Hostiva.com has just changed their offering....

ie: They have decreased the VH500 plan from 20GB's of bandwidth a month to 5GB's.....

Now, this is understandable; however, they are also requiring all currently hosted accounts to fall under the same new plan....

Is this a reasonable request?

I also sent a email that stated:
-- Hi... Was just wondering if and when you change the prices of your
hosting plans, will those who had signed up under a previous plan be
able to keep the same plan and price?

They said:
-- Yes, absolutely. Your prices are locked-in.

Now did they just trick me with words to cover their butt, or could I still request to be under the plan I signed under because of the assumptions of what I meant and what they anwsered?

Thanks all.... :)

Probably you should email them back and ask specifically if your plan still have 20Gb/month and not the new 5Gb.

If they said yes, keep the email for future reference and to avoid problems..

If they offer something and then change the plans, I would believe the old cusomers would keep old plans/specs if they choose to. (my opinion anyway)

I too am with hostiva's vh500 plan, and they have not contacted me yet about the upcoming change. Im planning on leaving them soon anyway.

It seems like they are going downhill. Their 99% uptime guarantee just isn't happening any more, and their support via email isnt the same. They were great at first, with unbelievable prices, so I guess it can only last so long.

I sign up too. Before they are great with the unbeliveable price and now they suck. HOLY FROM 17 to 4gb
that suck.:angry: :angry: :angry:

<<MOD EDIT:>>
Didn't read the forum guidelines eh? Might be a good time to:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/misc.php?s=&action=forum-rules
<</MOD EDIT>>

Okay boys and girls, this is what we call the "Web Hosting Forum." Can you say that WesB? Good job!

Now, when we look at the Rules, we see that

Participants may not use the forum to publish or discuss any information regarding their product or services. This includes suggesting your own services.
Participants may not use the Forum for commercial gain.
Participants may not use the Forum to direct others to any pages at their own commercial website, including informational pages.
Participants may not use the Forum to direct others to contact them regarding their product or services.
Good reading class. Now remember to follow the rules!!

20gb to 5GB is like a 4x shrink... Isn't it?

They didn't raise the price... did they?

that is dirty. Bad Bad Hostiva. I have one of my sites there and they have been extremtly slow. GEESH I may leave it 30 days money back.

Man, all those to good to be true plans!

I almost decided to go with hostiva, but now Im glad I didn't.
Why can't they just play with open cards from the beginning?
Are they in it for the money? (of course) - then don't make plans where you're not making 'any' profit.

Be for real and make it in the long run!

Originally posted by Jonah
Man, all those to good to be true plans!
There are too many hosting companies starting out these days with too-good-to-be-true hosting plans and they will all (sooner or later) raise their prices or lower bandwidth limit. Why? Because you simply can't offer 20GBs for $25/month. This might (might!) work for a 1-person company running out of someone's bedroom, but certainly not when you have to pay for employees, taxes, office space, etc.

I posted this yesterday in another thread... Just wan to make sure it's seen.
------------------------

Let me start by saying that, as strange as it may sound, we do NOT agree with rewdog that "business is business". We feel that we do have an obligation to our customers.

With that said, an obligation to stay in business and provide a service for vast majority of our customers at the same price far overweighs responsibility to provide the same level of service to the few who are directly affected.

We are running a business. When we started out, we were at a different data center, with much lower costs of operations. After moving to the new one recently and implementing a new control panel, our costs have skyrocketed. We have tried to provide same level of service as before the move to both new and existing customers. However, as with any business, costs need to be controlled, and offerings need to change as business environment and these costs change. In retrospect, what we did now we should have done six weeks ago. Both than and now it was a very hard and disheartening decision to make for all of us here.

It would have been easy for us to increase prices for current customers or even shut our doors and keep all the revenues to date. That, however, would not be ethical or decent thing to do.
Some of you may argue how decent it was to cut bandwidth allowances, but you would have to agree that is a better of two choices.

We intend to stay in business. And in order to stay in business we had absolutely no choice but to implement cost-controlling measures. Cutting bandwidth usage is one of them.

If you read carefully our previous comments, we have mentioned previously that "Your PRICES are locked-in.". PRICES! And they have not changed for existing customers. And I will re-iterate: they will NOT change for current customers.

We at hostiva are not involved in or condone the practice of "bait and switch". What people failed to mention is that in light of these events we have extended our 30-day money back guarantee to cover anyone who has EVER singed up under old plans - retail or reseller. They also failed to mention that bandwidth changes did not yet come into effect. They will only become effective on November 1, and until that date all of our customes still have the same bandwidth quotas. We have provided sufficient notice to all our customers, and we suspended taking on new customers until at least that date.

We care about our customers, even those who decided to leave due to these changes. We are working together with them in making the transition plans, backing up their sites and databases, and even giving some free extensions to billing periods so they have time for an orderly move to another hosting provider.

I hope this clarifies any misunderstanding. We do not usually monitor this board, so if you have any questions I would suggest sending an email to sales@hostiva.com

<<MOD EDIT: No flames please>>

It is unethical & dishonest if not illegal (and it may well be that) to tell someone they are locked into a price, but then to cut the service they signed on to get for that price.

You (Hostiva) screwed up in pricing your service. If that costs you your business, sorry, but perhaps you should have done more research into the costs of doing business before you set your pricing.

Businesses fold all the time because they really don't have a handle on all the costs of running a successful competitive business. I know because I worked for a company years ago whose sales reps consistantly underpriced our custom programming (they never asked us how many hours a job would actually take--just bid based on what they thought it would take). We didn't go back to the customer and say "sorry we cocked up and are going to lose money, so please give us more or we won't provide the service we promised." We bit the loss and it hit us hard. I lost my job and eventually the company folded.


You are treading on very thin ice from a legal standpoint, not to mention a customer relations and reputation standpoint.

I'm gonna side with the host on this one. I hope to God I or no host has to cut existing plans to remain open. But like he said if it's what they gotta do, it's what they gotta do.

Don't confuse the "locked in" price comment. They mean they will not raise the price of existing customers, not that the customers are somehow bound to that price. Furthermore, it sounds like they're offering 30-days money back guarantee to every customer that ever signed up. Refunding every penny ever paid is ridiculous for service that was perfectly acceptable yesterday. I think they are being fair offering a current money-back guarantee, the ability to cancel your plan, and enough notice to find a new host before the new charges take effect.

It's not an ideal situation for either side, but at least they didn't announce one morning that their servers were going off at 5pm. I'm not condoning what's going on, it's their business not mine. I just think they're being reasonable considering their choice. Nobody wins if the host up and goes offline one day.


[Edit: I used "their" instead of "they're"]

To those who suggest Hostiva close . . . . .

How can you say nothing is better than something?
You would rather Hostiva close down and leave all their current customers with nothing.
Oh yeh . . . that makes a lot of sense.:rolleyes:
They messed up when they first started and maybe didn't realize they couldn't actually deliver what they thought (or maybe didn't think on enough) they could.
It's so easy for you without accounts to say, "close down." But, I'm sure that if you ask people with sites still hosted by Hostiva what 'they' wanted, it would be they want their sites up.
How could you expect Hostiva to transfer the very accounts that they cannot deliver what they thought (or didn't think) they could, to a different hosting company?
Your closing down Hostiva plans make no sense.
I propose you quit bashing them and see if they can rebuild their company.

I'd also propose to the mods here to close this thread. For it does little good to have people not actually involved in any of the business dealings of the aforementioned host to light their torches and so feed the flame.

I'm not going to close the thread, but I have removed Jason's post. The 'I don't even have an account there but I'm going to flame the host for fun' thing gets old and isn't needed.

Im not bashing Hostiva, I just feel it's bad taste with all those underpriced plans (that a lot of hosts have, not only Hostiva).

You may say 'well you should think twice before you sign-up with such a plan, or 'that you get what you pay for', but people in general do not know if a plan is underpriced. They say; I guess when they say that you get 20GB - YOU WILL GET 20GB!
Why else would they say that you do. They don't know anything about how hosts play the numbers game and count on websites not using a specific amount of bandwidth.

Im glad to see that Hostiva have changed their plans, and I wish them all the best in the future.

Well ...

It is tought to see a host havign to reduce some of the services, but it's understandable .. I think their mistaque was not to realised the costs before the original plans .. but in all .. sometimes you have to do drastic things to stay in business, by cutting the bandwidth they will loose all the customers that were using allot of bandwidth .. therefore causing them to loose money) and some that think in the near future they woudl be using that mush (and some that are just pissed about it, but would never use more than 200MB in a month ;) ) ... neither the less, better they go thru this now, and try to recover from it with more realistic plans ..

best of wishes from us :)

I've trying to get hosted with Hostiva but couldn't.

One of some problems I had was that their DNS servers didn't answered with authority for my domain(s). I sent a message to the support and I was told to "do not worry about it, just enter the dns servers in your registrar".

Funny isn't it? ;)

No matter how you look at it, if you are told you have bought an Apple at .25 cents, and then you go give your .25 cents for an Apple and they only give you Half an Apple for that .25 cents........

They just cheated you!

Thus, BAD BUSINESS! DisHonorable practice.....

If your word can't be relied upon as a businessman.... Then you don't deserve to be in business. No matter how much good service they provide.
What else do you have but your WORD?

It is just like a MOB BOSS who lies, kills, steals, cheats..... and then gives service and money to charities.

No matter how good they are in providing service, or in giving money back, they still have cheated their customers. They have no HONOR!

But that's modern business.... Do whatever it takes to make a buck.... It's okay to sin and cheat a little...... For tomorrow we die..... :angry:

Originally posted by leeuniverse
No matter how you look at it, if you are told you have bought an Apple at .25 cents, and then you go give your .25 cents for an Apple and they only give you Half an Apple for that .25 cents........

They just cheated you! . . . . . What if they just looked and all they had was that half an apple??
Why wouldn't you then just take your money back and go down the street and look for for someone to sell you a whole apple?
Because they promised it, and then found out it wasn't there, I don't think you can say they're like the mob. The mob wouldn't give you your money back, and probably explain to you that it is a whole apple. It's just shaped like a half:rolleyes:
And then bust your knee caps.

Not the same thing though! They are changing their service offering, with advance notice to customers. It'd be more like this:

You're told you can buy an apple at 25 cents. You buy an apple for 25 cents. You come back tomorrow. "Sorry I only have half an apple, but it's still 25 cents." So you either buy half an apple, or go down the street and try to find you a place that will sell you a whole apple for 25 cents. You don't sue him for running out of apples. You don't go to the better business bureau and report he's advertising half-apples for the same price he sold whole-apples yesterday.

Every month I get less electricity for my dollar. It's business, competition. Not bad business. I don't think there's any law that says once a customer signs up, a host has to sell the same service at the same price forever. It's not possible.

SoftWareRevue, isn't this the second time we've said pretty much the same thing at the same time in the same thread? Freaky... :eek:

LOL . . . . I was PMin' ya as you were posting here :eek:


:D

I don't think they would explain. Just bust the knees. Ya, kapeesh?


The mob wouldn't give you your money back, and probably explain to you that it is a whole apple. It's just shaped like a half

You're told you can buy an apple at 25 cents. You buy an apple for 25 cents. You come back tomorrow. "Sorry I only have half an apple, but it's still 25 cents." So you either buy half an apple, or go down the street and try to find you a place that will sell you a whole apple for 25 cents. You don't sue him for running out of apples. You don't go to the better business bureau and report he's advertising half-apples for the same price he sold whole-apples yesterday.

At that point you ask for a raincheck:D