I'm really pissed at the moment...

A few time ago, Interland bought (or merged?) with HostPro which was the parent company of DedicatedHosting.com - my host. Now they want to shut down one of their hosting center and my server is on it. I used to pay $320/month for 100gb, now they want me to pay almost $470/month!! And there's a 24-month-minimum contract even though I already finished my initial 6-month-minimum contract. They won't even keep my hard drive so I will have to move all my files and database just because they don't want to bother moving a server.

What really bothers me is the fact they want to shut down this hosting center in mid-September so I don't even have 3 weeks to find a new host and move all my data! Couldn't they have told this some time before?? It seems they really threat us like crap, I was happy with them before but there's no way I'm going to pay almost $500 for 100gb.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a good dedicated host with cheap bandwidth and Red Hat Linux (not Raq), let me know, I would be more interested in a host that actually cares about the people who give them hundreds of dollars every month :/

Thanks!

That sounds aful. I Think dedicatedhosting.com forgot to put a legal advisor on the merger or whatever. :D

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions for a good dedicated host with cheap bandwidth and Red Hat Linux (not Raq), let me know, I would be more interested in a host that actually cares about the people who give them hundreds of dollars every month :/
http://www.efreeservers.com
All you pay for is the bandwidth, at $1.50/gb...that's a helluva lot better than $5/gb!

From what i have heard efreeservers isnt that great?(I have seen that on some posts here)

Chris

Originally posted by creid
From what i have heard efreeservers isnt that great?(I have seen that on some posts here)

Chris

I am not a customer of efreeservers, but I do want to say something: I haven't heard anything wrong with them, a lot of posts are just people speculating on their business model.

Peter

Just take a look at http://www.****interland.com (if it's still up :D)

Originally posted by creid
From what i have heard efreeservers isnt that great?(I have seen that on some posts here)
Chris

I haven't seen any such posts Chris. Some have queried the logic behind it, but anyone who is using EFS only seems to speak highly of them. Have you got a link to any of these posts?

Gary

Being mean .. led some companies to profitability where many other companies have withered.

$500 is small compared to what we have been overcharged by some company, they kept billing us for close to 300GB plus traffic, when the real traffic was less than half of that. But sometimes you are so busy, you don't have time to solve this kind of billing issues, so it's very important to choose one that will not try to rip you off.

Look for possible rip-off intentions in the contracts.
Thos who require you to sign for lengthy contracts, require last month payment and cancellation in writing are very suspicious. Also, a small traffic allowance is very dangerous, the company can easily charge 10GB extra, and you will find it hard to dispute.

Originally posted by creid
From what i have heard efreeservers isnt that great?(I have seen that on some posts here)

Chris
Aloha
I am also curious about these posts ????
I have not read those ????

but back on topic I just got this from interland:


Dear Valued Reseller:

Earlier this month, you received information from the new
Interland CEO, Joel Kocher, regarding the recent merger
between Interland and HostPro. As of August 6, the combined
company is named Interland and headquartered in Atlanta.
The new Interland combines the best of both organizations,
offering you best-of-breed products, services and support.

Interland and HostPro value their resellers as an integral
component to our success. We have been carefully evaluating
both companies' Reseller Programs to determine the strengths
of each, and at the end of September, we will be announcing
a new, enhanced program. Highlights of the new program include:

* Dedicated reseller support
* Unbranded and branded control panels
* Better discount structure
* Reseller e-newsletter

Until the new program is released, your current program and
discount structures will not change, and all sales, service
and support contacts will remain the same.

We will be communicating with you on a weekly basis over the
next month to provide further details on the new Reseller
Program, product information and training, and special contests
and promotions. We want to ensure necessary training is
afforded to you and your customers on our new service offerings
in time for you to properly prepare.

Interland has a continued commitment to your business and is
diligently working to make this transition as seamless as
possible for you. We look forward to any feedback you may
have for us at any time during this transition. Feel free to
send questions or comments to (800) 700-0591 or
reseller@hostpro.com.

Sincerely,

Mark Alexander
Senior Vice President,
Sales and Marketing
Interland, Inc.



OK yeah well I am getting rid of my stuff there
they still owe me over $150 in overcharges

Take it from someone who used to work for Interland, and the massive purges that accompanied the merge with HostPro: you don't want to get anywhere near Interland.

There are a lot of really smart people there, and it would be a good deal, if those people were given enough free rein to provide decent service. The problem is with their extremely top-heavy management structure. They can't move quickly enough to get anything done, and if something's broke, no one's allowed to fix it until they get approval in triplicate or they're in danger of getting fired.

Add to that the completely incompetent billing department and the extremely....well, sleazy....sales force, and you have a recipe for disaster.

That's my $0.02. I recommend Rackspace. I have a server with them (yes, I had a server with Rackspace even while I was still working for Interland), and I've only had to call their support twice, and both problems were resolved within one hour.

I'd also say stay away from Interland. If you've got the money to pay for a server at Interland, you may as well go with Rackspace or something like that. Interland has done so many wrongs to me in the year I've been with them so far it's not even funny. You'd thinik for $500 per month (though my contract says $450 but my dedicated server rep. won't answer my emails and is never in the office to talk to) you'd get better response times than over an hour for a simple reboot. I also got forced into a 2 year contract even though I was told I would only get a year long one, there goes another $6,000 down the drain for an outdated overpriced server.

wow ok, i definitely won't accept their deal then :) hostpro is already quite a messy company, i never knew who to talk to, because they buy, merge, buy, etc. they didn't reply my questions or waited 3 weeks to answer... that wasn't a problem because i don't need much support but still. instead of becoming even bigger by merging with one more messy company, they would better have to clear the mess, have a better structure and take care of their customers. in this case we can really say that bigger is not necessary better :D i guess it's the problem with public companies, they must make big announcements if they want investors to come...

Originally posted by Web Master 2
Being mean .. led some companies to profitability where many other companies have withered.

Look for possible rip-off intentions in the contracts.
Thos who require you to sign for lengthy contracts, require last month payment and cancellation in writing are very suspicious. Also, a small traffic allowance is very dangerous, the company can easily charge 10GB extra, and you will find it hard to dispute.

Whats wrong with asking for cancellation in writing and first/last month payment?
I fail to see how these are "ripoff intentions" or "suspicious". If that were the case I would have never gotten my building lease, my backbone provider, the phone system and $DEITY knows what else. They are actually the sign of a company who pays attention to contracts and knows how to do business.
First and last should apply to any business who has been around less than a year and shows all the signs of instability - no federal tax ID, personal bank accounts, personal credit cards, etc...

Most professional providers have commitments that exceed 20K/month. Resellers have commitments in most cases, so asking another business to commit is not out of line.
We don't generally deal with the hobbyist or part-timer, but now I understand the mentality a little better. If you don't believe in your business plan, go back and re-write until you do, but don't ask me to finance your education and bitch when I want the tuition.
Refusing to pay first and last, balking at contracts, all these are the signs of a high maintenence / high grief /low profit customer.

Tom

tom, you don't get it. i think hardly no one has problems signing long contracts. i personnaly have a dedicated server for over one year and have no intention to stop that. the problem is that the hosting market is not stable enough. a host can be fantastic and turn into something no one would like to deal with in just a few months. companies are bought, buy other companies, merge with others, etc... how do you want customers to have any trust?? i wouldn't do a 24-month contract with any hosting company. if there was some hosting companies that were perfect, scalable, financially stables and with some reasonable bandwidth pricing, i would have NO problem signing a 5-year contract!

If the provider expects a commitment, it's only fair you should get one to. Spell out a *reasonable* SLA that has a bailout clause if X drops below X, and define the metrics.

The real issue, IMHO, with most of the fly-by-nighters is they attract customers based on price, then can't deliver at that price.
If they promise the world at $149.00/mo. for a Dual-PII 512MB ALL-SCSI Win2K w/ MSSQL, a full class C and unlimited bandwidth, don't whine here if they drop off the face of the earth.

Unlimited domains? Databases? Disk space? Bandwidth? IP's? Subdomains?

All these things cost money, some a little, some a lot. Some require sys admin, some not.

Bottom line is someone somewhere in the chain pays for it somehow, and in a lot of cases it's the guy who shopped price and got stung.

I'll say it again - if your business plan does not support the industry standard prices and you have to go with a low-end provider, re-write it or live with it.

Tom

BTW, Netscape 6.1 on 2K does not preview these - it just submits.

I just dealt with a sleazy salesguy from interland

Now I am soo sick to my gut I am leaving on the next train out

I have about 6 days to find a replacement thanks to their incompetence.

They sent me a notice 2 weeks before I had to leave for the migration (oct 1st)
I called the sales department did not get a reponse for 8 days, after leaving messages ... And I reached him by calling.

The phone call was full of disrespect ... I have never been treated so badly by a sales person.
quote "we are losing money on you ... the only reason we want to keep you is because we want to retain customers"

I am looking ... and should find a way out soon ... I will be damned if I stay .. worst case is I will get a 3 month deal then bail out ...

David

I totally agree with you! They gave me the same lines. But my question is if they are losing money charging what DedicatedHosting.com used to charge me, then why the @!#$! did they buy HostPro (which owns DedicatedHosting.com)? The package Interland offered me was a complete joke! I will never deal with this company again.

I used to have a HostPro Freedom 500x and the support/sales people were prompt and informative. Since they became Interland, any emails that I sent either don't get answered for days or don't really answer the questions asked. I've been trying to add a couple virtual hosts for about a week now and both support and sales are giving me the run around as to who I should talk to. HostPro had a nice little online form to fill out to add VH's but there's nothing of this sort on Interland - its hard to find any information on their website.

Not good - looks like it might be time to switch to another host.

i swear eveerytime i see interland and hostpro i wanan just write meean thigns about them agh!!! they are idiots!!! i stil got to move all myu soitees off it lol this post should inspire me alil more to do it!!

but those idiots bought out my fav company man!!! vservers.com << i love them man :-( HOST PRO AND INTERLAND I HATE U! :eek:

The good news is that, after 8 emails, they finally removed me from their customer's database and didn't bill me for last month. That was a good surprise! :) I'm glad not to have anything to do with these incompetent people now.

Hello,

As far as provided refunds and cancelation handling I had to jump through a few hoops. But I ended up getting my refund.

I also found a nice host pegasus web technologies. Haven't had a real tech issues yet. (was down for a 20min stretch ... but that has been it in a month)

Interland/Hostpro definitely need to train their sales staff ... I do not know about their service since I jumped ship with the ignorant sales incident!

David