My dealings with a certain 'respected' hosting company has turned out to be a nightmare...

I run a charity music event, which takes place every year, I don't make a penny in personal profit from the event and it is a large affair, so it needs promotion, and a lot (all of which comes from my pocket).

The idea was simple, to set up a music forum where people could meet up and connect, all of the time, and of course the event details would be easily available to music lovers.

A respected type of forum was used (phpBB2) and we bought "unlimited" webspace and "unlimited" bandwidth from a company called supa***** after being recommended the hosts by someone who ran the same forums on their servers.

After launch, £250 was spent on magazine advertising, countless hours of our time were used on promoting the site, and, after a week, we had 71 users - not a massive amount, but it was early days and things were going well.

Then, just after a week after launch, the site vanished and we could not gain access to FTP. Wondering what was going on, we straight away sent an email to technical support, waited, sent another email hours after, followed by a phone call (and were spoken to rudely by an unhelpful man). Eventually, almost a day after the site disappeared, we received a reply.

Apparently our site had caused 'massive server load problems' - strange seeing as other (and much more popular) forums had been hosted on their space for quite some time without problems. We asked how we could resolve the problems, and obviously, if no resolution could be reached, we would like a refund, as they couldn't offer us the service we required.

Not a chance...we were spoken to rudely and told that we would not be offered a refund - and that they would allow us to use the site if we didn't host any forums of any kind on the space (useless to us).

I have asked for documentation to prove that we broke the rules, which they will not supply, and I have referenced 3 other sites that host forums on their space, to which their reply was the following...

"The other forums in question are located on other servers and any load is
related to just the server that the problem website is hosted on."

An idea that was going fine, has now turned into an embarrassing and costly nightmare, and we are getting emails by the day asking where our site has gone.

Where do we go from here? Can anyone help?

Don't sweat the refund - just do a chargeback on your charge card. But first, find another host FAST. There are many fine hosts that frequent this forum. Most importantly, DO NOT go with any host that offers unlimited anything. Period.

Real sorry to learn of your problems - advertising ain't cheap, getting traffic to your site is damn hard. Then when you get both, and your host lets you down it's like a kick in the teeth.

You mentioned 'unlimited' - a non runner (just read this forum), - good look with the site, hope it works out for you.

Try post in a request for your needs in the 'Web Hosting Requests' section. List your needs - once you get a few offers, make a short list, ask around on WHT what others think of them - then decide who is best suited to your needs. Just don't accept anything!

All companies in the UK are governed by Trading Standards Regulations. If you feel that this company has failed in its obligations to provide you with an agreed service at an agreed price (that you paid!), then you should contact the local Trading Standards Officer for their home town/city and make a complaint and ask for his assistance.

Generally Trading Standards Officers are very helpful and their intervention may not only help you, but also any future people who might otherwise be caught out. They can be contacted at their main website:-

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/

Hope that helps.

Originally posted by Abu Mami
Don't sweat the refund - just do a chargeback on your charge card. But first, find another host FAST. There are many fine hosts that frequent this forum. Most importantly, DO NOT go with any host that offers unlimited anything. Period.

Thanks for that.

Unfortunately it was paid for on Solo card and I don't think I have any way of getting the cash back now (am I wrong?)

I now know that unlimited basically means, 'limited but we make excuses to get rid of you if we don't like you' :) I have spoken to a lot of people and everyone has said the same - it just worries me that a lot of people will use this company and experience the same problems as us.

Thanks to grandad and Eladesor too - do you feel we could have a case for trading standards?

If the supa***** is the one I know then he seeks advice from Daniel at Donhost for a few things so...

nough said...

I don't think it would matter too much now if I say the name, as everything above is true.

The company is supanames

It is definatly worth getting in touch with trading standards. They may not be able to make them do anything but if you can get them to send the company a letter stating they are being unfair it may have some clout.
I once had a problem with a mobile phone provider, I went to trading standards and they sent a letter. I had my bill reduced by over half.

Kieran,

Yes I do think you should go to Trading Standards.
It won't cost you anything and if action is taken it will be good for others as well as you.

No one can say in advance the outcome, but it should be investigated, just because its "Internet Related" does not mean that companies should be free to treat their customers however they like.

Thank you.

I have posted looking for a new host on the request forum, if anyone in the uk feels they can help, please feel free to reply.

I think I will get in touch with Trading Standards, is it worth telling Supanames this?

It may be woth telling the company you are getting in touch with trading standards, however if they are a bad company they may get people telling them that all the time and will not be bothered. I would make sure trading standards will do somthing first.
Typing their name on here is bad enougth for a start.

Do you have any idea how much traffic/resources that you were using?

Craig.

This is a link to the UK companies house database, Supnames does NOT exist there. Supanetwork does.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/info/

Is supanames even a company? or an invention of supanetwork?

The company is :

SUPANETWORK LIMITED
DOLPHIN GALLERY
WESTBURY
SHERBORNE
DORSET DT9 3EJ

Quote from there supanames site :

Background:
SupaNames.co.uk was founded in 1999 and is a profit making company. The aims have always been to provide excellent value web services and make high quality web hosting available to everyone - no matter what size their budget.

Domain Name: SUPANAMES.CO.UK

Registered For: Barnaby Lashbrook

Domain Registered By: SUPANETWORK

Registered on 09-Jan-2000.

Record last updated on 07-Mar-2002 by <hostmaster@supanames.co.uk>.

------

Domain Name: SUPANETWORK.CO.UK
Registered For: Supanames.co.uk <<<<<<
Domain Registered By: SUPANETWORK
Registered on 25-Feb-2001.

On checking Nominet the company regestered there is SupaNetwork.com, and its url is supanames.co.uk

hope this helps.:eek:

Found this :

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Barnaby+Lashbrook&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&selm=uLp05.9388%240c7.56023%40news2-hme0&rnum=1

I think the guy he is speaking to is pretty knowledgable.

I wish i never looked now!

mucho edito! I have removed some parts as they were toooo much.

Quote from supanames TOS:

"Bandwidth
The bandwidth (data transfer) used by your account is un-restricted. To back this claim up we are prepared to offer a full refund of the entire hosting* fee should we be unable to host your website due to high bandwidth usage.

footnote

* Pro rata. Excluding a small domain admin fee.
This does NOT apply if you have broken our terms and conditions."

SUPANETWORK LIMITED
DOLPHIN GALLERY
WESTBURY
SHERBORNE
DORSET DT9 3EJ
Status :Active

Date of Incorporation : 04/02/2002

They registered the company only recently.

Does it matter if they are a registered company or not?

At the bottom of the page :

(c) 2001 SupaNames. The Market Leader in Good Value Hosting (TM)

No mention of there trademark for the UK.

http://webdb4.patent.gov.uk/tm/text/

Call me stupid :) but how does this effect things?

Are they in breach of copyright and seem to be shady? Is this something worth passing on to trading standards.

Having searched through the posts on this forum, it seems supanames have posted here before, it would be interesting if they came across this post!

IANAL, just confused as you.

Originally posted by cheesysticks
IANAL, just confused as you.

Eh?

You posted the copyright thing!

You can put TM next to anything you like even if it is not registered, you are however not allowed to put the (r) symbol unless your trademark is registered.

http://www.alivewww.com are good :)

Stephen

Hello
We are a UK company and I can tell you that trading standards will have no interest in this if the TOS you agreed to had processor usage limits in them.

However, hosts who have this problem are usually putting rather too many sites per server or not balancing out the heavy sites with the smaller sites.
Its one of the arts of web hosting and if you get it right you should never need to terminate someone for it.
We came close to it once but were able to reolve it by shifting the customer to another box which had less load on it.
Most hosts will do this as part of normal server management.

Gordon

Originally posted by GordonH
Hello
We are a UK company and I can tell you that trading standards will have no interest in this if the TOS you agreed to had processor usage limits in them.

However, hosts who have this problem are usually putting rather too many sites per server or not balancing out the heavy sites with the smaller sites.
Its one of the arts of web hosting and if you get it right you should never need to terminate someone for it.
We came close to it once but were able to reolve it by shifting the customer to another box which had less load on it.
Most hosts will do this as part of normal server management.

Gordon

OK...

What I found quite amusing was that the excuse Supanames gave when I asked why other phpBB2 forums hosted on their server had been functining perfectly for a long time...quote :

"The other forums in question are located on other servers and any load is
related to just the server that the problem website is hosted on."

Why can't I, as a paying customer, be moved on to another server?

Thats a question you would need to ask them.
I suspect its because moving sites like this is very complicated.
The chances of something going wrong are very high and if the hosting company moves the site and it breaks there is the chance they will inherit responsibility for all future faults on the site.

What I would have done was offered to set up an empty account and assisted you to move to it, but even our TOS would have allowed for a termination under those circumstances, because if your site was using lots of resources it would be affecting the running of other web sites on the server.

Its always difficult to balance out the needs of the one customer with all the customers and with the company.

Classic example is custom executables on windows.
Yes, there isno reason why we couldn't allow them but if it caused the server to screw up you can guarantee that the person whos'e file it was would be the first to complain.
Better for all users not to allow them and point them to a dedicated server if they nee dthat level of control.

Gordon

they should just do a mysql dump, upload the sql files to the new server and upload the phpbb files. its a simple enough process.

I am afraid you are underestimating the problems in doing that.
If its a busy forum they will lose about one days data while some people see the old server and some see the new one due to the DNS change over.

Whilst that might not be a problem the blame would land on the web host and some may not be prepared to take that risk, because it does not matter how much you explain things sometimes people do not fully understand the implications.

Gordon

I am afraid you are underestimating the problems in doing that.

True...but in this case their site has already been pulled....another days mess isnt going to make much more difference at this stage.... :(

Cheers,

I had exactly the same trouble with good ol FATSHOSTS. These guys deleted my site twice. Explaination? NOT. It is very irritating and I strongly believe in if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Originally posted by Kieran
Thank you.

I have posted looking for a new host on the request forum, if anyone in the uk feels they can help, please feel free to reply.

I think I will get in touch with Trading Standards, is it worth telling Supanames this?

Kieran, did you get in touch with Trading Standards?, I've recently had severe problems with Supanames (where they tried to scam me out of £56.38 by requesting renewal, then terminating my account for an alleged offence that took place 10 months previously). I've put the matter in the hand of Trading Standards, who informed me that they have received no previous complaints?.

Originally posted by GordonH
I am afraid you are underestimating the problems in doing that.
If its a busy forum they will lose about one days data while some people see the old server and some see the new one due to the DNS change over.
Gordon, the workaround is well known: while the new IP is bing propagated, all they would have to do is put on the old server a page that redirects to the new IP.

Good answer ;)

Originally posted by Kieran
Apparently our site had caused 'massive server load problems' - strange seeing as other (and much more popular) forums had been hosted on their space for quite some time without problems. We asked how we could resolve the problems, and obviously, if no resolution could be reached, we would like a refund, as they couldn't offer us the service we required.


Everyone here is talking about the unlimited bandwidth, but you said they cancelled you due to high server load and to quote from their terms and conditions


Scripts or systems that cause server performance to decrease or cause a serious problem with the smooth running of the server.

Now I'm not defending them as I have a problem with any host who claims to offer unlimited bandwidth but if they were telling the truth about high server loads (and I can quite believe it with forums) they are within their rights to cancel you. Server loads is not related to bandwidth.

All companies in the UK are governed by Trading Standards Regulations I have to agree. This should be your first call of action. And as people have already said on this thread, there is no such thing as unlimited space/ bandwidth. There are many decent hosts in the UK, so try sourcing them.

Sorry to hear about your site and good luck.

I aggree