly fee was actually lowered. To those of us not in the UK it represented a saving, whilst connectivity and quality of service has been on the up and up.

I reckon we probably get one monitor warning a month, if that, that their Network is unreachable. These are the ones that go unmentioned. The more troublesome periods of downtime...well there's always a notice sent out explaining why. We look at that, and the amount we pay each month, and carry on regardless.

Fortunately, we have a very loyal and friendly user base, as not one has any major complaints about suffering the very occasional bit of downtime for the price they pay for their hosting.

"Frequent downtime"
"Lack of communication"
"unpredictable and restrictive"

*NONE* of this has appeared evident to us, in over 9 months.

Likewise, we have never had a problem with Fasthosts. And we have resold for them for longer than Donhost. Not a single problem worth mentioning on either of these two hosts. I'm not just talking about what we ourself might experience, support or ToS wise...but the end results that our clients experience. That's what matters...and we have only ever lost one client, who forgot to check whether he was getting telnet access.

He didn't ask for a refund. He just walked. We didn't even know until we did a routine check and discovered his site was elsewhere. When we contacted him, he said "that's fine. Don't want a refund. It was only $40, but I just had to move". So we've given him a *free* account on our own server for being so darn reasonable!

So if any of you guys are doing things bigger and better than Donhost, and have a comparable plan to offer now that you have gone off and started your "serious business", let's see the details...because all I'm seeing is a mob who want to play down the fact that Donhost is clearly leading the race in Reseller web hosting.

We've seen the results of what happens when someone mindlessly tries to build a "web empire" by offering much more than what they possibly can offer as a reseller..."Tacid" ring a bell folks? The Donhost and Fasthost offers are fantastic for any reseller who is prepared to manage it *sensibly*.

Gary

I was just asking if anyone has received an email from Donhost regarding the fee increase and part from that the service has been fine and I am not leaving them for the increase nor for bad services I just need more room to play with and found a client willing to pay nearly 89% for the server (not bad business). I did say Donhost support are excellent and every provider has its bad day they are not perferct. I contact Donhost a few times and most of the time were nice to deal with. I did have a few problems with them but this is not the place to discuss them and I will let Donhost now them once my server is running and my clients have been moved.

I have an account with fasthost and had a few problems to start but can't say or complain about their services for the last 2 months they have been excellent and the uptime has been almost 100% and did not phone/email their support for almost 3 months now.


*******Life is too short Think of other people *******

Originally posted by Dedicated
I was just asking if anyone has received an email from Donhost regarding the fee increase

And went on to come up with damning, and false statements, like:

"rikmartin you are correct to say "Donhost is just to unpredictable and restrictive to operate a decent business with"

You're entitled to your opinion mate. But as I said, I truly hope that all you people who have been so shocked and horrored by your experiences with Donhost that your opinion of them is now that...receive the exact same sort of treatment from your own clients should you ever manage to miss *one* of them with an annoucement email, or heaven forbid, experience any downtime *at all* in your own ventures.

What goes around comes around.

By the way, the price was decreased. VAT is not part of the equation. You wouldn't pay 10% GST on services out of Australia.

Gary

Yes I did agree with rikmartin..!

Originally posted by Editor


And went on to come up with damning, and false statements, like:

"rikmartin you are correct to say "Donhost is just to unpredictable and restrictive to operate a decent business with"



as i mentioned above. thins like not being able to have any modules installed. this does make it restrictive - so i stand by my statement



You're entitled to your opinion mate. But as I said, I truly hope that all you people who have been so shocked and horrored by your experiences with Donhost that your opinion of them is now that...receive the exact same sort of treatment from your own clients should you ever manage to miss *one* of them with an annoucement email, or heaven forbid, experience any downtime *at all* in your own ventures.

[quote]

I accept certain downtime, however most of the downtime has been because of donhost changing suppliers and locations, all of which were to communicated beforehand, but after it had happened. this is just rude
What goes around comes around.


[quote]
By the way, the price was decreased. VAT is not part of the equation. You wouldn't pay 10% GST on services out of Australia.


Seeing as donhost is based in the uk, people here must find it annoying to have an apparent price decrease actually turn into a rise because of the shifting of VAT. It is very annoying to surf the net and find a great price only to find that VAT has not been added, which they tell you at the last moment.

I belive the same has happened here and we are not VAT registered this hits us hard especially when we are new to the business and dont have the infrastructure in place. That really is the point of using donhost after all.




In addition we have tried to close our account first talking to ANDY who we seem would have done it straight away, however when it got passed higher up, they are reluctant to close the account, and this still has not happened since phoning yesterday.

This really takes the biscuit with this company as we are now being charged for extra days that we have not requested.

I wish everyone luck with donhost and hope they dont encounter the same problems as we have.

So I will say no more on the subject unless someone want to trash my comments

Many Thanks
Ps i have some problems with my orginal id so i using this one now

Originally posted by Editor
You're entitled to your opinion mate. But as I said, I truly hope that all you people who have been so shocked and horrored by your experiences with Donhost that your opinion of them is now that...receive the exact same sort of treatment from your own clients should you ever manage to miss *one* of them with an annoucement email, or heaven forbid, experience any downtime *at all* in your own ventures.Hi Gary,

In truth I have and would always expect my customers to be just as damning if I changed the way their account worked without telling them. I don't believe in "do what I say, not what I do".

As it happens as a direct result of the whole account creation issue I nearly lost an important client. Only my reputation on other fronts saved that situation. It could have been avoided if I'd had advance warning so that I could have taken the necessary action. In fact, with advance notice EVERY problem I had, could have been avoided but no notice was given, ever!

Now given that you've been with Donhost for 9 months I suspect you are not on Server 6* which is where my functional issues arose. As such you'd not have experienced sudden changes in how your clients accounts were created (immediate > 15 mins >4 hours > 12hours > 15 mins - never told when it changed). Had you been on that server I suspect you would have been saying much the same as I have.

As far as the support change goes though, I'm sorry but for me it was and still is undefendable in terms of how it was done.

That said, all your other points are noted. However, I would add that in my own opinion there are areas where simple common courtesy would have gone a long way to improving things.

As with all things I've posted, this is my opinion based on my own personal experience. It doesn't necessarily mean things will stay that way. To be honest I'd prefer to have had a more positive experience such as your own. :(

Martin

*Note: Server 6 was apparently where all the more recent (last few months) resellers were housed.

I can say there could be better communication from Donhost, if some emails are going amiss perhaps they should look at a reseller zone, where they could publish (out of the sight our the public) information, changes, problems and workarounds.

I think that all most people want is better communication. I don’t think it’s much to ask for.

I think the underlying problem with Donhost is purely one of poor / abrupt communication, and sometimes the seer lack of communication / warnings and notice what so ever.

But one thing a must say - DONHOST does have the potential of being one of the best ISP in the UK, if only the sort out the way they communicate with their customers.

Originally posted by WebSnail.net
Now given that you've been with Donhost for 9 months I suspect you are not on Server 6

Hi Martin

No mate, I am on server 6. I haven't noticed this problem with account creation though. If this is the case, it hasn't affected any of our clients. It is obviously done by the time any of our clients have tried to ftp in or visit their control panel.

I obviously can't speak highly enough of them. Others are welcome to their own opinions as well. But some of these comments I do feel are nothing but ludicrious.

Gary

Originally posted by Editor


Hi Martin

No mate, I am on server 6. I haven't noticed this problem with account creation though. If this is the case, it hasn't affected any of our clients. It is obviously done by the time any of our clients have tried to ftp in or visit their control panel.

I obviously can't speak highly enough of them. Others are welcome to their own opinions as well. But some of these comments I do feel are nothing but ludicrious.

Gary

The comments i have made are based on our own experience with donhost and as such are not ludicrious.

It has now been 2 days since requesting our account to be closed and there is no sign of it happening.

I hope this does not continue as donhost is now holding our main domain name as it was the original reseller domain. This is just downright disgusting behaviour and further emphasises my previous comments regarding donhost.

Gary i hope you carry on having such success with donhost, but i feel you are fortunate that your clients have not reacted to any of the problems experienced.

We ourselves were on Server 6 which seems to have the most problems.

At least with our own server there is really only ourselves to blame for any problems

Many Thanks

Originally posted by Editor


No mate, I am on server 6. I haven't noticed this problem with account creation though. If this is the case, it hasn't affected any of our clients. It is obviously done by the time any of our clients have tried to ftp in or visit their control panel.

I obviously can't speak highly enough of them. Others are welcome to their own opinions as well. But some of these comments I do feel are nothing but ludicrious.

Gary [/B]

You did not add any account since the problem started.

Try to change a password for one of your FTP or email account and see what happen and make sure you do that after 8PM UK time. It will take about 10 hours for the new password to be active and the same can be said for the creating a new account.

Originally posted by Dedicated


You did not add any account since the problem started.

Yep, I have. But as I said...it hasn't affected any of our clients that I know of. The control panel is ready straight away, so the client can get in and begin configuring their services.

I concede it would have been nice to have been advised about it. But as long as it is done within a reasonable time frame I'm happy. So far, so good.

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
No mate, I am on server 6. I haven't noticed this problem with account creation though. If this is the case, it hasn't affected any of our clients. It is obviously done by the time any of our clients have tried to ftp in or visit their control panel.

I obviously can't speak highly enough of them. Others are welcome to their own opinions as well. But some of these comments I do feel are nothing but ludicrious.

Gary Hi Craig,

As far as the account problems went it wasn't so much ftp as e-mail accounts that caused the problems. I always setup the email boxes for my clients at the same time as registering their new accounts as opposed to leaving it up to them. If the server or admin hadn't gone through the creation cycle for all the accounts in the queue then the e-mail box wasn't created at all but no error was reported.

I could be wrong but from what you're saying you tend to just register a new user account and leave it to them to setup their email, etc... which might explain why the differences. Like I said though, I could be wrong... in which case *shrug*

In any case, Adam did a quick fixonce he received word of the problem (all previous reports from me on this one weren't passed on).

I'm aware that most of problems I had are pretty much of the "you had to experience to understand it completely" variety and I'd end up writing for hours to explain it all.

That said, I reckon the whole topic has just about been exhausted. I'll not go with Donhost again nor could I in good conscience recommend them to a reseller. But as Sysweb said "they do have potential"... I hope that others get a deal similar to yours i.e. that they're happy.

I did note with interest though that you've neglected to comment on the abrupt change of support hours and the way it was announced...

Anyway, on a seperate note thanks for keeping this thread on a non-flame basis... Certainly helps.

Cheers

Originally posted by WebSnail.net
Hi Craig,

Hi Bob :-)

I could be wrong but from what you're saying you tend to just register a new user account and leave it to them to setup their email, etc
You know, we've tried a few methods. Over time it has seemed that clients much prefer to get in and get their hands dirty in the control panel. We get some terrific feedback on the DH control panel. You've got to admit, it's a pretty good piece of kit. However, our Welcome email clearly advises the client that if they need any assistance in setting up their mail services they can drop us a line with their mail requirements and we'll do it for them. Our welcome email gives the CP login, and also details how the client should setup their email client, for example:

username@domain.com
POP3 server: mail.domain.com
smtp server: your ISP's outgoing mail server
username: <accountname>-username
password: As specified

We just keep evolving our Welcome email with details that people repeatedly ask for directly after signing up. This seems to work best for us.

I did note with interest though that you've neglected to comment on the abrupt change of support hours and the way it was announced...
Unintentional. I'm on record saying elsewhere (in another let's bash Donhost thread) that that has never bothered us. I've only had cause to ring them twice, and both times I got answered. Never had to wait more than...I'd say 4 hours...for an answer to an email.

So if I need to ask Donhost something...then it's obviously fairly involved given that I believe we know their system inside out now...therefore if we can turn a question around and respond to a client on a matter that is beyond us, within 4 hours and 2 minutes, then I'm happy.

For UK$34 a month/unlimited domains/50GB of transfers/etc, I don't expect a 24/7 personal account manager. :-) I've dealt with hosts that take longer than that, and charge that much per domain hosted.

Anyway, on a seperate note thanks for keeping this thread on a non-flame basis... Certainly helps.
Yeah, I try... But it's obviously something I feel strongly about. These guys have provided us with an incredible service since day one, and 2 other local Resellers that I know of personally. Hosting at our prices is unheard of down here.

Anyways, I'll leave it at that too. Thanks for your time on it.

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
Hi Bob :-)Whoops... Wondered what was going on there :)You know, we've tried a few methods. Over time it has seemed that clients much prefer to get in and get their hands dirty in the control panel.Ah... ok that explains a lot. The realisation that most other resellers might be doing it this way too has made me click as to why virtually no-one else was having the problem. Obviously most others weren't getting hit by it because with admin times, etc.. no-one got around to creating email boxes for hours or even days. Ah well a mystery solved.
For UK$34 a month/unlimited domains/50GB of transfers/etc, I don't expect a 24/7 personal account manager. :-) I've dealt with hosts that take longer than that, and charge that much per domain hosted.Yeah I can understand the expectation. I did think I was getting a particularly good deal. But that 24/7 support was why I signed up (realistic expecation or not) because of the hours I keep and because I didn't know the system inside out. I reckoned at bare minimum a months notice would have been a better strategyYeah, I try... But it's obviously something I feel strongly about. These guys have provided us with an incredible service since day one, and 2 other local Resellers that I know of personally. Hosting at our prices is unheard of down here.

Anyways, I'll leave it at that too. Thanks for your time on it.

Gary Like I said, thanks... it's nice not to get to "blows"...

Yeah I know I said, last time... this is it... LAST time :)

Hi,

Donhost has finally closed our reseller account, and therefore i will say no more about them

I hope you all understand that my comments regarding the reseller product has been based on our own experiences and hopefully now donhost has its own data centre, there should be a big improvement in the things that we found lacking.

Many Thanks

R Martin