Hey folks,

Been lurking here for a while and I have learned a lot from many of you. I have been looking to move my business over to a dedicated server and I have been reading the threads here with much interest for a while.

So I did some research and settled on ezzi.net They seemed great and promised me everything to get me on board. So I signed up with them. I signed a 1 yr contract with the idea that I would be able to pull out within 30 days. I hoped I would not have to.

I was convinced to take plesk for an extra 30 dollars a month and it seemed like a good solution. I contracted with an expert server admin and we began working away. Soon into our work (after name servers were registered etc.) ezzi contacted me and let me know that they had to mysteriously change the IP block I was given. Apparently that was reserved for their DSL customers. Annoying but not terrible. I accepted it and they promised to give me a week free for the trouble.

But one Saturday nite, my server was mysteriously unreachable and so were they. No one answered their phone, no one was manning the 24 hour human click helpline. This persisted for 17 hours until I was able to finally reach a support tech who told me he had to go run to the other data center to reboot my box.

This made me literally sick! Thank God I had not moved my business over yet. Worse still I was unable to get an answer from the tech as to what happened.

Scared for my business - I decided to cancel the contract and request my money back. This is the response I received from the CEO:

---SNIP---
What happened to your server was regretfully most unfortunate, and most unusual at our company, and I can assure you that this will not happen again.

Our tech support is handled by the US office during business hours (US time) and by our India offices during the nights. If there is any hands-on work needed, the web-based support folk in India will page the technician on-call in the US, and get the work done right away. Web-based support helps us keeps support costs low, and hence keeps our overall prices down.

We also have an emergency notification system which is activated by sending an e-mail to "911@ezzi.net" - if you even encounter a situation where you do not see an operator online, and have a situation that needs to be attended to immediately, send a short message and a call-back number to 911@ezzi.net.
---SNIP---

I have no problem with these support methods but NO ONE EVER TOLD ME ABOUT THEM TO START WITH!

How can I trust a company like that? I replied politely and said that I could not accept that and please refund my money.

They just responded today and told me:

---SNIP---
We let you out of a year contract. In that contract there is no refund policy. You will be charged for the time the server was up.
---SNIP---
Now I have to do a chargeback.

So the moral of my first post is don't do business with companies who do not offer proper support. To me Support is THE CRITICAL FUNCTION for web hosting. I do not think that it is too much to ask for a qualified tech to be on hand at all times - as a matter of fact I think that it is absolutely essential.

So let the buyer beware when dealing with ezzi.net

Marc Goldman

There is no such thing as refund my money back or a 30 day money back guarantee when it comes to dedicated servers.

At least you have their 911 number now so that they can provide you with 24/7 support in the future.

Marc Goldman,

When you say, "I signed a 1 yr contract with the idea that I would be able to pull out within 30 days."
Does that mean they offered it to you; or you assumed it?

ezzi.net offer 30 days money back guarantee?

On dedicated server:confused:

What other host offer that on dedicated server?

Jonathan

I believe Burst offers a 30 day money back guarantee on servers. From what I've read, they've kept their promises.

Folks,

To answer your posts,

1. EVERY SINGLE THING YOU BUY (either through the mail, over the phone or online) must be backed up by a 30 day money back guarantee.

Therefore even if ezzi does not explicitly state a 30 day money back guarantee - by default they have to give me a refund or my credit card company would back me on the refund. BTW Burst.net, ACSDatanet, Host2own and many other companies offer 30 day money back guarantees so that is not so strange.

2. They did not deliver what they promised which was 99.99% uptime - while that may be "the dream" with todays hardware and bandwidth it cannot be too hard to deliver uptime that comes very close to that. They provided no better than 85%

3. Dylan, I am not unreasonable - if I was provided with the 911 email address first I would have gladly used it. Do you not agree that this information should be passed on to a new customer immediately? I am a firm believer in customer service and this CRUCIAL piece of info should be provided immediately.

Finally, I thought I would pass this info on to you so you can have some information when thinking of doing business with ezzi.net

Do with it what you will.

Marc Goldman

There is no such thing as refund my money back or a 30 day money back guarantee when it comes to dedicated servers. A lot do (as so do we)!


1. EVERY SINGLE THING YOU BUY (either through the mail, over the phone or online) must be backed up by a 30 day money back guarantee. Not true, it depends on the agreement, seller and/or CC company. But if they said there was a 30 day money back guarantee, they should honor it.

i agreed, you do not have to have a 30 day money back guarantee, it should be clearly stated what the policy is.

Marc:

Just a couple of things.
It is not true that everything has a 30 day money back guarantee. People sell things as is all the time and even if you go into a department store, you need to be aware of their policies on exchanges. SOme do it for 7 days, others 14, others 30 and some 90. Also, they may only give you store credit. It is up to the place you buy from that determines their guarantees. There is no "law" that covers everyone. If you do not like their policies, then you can have managemnet change them, but make sure you get it in wiriting, otherwise, you have no proof.

Also, I have not read the contract, but you cannot go around and say.."well, now I have to do a chargeback". If you used the time, pay for it. If you signed a contract, then the host has a much easier time of proving their case, especially if you authorized payment, signed the contract and gave your CC number on the contract.

Did the contract state that you have 99.99% uptime, or is it network uptime? Look, hardware fails and if any host states that your hardware will be up 99.99%, then they should get what's coming to them. THat just is not possible. But, if it is network uptime, then that certainly can be the case as most decent providers will be able to support that statistic.

For what it's worth, I checked ezzi's site and could find no details at all of terms and conditions, so it's difficult to see where any assumption of 30 days money back came from.

Uptime guarantees usually are not worth the screen they are displayed on: often they relate to the network, specifically not the server (how can a datacentre guarantee uptime on a ded server which you might well be responsible for crashing by your own misuse?), and the caveat is "if we do heve less than x% uptime we'll give you $y" -- which isn't the point.

Best just to choose a really reliable company to start with.

I think you got a good deal being allowed out of a 1 year committment!

Originally posted by Marc Goldman
1. EVERY SINGLE THING YOU BUY (either through the mail, over the phone or online) must be backed up by a 30 day money back guarantee.
Sorry, but that statement is incorrect.

Under the circumstances, charging you only for the time your server was up seems reasonable. Why shouldn't you pay for the service you received?

And if you request a chargeback and give an accurate account of what happened, the bank will probably side with the merchant -- unless they have a refund policy that said you had a full 30 day money back offer.

I agree with the others. I would like to know where you read/heard every single thing has a 30 day moneyback guarantee?

This is what I found: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty/undrstnd.htm

Short answer: a warrenty of any sort is not required.

Owen

Originally posted by Owen
This is what I found: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty/undrstnd.htm

Short answer: a warrenty of any sort is not required.

Owen

Warranties and Guaranties are 2 totally different animals.

Originally posted by wallaby
Uptime guarantees usually are not worth the screen they are displayed on

They are when you deal with someone as professional as EFS. :-)

Ezzi have been prompt and so far, delivering a box for us as quick as we could sign. So I'll reserve my judgement on them until we've had some time with it.

Cheers

Gary

Marc,

not to play with words, but I think that, even if 'every single thing you buy must be backed up by a 30 day money back guarantee', one could argue that you didn't buy anything. Your were leasing a server, am I right?

I think it's not awfully crooked to keep the money for the time you had this server and give you a refund. I mean, most companies wouldn't have given you a refund. And consider they went through the hassle of setting up a server for you, etc.

Also, I do'nt know this company but maybe this is a very rare incident, especially when you know about the 911 email. So, I don't know what to think, I'll reserve my judgement for now.

-Chris.